Thursday, January 13, 2011

Boston Globe Invisible Ink: Pakistan's Prisons

Maybe this shamed them:

"Pakistani’s lawyer complains of treatment

A lawyer for a Pakistani man questioned in Massachusetts during the investigation of the failed Times Square bombing has complained about his client’s treatment in jail. Aftab Ali Khan of Watertown is charged with immigration fraud and lying to investigators. He is not accused of knowing about or participating in the botched attack. In court yesterday, his lawyer said Khan is being held in his cell 23 hours a day. She also said he was shackled “hand to foot’’ when she visited him recently. A spokesman for the jail declined to comment. Authorities say Khan gave $4,900 to Faisal Shahzad of Bridgeport, Conn., who was later convicted in the bombing attempt. Khan agreed yesterday to remain in custody voluntarily as he awaits trial (AP)."

The article that I never saw in the printed paper I purchase each morning:

"US troubled by disappearances in Pakistan’s restive provinces; Rights inquiry cites possibility of torture, killing" by Eric Schmitt,   New York Times / December 30, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is expressing alarm over reports that thousands of political separatists and captured Taliban insurgents have disappeared at the hands of Pakistan’s police and security forces, and that some might have been tortured or killed.    

As if we had any standing. This is just another propaganda piece as we move Pakistan into the enemy column for war.  

I'm not saying governments don't so this (they all do), and I am in no way in favor of torture. I just don't feel my government is in any position to criticize anyone.

The issue came up in a State Department report to Congress last month that urged Pakistan to address this and other human rights abuses.

What does murdering 2 million Iraqis over lies get you?

It threatens to become the latest source of friction in the often tense relationship between the wartime allies.

The concern is over a steady stream of accounts from human rights groups that Pakistan’s security services have rounded up thousands of people over the past decade, mainly in Baluchistan, a vast and restive province far from the fight with the Taliban, and are holding them incommunicado without charges.  

Related: Pakistan's Secret War

So where is their Gitmo?

Some US officials think that the Pakistanis have used the pretext of war to imprison members of the Baluch nationalist opposition that has fought for generations to separate from Pakistan.

Sounds familiar to me for some reason.

Some of the so-called disappeared are guerrillas; others are civilians....

Separately, the report also described concerns that the Pakistani military had killed unarmed members of the Taliban, rather than put them on trial....   

The U.S. is defending Taliban now? Must be between the missile strikes.

--more--" 

Also see: Memory Hole: Iraq's Jails

Memory Hole: Torture Rules

Memory Hole: Camp Nama and Task Force 6-26

Occupation Iraq: New Torture Techniques Revealed

Occupation Iraq: Winter Soldiers Speak

Memory Hole: What Four Years of Torture Will Do to an Innocent Man

Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/The First Abu Ghraib

Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Perversion

Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Dilawar and Habibullah

Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Chamber of Horrors

Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/American Amnesty

Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Bagram

Afghanistan Torture Chamber

Inside Bagram Prison

The Globe's Weekend Movie 

I'm going to quit going to the movies.

I'm so ashamed.