Documents detailing alleged Afghan torture released
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is releasing documents it says were sent to federal government officials detailing reports of torture against Afghan detainees.The heavily censored documents describe interviews with several detainees who claimed they had been "whipped with cables, shocked with electricity and/or otherwise hurt'' after they were transferred from the Canadian military into Afghan custody in Kandahar.
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The association said the documents are an exchange between diplomatic and Department of Foreign Affairs personnel who visited facilities in Afghanistan.
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All the detainees interviewed complained about "lack of clarity in their cases. They said they did not know why they are being held, nor did any seem to have been charged.''One claimed he'd been knocked unconscious during an interrogation and beaten "with electrical wires and rubber hose.''
The documents says that when the man indicated the spot where the alleged assault took place, the interviewer "found a large piece of braided electrical wire as well as a rubber hose. He then showed us a bruise (approx. 4 inches long) on his back that could possibly be the result of a blow.''
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Representatives with the Department of Foreign Affairs could not be reached for comment.
Emphasis added. I'm taking that to mean not just that the detainees themselves pleaded innocence but that further investigation by whoever prepared the original documents failed to find any evidence that these detainees were ever charged. So these aren't necessarily bona fide "enemy combatants" we're talking about even if you recognize that designation. They could be individuals who got picked up in a sweep or even turned in by paid informants (as we know that some of those held at Gitmo were effectively sold into detention by paid informants). Since the government and the military are telling us as little as possible, we're left to speculate.
There sure seems to be a lot of documentation about what the government has consistently referred to as "baseless allegations."
Maybe that DFAIT training manual should have included Canada on that list of countries that torture. Can you say "outrage fatigue?"
There's plenty of documentation surrounding the "baseless allegations." At the same time, there seems to be no documentation at all of the charges against any of the individual detainees -- do we in fact even know who the individual detainees swept up by Canadian forces and then handed over are?
Indeed. I mean, as long as the subject is "baseless allegations" . . . although if you're imprisoned without charge, I guess there haven't even been any allegations. In jail being occasionally tortured until further notice. Why? Dunno.
Whilst watching Mr. Manley say: "There is no operational reason to end our military committment ..." (to Afghanistan) a written stream was making it's way across the bottom of the screen.
A student has been sentenced to die, by the Afghanistan jusidiary, for distributing 'anti-muslem documents' he copied off the internet. (not the vile insurgents of the Taliban - this is the government that we are keeping in power.) After Manley they had the reasonable face of the Afghan ambassidor calmly discussing the 'report'. One wonders how 'reasonable' and calm' this student is right now?
78 Canadians have died to support this?
Osama is outta there - isn't that why we went there .... or is that the famous 'mission creep'?
Croghan, that is more like the famous "Canadian politicians and generals do as they're told by Washington without actually knowing where the battlefield is or who the enemy are." imho, anyway.
is that the famous 'mission creep'?
When Bush decided to go into Afghanistan he made a lot of extravagant promises about all the good stuff he was going to do there. Then he lost interest and went to Iraq instead. NATO and the UN have been trying to cover for him ever since but without it costing too much. And so it drags on.