ACLU v. Department of Defense

Seeking access to records on treatment of prisoners at Bagram Airfield

This lawsuit challenges the Pentagon’s refusal to disclose records concerning the detention and treatment of prisoners held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the records in April 2009. On Sept. 22, 2009, the ACLU and NYCLU filed a FOIA lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to enforce the request. The ACLU is asking the Obama administration to make public records pertaining to the number of people currently detained at Bagram, their names, citizenship, place of capture and length of detention, as well as records pertaining to the process afforded those prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as “enemy combatants.”

The U.S. government’s Bagram detention facility has been the focus of widespread media attention and public concern for many years, but very little information is publically available about it. An unknown number of prisoners have been detained at the Bagram facility since 2002. News reports indicate that more than 600 individuals are currently detained there – some of whom have been held for as long as six years without access to counsel or a meaningful opportunity to challenge their imprisonment. The conditions of confinement at Bagram are reportedly primitive, with allegations of mistreatment and abuse continuing to surface; in fact, at least two prisoners have died there. There is public concern in the U.S. and around the world that Bagram has become, in effect, the new Guantánamo. For more information on this case, including court filings, click here.

S.D.N.Y., Index No. 09 CV 8071 (direct)