[Reader-list] PAKISTAN Air Force is running a torture cell

[yasir ~يا سر]

too much freedom for some



On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2010statements/2535/
>
> PAKISTAN: The Air Force is running a torture cell at its Air
> Headquarters where six members of a Christian family were tortured, a
> girl lost her legs
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> AHRC-STM-074-2010
> May 10, 2010
>
> A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission
>
> PAKISTAN: The Air Force is running a torture cell at its Air
> Headquarters where six members of a Christian family were tortured, a
> girl lost her legs
>
> The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received a report of the
> torture of six persons from a Christian family by officials of the
> Pakistan Air Force. The arrest and torture continued for a period of
> 18 days and was due to the suspicion that they had stolen gold
> ornaments from the house of a Wing Commander in the Pakistan Air Force
> (PAF). A 14 year-old girl and her 16 year-old brother were tortured by
> the Wing Commander himself. As a result the girl is now disabled and
> neither she nor her brother is able to walk properly. A Session Court
> has helped obtain the victims’ release but has not initiated any
> judicial process against the officials of the PAF even after finding
> evidence that the family was tortured and being detained illegally in
> the PAF torture cell.
>
> According to the information received from several sources, including
> Miss Jamila Aslam, the lawyer of the victims, the Ephlal Ministry (a
> Christian NGO), and the family members of the victims, the 14 year-old
> Miss Sumera Masih was serving as a maid in the house of Mr. Faheem
> Cheema, a Wing Commander in the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in Islamabad.
> Her job duties ranged from babysitting to cleaning, and she worked
> from 8 a.m. in the morning until 9 p.m. at night. Around 8:30 p.m. on
> the night of March 30, 2010, she was asked by the wife of the Wing
> Commander to take early leave as their family would go out for dinner;
> however, after 9.00 p.m. Sumera was asked to go to her employer’s
> house because some gold ornaments and other valuable items were
> missing. She was beaten and threatened by the wife of the Wing
> Commander that if she did not return the stolen items, she and her
> family would be handed over to the police. After 10.00 pm she was
> allowed to return to the servant quarters inside the PAF colony. In
> the meantime the Wing Commander reported the theft of the gold
> ornaments and the other valuable items to the Margala police station
> in Islamabad by telephone without naming any suspects.
>
> Later then, the Wing Commander allegedly directed the PAF police to
> detain Sumera and her family without informing the local police
> station. At 1.00 a.m. a van from the PAF police came; three persons
> exited and went into the servant quarters. They took Sumera and her
> father, Mr. Pervez Masih, to the PAF police station at the PAF Air
> Headquarters, sector E-9, Islamabad Chaklala, Shaheen Chowk. Two hours
> after the arrest at 3.00a.m., the PAF police returned to the house and
> took Perveen Bibi and Miss Sana, Sumera's mother and 20 year-old
> sister, into custody and drove away. 40 minutes after this, the same
> PAF police officials came and took her 16 year-old brother, Mr. Imran
> Masih, with them. On April 7 her paternal uncle Kala Masih was also
> arrested by the PAF police while he was searching for the family.
>
> The mother and her elder sisters were released after two days of being
> severely tortured in illegal detention with the warning, by Wing
> Commander himself, that if they informed anybody of these arrests they
> would not be released and would be punished heavily. According to her
> lawyer, the wing commander regularly visited the victims’ house to
> beat and torture the mother and sister to make them confess that they
> had stolen the ornaments.
>
> In the meantime, Parveen Bibi filed an application before the
> Islamabad Superintendent of Police (SP) with the help of her brother
> who was living in another city. The SP had tried to investigate the
> case and directed the Federal Investigation Unit (FIU) to probe the
> matter of the theft of the gold ornaments. The girl and her family
> members were interrogated by the FIU, but according to the lawyer,
> they were not tortured by the FIU.
