"If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," an American official told the Washington Post. This was in relation to an article on CIA torture of al-Qaida and Taliban suspects at the Bagram Air Force in 2002. Two unarmed civilians were captured and tortured to death by the CIA in December of that year.
In 2006, Sgt. Joshua Claus along with 14 other US officials and personnel at the base were charged with assault and "maltreatment of a detainee." They received five-month sentences. Sixteen-year old Mohamed Jawad was at the receiving end of their abuse. "When I was in detention at Bagram, Americans killed three people. They beat people and arrested us without trial. We're not given any rights," Jawad told Col. Ralph Kohlmann, a judge at the proceedings.
And now last week the US Department of Justice released a report (doc) to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. It reveals that since 2002, 90 children have been detained at Bagram. Today, there are currently ten – classified as "unlawful enemy combatant " – a perverse syllogism to circumvent Geneva Convention IV (confinement of civilians).
Bagram "houses" some 630 prisoners, three times as many as Guantanamo. An International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report released earlier this year says Bagram is rife with massive overcrowding and abhorrent conditions. Isolated cells were also discovered and the ICRC says some prisoners are held in a secret detention center known as the "salt pit."
According to International Justice Network Litigation Director and Stanford Human Rights Professor Barbara Olshansky, “International law and practice clearly prohibits holding children in such terrible and terrifying prisons, and there does not appear to be any legitimate purpose for holding these children without access to their families or lawyers.”