Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Aljazeera.Net - US Afghan prisoner treatment decried

Aljazeera.Net - US Afghan prisoner treatment decried: "US Afghan prisoner treatment decried | Tuesday 08 February 2005, 2:38 Makka Time, 23:38 GMT

A human-rights expert has accused the US of ill-treatment in Afghanistan and backed Human Rights Watch reports that question the legality of detentions.

Cherif Bassiouni, the UN Human Rights Commission's independent expert on human rights in Afghanistan, denounced on Monday the "inhuman" practices at prisons in the war-torn country and demanded answers from the US on prisoner releases.

Bassiouni, who is also a law professor at DePaul University in Chicago, said prisoners were being abused in Afghan jails and conditions for some inmates "violate every standard of human rights".

"There is a very unusual practice in Afghanistan, mainly foreign forces, who have taken upon themselves the right, without any legal process of arresting people, detaining them, mistreating them and possibly even torturing them."

Bassiouni has visited numerous detention centres to probe the well-being of prisoners and detainees.

He said he visited Pul-e-Charki prison to investigate the condition of a group of 725 out of some 3200 persons originally detained by the Northern Alliance - "apparently some US forces were involved" too - who then were transferred to the jail under the authority of the government. ...

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