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Death Row Prisoners Spending Years In Jail

The Meshrano Jirga (the Upper House of Parliament) on Tuesday summoned officials from the directorate of prisons and detention centers, representatives of the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AHRC) to respond to a report provided by the senate on the conditions of Afghanistan’s prisons and detention centers. 

The director of the prisons and detention centers directorate Abdul Halim Kohistani said of the 750 prisoners on death row, some were sentenced 16 years ago but until now their execution orders have not been issued. 

Kohistani acknowledged there were challenges in the prisons and detention centers labeling health and hygiene as the biggest one. 

“Public health ministry tells us to provide health services (to prisoners) because we fall under the interior ministry and it is our responsibility. When we ask the health department of the interior ministry to provide health services for the 30,000 prisoners, they say that we offer health services to the police but not to the prisoners,” said Kohistani. 

Currently over 30,000 people are in prisons and detention centers - over 900 are women and over 300 are children. About 200 are foreign nationals. 

Prisoners are being held in 36 prisons and 190 detention centers in the country and over 6,000 employees and guards are employed at these facilities. 

“Approximately 750 individuals have been sentenced to death and some have been in prison for 16 years following the issuance of their sentence to death and this is a problem. When we speak with their lawyers or meet them in the prisons, they ask to be executed or to be freed because (they say) by keeping them in prison two punishments have been implemented against them,” Kohistani said. 

“The reason that the death sentence is not being implemented on time is that it is a heavy punishment and it ends the life of the criminal. Thus special attention should be paid in this regard,” Abdul Fatah Azizi, from the AGO said. 

Meanwhile a number of senators said some people use their influence and get the contract for construction of prisons but they do not build the buildings and facilities as it should be and that following the completion of the construction, prisoners face numerous problems such as a lack of space. 

“An individual and our friend in the Meshrano Jirga had contracted a hospital in Kapisa province, but it has been 12 years and the hospital has not been built. Such cases are in Badakhshan,” senate deputy speaker Mohammad Alam Ezedyar said. 

Kohistani said the lack of facilities is a big challenge in terms of addressing prisoners’ problems. He said in the last 14 years the prisons structures have not changed, but the number of prisoners has increased. 

Death Row Prisoners Spending Years In Jail

Out of 750 prisoners sentenced to death some convicts have been on death row waiting for their execution orders to be signed for 16 years.

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The Meshrano Jirga (the Upper House of Parliament) on Tuesday summoned officials from the directorate of prisons and detention centers, representatives of the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AHRC) to respond to a report provided by the senate on the conditions of Afghanistan’s prisons and detention centers. 

The director of the prisons and detention centers directorate Abdul Halim Kohistani said of the 750 prisoners on death row, some were sentenced 16 years ago but until now their execution orders have not been issued. 

Kohistani acknowledged there were challenges in the prisons and detention centers labeling health and hygiene as the biggest one. 

“Public health ministry tells us to provide health services (to prisoners) because we fall under the interior ministry and it is our responsibility. When we ask the health department of the interior ministry to provide health services for the 30,000 prisoners, they say that we offer health services to the police but not to the prisoners,” said Kohistani. 

Currently over 30,000 people are in prisons and detention centers - over 900 are women and over 300 are children. About 200 are foreign nationals. 

Prisoners are being held in 36 prisons and 190 detention centers in the country and over 6,000 employees and guards are employed at these facilities. 

“Approximately 750 individuals have been sentenced to death and some have been in prison for 16 years following the issuance of their sentence to death and this is a problem. When we speak with their lawyers or meet them in the prisons, they ask to be executed or to be freed because (they say) by keeping them in prison two punishments have been implemented against them,” Kohistani said. 

“The reason that the death sentence is not being implemented on time is that it is a heavy punishment and it ends the life of the criminal. Thus special attention should be paid in this regard,” Abdul Fatah Azizi, from the AGO said. 

Meanwhile a number of senators said some people use their influence and get the contract for construction of prisons but they do not build the buildings and facilities as it should be and that following the completion of the construction, prisoners face numerous problems such as a lack of space. 

“An individual and our friend in the Meshrano Jirga had contracted a hospital in Kapisa province, but it has been 12 years and the hospital has not been built. Such cases are in Badakhshan,” senate deputy speaker Mohammad Alam Ezedyar said. 

Kohistani said the lack of facilities is a big challenge in terms of addressing prisoners’ problems. He said in the last 14 years the prisons structures have not changed, but the number of prisoners has increased. 

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