Security forces 'can torture, kill, or keep you for years'

According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, Pakistan’s security forces in Balochistan have been ‘disappearing’ and executing people.

The government’s ability to control the military and intelligence agencies has consequently been called into question.

The report was entitled ‘We Can Torture, Kill, or Keep You for Years’ and documented evidence of dozens of disappearances and extrajudicial executions and contained hundreds of interviews with family members.

The authorities deny any involvement or knowledge of the abductions. In all documented cases, the security forces failed to identify themselves to their victims, nor explained the basis for their arrest.

Nawab Aslam Raisani, Balochistan’s chief minister, has admitted that the intelligence services were responsible but claims he lacks the ability to hold them to account for their ‘Kill and Dump’ operations, of which hundreds have occurred; exact figures are unknown.

There are now calls for Pakistan’s government to intervene as soon as possible to put an end to these wide-spread disappearances.

The report can be read in full at the following address...

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/07/25/we-can-torture-kill-or-keep-you-years