Open Letter of the Miserable and Oppressed Prisoners of Afghanistan sent to this Web site for publication. We post the letter on this site without any change in its content.
Shawwal 29, 1430 A.H, October 19, 2009
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Compassionate.
Message of the Miserable and Oppressed Prisoners:
Our letter is addressed to the International Red Cross, to all human rights advocacy organizations, civil societies, lawyers unions, rulers and all representatives of people who have the sobriety to feel that even on this planet, there can be a hell which is the result of the squalid conditions imposed on human beings where they have been sufferings. We submit you our message, being fraught with stories of agony and sufferings from a place where human beings are leading a moribund life which can be likened to drinking a cup of poison every fleeting moment. We present you with our demands, which are quite feasible, never impossible to be accomplished. We submit these realities in the hope that it may help those now under torture, get free from their constant pains and sufferings; that those who want to struggle for the cause of the oppressed humanity may raise their voice and those who nurture Islamic sympathy may do what they can to fulfill their responsibility in this regard.
On 26-27 11.1429, military forces of the current Afghan Administration accompanied by foreign troops raided Block 3 and part of Block 4 of the Pullie-Charkhi Prison. The world, ironically deaf and blind, knows about this operation against the oppressed prisoners and no one raised a finger. The troops destroyed Block 3 and 4, killing tens of defenseless prisoners.
The world knows that the Americans, their Allies, NATO, ISAF, the coalition forces, the current government of Afghanistan have established 62 prisons where they torture detainees. These are as follows:
a) Afghanistan has 35 provinces with western and eastern Nooristan included. There is one official prison in every province.
b) In Afghanistan, there are 11 countries, which have more troops in Afghanistan in comparison to other countries. They are:
01. USA
02. Britain
03. Canada
04. Australia
05. Germany
06. France
07. Italy
08. Romania
09. Holland
10. Norway
11. Scheck
There are other countries, which have less military presence in Afghanistan like Turkey, Azebaijan, Armenia and the rest. These 11 countries have their own prisons where they have been giving torture to detainees continuously. Other prisons are run by ISAF and coalition forces. In addition to these, National Security (intelligence department) has established their own prisons in Kabul and provinces while other prisons do exist by the name of anti-terrorism prisons.
America, which considers itself as a ruler of the world and is bent on achieving targets of its expansionist policy, maintains 12 prisons. They are constructing new prisons and Barack Obama sanctioned CIA in Feb 2009 to build more prisons.
Those 12 prisons run by American are explained as follows.
Kandahar Airport prison.
The Amir-ul-momineen House Prison, Kandahar.
Guantanamo Prison.
Bargram Airport Prison.
Khust Airport Prison.
Urgon Prison.
Guantanamo Block, near Pulli-Charkhi.
Anti-drug trafficking prison, Pulli Charkhi.
Jails in America where they regularly send detainees. These prisons were unearthed recently.
Prisoner’s cages in oceans where Muslim prisoners have been tortured for years. Some of the prisoners who have been released from the cages relate horrific stories which one could not find words to describe.
CIA interrogation cells in other countries. News about these cells appeared in the media but then they covered up the matter.
A clandestine prison in Wazir Akbar Khan, which came to the open recently. They detained two Americans on charges of having committe human rights violations. However, afterward, their sentence was waived off through a decree and they were released. This brings the total of all prisons to 62, where oppressed Muslims are tortured and suffocated.
PRT (provincial reconstructions teams) have their own prisons.
The PRTs have established a parallel government in Afghanistan. The governor, police chief and other Heads of departments are names without power and authority.
The PRTs are the real government. They have their prisons and behave with the detainees, as they like. The PRTs have at least one prison in every 34 province of Afghanistan. If we add these 34 prisons to 62 prisons, this will bring the total to 96 prisons.
Afghanistan has 380 districts and every district has its own prison or detention center. There are thousands of prisoners in these prisons, being held without any evidence. They have been suffering there and no one is asking why because all these are done under the notorious name of terrorism. So the total becomes 476 prisons if we take into account the district prisons in Afghanistan. Here they torture oppressed people who are not ready to blindly accept the ascendancy and mastership of America. Ironically, for the authorities, all these are permissible in the so-called democracy. This is why they shed the blood of innocent men to strengthen and irrigate the desert of democracy and this is why that they have stained the walls of the jails with the blood of the miserable people.
