What About Bagram Detainees?

The proposed closure of the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison by US President Barack Obama on assuming office was hailed far and wide as the end of a dark chapter of the outgoing Bush administration.

It became a supposed preamble to a new US approach to deal with detention facilities in Afghanistan as well. But all such hopes, including, those of a hearing by the Bagram prisoners, who had filed an appeal for justice in US court, have been dashed as the Obama administration reiterated the previous government’s stand towards the detainees of the 
Afghan airbase.

The Bush administration had argued that the detainees at Bagram airbase had no right to challenge their imprisonment in US courts as they were military detainees.

There are currently more than 600 prisoners at the US airbase located about 50 km north of Kabul. The habeas corpus case filed by the four prisoners, who were imprisoned for the past six years, demanded that a federal court should review the evidence that had been used against them. 
They also pleaded that they were not enemy combatants. As reported by the US media, 
the single most controversial legal issue was of a federal judge to review the decision by the government to detain an individual as a terrorism suspect or as an enemy combatant, one that 
continues to date. The Bagram inmates currently cannot appeal either in a US court or before an Afghan judge. There are plans to shift the detainees to the Afghan National Detention Facility, a high security facility that is being built by the US at the cost of $60 million, and is expected to house about 1,100 inmates.

The infamous prison at Bagram has reportedly been the scene of many inmates’ deaths due to torture and beatings at the hands of authorities. There are also reports that the inmates are extremely concerned about their detention on military charges without recourse to proper judicial defence. Whether they are ‘enemy combatants’ or not, all Bagram inmates are lumped in that category.

Afghan nationals must be detained under the Afghan legal system and must be given every opportunity to defend themselves in a proper court of law. The Afghan government should accord the issue highest priority — just as President Obama did with regard to the Guantanamo 
Bay prison within hours of taking over the 
White House — making sure the prisoners are accorded humane treatment under the Geneva Convention. Though Afghanistan itself is yet in a transition phase, the existing systems that are in place can be developed to accommodate the inmates’ issue.