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[[United States President]] [[George W. Bush|Bush]] negotiated a tentative deal with Afghan President | [[United States President]] [[George W. Bush|Bush]] negotiated a tentative deal with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the Afghans would accept prisoners from the Americans if the Americans expanded and modernized Afghan facilities and trained, and paid the salaries of the additional Afghan guards that would be required.<ref name=NYTimes20080107/> | ||
The initial plan called for reducing the maximum number of men held per cell from the current eight, to just two.<ref name=NYTimes20080107/> | The initial plan called for reducing the maximum number of men held per cell from the current eight, to just two.<ref name=NYTimes20080107/> | ||
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The Pul-e-Charkhi prison is a prison in Afghanistan in the vicinity of Kabul.[1][2][3]
The camp was built in the 1970s. The BBC News reports: "Afghans have bitter memories of the jail under every government that has ruled the country."
Some of Afghanistan's most well-known captives have been held there, including Jack Idema, the renegade American bounty hunter, and Abdul Rahman, an Afghan man who was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment for converting to Christianity.
American-sponsored expansion
Under pressure to reduce the number of captives held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and the larger, more primitive, less well-known American Bagram Theater detention facility the USA paid for an expansion of the Pul-e-Charkhi prison, to house its former captives.[1] The USA picks, trains, and pays the Afghan guards in the American built wing. But the American built wing is part of an Afghan facility, and captives transferred there are beyond the reach of appeals to the US Justice System.
United States President Bush negotiated a tentative deal with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the Afghans would accept prisoners from the Americans if the Americans expanded and modernized Afghan facilities and trained, and paid the salaries of the additional Afghan guards that would be required.[1]
The initial plan called for reducing the maximum number of men held per cell from the current eight, to just two.[1] For security reasons every cell would be equipped with its own toilet, replacing the current insecure method of letting all the captives leave their cells and share a single toilet at the end of each cell-block.
Under this initial plan the modernization of this wing would cost $20 million USD, and would have a maximum capacity of 670 captives.[1] However, after a tour of the facility, during its modernization, it was realized that, for cultural reason, captives could not be expected to share a toilet with another man. Afghan's cultural modesty would not allow a captive to use a toilet with another man present, cutting the capacity of the modernized facility in half.
Then, on May 6 2007, two American GIs, Colonel James W. Harrison Jr. and Master Sergeant Wilberto Sabalu, who had been part of the oversight team, were gunned down by one of the Afghan guards.[1] This forced a delay on construction as all the guards underwent new security checks.
Finally, there was controversy within the Afghan cabinet as to which Ministry would be responsible for the modernized part of the Prison.[1]
32 captives from the Guantanamo facility had been transferred to Pul-e-Charkhi, as of January 2008.[1] 125 captive had been transferred from the Bagram facility.
Uprisings
The prison is regularly the site of violent prison uprisings, the most recent occurring on March 18 2008.[3]
US cuts off funding in March 2012
In March 2012 the US Government suspends the funds it transferred to run the facility.[4] Female visitors have been subjected to body cavity searches, while male visitors have not. Human rights workers state that not only are the searches humiliating, but they are not sanitary, as the officials conducting the searches do not have an adequate supply of gloves to discard them between searches.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Tim Golden. Defying U.S. Plan, Prison Expands in Afghanistan, New York Times, January 7, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-01-07.
- ↑ Tim Golden, David Rohde. Afghans Hold Secret Trials for Men That U.S. Detained, New York Times, April 10, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-04-10. “Since 2002 the Bush administration has pressed foreign governments to prosecute the Guantánamo prisoners from their countries as a condition of the men’s repatriation. But many of those governments — including such close American allies as Britain — have objected, saying the American evidence would not hold up in their courts.”
- ↑ 3.0 3.1
Bilal Sarwary. Kabul's prison of death, BBC News, Monday, 27 February 2006. Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "Bbc20060227" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ Heidi Vogt. US aid cutoff fails to end Afghan prison searches, Associated Press, 2012-03-17. Retrieved on 2012-03-21. “Female visitors to Afghanistan's main prison were still being subjected to body cavity searches Saturday despite a suspension of U.S. funding and orders from Afghan officials to stop the practice, a Western official said.” mirror