We have heard that in the past time, the authorities tortured prisoners and sentenced them to long term. They did not give them enough food and did not provided them medical treatment and even they were sentenced to rigorous work. But now in the reign of democracy, they have changed the method of torture, they have killed more than 30 prisoners in Pulli Charkhi jail and some of them who were wounded died in hospitals. No one saw their dead bodies nor they were able to know the exact number of those who were killed. Those who came out alive from the massacre are being held in lock-ups in individual cells, dungeons, toilets etc. They are being denied enough food and medical treatment. If they do not have Islamic sympathy with the prisoners, at least, they should show sympathy in the name of humanity. But this is not seen here. It is only a mirage, an illusion to expect from them.
There was a norm in Pullie-Charkhi prison, which allowed every prisoner to visit his relatives on appointed day. But now they wait for weeks and relatives are not allowed to visit them, let alone those detainees who are under torture and are never allowed to see their relatives. It is now for a seven month that they are constantly denied proper food and medical care.
According to the current laws of Afghanistan, all courts should issue their rulings about detainees within 9 months but now they do not issue their verdict even after three years. When they pronounce their rulings after years of waiting, it is not a just judicial decision because this is a corrupt administration.
It is also enshrined in the present law of the government, that detainees and the prisoners should not be tortured during interrogation but, contrarily, they are tortured. Even they are tortured after their sentence is pronounced by the court. But those who are being interrogated, they are under constant and severe torture and the prisoners who came out of interrogation have still been sufferings from the trauma.
People condemn the communist rulers of the reign of the former Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan for bulldozing prisoners underground at the polygon area but the current democrat rulers did the same carnage in But Khak and Arzan Qimat area of Kabul. However, the media is tight-lipped because this is democracy!
Previously, detainees were tortured and beaten. But now during the reign of the democrats, torture has taken up a new shape. They put the detainee in cold or hot air, they force them to face starvation and frighten them by horrific sounds; they coerce them to stand naked … etc.
Our Demands:
The above are an iceberg of what have been happening to the prisoners in the prisons. We want to put forward our demands. If the world is ever an environment where mankind can expect to live, our demands should be heard, accepted and proper steps taken to address them.
The detainee should be handed over to the courts forthwith. There is no justification to hold the detainees in prisons run by the foreigners.
The courts in Afghanistan should pronounce rulings about convicts within the stipulated time allowed to them, so that the detainees would not have to wait for a long period of time.
The interrogators now behave with the detainees in a very brutal way. This should end. The detainee’s rights as a human being should be respected.
Previously, detainees who had been convicted by two courts were shifted to blocks where they enjoyed relative relaxation. They had not to remain constantly in the same brutal conditions. This should be revived.
All detainees and prisoners should have access to advocates to follow their cases in courts.
The prisoners should be allowed to visit their relatives. This is their natural rights.
Those prisoners who been acquitted by two courts, should be released. The authorities now do not give this right to the prisoners. When one reminds them of the prisoners being still in prison despite having been acquitted by two courts. They demand their list, when they are provided the list, then they level new charges against them, entangling them in a new vortex of cases. These atrocities and wrongdoing should come to an end.
Political prisoners are not included in the category to benefit from the mitigation in sentences given in government decrees time and again. All prisoners should avail right to benefit from these decrees.
Laws of all countries of the world allow untreatable prisoners to be released but the government of Afghanistan does not give this right to the prisoners. They should have this right.
The government of Afghanistan level new charges against prisoners who have been released by the Americans after passing through the atrocities and sufferings in the their jails. Understandably, the American release them because they were not found guilty. We ask why the government of Afghanistan considers them as a criminals and level new charges against them. These prisoners should be released forthwith.
Constructive strike is the right of prisoners. If the prisoners resort to staging strike as a way to get their rights, the government now responds by opening fire on them. This should end.
There is no program for education and vocations in the prisons. Such program should start immediately so that on the one hand, it will help to reform prisoners and on the other hand, they will learn new skills.
The government does pay attention to the hygiene of the prisoners. Though prisoners in Afghanistan are greater in term of number in comparison to other countries but no attention is paid to their health needs.
Private prisons have no justification to exist. All such prisons should be closed and the perpetrators brought to book. For example, the prisons run by warlords, commanders, prisons in far-flung areas should be closed so that the unscrupulous commanders and rulers would not be able to administer punishment to prisoners as per their discretion.
Oppressed Prisoners of Afghanistan