Published 2 September 2021 at 13.11
Abroad. The Taliban are now showing the infamous prison in Bagram to British journalists, after the American base fell into their hands. Afghan resistance fighters were tortured and murdered in prison during the US occupation.
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The Bagram prison was built in 2001 by the United States to detain Afghans who opposed the American occupation.
The prisoners were denied the rights they would otherwise have had under the Geneva Convention, on the grounds that they were not prisoners of war but terrorists. They were detained indefinitely, without the possibility of legal action. Bagram became known as “Afghanistan's Guantanamo” – an allusion to the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where some prisoners have now been imprisoned for almost 20 years without trial.
In 2005, the New York Times revealed that American staff had tortured and murdered prisoners in prison. Two prisoners had been chained and hung from the ceiling. Then they had been beaten for days by repeated blows to the legs. One of the prisoners cried out in desperation for God every time he was beaten, something that amused the American soldiers who tortured him.
– He shouted “Allah, Allah, Allah” and my immediate impression was that he cried out sin gud. Everyone heard him scream and thought it was funny, said a U.S. military police officer who served in the jail, according to the New York Times.
– It became a kind of recurring joke and people came there to beat the prisoner just to hear him shout “Allah”. It lasted for 24 hours and I would think that he was beaten over 100 times.
The two prisoners died after being tortured for several days.
The American forces handed over the prison in 2012 in Bagram to the Afghan regime – something that was criticized by the Taliban who said it would lead to even worse conditions for prisoners.
In mid-August this year, the Taliban took control of the prison.
The Taliban have now unveiled the gigantic prison complex for journalists from the British Times. The newspaper's reporter describes the facility as a dark and dystopian giant complex with cages, small windowless cells, interrogation rooms, surveillance screens and equipment to restrain people.
– The Americans tortured me repeatedly. They stripped me naked and rinsed cold water on me with hoses, hoisted me up in chains and beat me. They humiliated me in ways I can not even describe and often filmed what they were doing, says a Taliban commander who was imprisoned in Bagram for The Times.
Another Taliban with whom The Times spoke tells that they could not in their wildest fantasies have imagined that they would succeed in winning the war against the American great power. He continues:
– When you fight jihad, all the doors open. We have learned that we defeated the United States with our faith and our weapons and now we hope that Bagram will become a base for jihad for all Muslims.