A/HRC/13/42*
page 89
While the experts welcome the fact that the names of 645 detainees at Bagram are now known,
they urge the Government of the United States to provide information on the citizenship, length
of detention and place of capture of all detainees currently held at Bagram Air Base.
V. THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF SECRET DETENTION
PRACTICES IN RELATION TO CONTEMPORARY
REGIONAL OR DOMESTIC COUNTER-TERRORIST
EFFORTS
165. On a global scale, secret detention in connection with counter-terrorist policies remains a
serious problem, whether it is through the use of secret detention facilities similar to those
described in the previous section; declarations of a state of emergency, which allow prolonged
secret detention; or forms of “administrative detention”, which also allow prolonged secret
detention.
166. The principal objective of this section is to illustrate the extent to which the use of secret
detention in the context of the fight against terrorism has been a global practice. The cases and
situations referred to are therefore not exhaustive but serve the purpose of substantiating the
existence of secret detention in all regions of the world within the confines of the definition
presented earlier. Nonetheless, the experts have also been made aware of practices of secret
detention that are beyond the scope of the present report.
A. Asia
167. With regard to Asia, the experts gathered information about secret detention in China,
India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, where
anti-terrorist rhetoric is invoked to justify detention.
1. China
168. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and other special procedures mandate holders
addressed several urgent communications to the Government of China, in particular with regard
to cases of alleged secret detention of Tibetans accused of separatism and other State security
offences, and of secret detention in the aftermath of unrest in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region
in July 2009.
169. Jamyang Gyatso,336 a monk in Xiahe, in North Western Gansu province, was arrested by
security officials on 8 January 2007 and detained at an undisclosed location.337 The Government
informed the special procedures mandate holders that the State security authorities had
336
He had reportedly encouraged local Tibetans to listen to foreign radio broadcasts and had
worked on making copies of a book written by, Hortsang Jigme, a Tibetan poet living abroad.
337
Urgent appeal of 31 January 2007 by the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to
freedom of opinion and expression, and Government reply of 23 March 2007
(A/HRC/7/3/Add.1,) para. 37.
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