A UN investigation has uncovered “a compelling pattern … of systemic torture and ill-treatment” in Afghan prisons, with prisoners reporting being beaten and shocked with electrical cables, hung by their hands, and having their genitals twisted until they passed out, the New York Times reports. Nearly half of all detainees of the National Directorate of Intelligence reported such abuse, as did a somewhat smaller portion of those held by the national police.
The interrogation methods are “unacceptable by any standard of international human rights law,” the report says. NATO has already stopped handing prisoners over to Afghan authorities based on an earlier draft of the report, and US laws may force America to cut funding for Afghan security forces. The Afghan government does not officially condone torture, and promises to improve. But its intelligence service denies much of the report—though it admits there might be “deficiencies” in its handling of detainees. (More Afghanistan stories.)
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