US Military Rejects Charges of Prisoner Abuse in Afghanistan

[True_Blue]

The U.S. military in Afghanistan has rejected charges by a United Nations human rights investigator that U.S.-led forces are illegally detaining and possibly torturing prisoners in the war-torn country.

The U.N.- appointed independent expert on human rights, Cherif Bassiouni, told journalists in Kabul foreign troops were arresting people without any legal process, detaining them, mistreating them and possibly torturing them.

But U.S. military officials rejected Mr. Bassiouni's allegations, saying U.S.-led forces do not arrest people, they detain illegal combatants who pose a security threat for Afghans.

more....
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-02-06-voa29.cfm

[AmyDeLune]

1. Kick! n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. U.S.-led forces do not arrest people?

Oh no, we would never do a thing like that. No we just detain them, sometimes indefinitely, without allowing them to ever contact a lawyer or their families and some them even get an all expense paid vacation to Guantanamo. But no we would never 'arrest' anyone.

[Rose Siding]

3. Or Lt Gen Mattis had fun shooting them

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Shot first

ask questions later. That why there's no one left to complain about being abused. It's so much easier.

[struggle4progress]

5. Dire prison conditions, violence against women persist in Afghanistan, UN

February 2005 – Despite some human rights improvements in Afghanistan such as the release of hundreds of prisoners, matters of concern still persist, including domestic violence against women, a deficient justice system, the deleterious impact of drugs and the dire conditions of prisons, according to a United Nations rights expert.

The UN Independent Expert on Human Rights in Afghanistan, Cherif Bassiouni, has also voiced "grave concern" over "a very unusual practice" in which foreign coalition forces have taken upon themselves the right, without legal process, to arrest people, detain them, mistreat them and possibly even torture them.

Foreign troops in Afghanistan include the United States-led coalition forces and the multi-national NATO-led International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF). Mr. Bassiouni named no specific country but at a weekend news conference in Kabul, the capital, he stressed that there was no legal basis for coalition forces to hold people as prisoners. If they are held as prisoners of war, the forces have to observe the Geneva Conventions. <snip>

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=13260&Cr=afghan&Cr1=