Former Taliban Inmate Revisits Prison, Recalls Torture in Kabul

Afghanistan's Pul-e-Charkhi prison has had a long, disturbing history of violence, mass executions and torture.

Mass graves and torture cells were uncovered dating from the Soviet-backed governments of the late 1970s and 1980s.

Under the U.S.-backed government, it was more known for poor conditions and overcrowding — its 11 cell blocks were built to house 5,000 inmates, but were often packed with more than 10,000, including Taliban prisoners and criminals.

Mohammad Niaz is a former Taliban prisoner who spent four years in Pul-e-Charkhi prison, and claims to have been tortured during his incarceration.

He has now walked with a dozen of armed and uniformed Taliban bodyguards through his former prison.

He is proud of having been a Taliban prisoner in the past and says that "the Almighty Allah has granted us the opportunity to do jihad."

Nearly a third of all detainees held in Afghan detention centers say they have suffered some form of torture or ill-treatment, a new U.N. report said in February 2021.

According to the "Torture Report," more than half of the allegations are from southern Kandahar province, a Taliban heartland.

The United Nations expressed serious concerns about the claims, including allegations of "enforced disappearances."

For the report, conducted jointly by the U.N. mission to Afghanistan and the U.N. Human Rights Office, U.N. officials interviewed a total of 656 detainees, held in 63 government facilities across the country, between January 2019 and March 2020.

The alleged torture included beatings, suffocation, and electric shocks.

The U.N. says 30% of those interviewed provided "credible and reliable" accounts of abuse and mistreatment.

Once, Kabul's main prison was crowded with thousands of Taliban captured and arrested by the government.

The Taliban now run the Pul-e-Charkhi Prison, a sprawling complex on Kabul's eastern outskirts.

After capturing the city, the fighters freed all the inmates there, the government guards fled, and now dozens of Taliban fighters are running the facility.

Some of the Taliban now guarding the site were former inmates.

The government guards have fled and don’t dare return, fearing reprisals.

Though the facility remains largely empty, one section holds around 60 people imprisoned in the past few weeks, who the guards said were mostly accused criminals and drug addicts.

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