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TechnoratiNEW YORK - The U.S. military is holding about 500 juveniles suspected of being "unlawful enemy combatants" in detention centers in Iraq and has about 10 detained in Afghanistan, the United States has told the United Nations.
A total of 2,500 youths under the age of 18 have been detained, almost all in Iraq, for periods up to a year or more in President George W. Bush's anti-terrorism campaign since 2002, the United States reported last week to the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Civil liberties groups such as the International Justice Network and the American Civil Liberties Union denounced the detentions as abhorrent, and a violation of U.S. treaty obligations.
In the periodic report to the United Nations on U.S. compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United States confirmed that "as of April 2008, the United States held about 500 juveniles in Iraq."
"The juveniles that the United States has detained have been captured engaging in anti-coalition activity, such as planting Improvised Explosive Devices, operating as lookouts for insurgents, or actively engaged in fighting against U.S. and Coalition forces," the U.S. report said.
The majority are believed to be 16 or 17 years old. In the United States a 17-year-old can enlist in the U.S. Army, with parental consent.
The report said that of the total of 2,500 juveniles jailed since 2002, all but 100 had been picked up in Iraq. Of the remainder, most came from Afghanistan.
A total of eight juveniles have been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, but all were released from 2004 to 2006.
"It remains uncertain the exact age of these individuals, as most of them did not know their date of birth or even the year they were born," the report says. But U.S. military doctors who evaluated them believed that three were under age 16.
In Afghanistan, "as of April 2008, there are approximately 10 juveniles being held at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility as unlawful enemy combatants," the report said.
In Bagram, a U.S. military spokesman, Marine 1st Lt. Richard K. Ulsh, told the AP on Sunday: "At any time there are up to 625 detainees being held at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility. There are no detainees being held under the age of 16 and, without getting into specifics due to the frequent fluctuation in the number of detainees being held, we can tell you that there are currently less than 10 detainees being held under the age of 18."
Civil liberties groups were outraged.
"It's shocking to me that the U.S. government has not figured out a way to keep children out of adult prisons. It's outrageous, and it is not making us any safer, I can say that about Afghanistan from personal experience," said Tina M. Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network, on Sunday.
Her group brought lawsuits on behalf of the Guantanamo detainees in 2006, and has taken on the cases of adult detainees in Bagram. She said the U.S. military does not release the names of juveniles it is holding in Bagram, so her group is trying to learn who they are by finding Afghan relatives.
"It is shocking to know that the U.S. is holding hundreds of juveniles in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even more disturbing that there is no comprehensive policy in place that will protect their rights as children," said Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Human Rights Program, in a statement. "Juveniles and former child soldiers should be treated first and foremost as candidates for rehabilitation and reintegration into society, not subjected to further victimization."
According to the ACLU, the lack of protections and consideration for the juvenile status of detainees violates the obligations of the United States under the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, which it ratified in 2002, as well as universally accepted international norms.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is scheduled to question the U.S. delegation on its compliance with its obligations on May 22 in Geneva.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the General Assembly in 1989, with backing at the time from the U.S. government of President Bill Clinton, and with strong lobbying from then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who now for the Democratic Party presidential nomination with Barack Obama.
Associated Press writer Fisnik Abrashi contributed to this report from Kabul, Afghanistan.
© 2008 Associated Press
29 Comments so far
Show AllOh, we are so petty and have our priorities all wrong!Look at the bigger picture:
This insurgency is a creation of the Bush administration, which fired all of Iraq's military personnel, putting hundreds of thousands of trained fighters out of work. Of course they took up arms against us! That's what we wanted!
Sure, that wasn't so good for the 4,000-plus Americans who've died there or the families who grieve for them, but it's been very good for Halliburton, for the oil company crooks we elected to high offices, and for the soldiers of fortune they're in bed with.
Who was it who said every people eventually gets the government it deserves? Given how we run our political process and how we set our priorities, this was predictable. Tragically, it's likely to get worse. In 1945 in Berlin, there were bodies of 11- and 12-year-olds hanging from telephone pholes with signs reading "I refused to fight for my fatherland." Unthinkable here? My friend, much of what's happening now I would have considered unthinkable twenty years ago!
The various states in the US keep a lot more behind bars than that.
Steven Pearce, (wants Dominici's spot-NM) began his letter with this line:
Thank you for contacting me to express your support of
legislation that would extend habeas corpus to foreign terrorists. It is good to hear from you, and I appreciate having the benefit of your views.
That the standard line on all his replies; only the subject changes.
But! Habeas Corpus means fairly determining who is a terrorist. Steve just confirmed he believes all prisoners are terrorists.
The other problem is that too many New Mexicans will chime in with him!
The US Government is the worst of child predators.
wake up folks this was reported years ago and CD digs it up like a news flash. I have one question you illeagly invade a country and when the people WHO LIVE IN THAT COUNTRY DEFEND their country they are the enemy? In the second WW they were called resistance fighters and when Nazi Germany caught them they were called the enemy. Doesn't sound much different.
The U.S. military is holding about 500 juveniles suspected of being "unlawful enemy combatants" in detention centers in Iraq and has about 10 detained in Afghanistan, the United States has told the United Nations.
If this is what this Administration has admitted to, then it is likely we will find out, in 50 years, they have killed a few thousand kids.
See http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/19/9050/
The juveniles that the United States has detained have been captured engaging in anti-coalition activity, such as planting Improvised Explosive Devices, operating as lookouts for insurgents...
Operating as lookouts for insurgents !!!
That's about the flimsiest charge I've ever heard. You could pretty much detain ANY Iraqi kid that is not blind.
"Hey Clem, that little sand nigger is looking heyah. Probably an anti-American insurgent lookout. He hates freedom. Less go dee-tain his ass."
