[Peace-discuss] Also apparently the scene of ongoing torture

[C. G. Estabrook]

  "Despite commitments to transparency over a year ago, Obama's detention policy 
still remains almost entirely secret. Obama must publish the results of his 
detention review that he promised last summer, and come clean on his 
increasingly worrying detention policy."

Published on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 by Al Jazeera English
US Could Continue Afghan Detention

US detention commmander says his military may control part of Bagram complex 
after prison is handed over to Afghans.
The US military has drawn up plans to continue holding Afghan prisoners it deems 
a threat in a "unilateral" prison complex on Bagram airbase even after it hands 
control of the main detention facility to the Afghan government next year.

US military authorities are expecting to retain control part of the existing 
Bagram prison to hold "security threats," as well as prisoners who were arrested 
outside the country and flown into Afghanistan on rendition flights, according 
to the admiral in charge of overseeing US detention operations in the country.

Vice-Admiral Robert Harward, the head of Joint Task Force 435, which runs US 
detentions in Afghanistan, was quoted on Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal 
admitting that the handover of Bagram was not expected to include all the 
prisoners currently being held there.

"I anticipate having a subset of unilateral US detention operations, including 
Pakistanis we can't repatriate and enduring security threats," the admiral said.

The prisoners would be held in one of Bagram's blocks which would remain under 
the control of the US military. The proposal has been slammed by legal 
campaigners, who say that it would effectively see dozens of prisoners held 
beyond the rule of law with no clear means of challenging their detention.

"This proposal for a US 'prison within a prison' at Bagram reveals that the 
operative principle at the heart of Obama's overseas detention policy is to 
maintain a clear continuity with the worst practises of the Bush-era," said 
Clara Gutteridge, deputy director of the secret prisons and renditions team at 
the legal charity Reprieve.

The plan is also likely to be met with opposition in Afghanistan, where there is 
a widespread resentment at the US military detention of Afghan citizens. In 
June's government-run peace jirga, delegates demanded that prisoners being held 
by the US military were either charged with a crime or released.

The handover plan is part of an initiative to bolster the government of Hamid 
Karzai, the Afghan president, amid criticism that not enough has been done by 
Afghan authorities to answer concerns that many of the US military's prisoners 
are being wrongly held.

Detention overhaul

The past year has seen a substantial overhaul of US detention operations in 
Afghanistan, with improved mechanisms for prisoners to challenge their 
captivity, and full trials in Afghan courts. More than 200 detainees have been 
released from prisons this year, and it was widely assumed that many more would 
follow after the handover.

But with many of the prisoners held on the basis of a classified evidence, which 
the US refuses to submit to Afghan courts, concerns have been raised that for 
some, no regular legal proceedings will take place.

Harward has said that under proposals for a continuation of American detentions, 
these prisoners are to either be handed to Afghan authorities, unilaterally 
released by the Americans, or, if they are deemed a "continuing security 
threat," kept in the American-controlled wing of the prison. US officials say 
they expect to maintain control of up to 100 prisoners after the handover.

Harward said earlier this year that any continued US control of prisoners in 
Afghanistan would only occur if the government of Afghanistan "desired" it, and 
suggested that only foreign prisoners, who could not be handed over to the 
Afghans, would remain under US control.

The prospect of continued long-term American detention in Afghanistan has raised 
the possibility of a new round of renditions into the country involving 
prisoners taken by the US military on secret operations against Al Qaeda-linked 
groups in places like Yemen and Somalia.

Gutteridge told Al Jazeera that Obama has never ruled out using rendition to 
move prisoners between countries, adding that there there was confusion over the 
details of his administration's detention policy, which the president pledged to 
make public soon after taking office.

"Despite commitments to transparency over a year ago, Obama's detention policy 
still remains almost entirely secret," she said. "Obama must publish the results 
of his detention review that he promised last summer, and come clean on his 
increasingly worrying detention policy."

  © 2010 aljazeera.net

     http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/22-4