SECOND GUANTANAMO
KABUL: The US plans to build a vast ’second Guantanamo’ were condemned yesterday. Human rights lawyers said they will attack America’s use of its main Afghan base in Bagram as a legal black hole, as a place “where no laws apply”.
Rights lawyers also accused Washington of targeting journalists to cover up its practices in Afghanistan and Iraq. “I think it is very clear that the reason the US chose to build it inside the base is that they did not like the independent decisions that would have come out of the Afghan judiciary,” said lawyer Barbara J Olshansky.
The Pentagon has announced plans for a 40-acre, $60 million (BD22.6m) detention centre at the base.
The new center is intended to accommodate up to 1,100 prisoners.
The Bagram base, where 625 people are held without charges in wire mesh cages, has a notorious reputation of torture of humiliation of detainees.
Last month, the Afghan Human Rights Organisation said 10 children, aged 9-13, were being held there.
Hundreds of prisoners have also passed through Bagram on their way to Guantanamo Bay since the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.
“Many people in Afghanistan and in Iraq that have been targeted for detention are local journalists covering the conflict in their own country,” said Olshansky.
Source: Gulf News
July 21st, 2008 | Category: Bush Lies, Close Guantanamo, Detainee, Detainee Abuse
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