Five months of Pakistani journalist in Jalalabad prison - XXII
Faizullah Khan was detained by Afghan authorities in eastern Nangarhar province in April 2014.
Part - 22: (Intriguing account of a Pakistani journalist captured in Afghanistan for interview of Taliban leadership)
Read Part - 21 here: Five months of Pakistani journalist in Jalalabad prison – XXI
The prisoners found a solution to the intense heat by installing a water cooler in every cell in which five buckets of water were poured down. This process was to be done after every two or three hours. In this case, the cooler used to give cool air which also made it possible for us to live in the cell during power outages. But it was a part of imprisonment to tolerate all these things. All the individuals living in the prison had to give Rs2000 very week whereas those who cannot pay the amount had to work for the authorities.
Many poor Pakistani labourers from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who were jailed on passport issue, worked as a cook in the jail. Waseem Imran who belonged to Kark also worked as a cook. He was kept in our cell for making food. Prison food was not edible and extremely foul-smelling. This was the reason that we used to cook the food ourselves after buying vegetables and other items from block incharge’s canteen. However; there was no concept of meat or chicken. The jail authorities didn’t provide the inmates with breakfast. Half bread in the morning, half in the afternoon and one loaf of bread at night was given to the detainees.
Attitude of prisoners towards most of the Qazi’s was often extremely harsh and they term them corrupt whereas there were very few judges who were praised because despite being part of the justice system they were corruption free.
Due to such scarcity of food, the prisoners usually hid their bread so that others could not eat them. Fruit was available twice in the week which was eaten avidly by the prisoners. The block incharge used to take advantage of this whole situation. His monthly income was in millions in which everyone had a share. Corruption has been permeated in all the institutions of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, two Iranians were transferred into our cell who was detained on the charges of fraud. They later told me that they had done successful fraud activities in various countries but were caught in Jalalabad. One of the Iranian was extremely grumpy while the other was rather polite. All the inmates used to have a nice chat with him.
The prisoners whose case verdict was still to come were kept here in the beginning. Afghanistan’s judicial system was similar to Pakistan comprising of Session court, High court and Supreme Court. Judges there were called Qazi’s and it was compulsory for every one of them to have a degree related to judicial issues and a thorough study of the Quran and Hadith. Attitude of prisoners towards most of the Qazi’s was often extremely harsh and they term them corrupt whereas there were very few judges who were praised because despite being part of the justice system they were corruption free.
I was in the same old clothes after transfer from intelligence centre to Guantanamo Bay jail until an elderly inmate gave me his new clothes. The beds in my cell were already occupied as a result of which I had to sleep on the floor. Not only spending time in daytime was a torment for me but the night also went off in anguish and pain. But one good thing was that unlike the intelligence centre, the facility of fan and cooler was present here.
Read the Urdu version here: Five months in Jalalabad prison
