Secret prisons continue

We are still running secret prisons, at least in Afghanistan. This news came out just last month. The prisoners are being held without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross. This was confirmed by human rights researchers, according to the NYT. They are held in cells without windows with a single light bulb that is on all day and all night. Their only human contact is with the people who are interrogating them. They were all accused of being Taliban.

Afghans detail detention in ‘Black Jail’ at US base

“The black jail was the most dangerous and fearful place,” said Hamidullah, a spare-parts dealer in Kandahar who said he was detained there in June. “They don’t let the I.C.R.C. officials or any other civilians see or communicate with the people they keep there. Because I did not know what time it was, I did not know when to pray.”

Yes, Obama said he was going to shut down ‘black sites’ run by the CIA, but this particular ‘black site’ is run by the US military by Special Operation forces. And there are no plans to close it. Supposedly, they can only be held for two weeks in these ‘black sites’ under a new policy, but it is not been confirmed that this regulation is actually being followed. How would we know? They are SECRET.

The NYT article (linked above) tells the story of three detainees. Two were captured under the Bush administration, one under the Obama administration. All three were released without charges after being held for up to five or six weeks in the ‘black site’ and for months or years afterwards in Bagram prison. All of them said the worst part of their detention was that their families did not know that they were even alive. One detainee’s family spent a fortune trying to find him. None of them were given any compensation for this months or years of detention.

Jonathan Horowitz, a human rights researcher with the Open Society Institute made this comment:

“Holding people in what appears to be incommunicado detention runs against the grain of the administration’s commitment to greater transparency, accountability, and respect for the dignity of Afghans,”

The ‘black site’ is separate from the larger Bagram prison, which now holds 700 detainees (watch that number grow in the upcoming months and years!). The Bagram prison has a reputation among Afghans as a symbol of US abuse. They are building a new prison at Bagram to house the detainees, which is costing the US taxpayers $60 million. We’re not going to leave that country any time soon. Not all the prisoners are Afghans either – some were brought there from other countries.

The secret sites and the mistaken detention of non-Taliban for months and years will continue…… which, I predict, will increase the number of Taliban. That’s human nature.

Digging a little deeper, I found this comment about secret prisons in an article talking about kidnapping (rendition):

Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool

One provision in one of Obama's orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term. The little-noticed provision states that the instructions to close the CIA's secret prison sites "do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis."

How very hideous of them. The secret prisons will continue, as long as they are not ‘long-term’ and no one will know where these kidnapped people are held. If they die there, I am assuming the body will just be dumped somewhere.

This past August, human rights groups ask the UN to investigate the case of a disappeared Spanish citizen. The ACLU filed the request. They had gone to the UN because the US would not answer any of their requests for information. He was forcibly disappeared four years ago, and has not been heard from since. He is either dead or in a secret prison to this day.

Human Rights Groups Ask U.N. To Investigate Case Of Disappeared Spanish Citizen

In June 2009, responding to a request from a Spanish judge for information on Nassar's whereabouts, the FBI stated it was not holding him in the United States but failed to address whether Nassar was being held in U.S. custody elsewhere. Asserting that the information is classified, the U.S. government has also refused to answer direct requests for information about Nassar's whereabouts made by his wife, Spanish citizen Helena Moreno Cruz.

So, what happened to this man? Is he still in a secret site, even though the secret sites are supposed to be short-term under the Obama administration? Or is he dead, with his body disappeared? I suspect this prisoner is a violent criminal, but if our country is to stand for the rule of law, then it has to apply to everyone, even criminals. Injustice to one is injustice to all.

Yesterday I covered RENDITION CONTINUES, and tomorrow I will cover TORTURE CONTINUES.