A new report released early this week by the United Nation’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights paints a sad and surly picture of our Afghan allies. The report claims to have uncovered evidence of fairly consistent torture and abuse by Afghan authorities against detainees, many of whom were suspected of being Taliban, and some of whom were handed over by coalition forces.

Here’s a blurb straight from the UN about the report:

A new United Nations report released today cites evidence of the “systematic” torture and mistreatment of detainees in Afghan detention facilities, including of children, and provides recommendations which it hopes will spur the necessary reforms.

The report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan  is the result of extensive interviews from October 2010 to August 2011 of 379 pre-trial detainees and convicted prisoners at 47 facilities of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and Afghan National Police (ANP) in 22 provinces.

The mission found “compelling” evidence that 125 detainees, or 46 per cent, of the 273 detainees interviewed who had been in NDS detention experienced interrogation techniques at the hands of NDS officials that constituted torture, and that torture is practiced “systematically” in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan,” states the report.

As always, however, I’d recommend that you go and read the report for yourself. (warning: PDF). It’s clear that many people worked very hard to bring this information to light, and reading it straight from the source is certainly the recommended thing.