Free Republic

The National Post's Stewart Bell reported from Afghanistan during the U.S. bombing of al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. Yesterday he was the only Canadian among a group of foreign reporters granted access to the U.S. detention site at Guantanamo Bay. His report: The Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners held at the U.S. military base here on Cuba's southern coast are being guarded partly by female Military Police officers, a shocking role reversal for Afghan fighters unaccustomed to taking orders from women. During the Taliban's five years in power, women were banned from showing their faces, working or going to school. They were ...

A male prisoner can be strip-searched by a female guard even if male officers are available, a federal appeals court has ruled. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed an Arizona inmate's claims that jail officials had violated his rights by having a female guard trainee search inside his shorts and pat down his genitals. The inmate, Charles Byrd, was in Maricopa County's minimum-security Durango Jail awaiting trial in October 2004 when officials ordered searches of everyone in his unit after a series of fights. Byrd was ordered to strip down to...