Afghanistan prison 'quietly expanded'

RAW STORY
Published: February 25, 2006

An Afghanistan prison that currently holds up to 500 terror suspects in "primitive conditions, indefinitely and without charges" has "quietly expanded," according to a front page story set for Sunday's New York Times.

Excerpts from the article by Tim Golden and Eric Schmitt:

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Pentagon officials have often described the detention site at Bagram, a cavernous former machine shop on an American air base 40 miles north of Kabul, as a screening center. They said most of the detainees were Afghans who might eventually be released under an amnesty program or transferred to an Afghan prison that is to be built with American aid.

But some of the detainees have already been held at Bagram for as long as two or three years. And unlike those at Guantбnamo, they have no access to lawyers, no right to hear the allegations against them and only rudimentary reviews of their status as "enemy combatants," military officials said.

Privately, some administration officials acknowledge that the situation at Bagram has increasingly come to resemble the legal void that led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June 2004 affirming the right of prisoners at Guantбnamo to challenge their detention in United States courts.

While Guantбnamo offers carefully scripted tours for members of Congress and journalists, Bagram has operated in rigorous secrecy since it opened in 2002. It bars outside visitors except for the international red cross and refuses to make public the names of those held there. The prison may not be photographed, even from a distance.

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