Reports: U.S. to give Afghan detainees new rights

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is preparing new rules that would give hundreds of prisoners being held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan the right to challenge their detentions, according to published reports.

The guidelines would for the first time allow about 600 prisoners held at an American-run prison at the Bagram Air Base to call witnesses and submit evidence in their defense, The Washington Post and New York Times reported in stories Saturday on the Web.

The guidelines came to light as the Obama administration is reviewing Bush-era detention policies and determining where to make changes.

The proposed rules were given to Congress in mid-July for a 60 day review and were expected to be made public this week.

Under the rules, prisoners would have military-assigned representatives charged with gathering evidence and calling witnesses on their behalf. That process is similar to the one used for detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Unlike those prisoners, the Bagram detainees have had no means to challenge their detentions — some of which have stretched for years — or to hear allegations against them.

Prisoners at Bagram have been refusing privileges like recreation time and family visits arranged by the International Committee of the Red Cross to protest their lack of legal rights since July, according to U.S. military and humanitarian officials.

Human rights campaigners have argued that the prisoners should be given the same rights as those at Guantanamo, but the U.S. military argues that Bagram detainees should be treated differently because they are being held in an active theater of war.

Their status is the subject of lawsuits in the United States. A federal judge ruled in April that several Bagram detainees have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts, and the Obama administration has asked a federal appeals court to overturn the decision.

Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at City University of New York and attorney for one of those Bagram detainees, said the move is just "window dressing."

"The whole thing was meant to pull the wool over the eyes of the judicial system," he told The Associated Press late Saturday, responding to the news reports. "These changes don't come anywhere near an adequate substitute for a real review."

Kassem said the changes appear to amount to a review by a military representative assigned to a detainee. The representative would not be bound by confidentality, thus making this system similar to one already rejected by the Supreme Court in 2008.

"These improvements are really just smoke and mirrors," Kassem said.

Kassem represents Amin al Bakri, a Yemeni national who was taken to Bagram after being detained in Thailand in 2002.

Efforts to get responses from administration and military officials were unsuccessful late Saturday.