ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a meeting held to mark the International Day against Torture on Saturday called for enacting legislation to criminalise it.

The meeting was organised by Centre for Democratic Development of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).

Addressing the participants, PPP Secretary General and HRCP council member Farhatullah Babar said the prohibition of torture was absolute under all circumstances.

“Neither a state of war, nor political instability nor an order of superior authority is any defence against torture.

“Victims of torture have the right to compensation and rehabilitation,” he remarked.

He said all incidents of torture must be investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice.

Pakistan’s legal architecture, he noted, permitted ‘black holes’ from where it was impossible to get information about torture.

Mr Babar said it transpired before court proceedings that ‘internment cetnres’ were used to detain suspects.

He said initially these centres were set up only in the ex-tribal districts. After merger, it was challenged in Peshawar High Court (PHC) on ground of discrimination against the merged districts. In response, the government through an ordinance extended these centres to the whole province and claimed that it was no longer discriminatory against only a few districts.

He said in October 2019, the PHC ordered that these centres be closed and handed over to the provincial police and run under the jail manual. However, it was challenged in Supreme Court which stayed the PHC order. Last hearing was held in December 2019, he added.

He said Pakistan signed the Convention Against Torture (CAT) in 2008 and ratified it in 2010. Thereafter, in 2015, the Senate unanimously passed anti-torture and anti-custodial deaths bill but it couldn’t become a law.

In July last year, another private bill was passed by the Senate but it too seems to have disappeared in the corridors of parliament.

Parliamentarians Commission on Human Rights (PCHR) Executive Director Shafique Chaudhry said torture was absolutely prohibited in international law.

He said Pakistan was a state party to various human rights instruments which explicitly ban torture and call for its absolute prohibition in all its forms and in all circumstances.

He said Article 14 of the Constitution also provides for prohibiting torture for extraction of evidence. He regretted that though Pakistan had ratified CAT six years ago, there is till date no domestic legislation that criminalises torture.

In 2021 the Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention and Punishment) Bill presented by Senator Sherry Rehman was passed by the Senate but it has yet to be taken up in the National Assembly even though the practice of torture is deeply entrenched not only in the policing system but also in our whole law enforcing system.

The meeting was chaired by HRCP council member Nasreen Azhar.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2022