Daily Archives: May 26, 2006

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nepal brings out shocking stories of torturer, killings and human rights abuses from Bhairabnath Batallion, [Royal] Nepal Army’s counterpart to Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghrahib.
(This is the second part. Here is the first part.

[UWB Warning: Hold your breath before actually starting to read this horrific detail of torture and abuse.]

“They would shove my head underwater maybe twenty or twenty-five times, asking me questions. Sometimes I would become unconscious. Sometimes they would punch me in the stomach when I was underwater or give me electric shocks when they pulled my up. I would feel the shock in my whole body and lose consciousness. One time I asked to urinate. They did not take me to the toilet. They took me to another spot and told me to piss. Below, I could see an electric heater coil.”

-A detainee tortured inside the army barrack

The following report focuses on conditions of detention and allegations of torture during the period from September to December 2003.

Torture and ill-treatment

Torture and ill-treatment of detainees during interrogation at Maharajgunj barracks was routine and systematic, with a special team carrying out the tasks of torture and interrogation. Witness testimony describes a pattern of severe torture during the early days and weeks of an individual’s detention, which extended as long as the RNA believed that the victim could provide useful information. Such torture was also applied later in 2004 in order to induce some detainees to renounce their allegiance to the CPN-M. In addition to this systematic and deliberate torture, former detainees describe how they were subjected to “informal” or “unofficial” torture consisting of regular beatings given either arbitrarily on a whim, sometimes under the influence of alcohol or hashish, or as punishment for disobedience. Continue reading →

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nepal brings out shocking stories of torturer, killings and human rights abuses from Bhairabnath Batallion, [Royal] Nepal Army’s counterpart to Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghrahib.
(This is the first part. The report continues in next blog)

[UWB Warning: Hold your breath before actually starting to read this horrific detail of torture and abuse.]

Introduction This is a report of OHCHR’s investigations into the arrest, detention, torture and continuing disappearance of individuals arrested by the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA, now the Nepalese Army) and held in Maharajgunj barracks in Kathmandu in 2003 on suspicion of being linked to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M). Most of the hundreds of individuals who were arrested by the RNA in 2003 and detained for varying periods in Maharajgunj barracks were subjected to severe and prolonged ill-treatment and torture, with a principal role played by the Bhairabnath battalion.

Witnesses describe several occasions between approximately February and April 2004 in which they were marched from the Hall and the Garage to what is described as a ‘bunker’, a fifteen or twenty-minute walk from the main detention area. …..Orders to remain absolutely silent were strictly enforced with severe beatings. Handcuffs and blindfolds were tightened. Food was scarce. The Bunker area was described as a low depression in the ground.

To date, OHCHR has confirmed the identity of 49 individuals who were in the custody of Bhairabnath battalion between September and December 2003 but who remain disappeared. OHCHR’s continuing investigation suggests that the actual number in this category is significantly higher. The Government of Nepal has denied any knowledge of their fate or whereabouts. Their names are among those currently listed as unresolved disappearance cases maintained by various agencies, including the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID).

The Bhairabnath battalion acknowledges responsibility for the arrest and detention of 137 people during the period concerned and claims that these individuals were released or transferred after short periods of detention. However, absent from this list are at least forty-nine individuals known to OHCHR to have been held in the custody of the Bhairabnath or Yuddha Bhairab battalions. Continue reading →