简体中文
The CIA brutal interrogation techniques cited in a recent U.S. Senate report has attracted attention about the plight of Pakistani prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Bagram detention center in Afghanistan.
The U.S. forces had held dozens of Pakistani nationals in its infamous detention centers for years, who defense lawyers say have never received fair trial or legal rights.
The 6,000-page report of the Senate Intelligence Committee published on Tuesday said the CIA had repeatedly misled the public, Congress and the White House about its aggressive questioning and torture on detainees after the Sept. 11, 2001.
The report also found that the "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" program escaped effective scrutiny by outsiders long after its inception in 2002, with CIA records showing then President George W. Bush was never fully briefed by the agency on torturous interrogation techniques until 2006
Pakistan has officially denounced the CIA treatment of the prisoners and emphasized the need for transparency.
"We deplore the systematic torture of the detainees at various locations by CIA. We have noted the assurances by the U.S. Administration, including at the highest level, that this behavior would never be repeated again," Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said on Thursday.
As the CIA is now under fire, some of the Pakistani prisoners recalled memories of the time then have spent at the American detention.
Muhammad Sagheer, a Pakistani national spent nearly one year at the Guantanamo prison, recalled what mental agonies he has undergone in the U.S. custody.
"I was kept in a six-foot cell and was not even allowed to pray in the early days at Guantanamo," Sagheer told Xinhua on Sunday by phone from his Kohistan hometown in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Sagheer said he was arrested by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance fighters in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province after the United States started airstrikes against the Taliban forces in late 2001.
"The U.S. guards would not allow sleeping during long interrogation. Once they grabbed and beat me when I was praying at my cell," he said.
Ahmad Rabbani, another Pakistani national, who has been languishing at the Guantanamo for 12 years, said he is being held "without charge and trial" that forced him to opt for hunger strike.
"For 12 years, I have been living a life of injustice, suffering through torture and insults," Rabbani said in an op-ed his defense lawyer, Shahzad Akbar, sent to the media in Pakistan.
Akbar, who is also pleading the cases of civilians died in U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal regions, is also critical of the CIA's torture tactics to extract information.
"The report has some shocking but not that new details of CIA torture techniques of 'enhanced interrogation,' their inefficacy in fighting terrorism and how the CIA and White House have misled and lied to the American Congress and policy makers since 9/11, creating serious doubts about U.S. counter terrorism policy," the lawyer said in comments on the U.S. report.
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who served as Afghan ambassador in Pakistan during the Taliban rule, had been detained for about five years at Guantanamo, also refreshes what he described as "inhuman treatment" during his detention.
"The techniques of the U.S. guards included use of force, torture and insulting the Guantanamo inmates. They used to collect information through illegal means. I was subjected to torture and was not allowed to sleep for a month," Zaeef told Xinhua by phone on Sunday.
"All American detention centers are illegal as they wanted to extract information from people through illegal means," the former Taliban diplomat said. Enditem
