Untersuchungsbericht der UN-Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) zu den Haftbedingungen in afghanischen Gefängnissen, 10.10.2011 (engl. Originalfassung)
From October 2010 to August 2011, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) interviewed 379 pre‐trial detainees and convicted prisoners at 47 detention facilities in 22 provinces across Afghanistan. In total, 324 of the 379 persons interviewed were detained by National Directorate of Security (NDS) or Afghan National Police (ANP) forces for national security crimes ‐ suspected of being Taliban fighters, suicide attack facilitators, producers of improvised explosive devices, and others implicated in crimes associated with the armed conflict in Afghanistan.
Interviews were conducted at facilities including ANP detention centres, NDS facilities, Ministry of Justice prisons and juvenile rehabilitation centres; as a result of transfers, the interviews dealt with detainees located in 24 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.[1] With two exceptions, Government officials from the ANP, NDS, Ministry of Justice and other departments cooperated with UNAMA and provided full access to detainees and facilities.[2]
NDS and ANP are the main Afghan security forces engaged in detaining and arresting conflict‐related detainees with NDS responsible for investigation of national security crimes and interrogation of such detainees. NDS is the State’s principal internal and external intelligence‐gathering organ, conducting security and law enforcement operations to gather actionable intelligence to prevent crimes against public security. As the country’s police force, ANP deals with both criminal and conflict‐related offences.[3] International military forces also play a significant role in detention of individuals for conflict‐related offences.
UNAMA’s research focused on detention practices of the NDS with a secondary focus on detention by ANP. UNAMA’s interviews concentrated on the treatment of detainees by NDS and ANP officials and the Government of Afghanistan’s compliance with due process guarantees under Afghan and international human rights law.[4] UNAMA made no assumptions or findings on the guilt or innocence of those detainees it interviewed for crimes of which they were suspected, accused or convicted.
UNAMA acknowledges the critical and extremely difficult role that NDS and ANP have in safeguarding national security in the current situation of armed conflict in Afghanistan.
Torture and Abuse of Detainees by NDS and ANP
UNAMA’s detention observation found compelling evidence that 125 detainees (46 percent) of the 273 detainees interviewed who had been in NDS detention experienced interrogation techniques at the hands of NDS officials that constituted torture, and that torture is practiced systematically in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan. Nearly all detainees tortured by NDS officials reported the abuse took place during interrogations and was aimed at obtaining a confession or information. In almost every case, NDS officials stopped the use of torture once detainees confessed to the crime of which they were accused or provided the requested information. UNAMA also found that children under the age of 18 years experienced torture by NDS officials.[5]
More than one third of the 117 conflict‐related detainees UNAMA interviewed who had been in ANP detention experienced treatment that amounted to torture or to other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.[6]
In situations where torture occurred, it typically took the form of abusive interrogation practices used to obtain confessions from individuals detained on suspicion of crimes against the State. The practices documented meet the international definition of torture. Torture occurs when State officials, acting in their official capacity inflict or order, consent or acquiesce to the infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering against an individual to obtain a confession or information, or to punish or discriminate against the individual.[7] Such practices amounting to torture are among the most serious human rights violations under international law, are crimes under Afghan law and are strictly prohibited under both Afghan and international law.[8]
Detainees described experiencing torture in the form of suspension (being hung by the wrists from chains or other devices attached to the wall, ceiling, iron bars or other fixtures for lengthy periods) and beatings, especially with rubber hoses, electric cables or wires or wooden sticks and most frequently on the soles of the feet. Electric shock, twisting and wrenching of detainees’ genitals, stress positions including forced standing, removal of toenails and threatened sexual abuse were among other forms of torture that detainees reported. Routine blindfolding and hooding and denial of access to medical care in some facilities were also reported. UNAMA documented one death in ANP and NDS custody from torture in Kandahar in April 2011.
UNAMA found compelling evidence that NDS officials at five facilities systematically tortured detainees for the purpose of obtaining confessions and information.[9] These are the provincial NDS facilities in Herat, Kandahar, Khost and Laghman, and the national facility of the NDS Counter‐Terrorism Department 124 (formerly Department 90) in Kabul. UNAMA received multiple, credible allegations of torture at two other provincial NDS facilities in Kapisa and Takhar. UNAMA did not find indications of torture at two provincial NDS facilities, Paktya and Uruzgan, at the time of its visits to these facilities.
