Torture in Afghanistan...

From American Progress:

TORTURE -- INVESTIGATION FINDS WIDESPREAD ABUSE IN AFGHANISTAN DETENTION CENTERS:

An eight-month McClatchy investigation has found systematic torture and mistreatment of detainees in detention centers throughout Afghanistan, starting in 2001 and lasting at least 20 months. Sixty-eight percent of former detainees interviewed reported being assaulted in Afghanistan, a rate higher than the 42 percent of cases in Guantanamo Bay.

Detainees said abuse ranged from being baptized by prison guards dressed as Roman Catholic priests to being "chained hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor" and "left there for 18, 24 hours or more."

While most press attention has focused on the detention center at the Soviet-built Bagram Airbase, where two detainees were beaten to death by guards in December 2002, former detainees of internment centers in Kandahar also reported being hit by guards on a regular basis during the same period.

Though the Department of Defense maintains that such detainee abuse is isolated, prison guards say they were deployed to Afghanistan with inadequate training, were placed in an environment where the rules were unclear, and in the absence of supervision, "everybody hit their boiling point."

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