Rafiullah Bidar
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Rafiullah Bidar is the regional director of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in Gardez.[1][2][3][4] He is of the Pashayi ethnic group, a minority in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission was set up with funding from the United States Congress. In an interview with the UK newspaper The Guardian Bidar said:
"All I do nowadays is chart complaints against the US military. Many thousands of people have been rounded up and detained by them. Those who have been freed say that they were held alongside foreign detainees who've been brought to this country to be processed. No one is charged. No one is identified. No international monitors are allowed into the US jails. People who have been arrested say they've been brutalised - the tactics used are beyond belief."
According to the National Public Radio, Bidar was educated in Russia.[2]
Bidar maintains extensive records of exit interviews he conducts with released prisoners, because American authorities will not allow him to interview captives currently in detention.[3]
References[edit]
- ^ Adrian Levy, Cathy Scott-Clark (March 19, 2005). "'One huge US jail'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-03-17.
- ^ a b Ivan Watson (September 13, 2005). "Afghan Security Concerns as Election Nears". National Public Radio. Retrieved 2008-03-17.
- ^ a b A.C. Thompson (October 2, 2006). "Afghanistan -- Hub for Secret U.S. Torture Centers". New America Media. Retrieved 2008-03-17.
In 2005 [the U.S. military] admitted they have 20 jails all over Afghanistan and 500 detainees," said Bidar during an interview. "It was a good achievement for us to get them to admit this. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to go see these prisons. Finally, we decided to do interviews with detainees released from jails. They told us how they were tortured.
- ^ Eliza Griswold (September 2006). "American Gulag: prisoners' tales from the war on terror". Harper's Magazine. p. 6. Retrieved 2008-03-17.
'Every journalist comes through this office,' Dr. Bidar said as we sat on his couch. He handed around a plate of wilted cookies and told a story about a young humanrights worker recently killed in Iraq, and how, just months earlier, she had sat on this very couch saying that she didn't want to go back to Baghdad.
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