[An Nahar] Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
has ordered that all interrogation facilities should be equipped with video cameras in a bid to prevent torture, after a recent U.N. report said detainees were abused.
The decree follows a government investigation into the U.N. report about prisoner abuse, which found detainees were tortured at the time of arrest and during interrogations.
"Relevant authorities are required to equip the intelligence and investigating agencies... with modern equipment (and) devices... and videotape the interrogation process," Karzai said in a decree released by his office late on Saturday.
He said the move will also help "eliminate any chance or place for complaints from other parties" about prisoner abuse.
The United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
, which has run an assistance operation in Afghanistan since the 2001 fall of the Taliban, said in January that prisoners were frequently abused and tortured in the Afghan jail system.
The U.N. report revealed that 326 of 635 prisoners interviewed across the country said they had been abused, including 80 minors.
Fourteen types of torture were described in the U.N. report, including beatings with cables and pipes, attacks on the genitals, threats of execution or rape, electric shocks and forced stress positions.
In the decree, Karzai also ordered the attorney general to "prosecute the perpetrators of torture, so to avoid any suspect, convict or prisoner tortured in the future."