Karzai: Video Cameras Could Prevent Torture

Urges Prosecutions for Troops Involved in Torture

Insisting he is serious about combating the massive levels of torture that recent reports say is ongoing in the Afghan prison system, President Hamid Karzai has ordered that every interrogation center should have video cameras, insisting this will “prevent torture.”

Of course this has been seen to be an incomplete solution at best in other nations, with America’s own use of cameras in its torture facilities undermined by agents simply destroying the tapes or allowing them to “go missing” if the torture was a little too embarrassing.

Karzai has ordered that the government prosecute any security forces found to be involved in torture, but whether this leads to any serious increase in the number of prosecutions remains to be seen.

Indeed, the Afghan security system’s torture is likely to be difficult for their corrupt judicial system to tackle, with the court system running, as most of the rest of the country, on a very bribe and nepotism based system.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.