>
> The SP also sent the case for legal process to a judicial magistrate
> in Islamabad, but he refused to take the case as PAF and armed forces
> were involved.
>
> The lawyers, Miss Jamila Aslam and Miss Shamona Javed, have filed a
> case based upon the illegal suspension of the writ of habeas corpus on
> April 13 before the District and Session court judge, Mr. Mazhar
> Hussain Barlas. He immediately fixed the date for regular hearing and
> called the public prosecutor the next day for comments. The day after
> this, the court ordered all the arrested persons be produced before
> the court. Sumera’s father, Pervez Masih, and his cousin, Kala Masih,
> were produced before the court, but Sumera and her brother Imran Masih
> were not produced. The judge ordered that her father and uncle be
> released immediately but also asked the PAF police to produce Sumera
> and her younger brother on April 17.
>
> On April 17 though, Sumera was not produced before the court. Station
> House Officer Mumtaz Sheikh told to the court that Sumera’s health
> prohibited her to come to the court. She was admitted to the PAF
> Hospital purportedly suffering from a viral infection. But the lawyer
> informed the court that Sumera had been severely tortured and could
> not walk, and furthermore that the PAF police were purposely avoiding
> producing her before the court. The court then ordered that she must
> be produced within two hours or a FIR would be lodged against the PAF
> police and the wing commander. In the afternoon Sumera was produced
> before the court; she was not able to walk and her father had to carry
> her in his arms. She was not even able to sit. She had been pressured
> and threatened by the PAF officials to say that she had a throat
> infection but the judge then asked why she was unable to walk if that
> was the case.
>
> After assurance from the judge and lawyers, the 14 year-old maid told
> the court that every day she was tortured by the wing commander and
> PAF police officials at a torture cell. Whenever PAF officials were
> conducting torture, they would blindfold her and beat her about the
> back and spinal cord. When Wing Commander Cheema entered the room, he
> saw that she was not blindfolded and threw a glass plate at her head;
> after which she fainted. She said she did not know for how many hours
> she was unconscious but woke up to find herself at the PAF hospital.
> The judge ordered proper medical treatment for her at the PAF’s
> expense, but they have yet to make any such payment or provide
> treatment.
>
> Furthermore, the PAF officials did not produce her younger brother
> Imran to the court, but on the strong reaction from the Session judge,
> PAF police released him the next day on April 18; but released him in
> such a way as to not make it seem as if he was in PAF custody. Imran
> Masih recorded in his testimony before the session court that the PAF
> police had hired him a taxi to bring him to Iqbal town in Islamabad;
> they had also planted a railway return ticket from Faisalabad, about
> 600 kilometers away, to make it seem as if he was coming from
> Faisalabad. When the taxi driver dropped him at Iqbal Town in
> Islamabad, the police were waiting for him; they arrested and produced
> him before the court. When the court asked of his whereabouts during
> past 18 days, he told the court that he was coming by railway. But the
> court was not satisfied by his answer as he was carried in by two
> police officers and could not walk properly. The court assured him to
> tell truth and that he was well protected. He then told the court that
> he was kept in a house at PAF Air Headquarters where officials of the
> PAF police and the Wing Commander Cheema tortured him to confess that
> his family and sister had stolen the gold ornaments from the house of
> the Wing Commander. He said that he was hung from a tree in the heat
> under the sun and was beaten severely at the back and legs. It was
> because of this that he was not able to walk. He said on the morning
> of April 18th that he was put in a taxi by PAF police officials with a
> return railway ticket from Faisalabad and was told that he should tell
> the court that he was in Faisalabad. He was told that if he said that
> he was at PAF Headquarters, his sister and other family members would
> not be released. The court then ordered for his release and asked the
> Margalla police to provide protection to the family because of this
> information.
>
> At this moment the court asked the lawyers and the victim's family
> whether to take legal action against the PAF police and the other
> officials for illegally detaining and torturing the family. The
> victims, after consulting with their lawyers, told the court that they
> are very poor and are Christians so they could not fight with such a
> powerful group as the armed forces. The court set aside the cases of
> habeas corpus as all the members of the family were recovered and did
> not take any action against the perpetrators.
