Stop torture and killing in Policharkhi Jail

Though the leading organization in the Afghan resistance to U.S.-NATO occupation is the Taliban, secular, progressive and pro-socialist groupings also participate. One such group sent the following letter from prisoners in Afghanistan to the Anti-Imperialist Camp in Europe. Workers World edited the English translation.

Stop human rights crimes and oppression

Policharkhi prison is one of the most awful and illegal prisons of the world. The true story of the prison has never found its way to the people and the media.

The puppet regime of [President Hamid] Karzai, which was imposed by foreign imperialist countries on the downtrodden Moslem people of Afghanistan in 2002, was confronted from the first day it was established by a serious countrywide reaction and resistance from our brave and patriotic people. The unauthorized regime, with the help of its foreign masters (U.S.-led NATO invading countries), never withholds the use of any type of force, violence, oppression or barbarism in carrying out repression of public resistance. Before all national and international communities it keeps openly violating all the human rights, laws and conventions that it claims to defend.

To physically erase its opposition and resistance during the last six years, the Karzai puppet regime and his criminal foreign collaborating forces have killed, bombarded, injured and disabled, made homeless, and taken the property of hundred of thousands of people. They have also imprisoned tens of thousands more in their awful jails and detention centers because these people were defending their own country and opposing the occupation.

Policharkhi prison officials treat its approximately 3,000 inmates contrary to all national and international laws and human rights standards. All our human rights are violated harshly. Afghan officials and their NATO masters employ mental and physical tortures such as insults, humiliation, death threats, sleep deprivation, beatings with cables and weapons, slaps and kicks, electric shocks, standing in and drowning in water and hanging upside down. Besides these torture techniques, the NATO forces, especially the U.S., force the prisoners to stand naked, subject them to sexual abuse, have dogs bite them, tie them up in snow and cold weather, and prevent them from meeting with their family and friends.

Everybody knows that 80 percent of Policharkhi inmates are political prisoners, but the despotic Karzai regime, to hide its beastly face, ignores all these facts and identifies all the prisoners as “criminals” and “terrorists.” Without legal defense attorneys and subject to arbitrary judgment, more than 17 inmates were executed in 2007, under the aforementioned justification.

Now there is a list of hundreds of prisoners awaiting execution on Karzai’s desk. But since prisoners’ executions are condemned on both national and international levels, the regime—in accordance with its nature—chooses to execute secretly.

Secret executions in Policharkhi jail are not new news, but have intensified since 2007. The prison’s authorities usually withdraw some of the “dangerous” prisoners for “investigation” from their cells late at night. They never return.

We, the prisoners of Policharkhi jail, representing all prisoners, request from national and international organizations and individuals who defend human rights to urge Karzai and his master to:

1. Immediately halt the series of secret executions in Policharkhi jail. An impartial investigation must be carried out regarding the missing inmates and their families should be given justice and satisfaction.

2. Rapidly invalidate the list of around 100 prisoners scheduled for execution that was prepared by the corrupt and puppet Supreme Court. The prisoners’ cases should be reviewed in an open trial.

3. Ban crime, violence and mental and physical tortures in all parts of Afghanistan, especially in Policharkhi jail.

4. Recognize the political prisoners in Policharkhi as political prisoners.

5. Grant all prisoners access to legal defense attorneys and the right to self defense and stop all secret trials.

6. Punish all corrupt police and judiciary officials who commit crimes.

7. Allow all prisoners the right to contact and meet their families, media and civil society.

God bless you,
Political Prisoners of Policharkhi Jail
Kabul, Afghanistan, April 2008