I.
Executive Summary
You do not know what is going on here. What is in my heart would break yours. There are so
many hardships, so many problems. […] We are prisoners; we cannot say nor do anything. I
don’t know what will happen to me after this.
Javed, a current detainee, by phone to his uncle Mubashar 1
On 23 May, 2013 President Barack Obama delivered a speech at the National Defense University
where he announced that after more than 12 years of war, “this war, like all wars, must end” and
reiterated his pledge to close the controversial U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. 2
In Afghanistan, the United States has operated a similar detention facility for over a decade, often
referred to as “Bagram prison”, or the Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP). 3 At its height, the DFIP
held over 3,000 detainees. Since its very early years, it was marred by allegations of detainee abuse. 4
More recently it has been cast as a violation of Afghan sovereignty. 5 For many Afghans, Bagram
continues to symbolize much of what has gone wrong with the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
In March 2013, after years of negotiation, the U.S. military finally handed over the DFIP and Afghan
detainees to Afghan authorities. 6 However, despite commitments that the United States is no longer
operating prisons on Afghan soil, the United States continues to hold more than 60 non-Afghan
detainees or Third Country Nationals (TCNs), in indefinite detention without charge, trial, or access
to a lawyer. 7 After years of detention, and with U.S. forces withdrawing from Afghanistan, these
detainees are at grave risk of falling into the kind of indefinite detention limbo that has befallen
those at Guantanamo Bay.
The majority of these detainees are Pakistani citizens, some of whom have been in detention since
2002. Some detainees have already been “cleared” for release in 2010, yet remain trapped in
indefinite detention. After years of being held by the U.S. government without charge, trial or any
real progress on their cases, Pakistani detainees are losing hope. They doubt the value and
1
Justice Project Pakistan interview with Mubashar (real name, date, location withheld).
President Barack Obama, Counter-terrorism address at the National Defense University (Full transcript), 23
May, 2013 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/23/obama-drones-guantanamo-speech-text.
3
The portion of the facility where Afghan detainees are held is called the Afghan National Detention Facility –
Parwan (ANDF-P).
4
Hilary Andersson, “Afghans ‘abused at secret prison’ at Bagram airbase”, BBC News, 15 April, 2010,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8621973.stm; Anna Coren, “Ex-Afghan prisoner claims Bagram abuse”, CNN, 25
September, 2012, http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/24/world/asia/afghan-prisoner.
5
Kate Clark, “’The other Guantanamo’: Bagram and the struggle for sovereignty”, Afghanistan Analysts
Network, 10 September, 2012, http://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/the-other-guantanamo-bagram-and-thestruggle-for-sovereignty.
6
There remains controversy over a certain number of Afghan detainees, the U.S. wants to hold onto
indefinitely. See Daphne Eviatar, “US detention at Bagram: it’s not over till it’s over”, Huffington Post, 25
March, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daphne-eviatar/us-detention-at-bagram-it_b_2950162.html.
7
Note that the number of TCN detainees has grown from 50 in September 2012 to 66 in June 2013. Letter
from the President – Regarding the War Powers Resolution, 14 June, 2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov/thepress-office/2013/06/14/letter-president-regarding-war-powers-resolution.
2
4