Canada/Afghanistan: Stop Detainee Transfers
Posted: 25 April 2007
GUMBAD, AFGHANISTAN: A suspected Taliban prisoner sits with his hands strapped and guarded by members of 1st Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, after a raid on a compound in Northern Kandahar, 10 May 2006. Ten suspects were subsequently handed over to the Afghan National Police. Taliban militia has released a DVD purporting to show suicide bombers shortly before they carry out attacks and calling for more strikes on US and British coalition troops.
JOHN D MCHUGH/AFP/Getty Images
Amnesty International is concerned that Canadian forces in Afghanistan continue to transfer detainees to Afghan custody despite persistent reports of torture and other serious human rights violations. After repeated appeals for a voluntary cessation of transfers, AI Canada is currently seeking an injunction in the Federal Court.
Detention conditions in Afghanistan remain sub-standard. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, inappropriate shackling, and lack of access to medical care and legal representation are the norm. In southern Afghanistan - where Canadian forces are operating - the National Directorate of Security (NDS) has no effective oversight and is believed to be responsible for arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, torture and deaths in custody. Recent Globe and Mail investigative reports published in April 2007 revealed that at least 30 detainees transferred from Canadian custody to the NDS had been tortured during interrogation. In an April 23, 2007 story, the newspaper portrayed Colonel Saddiqui, the human rights ombudsman for the Kandahar police, as displaying a shocking disregard for the fate detainees: "In these cases, these people need some torture, because without torture they will never say anything."
The behaviour of other Afghan security forces receiving transferred detainees is also troubling. In June 2006, a CTV television crew traveling with Canadian troops reportedly recorded 'radio chatter' of a soldier saying that Afghan forces were preparing to summarily execute a man caught in a raid. "Either we take him or he gets executed" the soldier reportedly said, although the detainee was later turned over to a different group of Afghans. CF soldiers reportedly intervened in two other occasions in order to save a detainee, and started "taking extra precautions to choose Afghan security forces that will accept prisoners without harming them."
TAKE ACTION:
Canadian soldiers must never be part of a process that could lead to torture. Please write courteously worded letters to the Minister of Defence calling for Canadian Forces in Afghanistan to stop transferring detainees until there can be genuine measures put in place to ensure that no detainee is subjected to torture and ill-treatment.
WRITE TO:
The Honorable Gordon O'Connor
Minister of National Defence
National Defence Headquarters
Major-General George R. Pearkes Building
Ottawa, ON, K1A 0K2
Canada
Fax: + 1 613 995 8189
Email: OConnor.G@parl.gc.ca
Salutation: Dear Minister
FURTHER BACKGROUND:
In December 2005, the Chief of the Defence Staff for Canada, Genenal Hillier, signed an "arrangement" with the Afghan Minister of Defence, Abdul Raheem Wardak, to enable Canadian Forces (CF) to start transferring people they detain in the context of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission to Afghan custody. The previous CF practice of transferring detainees to United States forces led to serious human rights violations in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Amnesty International is concerned that the new arrangement once again fails to protect detainees from torture and other serious human rights violations.
Under the December 2005 transfer arrangement, the Canadian Forces retain no powers for direct follow-up on detainees or notification of (or consent for) transfers to third parties. Until recently, the main monitoring body implicated in the arrangement was the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which reports confidentially and only to the actual detaining power, leaving Canada out of the loop once transfers are complete. While the Canadian government has entered into a second agreement with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, it lacks capacity and has reported problems accessing some prisons including the facilities of the National Directorate of Security. Monitoring, however, is only part of the solution. The international community must continue to support the long-term reform of prisons, police, armed forces and legal system in Afghanistan.
After years of raising concerns about detainee transfers, in February 2007, AI Canada and the BC Civil Liberties Association applied for a judicial review of the December 2005 Canada-Afghanistan Detainee Agreement on the grounds that it violated both the Canadian Charter of Rights of Freedoms and Canada's international obligations to prevent torture.