Triumph not torture
WHEN I landed in Manila in 2017 for a holiday, I was greeted by signs at the airport welcoming ‘Bagong Bayani’, a term coined by President Corazon Aquino in 1988…
Eradicating torture
IT is often said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. This statement was starkly illustrated in October 2022, when the National Commission…
Torture in the shadows
It is often said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. This statement was starkly illustrated in October 2022, when the National Commission…
Getting away with torture
There is an absence of law that explicitly criminalizes and prevents police brutality and custodial torture with serious penal consequences, in a country where the police are one of the…
The art of torture
In 2004, three years into the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, a number of dreadful photographs surfaced that showed members of the US military, security, and intelligence forces physically,…
Anti-torture law
Pakistan became a signatory to the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT) in April 2008 and ratified it in June 2010 with…
An end to torture?
“That’s certainly our goal and our intention.” This was the non-committal answer given by White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, when, on February 12, she was asked by a reporter…
Outlawing torture
IT is remarkably unfortunate that there is no specific law criminalising torture in Pakistan. The inhumane practice is so common that it is widely accepted as a routine part of…
Outlawing torture
IT is remarkably unfortunate that there is no specific law criminalising torture in Pakistan. The inhumane practice is so common that it is widely accepted as a routine part of…
Torture, children and our inaction
A barbaric video of a five-year-old boy beaten to death by his teacher at a Pindi-Bhattian madressah took the country by storm. Our state stood alarmingly silent, and dangerously inactive.…
