Transgender woman's family asks Aziz to retract remarks

Demands probe into the ‘murder’ of Amin, who, they say, was brutally tortured in custody

PESHAWAR: Relatives of a transgender woman who died in the custody of police in Saudi Arabia late last month have appealed to senior government aide  Sartaz Aziz to retract his remarks alleging that the deceased was involved in immoral activities and was living there illegally.

Amin, who hailed from the Bari Kot area of Swat, was one of the many people taken into custody by Saudi Arabia’s religious police during a raid on a private house party in Riyadh on Feb 26.



Media reports earlier described Amin as a transgender person who died after being subjected to torture. Saudi authorities, however, vehemently denied the reports and insisted that they had neither carried out a raid nor tortured Amin and other prisoners.

The death certificate — attached with Amin’s coffin that arrived in Pakistan on March 11 — said the cause of Amin’s death was cardiac arrest.  However, his family had claimed the body bore marks of torture on the chest and face.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Amin’s elder son Sarzamin Khan also asked the government to launch a proper investigation into ‘murder’ of his father, who, he said, was a heart patient and was brutally beaten in custody.

“My father had been living in Saudi Arabia for the last 20 years and he didn’t have any criminal record,” Sarzamin said as he presented Amin’s passport and other documents before the media. “I request the government not to hurt our feelings any more by passing such comments about our late father,” he said.

Sarzamin told media that it was falsely claimed in the Senate that the country’s mission supported the family and paid the cost for moving Amin’s body to Pakistan. He said his family had taken a loan of 16,000 Saudi riyals to bring back Amin’s remains.

On this occasion Nasir, a transgender who is still in Saudi police custody, addressed the media through conference call and said the police were torturing them without presenting them in court. He requested Pakistani authorities to submit a mercy plea to Saudi Arabia for their release.



Talking to the media, human rights activist Qamar Naseem said it was sad to hear such insulting words for a dead person from a senior government functionary. “How could Sartaz Aziz say that Amin was involved in immoral activities? Does he have a proof?” he asked.

Naseem said the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government, which, he said, prides itself  on crafting a transgender-friendly policy has yet not conducted a single meeting on the issue.

“Those Rs200 million which were allocated by the K-P government for transgender community are still not used for their well-being,” he said, while requesting the government to play a role in releasing those who are in custody of Saudi police.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2017.