Bagram prison: The 'other Guantanamo'

Human rights lawyers often refer to itas "the other Guantanamo," "Guantanamo's evil twin" or "Obama's Gitmo" an attempt to raise the profile ofthe U.S.detention facility in Afghanistan that few know about.

It's official name is the Bagram Theater Internment Facility. And even though it was recently rebuilt and renamed the Detention Facility in Parwan, after the province,most continue to refer to it simply as Bagram.

Run by American troops,the prisonis located on theBagram Air Base, about 80 kilometresnorth of Kabul,in a cavernous aircraft hangar built in the 1980s following the Soviet invasion ofAfghanistan.

In 2002, the U.S. military opened the prisondoors to"enemy combatants"as part of its war on terror and it quickly became their largest detention centre in the war-torn country.

By 2005, the population had swelled to more than 800 alleged insurgents. It hovered around 600 detainees from 2006 to 2009, but in the past two years that number has quadrupled.

The latest figures fromJoint Task Force435, the military unit in charge of Bagram, state that more than 2,400 individuals were being held by the U.S. in Parwan as of Aug. 31, 2011. About 350 others were in the Afghanistan-operated section.

The population

The majority ofdetainees held in Bagram are Afghans, though specifics about the prison population are difficult to obtain due toU.S. secrecy surrounding the facility.

Only once, in January 2010,has the American militaryreleased the names ofdetainees held there. The largely redacted list,requested by the American Civil Liberties Union, dislosed thenames of 645 detaineesheld as ofSept. 22,2009.

In 2006, the U.S. military stated that about 40 detainees were foreigners, mostly Pakistanis. No updated numbers have been given, but human rights lawyers independently compiling the information about the detention population estimate it has now risen to at least 50, not including detainees who briefly spent time in Bagram before being transferredto another facility such as Guantanamo.

Human rights lawyers say a handful of detainees were also detained there after having been capturedin other countries.

Two Canadians are known to have beenheld at Bagram. Toronto-bornOmar Khadrwas there for about four months beforehe was taken tothe Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

Another case, which recently emergedfrom U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, was thatof a mentally ill Canadian-Egyptian man,Khaled Samy Abdallah Ismail,held at Bagramfor more than 18 months.

Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network, says the organizationbelieves other foreigners detained attheBagram facility includeat least 35 Pakistanis, one Tunisian and two Yemenis.

History of torture

In the early years of operation, the Bagram facility becamenotorious for abuse. Two detainees died in the Bagram facility in 2002after being beaten by American soldiers. Recent accounts by former detaineesdescribe improved conditions, but allegations of torture persist.

"Torture was something very common with all of us," says Ghairat Baheer,a Pakistani doctorwho was held at several prisons, including Bagram, from 2002 to 2008.

Reports alsosurfaced in2010aboutmistreatment of Afghan detainees at a "secret jail"at the Bagram Air Base.

AnAugust 2009 reportby the then commander ofAmerican forces in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal,stressed that Afghan people saw U.S. detention operations as "secretive and lacking in due process."

McChrystal went on to note that "detention operations, while critical to successful counterinsurgency operations, also have the potential to become a strategic liability for the U.S. and ISAF (the international forces)."

Hisassessment found that captured Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders were operating within prison walls and creating future insurgents out of petty criminals; also thatthe Afghan people's negative perception of thedetention operations was fuelling anti-American sentiment.

The new facility

For human rights lawyers, the issue is less perception than that the U.S. government is holding detainees for lengthy periods of time without charge or access to lawyers.

As McChrystal stated in his report, the government does have the goal of "getting the U.S. out of the detention business"byhanding over control of Bagramto the Afghan government.

Plans to hand over the facility were delayed until at least 2014, when the last foreign troops are scheduled to leave the country.

Changes have takenplace at the BagramAir Base in recent years. Among them is thereplacement ofthe decrepit Bagram detention centre and its 60-footwire mesh"cages" with a new$60-million facilitycontaining 56 cells anda library.

A new detention review process alsowent into effectat the facility. Within two months of incarceration, detaineesmust begiven acase review, with followups every six months or so. Detaineesare assigned a U.S. military officer who gathered information on their case and advocates for their release. Previously, detainees had no right to hear the evidence against them.

But even though the U.S. has been cleaning up Bagram's image and departing occasionally from the intense secrecy surrounding the facility, many questions remain about what has gone on inside its walls.