1,100 police torture cases in 2004: NGO (Pakistan)

[struggle4progress]

ISLAMABAD: 1,100 cases of police torture were reported in Pakistan during the last year, Madadgaar, a non-government organisation (NGO), stated on Thursday.

In police stations across Pakistan, as in other countries in South Asia, the use of torture is routine procedure to extract confessions. Though prisoners have been disfigured or killed in custody, no police official has ever been convicted. During last year, 1,100 cases of police torture were reported in the national and vernacular press across Pakistan.

The police tortured 828 men, 180 women, 65 boys and 27 girls during the last year, according to a release issued by Madadgaar. The vast majority have been reported from Punjab and Sindh, with 644 and 405 cases respectively. Eight cases of police torture were reported from Balochistan and 43 cases from NWFP. Madadgaar is a joint venture of Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) and UNICEF. It is Pakistan’s first help line and referral service for women and children. Madadgaar documents all cases that are published in newspapers or are otherwise acknowledged, to collect information regarding human rights violations in the country, especially against women and children. <snip>

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_11-2-2005_pg7_43

[wellst0nev0ter]

1. B-But Pakistan Is A Model Of FREEDOM

the chimp sed so!

[paineinthearse]

2. But wait, isn't Pakistan a shining example of democracy triumphant???

http://www.dawn.com/2005/01/24/top1.htm

'New Bush policy not to affect ties with Pakistan'


By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Jan 23: Three days after President George Bush warned non-democratic regimes that they cannot continue to hold sway for long, his aides rushed to assure America's allies that his new agenda will not affect US relations with countries like Pakistan. In his inaugural speech delivered on Thursday, President Bush vowed to set the United States on a new course in foreign policy, linking relations with America to practising freedom and democracy. "We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right", he declared. "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," he added.

Soon after Mr Bush finished his speech, observers warned that the policies he outlined for his second term could cause more upheavals in the already volatile regions of the Middle East and the rest of the Islamic world, if implemented. This was so far the strongest declaration of America's intention to remove governments it sees as tyrannical and oppressive, said David Gergen, a former adviser to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. "No other American president has ever committed himself in an inaugural as fully as this to that kind of aggressive foreign policy". Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, who served in Mr Bush's first term, said that the president's speech was not aimed at "a foreign leader or foreign government," he was telling all autocratic leaders "you must learn to serve your people".

On Saturday, US newspapers reported that Mr Bush's inaugural speech was listened with "alarm and concern" in the Middle East and the Islamic world where many nations allied with America have non-elected and autocratic rulers. Diplomatic circles in Washington told Dawn that Middle Eastern and Muslim missions in the US capital also spent an uneasy weekend, trying to figure out how serious the Bush administration was in taking "the fire of freedom to the darkest corners of our world," as President Bush vowed to do in his inaugural speech. By Sunday evening, the Bush administration had fully realized the intended and unintended consequences of the speech and was busy assuring America's allies that this change would not affect them.

At a series of background briefings for American and foreign journalists, senior Bush officials made it clear that the speech will not lead to "any shift in Washington's strategy for dealing with countries like Pakistan, Egypt, China and Russia". A senior Bush administration official said that although the records of these countries on human rights and democracy fell well short of the values Mr Bush expressed in his speech, Washington would not forget that they were "key US allies in the fight against terrorism".

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