More than a third of Afghan detainees tortured: UN

More than a third of conflict detainees held by the Afghan authorities suffer torture or mistreatment, the UN said yesterday, but the government has made substantial progress in curbing abuses.

The UN said there was credible evidence that 35 percent of detainees they interviewed between February 2013 and December 2014 had suffered ill-treatment while in the custody of Afghan security forces.

This marks a fall from the UN's last report on torture, which found that 49 percent of detainees were mistreated.

The head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) Nicholas Haysom welcomed the progress and urged the new government of President Ashraf Ghani to make good on its commitment to end torture.

"The government of Afghanistan's efforts to prevent torture and ill-treatment have shown some progress over the last two years," Haysom said.

"UNAMA welcomes the incoming government's commitment to implement a new national plan on elimination of torture."

The report highlights ill-treatment and torture during arrest and interrogation in numerous centres run by the National Directorate of Security -- the Afghan intelligence agency -- as well as the national police, local police and the army.

Detainees, mostly alleged members of the Taliban and other militant groups, were subjected to 16 torture techniques aimed at forcing them to confess, the report said.

These included severe beatings with pipes, cables and sticks, electric shocks and near-asphyxiation, it said.

The report found that 44 out of 105 child detainees, or 42 percent of those they interviewed, were mistreated -- down from 73 percent in the last report.

The new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who took power in September, issued a statement yesterday saying his government was committed to ending torture.

"Despite the positive change, the government of Afghanistan does not see it as enough and remains strongly committed to a complete elimination of any ill-treatment and torture in its detention centres," the statement said.