Illegal detention centres

With army deployed to the border, state will never be able create a security apparatus for the internal threat.

The apex Court, on March 26, heard a petition filed by Jamat-e-Islami Senator Professor Ibrahim Khan. The petitioner accused the army of violating human rights in the provincially administered tribal areas (PATA). Being under the spotlight is never good — especially for the intelligence agencies. When subjected to questioning by the apex court, the intelligence agencies will always fall short of presenting sound arguments with conviction. The reason for this is simple: most functions that the intelligence agencies perform are illegal, illegitimate and unauthorised. One such practice is unlawful detention, which helps intelligence agencies gather actionable intelligence and information. From eradicating minor irritants to capturing high value targets like Osama bin Laden, this technique is being employed in detecting and neutralising enemies in the war on terror. Yet, it is illegal and against war ethics.

It is the responsibility of any state to keep all its prisoners alive and in good health. This responsibility can only be fulfilled if the prisoners are accounted for in state-controlled prisons and not kept in secret prisons and detention centres. The superior courts in the country only represent the state and in doing their job, ensure that only the laws of the state prevail and not the violation and defiance of these laws on the orders of some henchmen. And here lies the catch. Either we can be a state where the law of the land rules or we can be one in which another parallel state can be run by those who consider themselves unaccountable.

Ideally, the ISI should have informed the Supreme Court about its real and genuine concerns. Firstly, it cannot afford to pass on the dangerous detainees in its secret detention centres to the slow moving court system in the country as it does not provide swift justice. Secondly, whenever such criminals were handed over to them in the past, the courts were unable to prevent a large number of these hardcore criminals walking away free.

Instead, what the ISI revealed to the Supreme Court, interestingly, was that “through a comprehensive deradicalisation programme, attempts were being made to revive the loyalties of the detainees towards Pakistan”. If this was the noble idea, then was there a requirement for the ISI to have secret detention centres all across the country? Detainees in such centres have been held and retained for years now. No reformed detainee or beneficiary of this programme has ever contacted his family members or informed the general public about his changed loyalties. There are over 350 petitions for missing persons pending before the Peshawar High Court alone.

The “survivors of the war on terror” in detention centres deserve no sympathy. Yet, their continued survival in good health is what the state needs to ensure. This will not be possible if the centres being maintained remain secret. The worsening situation in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan already bears witness to the cost that the nation is paying for the extrajudicial actions being undertaken by our security agencies. Had the intelligence agencies’ “detention technique” worked, we would not have had over 49,000 people killed at the hands of terrorists, since 9/11. Due to the presence of secret detention centres, people in Pakistan will continue to figure in the “missing persons list” as against the “detained, being interrogated or being reformed list” that the intelligence agencies must maintain.

One of the great challenges for the incoming government would be to discontinue the practice of unlawful detention and close all secret intelligence detention centres. It will only be able to ensure this if it invests in improving the capacity and the security conditions of the country’s existing prisons and reforms the judicial system to provide speedy justice.

Lastly, the army should finally abandon its obsession with conventional wars. Most of its military budget is consumed in planning, training and equipping itself to fight such wars. It’s the non-conventional war that we fight today. Will the next government be able to redefine our threat perception? Will the army allow the Pakistan-India peace process to move forward? With a huge standing army deployed and poised to confront challenges from our neighbouring foe, the state will never be able to spare required funds and create a security apparatus for meaningfully confronting the internal threat. These threats will then only mushroom and grow and so will many prisons and illegal detention centres.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2013.