Canadians work for change inside Afghanistan's prisons
Graham Thomson CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal Saturday, March 24, 2007
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SARPOZA PRISON, Afghanistan - To step inside the Kandahar penitentiary that holds Taliban prisoners is to stumble backwards into the Middle Ages.
This is a dark place of open pit fires and heavy stone walls where inmates hang dried meat from hooks and grope their way by candlelight.
If you have ever toured the dungeons of an ancient English castle then you have visited an Afghan prison.
The conditions are appalling and would, at first glance, seem to lend credence to allegations back in Canada that Taliban prisoners suffer abuse at the hands of Afghan authorities.
However, these prisoners are not being singled out for special punishment. This is how prisoners live in Afghanistan whether they staged an ambush against a NATO convoy or knifed someone in a fight.
Next door to the Taliban wing is the section holding the common criminals. The two are identical. Teenage boys live in slightly better conditions in the segregated juvenile section.
Then there is the women's wing which echoes with the heartbreaking sound of children. There are 22 children here, the youngest five months old, incarcerated with their mothers because they have nowhere else to go. This prison doesn't know whether it's medieval or Dickensian.
What's just as shocking to Western sensibilities is learning women are jailed here for simply disobeying their husbands or rejecting an arranged marriage.
It is into this world two guards from Canada's Correctional Service have stepped, hoping to improve life not only for the prisoners but also the prison guards whose living conditions are as dreadful as the inmates'.
This, after all, is a Third World prison.
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Graham Thomson CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal Saturday, March 24, 2007
Article Link
SARPOZA PRISON, Afghanistan - To step inside the Kandahar penitentiary that holds Taliban prisoners is to stumble backwards into the Middle Ages.
This is a dark place of open pit fires and heavy stone walls where inmates hang dried meat from hooks and grope their way by candlelight.
If you have ever toured the dungeons of an ancient English castle then you have visited an Afghan prison.
The conditions are appalling and would, at first glance, seem to lend credence to allegations back in Canada that Taliban prisoners suffer abuse at the hands of Afghan authorities.
However, these prisoners are not being singled out for special punishment. This is how prisoners live in Afghanistan whether they staged an ambush against a NATO convoy or knifed someone in a fight.
Next door to the Taliban wing is the section holding the common criminals. The two are identical. Teenage boys live in slightly better conditions in the segregated juvenile section.
Then there is the women's wing which echoes with the heartbreaking sound of children. There are 22 children here, the youngest five months old, incarcerated with their mothers because they have nowhere else to go. This prison doesn't know whether it's medieval or Dickensian.
What's just as shocking to Western sensibilities is learning women are jailed here for simply disobeying their husbands or rejecting an arranged marriage.
It is into this world two guards from Canada's Correctional Service have stepped, hoping to improve life not only for the prisoners but also the prison guards whose living conditions are as dreadful as the inmates'.
This, after all, is a Third World prison.
More on link
