Secret American detention facilities in Afghanistan raise questions about legality and abuse

The following information comes from one of the featured interviews on Democracy Now’s program, February 2, 2010. I refer below to some parts of the interview. The full interview can be found at: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/2/americas_secret_afghan_prisons_investigation_unearths

The interview revolves around new evidence on “America’s Secret Afghan Prisons.” Host Amy Goodman interviews Anand Gopal, a “journalist who has reported from Afghanistan for the Christian Science Monitor and The Wall Street Journal,” and Scott Horton, “attorney specializing in international law and human rights and a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, where he writes the blog No Comment.” Gopal’s “latest article is titled “America’s Secret Afghan Prisons” and appears in the February 15th edition of The Nation magazine.

Goodman introduces the interview with Gopal as follows.

AMY GOODMAN: A major UN report on secret detention policies around the world concludes the practice could reach the threshold of a crime against humanity. An advance unedited version of the report was published last week and will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in March. The report examines the vast network of secret prisons connected to the so-called global war on terror.

Well, a new investigation by journalist Anand Gopal reveals some harrowing details about America’s secret prisons in Afghanistan, under both the Bush and Obama administrations. What emerges is a world that goes far beyond the main prison in Bagram and includes disappearances, night raids, hidden detention centers and torture. Gopal interviewed Afghans who were detained and abused at several disclosed and undisclosed sites at US and Afghan military bases across the country. He also reveals the existence of another secret prison on Bagram Air Base that even the Red Cross doesn’t have access to. It’s dubbed the Black Jail and reportedly is run by US Special Forces....

Anand, welcome to Democracy Now! Lay out your findings.

ANAND GOPAL: Well, there’s a vast complex network of prisons across Afghanistan, mostly situated on US military bases. There’s at least nine of them that we know about. These are small holding centers that people are taken to and interrogated. And then there’s also the main prison at Bagram.

In addition to that, there’s even more secretive prisons, some of which we don’t even know about, some of which we only have glimpses of. One is, as you mentioned, the Black Jail, which is also on Bagram and is run by US Special Forces. There’s also other prisons that are on other bases, for example, Afghan army bases and Afghan police bases.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about where you begin your piece, in the eastern Afghan town of Khost? Talk about the young government employee who simply disappeared.

ANAND GOPAL: Well, there was a young government employee there who one day merely simply vanished, and his family members did everything they could over the course of months to try to find out what happened to him. They appealed to government officials. They asked the Taliban. They asked the US military. And nobody had any idea what had happened to him. And months later, they got—received a letter from the Red Cross informing them that their loved one had been taken to Bagram. And he didn’t know why he was taken or how long he was going to be held.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about these night raids where people are picked up and the effect they’re having on the Afghan population.

ANAND GOPAL: Night raids are US military operations, usually done by Special Forces, that happen at night. They occur when US forces enter people’s homes in the middle of the night, often to find suspects or to look for weapons. Very often, they’ll take people away, and sometimes they even end up killing civilians in the process.

And one thing I found going throughout the country and interviewing people is that these night raids, which aren’t really talked about outside of Afghanistan, the night raids are the most unpopular actions of coalition forces, more so than air strikes that kill civilians. They’re seen as a major affront to local culture, to the extent where people are actually scared in many places to actually go to sleep at night, because they don’t know who will burst through the door at night and take away their loved ones....

Gopal provides more important details on how the American Special Forces are sometimes very abusive in the ways they capture people, sometimes Afghans are killed, imprisoned in secret detention facilities, abused (if not tortured) - and all of this occurs outside the purview of the US military, US government officials, and typically the media. Here Goodman turns to her other guest, Scott Horton.

SCOTT HORTON: Well, these are—these acts that are described, particularly things like the water cure or the use of stress positions, sleep deprivation, are clearly illegal. Not only that, the Department of Defense has issued a field manual on authorized interrogation techniques, under which these practices, also things like the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners, are clearly forbidden.

And the concern here, I think, goes particularly to the involvement of the Joint Special Operations Command, which is running these detention centers. Now, when President Obama, on January 22nd, issued an executive order shutting down the black sites, the secret prisons, that order was very carefully tailored so that it was only CIA black sites that were closed....