Afghanistan

Canada spent $10 million for security at Afghan dam project

Topics: 
Afghanistan, Corruption, CIDA, Government transparency
Rating: 
0

Jessica McDiarmid – March 13, 2013

Canada spent about $10 million on security in Afghanistan at its $50-million Dahla dam project, where private security contractors were linked to allegations of corruption and involved in an armed standoff with Canadian security officials.

One of Canada’s signature projects in Afghanistan, the Dahla dam was guarded in part by Watan Risk Management, a controversial Afghan security firm with alleged ties to crime and corruption. How much they were paid remains secret.

UN report says abuse and torture persists in Afghan jails

Topics: 
Afghanistan, Torture
Rating: 
3

300 credible prisoner abuse cases revealed in report, including 6 children

James Cudmore – January 23, 2013

The United Nations has once again found that torture and abuse of prisoners — even children — is rampant in the Afghan prisons to which Canada once sent its detainees.

A new report, released this week by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, found that the country's infamous National Directorate of Security (NDS) still regularly engages in torture and abuse in its facilities across the war-torn country.

A deadly year for journalists

Topics: 
Freedom of the press, Afghanistan
Rating: 
2

Terry Glavin – December 19, 2012

You could say it was the one bright spot Reporters Without Borders managed to find in 2012, a year that has turned out to be the deadliest for journalists since the press freedom organization released its first global year-end roundup, in 1995. Afghanistan’s pioneering liberal daily, Hasht-e Sobh (8 AM), is still alive.

Sanjar Sohail, the newspaper’s fearless 31-year-old Afghan-Canadian publisher, was in Paris Tuesday to collect the organization’s annual media prize. I spoke with Sohail, who I’m proud to say is a friend, just as he was about to head from his hotel to the prize banquet at the Le Monde auditorium.

UN report accuses Canada of complicity in torture

Topics: 
Government ethics, Afghanistan, Torture
Rating: 
0

Charmaine Noronha– June 3, 2012

The Canadian government on Saturday criticized a United Nations agency for issuing a report condemning Canada for complicity in torture and human rights violations in Afghanistan and Syria.

A report from the U.N. Committee Against Torture issued Friday said Canadian military commanders didn't do enough to ensure the safety of detainees handed over to Afghan security forces during the Afghan combat mission, which ended last year, despite a substantial risk that they would be tortured.

Afghan war whistleblower: 'I had to speak out – lives are at stake'

Topics: 
USA, Afghanistan, Message control or 'spin'
Rating: 
0

Daniel Davis wrote detailed report claiming US generals 'have so distorted the truth … the truth has become unrecognisable'

Paul Harris – April 14, 2012

"I am – how do you say it? – persona non grata," said Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Davis, as he sat sipping a coffee and eating a chocolate sundae in a shopping mall, just a subway stop from the Pentagon.

The career soldier is now a black sheep at the giant defence department building where he still works. The reason was his extraordinarily brave decision to accuse America's military top brass of lying about the war in Afghanistan.

Top court blocks government's effort to restrict Afghan human rights info

Topics: 
Foreign Affairs, Afghanistan, Access to information
Rating: 
0

Robert Hiltz – March 29, 2012

An appeal by the Department of Foreign Affairs to block an Ottawa law professor from getting a better look at reacted documents that detail the status of human rights in Afghanistan won't be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Department of Foreign Affairs had been trying to prevent University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran from gaining further access to the departmental reports.

In Afghan War, a Colonel Becomes a Whistleblower

Topics: 
USA, Afghanistan, Message control or 'spin', National security
Rating: 
2
Daniel Davis

Scott Shane – February 5, 2012

On his second yearlong deployment to Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis traveled 9,000 miles, patrolled with American troops in eight provinces and returned in October of last year with a fervent conviction that the war was going disastrously and that senior military leaders had not leveled with the American public.

Since enlisting in the Army in 1985, he said, he had repeatedly seen top commanders falsely dress up a dismal situation. But this time, he would not let it rest. So he consulted with his pastor at McLean Bible Church in Virginia, where he sings in the choir. He watched his favorite movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” one more time, drawing inspiration from Jimmy Stewart’s role as the extraordinary ordinary man who takes on a corrupt establishment.

Federal Court tosses bid to limit final report into Afghan prisoner abuse

Topics: 
Richard Colvin, Afghanistan, Message control or 'spin'
Rating: 
4

Murray Brewster – September 29, 2011

The Conservative government has been dealt a major setback in its attempt to limit what a military watchdog puts in his final report on the handling of Afghanistan prisoners.

A Federal Court has dismissed an application that would, among other things, strike the testimony of diplomat-whistleblower Richard Colvin and block thousands of pages of documents from being used by the Military Police Complaints Commission.

NATO halts transfer of detainees to Afghan jails

Topics: 
Afghanistan, Torture
Rating: 
0

Paul Koring – September 6, 2011

Faced with new evidence of torture by Afghan police and security forces, NATO’s top commander has ordered an immediate halt to detainee transfers, a controversial practice for Canadian and other foreign contingents for years.

The order – only days before the publication of another report, this one from the United Nations, which is expected to detail brutal and systemic torture in Afghan prisons – comes after years of denials from Canada and other Western governments that they were complicit in subjecting detainees to torture.

Billions spent on Afghan police but brutality, corruption prevail

Topics: 
Corruption, Policing, Afghanistan
Rating: 
3

Mirwais Harooni – August 24, 2011

An Afghan policeman shot dead taxi driver Mohammad Jawid Amiri six month ago, for no apparent reason. According to a Kabul police official, the shooting was an accident, and the offending policeman is now behind bars.

That's news to the family of 27-year-old Amiri. They say the only contact with the policeman they had since the shooting was when his family offered a sheep and three bags each of rice and flour as compensation, but only if the Amiris signed papers saying their son died a traffic accident, and not from gunshot wounds.

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