Abuse 'systemic' in Afghan jails

Prisoners in US custody in Afghanistan suffer “systemic” mistreatment, Human Rights Watch said today, calling for a network of secretive jails dogged by allegations of assault and sexual abuse to be opened to outside scrutiny.

“The United States has shown that it can’t police its own prisons,” John Sifton, New York-based Human Rights Watch’s Afghanistan expert, said in a statement.

Rights activists have long complained of what they say are consistent allegations of abuse in American holding facilities across the country since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

Under renewed scrutiny following the revelations in Iraq, the US military insists it is treating detainees in Afghanistan “humanely” and has improved its procedures.

The top US general there said on Tuesday that the military made “very significant changes” to its prison regime in early 2003 in the light of alleged abuses, including the prisoner deaths.

On Monday, it opened a new criminal investigation into complaints of mistreatment from a former Afghan police officer held for about 40 days last summer.

Sayed Nabi Siddiqui said he was punched, stripped naked and had objects inserted into his anus in three US holding facilities – before being released without charge.

Human Rights Watch said his case fitted a pattern, citing earlier prisoner accounts of beatings, sleep deprivation and exposure to extreme cold.

“Mistreatment of prisoners by US military and intelligence personnel in Afghanistan is a systemic problem and not limited to a few isolated cases,” it said.