>
> During the court proceedings, Dr. Nusrat Saleem of the PAF hospital
> said in her statement when the judge asked why Sumera was not brought
> on the court orders was because of injuries sustained during torture,
> She continued to say that Sumera is barely able to walk and might not
> be able to walk for the rest of her life.
>
> The victims are now hiding in another city because of continuous
> threats from Wing Commander Faheem Cheema and other officials of the
> Pakistan Air Force for revealing the torture cell at the PAF Air
> Headquarters.
>
> The running of torture cells at PAF Air Headquarters shows that armed
> forces are running their own parallel extrajudicial investigation
> systems. The Asian Human Rights Commission had already documented that
> the Pakistan army is running 52 torture cells all over the country,
> please see the following link:
> http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2008statements/1574/.
>
> This case of torture by the members of the Pakistan armed forces is
> ample proof that courts are still under the influence of the armed
> forces and are unable to implement the law equally.
> The Christian organisations assert that the worst kind of torture is
> reserved for them because of their religion and the fact that they are
> very poor. The Session court judge Mr. Barlas saved the lives of the
> family by taking prompt action to protect them from the PAF torture,
> but he should have taken action against the PAF and the Wing
> Commander, as it is his legal obligation, despite the fact that the
> victims did not want to pursue their own legal remedy.
>
> It is a matter of deep concern, as to the legal procedures adopted by
> the judiciary, that when it was proved beyond any doubt that the Wing
> Commander Faheem Cheema and the PAF police officials conducted torture
> causing the two children to suffer severe injuries the Judge avoided
> taking any legal action against them. It is observed that in cases
> involving the armed forces the judiciary, including the Supreme Court,
> avoids taking legal action against the armed forces. It is because of
> this that the armed forces have rendered themselves above the law. In
> the cases of disappearances the family members of the victims’ have
> provided all the evidence of involvement of state intelligence
> agencies, including the Supreme Court, but the courts have never asked
> the officials of the armed forces to testify before the court.
>
> The Judicial Magistrate of Islamabad has refused to take cases
> involving the armed forces even when the SP of Islamabad has forwarded
> him the application from the mother of Sumera for legal process. The
> rule of law then cannot be guaranteed when the judiciary itself
> refuses to take cases against the armed forces providing them with
> blanket impunity to torture and illegally detain people like Sumera
> and her family.
>
> The torture case of Sumera, her brother, and their parents in the PAF
> Air Headquarters shows the total collapse of rule of the law where
> many military and paramilitary organizations are running their illegal
> detention centers and conducting torture. The judiciary also claims
> that it is independent, but the armed forces are kept out of their
> domain as if the judiciary does not involve itself in the
> supra-constitutional affairs of the armed forces. The same situation
> is seen in the media. They do not cover the atrocities of the armed
> forces because media houses know their power. In the case of Sumera,
> the media, particularly the electronic media, blacked out the court
> proceedings.
>
> The Asian Human Rights Commission urges upon the President and Prime
> Minister to conduct an enquiry against the PAF officials for running
> torture cells in its air headquarters where the people are kept
> illegally and tortured. The government should also prosecute the Wing
> Commander Faheem Cheema and the PAF police officials for the illegal
> detention and the torture of the six members of a Christian family
> through which the whole family was in a state of trauma. In addition
> to this, a girl of 14 years has lost the use of her legs for life and
> a boy of 16 years is no longer able to walk properly.
>
> The government should also follow its own pledge, made before the UN
> Human Rights Council in 2008 before becoming its member, that it will
> make the law according to the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT). It
> is shameful then to think that the government cannot protect religious
> minorities from more powerful groups, particularly from the members of
> the armed forces.
>
> # # #
>
> About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional
> non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights
> issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
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