OTTAWA - Federal officials kept details of a new agreement on the transfer of Afghan detainees secret in early 2007, fearing awkward questions from the media on why the deal had taken so long to sign.

Details of that gag order are spelled out in some of the more than 6,000 pages of documents released by the Conservative government Thursday on the eve of the Easter weekend.

Many of the documents are completely blacked out or heavily censored -- some redacted first, and then blacked out afterward.

A series of emails dating from November 2006 to March 2007 between diplomats and military officials outline the discussions that were going on about publicizing the newly signed agreement with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Some of the emails were obtained last November by Amnesty International and made public, but Thursday's release includes the full conversation between bureaucrats.

Negotiations with the human rights commission had been going on since October 2006, and the organization had hoped for "maximum visibility" on the agreement to convince other countries they should follow Canada's lead. The agreement would ensure that Canada informed the commission of every detainee that was handed over to Afghan police, and try to address some of the concerns of abuse.

"I'm of two minds -- the Detainee Transfer Arrangement was signed in Dec 05 -- a high profile event now invites the question, why did it take us so long? We'd certainly need to have appropriate lines in place," wrote Elizabeth Baldwin-Jones of the Foreign Affairs Department.

Later, a policy analyst from National Defence's headquarters noted that from a "political point of view (at least in Ottawa), the reasons to go reactive seem to be trumping the reasons to have a media event."

Another Foreign Affairs official noted that the Privy Council Office -- the prime minister's department -- had already developed talking points for the media "as it is a touchy issue," even though the signing of the document hadn't been made officially public.

Ultimately, the "final call had been to go with no media coverage, Afghan or Canadian," senior diplomat Gavin Buchan explained before the signing.

Those plans were thrown into disarray almost immediately after the agreement was sealed with the human rights commission, when The Canadian Press revealed the details on Feb. 28, 2007. More than 100 diplomats, military officials and political staff were copied on the news report.

Thursday's release of documents was the second time in 10 days that the government unexpectedly tabled censored files related to the military mission in Afghanistan.

"We're obviously going to be spending the next several days looking at them trying to figure out what's in them, what's not in them, but the issues are still there," said Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae.

"The Speaker is eventually going to have to rule on this question of the right way to proceed. Does Parliament have the right to review the documents? Is there a way to for Parliament to find a process to review the documents? And that's what we're still trying to assess."

House Speaker Peter Milliken is considering arguments by the opposition parties that the government has breached parliamentary privilege by ignoring a Dec. 10 order, passed by the Commons, to produce uncensored documents.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson responded to them Wednesday, saying Parliament has no authority to demand unfettered access to documents related to the alleged torture of prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian soldiers.

Nicholson said the government has a duty to protect information that could jeopardize national security, national defence, international relations and even potentially the lives of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

And he said Parliament is not immune to the laws of confidentiality on such matters, citing a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that concluded "legislative bodies ... do not constitute enclaves shielded from the ordinary law of the land."

He also cited numerous examples in Canada, Britain and Australia in which the government's duty to protect sensitive information outweighed Parliament's right to know.

Milliken told the Commons he won't rule immediately on the matter. His decision might be even further delayed after Opposition responses to Nicholson's statements were postponed to after the Easter break.