Calls for Pakistan to release info on 'missing' prisoners
Wednesday, 23 Jul 2008 10:18
Amnesty International has appealed to Pakistan's prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani
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Amnesty International has today called on
Pakistan's government to provide information relating to hundreds of people allegedly held in the country's "war on terror".
In a report published on Wednesday the organisation highlights a number of cases where people have apparently "disappeared" and calls for them to be released or transferred to official places of detention.
Amnesty claims security forces in Pakistan have developed a pattern of detaining people, blindfolding them, and moving them around numerous detention centres so as to make them impossible to trace.
The report alleges that at least 563 people remain unaccounted for in the country.
Amnesty International
Asia Pacific director Sam Zarifi said: "[Pakistan's] prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has emphasised the coalition government's commitment to upholding human rights. We urge him to act immediately to resolve all cases of enforced disappearance.
"We don't know if those subjected to enforced disappearances are guilty or innocent, but it is their fundamental right to be charged and tried properly in a court of law.
"As a first immediate measure, the new government should ease the suffering of the relatives of the 'disappeared' by either releasing the detainees or transferring them to official places of detention."
Amnesty also called for Pakistan's senior judges to be reinstated. In November last year the country's president Pervez Musharraf removed the vast majority of the judges from office in an attempt to avoid opposition to his re-election.