Badr: No one can prove torture, harassment in prisons

KABUL (Pajhwok): No one can prove prisoners are tortured or harassed, but instead jails are being turned into education and reform centers, an official said on Monday.

Officials of the Correctional Institution of Prisons dismiss claims of torture and harassment in prisons as a conspiracy hatched by some intelligence circles.

“Prisons used to be places of torture and harassment, but now they have been turned into places of education and reform.”

Habibullah Badr, the military deputy of the Prisons Correctional Institution, told a ceremony marking graduation of some juvenile prisoners from a vocational training, that some intelligence circles were out to hatch conspiracies to make the people worried.

“No one can prove there are beatings and harassment in prisons,” he said, asking the media  to reflect the true image of Afghanistan.

Director of Education and Training of Prisons Reform, Hafiz Maulvi Nazar Mohammad Nasiri told the graduation ceremony that prisons had been places of torture and punishment in the past, but now they were places of knowledge and reform.

Sharaftullah Haqqani, Kabul Province head of Correctional and Training Center, said 135 children graduated from the vocational education section today and 36 children from the Siratun Nabi education section of the center.

He said these children spent eight months learning tailoring, electricity work, mobile phone making and shoe sewing.

Up to 3000 prisoners are engaged in vocational courses throughout Afghanistan, according information of the Correctional Institution of Prisons.

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