"Hell Jethro, less jus keel him."
Oh, you can bet we are insuring a new generation of people that hate the US.
These kids are getting a good start, they are destined to be tomorrow's terrorists.
Guaranteed.
I hate Bush!
Are we still the good guys? I get so confused.
I'm not sure I ever considered myself one of the good guys.
Is there any stoping this "man" who commits crimes against HUMANITY?!? (and here's me thinking Nixon was a monster!) PEOPLE OF THE USA, GET RID OF THIS CRIMINAL!! AND that includes "Dead-eye Dick!
If they shot all the males, the females would take up arms.
I got a sort of humorous collection of airline stories. One was about a SA woman who objected most strenuously about having to sit next to a black man. She demanded to be moved. The stewardess went up and talked to the Captain then came back and said that, though it was against airline policy to move passengers, there was one seat in first class available and he agreed that one should not have to sit next to such a disagreeable person. She took the black man to first class, and all the passengers applauded.
To answer David Grayling's question, perhaps the Palestinians should be moved to a peaceful place far away from Israel. A beautiful country with food, water, grazing, and maybe even oil or other natural resources. Let the Israelis spend the rest of their lives repairing a land full of shell holes, rotting corpses, destroyed villages and poisoned soil.
I know, I know, the people are tied to their land and wouldn't want to move, etc., but the idea pleases me. Let the Israelis fly tourist and the Palestinians fly first class for a change. I'd call it poetic justice.
Look, if the U.S. shot all Iraqi males between the ages of sixteen and fifty, they'd end the insurrection against occupation straight away! Why hasn't George thought of it?
What's happening at the Pentagon? Aren't they up for it anymore? Since when did they worry about casualties?
P.S. Should Israel be relocated? The pros and cons.
No Child Left Behind - Iraq Style
1/20/09 seems so far away!
You're at a party.
The person next to you starts talking about
"more civility."
It's a code word for shuddup.
What should you say?
What did I say? Nothing. I got out of there.
Next time, though, I'm going to ask the person if he thinks detaining kids like this is civility.
And if the Iraq war is civility.
And what about torture?
And shooting people and animals for fun?
And never ever killing the right person?
And killing, period?
Because until the Iraq war is over that man and his like should not receive civility from anyone.
I'm afraid Iraq is just the practice grounds for what may happen here in the near future. Don't ever forget: You're either with us or against us.
Too bad bush and cheney don't understand that 75% of the country and 99% of the rest of the world are against them.
I have nothing to add today.
Isn't that something like "This page is being left intentionally blank"?
pull the battery out of the cell phone if you want to be sure.
Yep, that's the US military's idea of 'freedom'. If you don't agree with them, you get tossed into a prison.
At least so far we haven't used the 'South Korean' solution (see other articles out today) where we just pull everyone who's in prison out and shoot them.
Nietzsche,
in many cases your cell phone never actually turns off...
"Damn those pesky little youths. Pretty soon they be throwing rocks at the tanks and causing too much international attention when we shoot one of them. Let's round them up and put them in a camp to keep things from getting too much like Israel..."
This was a quote from a U.S. military base insider who's name was withheld to protect his/her identity...
USA has largest number of prisoners, in numbers and per-capita, of any nation in the world. We are just exporting "our values" to Iraq.
I usually don't go in for jingoistic propaganda movies, but there was a film, Red Dawn made in 1984 during the cold war in which a bunch of kids became a very effective guerrilla force, after an invasion by Russia and Cuba.
I would hope our kids would do their best to throw out an invader and get rid of American Quislings, should the shoe ever be on the other foot and we become occupied.
We are holding young Iraqi Patriots who want the invaders gone or dead. I wish our kids were home, not out there killing and being targets.
Under the Pax Americana, apparently it is illegal for anyone to defend themselves from our aggression, or protest our wholesale killing of civilians and destruction of cities and infrastructure. It is equally illegal for any of their friends or neighbors to help them in any way.
I suppose it would be illegal for our patriots to get help from Canada or Mexico in that case.
Is there no empathy left?
How do all of our Presidential candidates feel about this issue?
This is Child Abuse, pure and simple, by the Bush administration, Congress, the Military and all the Evilgelicals suporting this thousand year war on Islam. Baby butchers all.
The U.S. military is holding about 500 juveniles suspected of being "unlawful enemy combatants"...
Can someone please tell me how a 15-year-old doing whatever he can to oppose the illegal invasion and occupation of his own country can possibly be classified as an "unlawful enemy combatant". Is there any form of opposition to USA Incorporated's monstrous killing machine that is not "unlawful"? I think I'm ready to join up if they'll accept seniors to fight alongside those brave kids.
stop the screwing around! demand that the u.s. stop the occupation of the ME now! once this is done the rest of the problems will take care of themselves.
"A total of eight juveniles have been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, but all were released from 2004 to 2006."
Omar Khadr, who was captured at age 15 in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002 and transferred to Guantanano shortly after his 16th birthday a few months later, is still incarcerated there. The US has offered a number of justifications for treating Khadr, at 16, as an adult, but none squares with established international laws and protocols, inlcuding those ratified by the US; therefore the statement that all juveniles were released from Guantanamo is false.
Until we rebuild infrastructure, kids will have no idea about things like how old they are; we bombed them back into the Stone Age! We can shoot them but they can't shoot back? How will they move our direction if they have no education?
Round everybody up for retina and biometric scans, two strikes and we drop a bomb on your head. What comes around goes around, get ready for the future.
Anti-Coalition sounds a lot like counterrevolutionary. Secret prisons look suspiciously like gulags. If my cell phone is on Big Brother knows where I am. Am I free? Tell me again who won the cold war. Are we still the good guys? I get so confused.