US unveils extended Bagram prison ("Guantanamo's lesser-known evil twin")

[G_j]

US unveils extended Bagram prison


Nov. 16- Journalists have been allowed to inspect refurbished facilities at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, the largest US military hub in the region and home to a controversial prison.

The new prison wing cost some $60 million to build.

Clara Gutteridge, an investigator of secret prisons and renditions from the human rights organization, Reprieve, said Bagram is seen as "Guantanamo's lesser-known evil twin".

"All this talk about transparency, and the US government still won't release a simple list of names of prisoners who are in Bagram," she told Al Jazeera.

Bagram Air Field is the largest US military hub in Afghanistan and is home to about 24,000 military personnel and civilian contractors.

Tens of millions of dollars continue to be spent on expanding and upgrading facilities - turning Bagram into a town spread over about 5,000 acres.


watch:

http://theglobalreport.org/?section=news&news_section=19#US%20unveils%20extended%20Bagram%20prison

[mmonk]

1. Actually, I've heard it's more brutal.

[G_j]

2. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38775.html

Posted on Monday, June 16, 2008

Day 2: U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers
KABUL, Afghanistan — American soldiers herded the detainees into holding pens of razor-sharp concertina wire, as if they were corralling livestock.

The guards kicked, kneed and punched many of the men until they collapsed in pain. U.S. troops shackled and dragged other detainees to small isolation rooms, then hung them by their wrists from chains dangling from the wire mesh ceiling.

Former guards and detainees whom McClatchy interviewed said Bagram was a center of systematic brutality for at least 20 months, starting in late 2001. Yet the soldiers responsible have escaped serious punishment.

The public outcry in the United States and abroad has focused on detainee abuse at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but sadistic violence first appeared at Bagram, north of Kabul, and at a similar U.S. internment camp at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan.

"I was punched and kicked at Bagram. ... At Bagram, when they took a man to interrogation at night, the next morning we would see him brought out on a stretcher looking almost dead," said Aminullah, an Afghan who was held there for a little more than three months. "But at Guantanamo, there were rules, there was law."

..more..

[mmonk]

3. Thanks for the additional post.

Many of the things I don't like about the "centrist" takeover of the party is rendition for torture, continued abuse of the state secrets privilege to hide criminal or banned activities, and Bagram.

[G_j]

4. 600 "enemy combatants" at Bagram

The justice department ruled the so-called enemy combatants at Bagram have no constitutional rights.

[G_j]

5. ==

[slipslidingaway]

6. knr nt