UNAMA received numerous allegations regarding the use of torture at 15 other locations covering 17 NDS facilities.[10] Twenty‐five percent of detainees interviewed in these 17 facilities alleged they had been tortured. At the time of writing of this report, UNAMA had not established the credibility of the allegations based on the number of interviews conducted and the need to corroborate allegations satisfactorily. UNAMA continues to investigate these allegations.
Detainees in ANP custody reported that abuse occurred in a broader range of circumstances and settings. Some of this abuse constituted torture while other methods amounted to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Reports of abuse by the ANP included police officers committing torture or ill‐treatment at the time of arrest, at check posts, at district headquarters, and at provincial headquarters.
The Government of Afghanistan is obliged under Afghan law and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to investigate promptly all acts of torture and other ill‐treatment, prosecute those responsible, provide redress to victims and prevent further acts of torture. The Government’s obligation to respect the prohibition against torture is also nonderogable meaning that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, can be invoked as a justification of torture. UNAMA calls on the Afghan authorities to take all possible steps to end and prevent torture, and provide accountability for all acts of torture.
Den vollständigen Bericht der UNAMA können Sie hier nachlesen.
[1] Of the 324 conflict‐related detainees UNAMA interviewed, 273 were held or had been held in NDS detention facilities, 117 were held or had been held in ANP facilities and 12 had been held in Afghan National Army detention facilities. Of the 324 detainees, 78 had been detained by both NDS and ANP or the Afghan National Army. See the Methodology section of this report for details on the methodology UNAMA used to conduct research for this report.
[2] NDS officials did not provide UNAMA with access to NDS Counter‐Terrorism Department 90/124 in Kabul and the provincial detention facility in Kapisa.
[3] The National Directorate of Security and the Afghan National Police are allowed by law to detain suspects for up to 72 hours after which time the law requires them to transfer detainees to a facility run by the Central Prison Directorate.
[4] Reports and concerns regarding torture, ill‐treatment and arbitrary detention of detainees in Afghan detention facilities are not new. See April 2009 report of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Causes of Torture in Law Enforcement Institutions, April 2009, available at www.aihrc.org.af/2010_eng/Eng_pages/Reports/Thematic/Research_cause_of_…; Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan Tenth Session, January 2009 (A/HRC/10/23), available at daccess‐dds‐ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G09/103/68/PDF/G0910368.pdf?OpenElement; "2010 and 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" US State Department, 8 April 2011, available at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/160445.pdf and http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/sca/136084.htm.
[5] UNAMA interviewed 37 children detained in NDS or ANP facilities. Twenty‐three of the 37 child detainees reported torture or ill‐treatment including 19 reports of torture or ill‐treatment by NDS officials and four by ANP officials. On 30 January 2011, the Government of Afghanistan (Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence and NDS) and the UN signed an Action Plan between the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United Nations Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting regarding Children associated with National Security Forces in Afghanistan. The Baseline Report on Action Plan Implementation requires NDS to investigate any cases of ill‐treatment of detainees under 18 years old by NDS officials and sanction perpetrators.
[6] UNAMA interviewed 55 detainees held in ANP facilities on criminal offences. Thirteen (24 percent) of these 55 detainees reported torture or ill‐treatment by ANP officials.
[7] Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, article 1.
[8] Article 29 of the Constitution of Afghanistan provides “No one shall be allowed to or order torture, even for discovering the truth from another individual who is under investigation, arrest, detention or has been convicted to be punished.” The Penal Code criminalises torture and article 275 prescribes that public officials (this would include all NDS and ANP officials) found to have tortured an accused for the purpose of obtaining a confession shall be sentenced to imprisonment in the range of five to15 years.
[9] For this report, UNAMA defines a systematic practice or use of torture as a pattern or practice of interrogation methods that constitute torture occurring within a facility which demonstrate that facility’s policy or standard operating procedure for dealing with conflict‐related detainees. Since nearly all conflict‐related detainees UNAMA interviewed in the named facilities were subjected to interrogation methods amounting to torture, the facility’s management and investigative staff must have known, committed, ordered or acquiesced to the practice of torture. As such, it can be concluded that torture was an institutional policy or practice of the facility and was not used by a few “bad apples” in only isolated incidents or on rare occasions.
[10] The facilities are NDS provincial facilities in Badakhshan, Badghis, Baghlan, Balkh, Dai Kundi, Farah, Helmand, Kunar, Kunduz, Nangarhar, Samangan, Sari Pul, Wardak, Zabul and Kabul (Department 17/40, Department 18/34 and Department 1).