After months of asking politely and being refused, the American Civil Liberties Union has sued the U.S. Departments of Defense, State and Justice, along with the Central Intelligence Agency, to obtain files on prisoners in U.S. custody at the Bagram detention center in Afghanistan.
"There is growing concern that Bagram has become the new Guantánamo – except with hundreds more prisoners, held indefinitely in reportedly harsher conditions, with no access to lawyers or courts," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, in a media advisory. "Yet the public is still in the dark when it comes to basic facts such as whom our military is holding there, for how long and on what grounds, and the rules that govern their detention, release and treatment. As long as the Bagram prison is shrouded in secrecy, there is no way to know the truth or begin to address the problems that may exist."
As early as April 2009, the ACLU was claiming that over 600 prisoners are being held at Bagram in conditions worse than Gitmo, left with little legal recourse to challenge their detention. The group also claimed that an unknown number of the prisoners are foreign nationals captured outside of Afghanistan and taken to the prison.
The Bagram prison has served since 2002 as a holding site for terror suspects captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq.
But unlike the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay -- the US naval base in Cuba where over 200 "war on terror" detainees are still held -- the Bagram inmates have had no access to lawyers, no right to hear the allegations against them and only rudimentary reviews of their status as "enemy combatants."
President Barack Obama's administration argued in a filing with the US Court of Appeals in Washington that terror suspects at Bagram should not be allowed to challenge their decision in US courts, a right the Supreme Court has granted to Guantanamo detainees.
US District Judge John Bates ruled in April that foreign prisoners held at Bagram should also be provided that right, enshrined in the writ of habeas corpus.
The Department of Defense said earlier in Sept. that Bagram prisoners would be allowed to defend themselves and call witnesses in hearings before a military tribunal.
"It's basically a review procedure that ensures people go in front of a panel periodically to give them the opportunity to contest their detention," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.
The inmates would be aided by a uniformed "personal representative" who would "guide them through this administrative process, to help gather witness statements," Whitman added.
"It's something that we had used in Iraq to help us manage the detainee population and ultimately reduce the detainee population by ensuring that we are only holding those that are the most dangerous threats."
The ACLU's lawsuit was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
"When prisoners are in American custody and under American control, no matter the location, our values and commitment to the rule of law are at stake," said Jonathan Hafetz, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, in an April press release. "Now that President Obama has taken the positive step of ordering Guantánamo shut down, it is critical that we don't permit ‘other Gitmos' to continue elsewhere."
