Parwan Detention Facility

The Parwan Detention Facility (also called Detention Facility in Parwan or Bagram prison) is Afghanistan's main military prison. Situated next to the Bagram Air Base in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan, the prison was built by the U.S. during the George W. Bush administration. The Parwan Detention Facility, which housed foreign and local combatants, was maintained by the Afghan National Army.

Once known as the Bagram Collection Point, initially it was intended to be a temporary facility. Nevertheless, it was used longer and handled more detainees than the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.^[1] As of June 2011, the Parwan detention facility held 1,700 prisoners; there had been 600 prisoners under the Bush administration. None of the prisoners received prisoner of war status.^[2][3]

Treatment of inmates at the facility came under scrutiny after two Afghan detainees died in the 2002 Bagram torture and prisoner abuse case. Their deaths were classified as homicides, and prisoner abuse charges were made against seven American soldiers. Concerns about lengthy detentions there prompted comparisons to U.S. detention centers in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Part of the internment facility was known as the black jail.^[2][4]