Prisoners in Afghanistan are in a miserable condition, tortured in ways we cannot even comprehend. Even though certain organisations exist in and out of Afghanistan that work actively for the rights and proper treatment of these prisoners, the condition persists. It is probably because of this that the leader of a human rights group in Afghanistan has quipped that his organization lacks the ability to fully monitor the fate of such prisoners - militants or war prisoners - held by the government and the military. He states that his organisation is not fully equipped to protect Taliban suspects handed over by Canadian soldiers to the Afghan government.
This is so because of a number of reasons. Its not that these organisations haven’t tried or haven’t approached the officials. In fact, the director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission for the Kandahar region, Abdul Noorzai, signed an agreement with Canada last month to monitor and report on any abuse of detainees. This was certainly a headway. However, despite the existence of such agreements, the people working for such volatile organisations have a hard time coping up with the danger at hand.
For instance, it is known security is an issue for the staff, who must travel into dangerous areas to do their work. It is also noted that their number is small for the amount of work they must do - only five people currently exist to directly review complaints, visit jails and meet with more than 1,000 prisoners. This itself reflects the appalling conditions that exist, and the difficulty such people have to face to do their tasks.
The treatment of prisoners by the Canadian forces in Afghanistan
Even after an agreement was signed between the above mentioned human rights organisation and the Canadian Defence Minister, a meeting is hard to schedule because either of the two parties is found to keep cancelling. When the meeting finally took place, the Canadian official was informed of the abuse and torture in Afghan jails, although Noorzai said that he has no official complaints that any Taliban suspects handed over to the Afghan government by Canadian troops have been abused.
It is known that Canada’s Military Police Complaints Commission is investigating allegations that on 18 occasions, troops handed over prisoners knowing they would be abused. Earlier, the Canadian minister O’Connor said the International Committee of the Red Cross monitored the treatment of prisoners handed over by Canadian soldiers and would report any abuses to Canada, but the ICRC has said that isn’t the case. The Red Cross reports directly to the Afghan government. This hints that nothing substantial is actually being done about the prisoners themselves, with each party just shifting blame to the other. I wonder how long the prisoners would have to suffer for someone to finally rise to the occassion and actually do something about this.
Via: CBC
