Human Rights Watch (March 8): Afghanistan -- Abuses by U.S. Forces

[Jack Rabbit]

Press release from Human Rights Watch
Dateline New York, Monday March 8

Afghanistan: Abuses by U.S. Forces

U.S. forces operating in Afghanistan have arbitrarily detained civilians, used excessive force during arrests of non-combatants, and mistreated detainees, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.
Human Rights Watch concludes that the U.S.-administered system of arrest and detention in Afghanistan exists outside of the rule of law. The United States is maintaining separate detention facilities at Bagram, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Asadabad military bases.
"The United States is setting a terrible example in Afghanistan on detention practices," said Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. "Civilians are being held in a legal black hole – with no tribunals, no legal counsel, no family visits and no basic legal protections."
The 59-page report, "Enduring Freedom": Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, is based on research conducted by Human Rights Watch in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2003 and early 2004. Human Rights Watch documented cases of U.S. forces using military tactics, including unprovoked deadly force, during operations to apprehend civilians in uncontested residential areas—situations where law enforcement standards and tactics should have been used. Afghan forces deployed with U.S. forces have also mistreated persons during search and arrest operations and looted homes.

Read more.

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Enduring Freedom: Abuses by US Forces in Afghanistan (from the Summary)

Enduring Freedom:
Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan

Summary

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States went to war in Afghanistan in the name of national security and the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms, and with a stated secondary aim of liberating the people of Afghanistan from the cruel and capricious rule of the Taliban.
Yet today, on Afghan soil, the United States is maintaining a system of arrests and detention as part of its ongoing military and intelligence operations that violates international human rights law and international humanitarian law (the laws of war). In doing so, the United States is endangering the lives of Afghan civilians, undermining efforts to restore the rule of law in Afghanistan, and calling into question its commitment to upholding basic rights.
This report, based on research conducted in southeast and eastern Afghanistan in 2003 and early 2004, focuses on how U.S. forces arrest and detain persons in Afghanistan. It details numerous abuses by U.S. personnel, including cases of excessive force during arrests; arbitrary and indefinite detention; and mistreatment of detainees. The report also details the overall legal deficiencies of the U.S.-administered detention system in Afghanistan, which, as shown here, operates almost entirely outside of the rule of law . . . .

From 2002 to the present, Human Rights Watch estimates that at least one thousand Afghans and other nationals have been arrested and detained by U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. Some of those apprehended have been picked up during military operations while taking direct part in hostilities, but others taken into custody have been civilians with no apparent connection to ongoing hostilities. (This latter category may include persons wanted for criminal offenses, but such arrests are not carried out in compliance with Afghan or international legal standards.)
There are numerous reports that U.S. forces have used excessive or indiscriminate force when conducting arrests in residential areas in Afghanistan. As shown in this report, U.S. military forces have repeatedly used deadly force from helicopter gunships and small and heavy arms fire, including undirected suppressing fire, during what are essentially law-enforcement operations to arrest persons in uncontested locales. The use of these tactics has resulted in avoidable civilian deaths and injuries, and in individual cases may amount to violations of international humanitarian law.
Human Rights Watch has also documented that Afghan soldiers deployed alongside U.S. forces have beaten and otherwise mistreated people during arrest operations and looted homes or seized the land of those being detained. These violations should be a matter of concern to the United States. The Afghan government remains responsible for violations by Afghan forces that are under their control, and individual Afghan military commanders are culpable for abuses by their troops. But where Afghan forces have been put under the de facto control or command of U.S. forces during operations, U.S. personnel have a responsibility to prevent ongoing abuses by Afghan troops, and may be criminally culpable if they fail to do so.
Many of those arrested by U.S. forces are detained for indefinite periods at U.S. military bases or outposts. While held, these detainees have no contact with relatives or others, although some detainees receive visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Detainees have no opportunity to challenge the basis for their detention, and are sometimes subjected to mistreatment or torture. Some detainees have been sent to the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, while others have been kept in Afghanistan. Many have ultimately been released; but some detainees in Afghanistan have been held for over two years . . . .

Human Rights Watch is also concerned about mistreatment of detainees in custody. Human Rights Watch has had access only to detainees released from U.S. custody. Human Rights Watch researchers therefore have only been able to interview detainees whom U.S. authorities did notconsider to be a security risk or indictable for criminal offenses. From these detainees, however, Human Rights Watch has received credible allegations of mistreatment in U.S. custody. These allegations are consistent with other allegations received by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), and numerous international journalists.
Afghans detained at Bagram airbase in 2002 have described being held in detention for weeks, continuously shackled, intentionally kept awake for extended periods of time, and forced to kneel or stand in painful positions for extended periods. Some say they were kicked and beaten when arrested, or later as part of efforts to keep them awake. Some say they were doused with freezing water in the winter. Similar allegations have been made about treatment in 2002 and 2003 at U.S. military bases in Kandahar and in U.S. detention facilities in the eastern cities of Jalalabad and Asadabad.
In December 2002 two Afghan detainees died at Bagram. Both of their deaths were ruled homicides by U.S. military doctors who performed autopsies . . . .

Concerns about conditions at Bagram persist. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has collected complaints alleging torture and mistreatment made by recently released detainees and families of persons still detained . . . .

Human Rights Watch is also deeply concerned about the lack of legal process for detainees. The United States has set up a system in Afghanistan that does not provide detainees a process whereby they can contest their detention and obtain their release. Ordinary civilians caught up in military operations and arrested are left in a hopeless situation. Once in custody, they have no way of challenging the legal basis for their detention or obtaining a hearing before an adjudicative body.
Not a single person detained in Afghanistan since the start of U.S. operations in 2001 has been afforded prisoner-of-war status or other legal status under the 1949 Geneva Conventions. No one held by the United States since the start of hostilities to the present has been charged or tried for any crime (with the single exception of John Walker Lindh, a U.S. citizen) nor has the United States or the present Afghan government set up any tribunals or other legal mechanisms to process detainees captured in connection with military operations. The United States continues to treat all detainees it has captured in Afghanistan as “unlawful combatants” it considers not entitled to the full protections of the Geneva Conventions or of human rights law.

Read the report (link above).

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