I kampen mod oprørsgrupper har det maliske militær tilbageholdt hundredvis af civile. Human Rights Watch har dokumenteret tortur og drab af fanger i militærets varetægt.
BAMAKO/GAO, 15 April 2013 (IRIN): Hundreds of northern Malians – many of them ethnic Tuaregs – have been detained by the Malian army since the French military intervention to oust Islamist groups from northern Mali began in January 2013. Many of the detainees have complained they had no idea why they were captured and were not given access to lawyers; others alleged torture.
The ill-treatment may also have proven fatal: Two ethnic Tuareg men, arrested in February and allegedly tortured by Malian soldiers in the town of Léré, in Timbuktu Region, died of their injuries at the Central Prison in the capital, Bamako, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a communique on 11 April.
IRIN spoke to human rights groups, detainees, gendarmes and military officers to find out the status of conflict-related detainees.
Documented abuses
According to HRW, which had been following the case of the two Tuareg men, they had received some medical attention when they were being held at Gendarme Camp 1 in Bamako, but were then transferred to the Central Prison in late March.
The two were transferred to Gendarme Camp 1 in Bamako, where they received some medical attention, and were transferred to the Central Prison in Bamako in late March.
“The men were in very bad shape. One of the men was repeatedly abused, suffering severe hematoma and possibly a broken rib. While detained by the army, he had been injected with a caustic substance,” said Corinne Dufka, a senior West Africa researcher at HRW.
“They did not receive the treatment they needed, and the previous torture and ill-treatment clearly contributed to their deaths.”
HRW had interviewed and documented the torture inflicted on a total of seven men. The organization said most of the abuses they documented were committed while the prisoners were still in military custody but stopped when they were transferred to the gendarmerie.
“Detainees described being beaten and kicked, burned, injected with a caustic substance, and threatened with death while in army custody,” said Dufka. “Detainees were only randomly questioned, and often while tortured. One man described a treatment similar to water-boarding while held by rank-and-file soldiers.”
The seven men were taken to Markala, in Gao Region, where they were photographed with assault rifles, ammunition and other alleged proof of their association with armed groups. Most of them denied any such association and said the arms and other items were not theirs, though some admitted they had either fought for or assisted the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) or Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), according to Dufka.
None of the detained had seen a lawyer or knew the full extent of the charges against them.
Detainees have also been subjected to mock-executions, according to local and international human rights groups, among them HRW, Amnesty International and the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH).
How many detained?
Læs videre her: http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97845/Torture-beatings-and-death-for-detained-Malians
