Where torture is common
TORTURE is commonplace in Pakistan, so much so that those who have never experienced the horror airily dismiss it, like corruption, as just another aspect of life as we know it.
Talk instead to those who have been thrashed to within an inch of their lives or been sexually abused in front of their children. On the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention Against Torture, Amnesty International has called on all states to put an end to such barbaric practices.
Pakistan should take note, for ours is a country where torture is institutionalised. Lacking professional skill as well as resources, police ‘investigations’ here are dependent heavily on confessions extracted under duress.
The jails are full of people who confessed to all manner of crime after a few hours under the custody of the police. In a country where capital punishment is still in practice, there is no knowing how many people have been imprisoned or hanged for crimes they did not commit.
The police are not alone in this resort to terror. The country’s intelligence agencies routinely pick up ‘miscreants’ on whimsical grounds, keep them incommunicado for months and even years on end, and subject them to brutality that defies description.
It is said that many among the hundreds of Pakistan’s ‘disappeared’ are now untraceable simply because they could not survive the beatings handed out by security personnel. Those who somehow managed to survive have been reduced to zombies, unfit to resume their role in society.
Torture is also the calling card of terrorist organisations all over the country and Karachi, in particular, is no stranger to these tactics. The abjectly poor, meanwhile, are sometimes tortured only to thrill the tormentors, usually landlords and tribal influentials. We are yet to emerge from the dark ages.
Source: Dawn
Date:6/27/2007
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