Revolving Incarceration

"Now, the Bagram prison is converted to one of Afghanistan's regular prisons where the innocents will be freed and the rest of the prisoners will be sentenced according to the laws of Afghanistan."  Afghan President Hamid Karzi

As though to remark that under the stewardship of the Government of Afghanistan and its prison system, prisoners held in incarceration will be treated with respect and dignity by their own.  Which nudges the memory toward accusations in Canadian political circles accusing the Canadian military under the current Conservative-led government of releasing prisoners to the care of the Afghan authorities with full knowledge that they will be subject to torture.

Much ado about nothing, then?  There were testimonials that implements of torture were seen on inspection of Afghan prisons.  Not the Bagram prison under American control, but Afghan prisons.  Which the Government of Canada then invested in upgrading, and dispatching Canadian prison experts to Afghanistan to teach the Afghan prison authorities best prison practices, in respecting the humanity of those being held.

"We are Afghan and they are Afghan.  They are Muslim.  We are Muslim.  We can see each other through the steel windows.  Sometimes we are laughing and joking with the prisoners and they are happy with our guys", assured Ashna Gul, a military policeman from Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan.  No worries, then, right?

The prison-transfer authority was not as smooth in delivery as was first anticipated.  The U.S. decided to withhold scores of inmates from the transfer procedure.  Concerned that Afghan authorities might be planning to dismiss many whom the U.S. deemed to be dangerous, deciding not to charge them, after all.  As a result no high-ranking American officers were present at the hand-over ceremony.

Still, Asna Gul felt that the over two thousand Afghan military policemen at the prison claimed the inmates were enormously pleased to be guarded by their own.  Their own had the kind of sensitivity to what truly matters, hugely lacking by the Americans.  Never would they assemble broken-down copies of the Koran and send them to a burn pit at the base, for one important distinction.  Ergo: no need to riot and kill.

No longer called Bagram prison, though it remains standing at Bagram Air Field, it is now named the Parwan Detention Facility.  And that facility's prison population has swallowed up ever greater numbers of incarcerants.  Evidently the Americans are concerned over intelligence that the Afghans plan to introduce an "internment" system permitting detainees to be held without charge or trial.

And some Afghan legal experts are expressing concern that Afghan officials may abuse their authority to hold detainees without trial.  Obviously representing misunderstandings between variant cultures.