What Happens to Human Rights Under the US in Afghanistan
What has the US become in Afghanistan? What happened to human rights? Does it know so little about the history and culture of the country?
Some of this is answered by NYTimes reporter Carlotta Gall:
"Early this year, a 10-year-old Afghan named Esrarullah got his first chance in months to see his father, who had been held since last May at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul. It was not in person, but in a video conference call, and the boy was so overcome, he clutched the phone to his ear and stared mutely at the screen.
"Afghan families like his are traveling from distant provinces and turning up by the hundreds for a similar chance to get a glimpse of loved ones who have been held at the American base for months, sometimes years, without charges or legal redress.
"The program, the first of its kind, amounts to a compromise of sorts between the United States military and the Red Cross, which has long pressed the Americans to allow the detainees visitors, without success.
“ 'We have always been pushing for family visits,' said Graziella Leite Piccolo, the spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Kabul. 'This is the first step, but it is not the same as person-to-person contact, and we are pushing to allow face-to-face visits.'
"For the families, the calls are something, but a small consolation...
"The United States military will not release any information about them, but, according to their families, some have been held at Bagram for as long as three years.
"The Red Cross visits the detainees, under its mandate to assess conditions at prisons in Afghanistan, though it will not comment publicly on what it finds. It also provides a letter service for detainees and families, which is often the only way that families learn relatives are being held at Bagram at all.
“ 'We don’t know who to complain to,” said Gul Shah Khan, whose son, Ahmad Murid, 24, has been held for two and a half years without trial or any investigation. 'There is no place to appeal to and say what is true and what is false.'
"In that atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, the video calls have become a lifeline so popular that families are returning a second time, with wives and babies and sick mothers, for a 20-minute call.
"Sidiqque Ahmad, 21, emerged crying after talking to his younger brother, Jawed, a journalist from the southern city of Kandahar who was arrested by American forces on Oct. 26.
“ 'The Americans were very bad people,'he said through tears. 'They beat my brother, they broke his teeth. He is innocent, he is a journalist and he is like a child. If he has done anything wrong, we don’t know what it is.'
"The Committee to Protect Journalists, based in New York, has taken up the case of Jawed Ahmad, who was working for the Canadian television network CTV at the time.
"Some things were left unsaid. Two families said they had not told the detainees about relatives who had died, to spare them the pain. Three families, including Esrarullah’s, blamed personal enemies for spreading false information about the detainees that lead to their arrest.
Reporting about a case where a son was injured in a grenade attack by local people feuding with their family and subsequently arrested and turned over to the US military, a father says he "blamed a man from his village, who he said works in the intelligence service, for making the accusations."
“ 'He was a student, not Al Qaeda,”'Mr. Khan said of his son. 'Our enemy pressed the hospital to say he was Al Qaeda.'
This is sad and so wrong. This is injustice.
What is happening to the humanity and rights that the US used to value, enshrined in our Constitution?
They seemed to have disappeared under this warmongering, deceitful Bushite administration. It is more evil than those regimes whom Bush accuses of being evil because this administration is not only wreaking destruction on Iraq and Afghanistan but also in the process is trying to destroy this nation and its Constitutional rights and laws protecting the common good, individual and human rights that Americans should live by both at home and abroad.
Some of this is answered by NYTimes reporter Carlotta Gall:
"Early this year, a 10-year-old Afghan named Esrarullah got his first chance in months to see his father, who had been held since last May at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul. It was not in person, but in a video conference call, and the boy was so overcome, he clutched the phone to his ear and stared mutely at the screen.
"Afghan families like his are traveling from distant provinces and turning up by the hundreds for a similar chance to get a glimpse of loved ones who have been held at the American base for months, sometimes years, without charges or legal redress.
"The program, the first of its kind, amounts to a compromise of sorts between the United States military and the Red Cross, which has long pressed the Americans to allow the detainees visitors, without success.
“ 'We have always been pushing for family visits,' said Graziella Leite Piccolo, the spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Kabul. 'This is the first step, but it is not the same as person-to-person contact, and we are pushing to allow face-to-face visits.'
"For the families, the calls are something, but a small consolation...
"The United States military will not release any information about them, but, according to their families, some have been held at Bagram for as long as three years.
"The Red Cross visits the detainees, under its mandate to assess conditions at prisons in Afghanistan, though it will not comment publicly on what it finds. It also provides a letter service for detainees and families, which is often the only way that families learn relatives are being held at Bagram at all.
“ 'We don’t know who to complain to,” said Gul Shah Khan, whose son, Ahmad Murid, 24, has been held for two and a half years without trial or any investigation. 'There is no place to appeal to and say what is true and what is false.'
"In that atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, the video calls have become a lifeline so popular that families are returning a second time, with wives and babies and sick mothers, for a 20-minute call.
"Sidiqque Ahmad, 21, emerged crying after talking to his younger brother, Jawed, a journalist from the southern city of Kandahar who was arrested by American forces on Oct. 26.
“ 'The Americans were very bad people,'he said through tears. 'They beat my brother, they broke his teeth. He is innocent, he is a journalist and he is like a child. If he has done anything wrong, we don’t know what it is.'
"The Committee to Protect Journalists, based in New York, has taken up the case of Jawed Ahmad, who was working for the Canadian television network CTV at the time.
"Some things were left unsaid. Two families said they had not told the detainees about relatives who had died, to spare them the pain. Three families, including Esrarullah’s, blamed personal enemies for spreading false information about the detainees that lead to their arrest.
Reporting about a case where a son was injured in a grenade attack by local people feuding with their family and subsequently arrested and turned over to the US military, a father says he "blamed a man from his village, who he said works in the intelligence service, for making the accusations."
“ 'He was a student, not Al Qaeda,”'Mr. Khan said of his son. 'Our enemy pressed the hospital to say he was Al Qaeda.'
This is sad and so wrong. This is injustice.
What is happening to the humanity and rights that the US used to value, enshrined in our Constitution?
They seemed to have disappeared under this warmongering, deceitful Bushite administration. It is more evil than those regimes whom Bush accuses of being evil because this administration is not only wreaking destruction on Iraq and Afghanistan but also in the process is trying to destroy this nation and its Constitutional rights and laws protecting the common good, individual and human rights that Americans should live by both at home and abroad.
Comments