A/HRC/13/42* page 88 be documented, and their whereabouts and health conditions made available to family members and to the country of origin of the prisoner within one week. Article 106 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (governing the treatment of civilians) establishes virtually identical procedures for the documentation and disclosure of information concerning civilian detainees. Furthermore, it is obvious that this unacknowledged detention for one week can only be applied to persons who have been captured on the battlefield in a situation of armed conflict. This is an important observation, as the experts noted with concern news reports quoting current Government officials saying that “the importance of Bagram as a holding site for terrorism suspects captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq has risen under the Obama administration, which barred the Central Intelligence Agency from using its secret prisons for long-term detention”.333 163. The situation at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility remains of great concern. In March 2009, United States district Court Judge John D. Bates ruled that the habeas corpus rights granted to the Guantanamo detainees by the Supreme Court in June 2008 extended to non-Afghan detainees who had been seized in other countries and rendered to Bagram because “the detainees themselves as well as the rationale for detention are essentially the same”, and because the review process established at the prison “falls well short of what the Supreme Court found inadequate at Guantánamo”. The four petitioners were among the 94 prisoners that Assistant Attorney General Stephen G. Bradbury admitted were held in CIA custody between 2001 and 2005. Judge Bates found that, in holding detainees at Bagram not as prisoners of war but as “unlawful enemy combatants”, the Bush administration had put in place a review process, the Unlawful Enemy Combatant Review Board, in which “detainees cannot even speak for themselves; they are only permitted to submit a written statement. But in submitting that statement, detainees do not know what evidence the United States relies upon to justify an ‘enemy combatant’ designation - so they lack a meaningful opportunity to rebut that evidence”.334 164. The above-mentioned ruling has been appealed by the current United States administration, even though Judge Bates noted that habeas rights extend neither to Afghan detainees held at Bagram, nor to Afghans seized in other countries and rendered to Bagram. In its appeal against Judge Bates’ ruling, the United States administration notified the court that it was introducing a new review process at Bagram, “modifying the procedures for reviewing the status of aliens held by the Department of Defense at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility”.335 However, the experts are concerned that the new review system fails to address the fact that detainees in an active war zone should be held according to the Geneva Conventions, screened close to the time and place of capture if there is any doubt about their status, and not be subjected to reviews at some point after their capture to determine whether they should continue to be held. The experts are also concerned that the system appears to aim specifically to prevent United States courts from having access to foreign detainees captured in other countries and rendered to Bagram. 333 Eric Schmitt, “US to expand detainee review in Afghan prison”, New York Times, 12 September 2009. Available from www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/world/asia/13detain.html. 334 https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2006cv1697-31. 335 www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/US-Bagram-brief-9-14-09.pdf.