Abdul Salam Hanafi, the Taliban’s Deputy Prime Minister for Administrative Affairs, has reviewed the overall situation at Herat Prison and stressed the need to respect prisoners’ rights and improve their detention conditions.
Hamdullah Fitrat, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban, reported on Monday, August 10, that Abdul Salam Hanafi had visited Herat Central Prison at the head of a delegation and met and spoke with several prisoners.
Hanafi instructed officials at Herat Prison to respect prisoners’ rights and pay greater attention to improving their detention conditions and healthcare services.
This comes as numerous reports have emerged in recent years of torture, beatings and the use of violent methods to extract forced confessions from prisoners in Taliban prisons.
According to these reports, Taliban intelligence officials have used methods such as pulling out prisoners’ fingernails, inserting heated metal rods into their bodies, hanging them by their feet, covering their heads and faces with plastic, tying their hands behind their backs, and keeping prisoners in damp rooms to extract forced confessions.
Beating prisoners with belts, placing a Kalashnikov barrel near their ears and threatening them with death have also been cited among the methods mentioned in these reports.
Some reports have also alleged that women prisoners in Taliban prisons have faced severe violence, including harassment and sexual assault.
