By Adnan Sattar The kidnapping and brutal murder of investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad on May 30, 2011, has rightly been dubbed a cowardly assault on the freedom of expression. This is not the first time in Pakistan that a media person has paid the ultimate price for courageously following their professional calling. However, what makes Shahzad’s death an event of historical proportions, a litmus test of our morality and humanity if you will, was the fact that he was not merely killed but tortured to death. The fact that Shahzad’s torturers left his dead body out in the open instead of quietly burying it someplace provides a string of clues about their real motives. It is highly unlikely that they simply intended to extract a piece of information. It appears more plausible that they meant to make an “example” out of somebody who dared to know and communicate too much. From Colonial Algeria and the apartheid years in South Africa, to more recent dictatorial regimes across the world, there is sufficient research available to establish that those who commit torture know that the information they extract by inflicting pain is of little use to them. A tortured person will tell you what you want to hear. In most cases the torturers already know what they need to know. More than an interrogative method, torture is a weapon for harassing, intimidating, and imposing silence. It’s an instrument designed primarily to break the will of those who would otherwise refuse to bow down and dance to the tune of the powers that be. The initial reaction by the government to the incident has been insensitive, if not downright callous. Interior Minister Rehman Malik was quick to suspect “personal animosity” as the cause of the “murder” even as one of the world’s most credible human rights organisations, the Human Rights Watch, had strong reasons to believe that Shahzad had been picked up by the ISI. Additionally, the interior minister’s statement that “it is not possible to provide security to everyone under present conditions” amounted to a virtual negation of one of the core functions of the state. Less than 24 hours after Shahzad was buried in Karachi, a news report spoke of disagreement between the police authorities in Mandi Bahauddin where he was found dead and Islamabad from where he was abducted as to who should be investigating the case. Relying on a Peshawar High Court judgment, the authorities in Islamabad reportedly wanted their counterparts in Mandi Bahauddin to take the lead as it was under their jurisdiction where “murder, a crime bigger than kidnapping” had occurred. Let’s make no mistake about it. We cannot afford to shirk responsibilities here. A diluted narrative which reduces the incident merely to an attack on free media or illegal abduction or even murder will amount to grave injustice. How we deal with this incident might as well seal our fate as conscientious moral agents. A society which lets as reprehensible an act as torture slip into oblivion or get subsumed under some other category of crime has little hope of redeeming itself. The plea here is not so much for more severe punishments than murder or kidnapping would warrant, but for an unequivocal acknowledgement of the crime for what it is: a virtual denial of humanity. It is not the kind of crime we can take it in our stride because democracy is fragile or because the country is at war or because civilian rule is not yet fully consolidated. Apart from purely moral reasons, there is a legal case to be made here for dealing with the incident not merely in terms of abduction or murder but with reference to torture. In June 2010, Pakistan finally ratified the International Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment. One year down the line, the country’s domestic legal framework still does not have a law which specifically deals with torture. Certain provisions in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), namely Sections 332, 337, 339, 340 and 349, dealing with “hurt,” “wrongful restraint,” “wrongful confinement,” and use of “criminal force and assault” come nowhere close to addressing the magnitude and nature of torture. The constitutional provision in Article 14, sub-clause 2 is also inadequate as it provides protection against torture for “extracting evidence” only. Even though the superior courts have sought to enlarge the scope and import of the provision by reading it together with the right to dignity and privacy (Article 14, sub-clause 1), the domestic case law with regard to torture remains underdeveloped in Pakistan. Closer to reality, the Convention against Torture defines it far more broadly as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person...” While the Convention defines torture primarily with reference to acts committed by, or at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of public officials, there is a growing body of interpretative work dealing with the nature of state obligations which goes beyond the direct involvement of public officials to look at state culpability where no direct involvement can be established per se. The Committee against Torture established under Article 7 of the Convention has noted (General Comment No. 2) that the state parties are obligated to “prohibit, prevent and redress torture and ill-treatment in all contexts of custody or control”...as well as “contexts where the failure of the state to intervene encourages and enhances the danger of privately inflicted harm”. States bear international responsibility, the Committee has noted, for “the acts and omissions of their officials and others, including agents, private contractors, and others acting in official capacity or acting on behalf of the state, in conjunction with the state, under its direction or control, or otherwise under colour of law.” Elsewhere, under international human rights law, the state’s duties vis-à-vis fundamental rights, such as freedom from torture, do not merely require a hands-off approach: It is not adequate to establish that no state official was directly involved in committing torture. States are obligated not just to respect these rights but to protect them from being infringed by private actors-armed groups, political parties and de facto regimes and to provide effective remedies where infringement does occur and to actively promote them through enabling legislation and appropriate rules, regulations and procedures. Source: The News, Pakistan
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9:40 PM
Moderate Islamist here
