U.S. Military Stops Sending Detainees to Some Afghan Prisons on Rights Fears

[alp227]

Source: NYT

The American military has suspended the transfer of detainees to some Afghan prisons out of concern over continuing human rights abuses and torture, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said Wednesday in response to questions about the subject.

In addition, the American-led coalition said that it had asked the Afghan government to investigate allegations of torture by Afghan Local Police units that have been trained and advised by American Special Operations forces.

The moves were a setback on detention issues that have created tension between the countries, and on years of international efforts to promote humane treatment of prisoners. And under American law, the torture allegations could also set off significant financial aid cutoffs to parts of the Afghan security forces, which play a crucial role in plans for an American withdrawal that are based on handing over responsibility for security to the Afghans as early as this spring.

Afghan control over all detention in the country has been a primary demand of President Hamid Karzai and was a central issue of the summit talks between Mr. Karzai and President Obama in Washington just a week ago.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/world/asia/us-military-stops-sending-some-detainees-to-afghan-custody.html?pagewanted=all

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. ...out of the frying pan, into the fire...

[Selatius]

2. Gee, I wonder who trained Afghan personnel to run those prisons in the first place.

If these ward units are routinely engaged in torturing suspects, it kind of makes you wonder what the government of the United States was teaching them all these years in trying to rebuild their country.

[awoke_in_2003]

3. They don't want the competition. nt

[Dan de Lyons]

4. The real message: We've stopped sending prisoners to the torture prisons

Preparatory to leaving Afghanistan, we have stopped sending captives to the torture prisons. It's really no longer useful, and it only served to make people fear us. That was useful for a time.

The real message of all this is that until today we were, in fact, sending prisoners to the torture prisons. How long have we known that they were torture prisons?

[Solly Mack]

5. Afghanistan can just produce a few memos. All will be well.

Say it was done in "good faith" and that it's not torture, anyway. It's "enhanced interrogation techniques".