Month: October 2011

For a long time now, torture has been rife in the different detention facilities of Kabul regime while holding or interrogating political prisoners as was indicated in a recent report published by the United Nations. With earnest concern, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would like to call upon the United Nations, Human Rights Watch Organizations and other International circles to prevent and pay serious attention to this matter.
It is praise worthy that the United Nations showed its concern on this subject and published a report about it but this step should have been taken a long time ago because this kind of persecution has been taking place in the secret prisons of the occupying forces inside our country and also in the Ministry of Interior and Intelligence centers of the Kabul regime and by the remnants of the former communist regime as well as other criminal rings with full expertise and experience. Thousands of Afghan prisoners are languishing in such conditions daily while this method goes on with full force.
The report of United Nations finds that 34 percent of the torture has taken place in the secret detention centers of Kabul’s intelligence agency. During interrogation the removal of nails, electrical shocks, water boarding, sleep deprivation, threats to life, electric shocks to genitals, stripping and other penalties have become a norm for any prisoner who has been detained no matter the allegation, forcing them to wrongly confess in order to free themselves from the suffering. When such a confession is extracted by the intelligence department, it is proudly displayed to the media by its spokesman as a great achievement which in it self is a shameful act strongly condemned by us.
We would similarly like to voice our concern to the United Nations and other International Rights entities about the treatment with political prisoners in the detention centers of Ministry of Interior of Kabul regime. Pul-e-Charkhi prison in general and its Guantanamo block in particular is witness to deplorable conditions in which hundreds of prisoners are always locked up in very small rooms, given atrocious food, kept in utter darkness, always deprived of sleep, denied family visits, are not briefed on their cases or sentences, are forced to wear clothes against Isalmic and Afghan customs and are not given tools to manage their hair. In the past Eid, the prisoners from south east areas of the country were forced to shave their moustaches without their consent to put them under mental stress. The murder of prisoners especially in the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand under mysterious conditions. In order to gain false confessions, prisoners are tied to cars and dragged until they are martyred, the burning of prisoners, letting dogs lose on them and other kinds of heinous acts about which we have records and witnesses from Kandahar, Helmand and other provinces and which we are willing to share with anyone if needed. And finally of cases about which no Human Right Organizations or other groups have heard.
If we estimate on provincial level then such disgraceful cases would number in the hundreds which our defenseless people and detainees are subject to. But the United Nations and other Human Right organizations should have long been aware of such cases and should have taken practical steps for its prevention. Even now if attention is paid perhaps positive transformation can take place in prison and prisoner conditions. They should focus considerably on the point that the estimates mentioned in their report is far less than the actual number. It is hoped that in this case all the prisons located in our country, be they connected to foreigners in their bases or to the Kabul regime; be they located in the capital or in the provinces should be properly investigated, visited and assurance should be taken from them in every way possible that human rights be not trampled on.
Spokesman of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Zabihullah Mujahid
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