The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) accused the government of avoiding legislation to criminalise torture, especially by the law enforcement agencies and the armed forces, and asked the government to respect its obligation under the UN convention against torture (CAT).
The report also accused the judiciary, especially at the lowest level, of showing an alarming level of insensitivity towards torture.
A statement by the AHRC on the occasion of the international day in support of victims of torture says that “the absence of proper complaint centres and no particular law to criminalise torture makes the menace of torture endemic.”
Legal torture
Physical remand in police custody is a legal form of torture adopted by the government and the judiciary, the report says.
According to law, the judicial magistrate can grant up to 15 days in police custody, generally known as police remand, for further investigation of the case. The practice is commonly employed by magistrates, despite being aware that the police invariably resort to torture to extract confessions.
Detention centres
The report points out that despite prohibition of torture in the Constitution, the armed forces are running detention and torture cells across the country.
“A report by the AHRC has identified 52 such detention centres run by the military where people who were arrested and disappeared are kept incommunicado and tortured for several months to extract confessions,” the report says.
Refusal to legislate
The report says that the government has shown its reluctance to make torture a criminal offence in its laws.
“Pakistan ratified the CAT in June 2010, but expressed its reservations on almost all important articles of the convention,” the report says.
“Inexplicably, these reservations are coming from a government whose president himself has been tortured in custody because of the absence of anti-torture law,” the report adds.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 25th, 2011.
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