Shafqat (left) and with his family
Shafqat Hussain age 24 is due to become one of the latest victims of Pakistan’s “revenge” hangings, which the Nawaz Sharif government decided to carry out in retaliation for Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) attack on Peshawar Army School on the 16th December 2014. Shafkat had nothing whatsoever to do with this horrific incident which was carried out by TTP ironically to avenge alleged torture, killings in custody in the weeks preceding the massacre.
Shafqat was 14 years old, a child, when he was arrested and convicted of involuntary manslaughter related to the kidnapping and killing of another child when he was employed as a security guard in 2004. He, along with 25 others hanged earlier, were sat in their prison cells when TTP hit the school to take revenge against the military and police personnel that were claimed to have repeatedly acted outside of the law carrying out brutal attacks and killings of detainees in state custody.
Shafqat’s case is a disturbing one due to concerns raised by human rights organizations relating to the alleged torture of this young man whilst a juvenile which resulted in him being “illegally sentenced to death”. The Justice Project Pakistan and Reprieve have organized a petition following on from an earlier one in January stating that the Pakistani authorities that are due to hang Shafqat on Thursday have “broken their promise to investigate the many miscarriages of justice in his case and his life is in imminent danger once again”.
URGENT please read and sign petition to stop the execution of Shafqat
https://reprieve.bsd.net/page/speakout/stop-shafqat-hussain-s-execution
By coincidence, I was asked to edit an article on Shafqat which includes interviews with his family members and details of his life as well as his case. I am unable to link to the article yet as it has not been published. However, one line stood out from all the rest which I am sure the author will forgive me for sharing as speed is of the essence in highlighting the case…. Manzore Hussain the brother of Shafqat said,
“when Shafqat talked about the police torture he suddenly pissed in the pants which make me realize clearly what had happened to him.”
As a trained psychiatric nurse, that says so much to me. Shafqat was in the presence of a close family member, not someone from a prison board or a human rights organization that he was aiming to convince of his circumstances. To lose control of one’s bladder when revisiting an incident suggests enormous fear and trauma at the memory. If the thought itself induces such a response, what must it have been like for a 14 year old child at the time, allegedly subjected to the most brutal treatment, alone, terrified and afraid for his life?
Manzore also told CNN that when he met his brother Shafqat in 2010,
“His nails had been removed and his thumb on his right hand was twisted because of being broken.
“He had cigarette stub marks all over his arm.”
The fear Shafqat experienced urinating on himself reminded me of numerous conversation I had with a man I interviewed in 2011 who was captured as a teenager related to an incident in Gafsa in Central Tunisia on 26th January 1980. Mistaken identity led to “Sami” being brutally tortured which included being, shot in the ankle, slapped around, a gun placed at his temple and soldiers anally raping him with a cola bottle leaving long lasting internal injuries. Their aim was to elicit a “confession” from him. The incident both physically and mentally affected Sami’s life and personal relationships as he relived the attack over and over again. He continues to suffer to this day from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). At the time of the interview I was only the second person with whom he had shared the full details of his torture apart from doctors treating him. The full story can be read here,
I recall also once listening to Moazzam Begg describing his own torture and saying a person would confess to just about anything when they or a family member were placed under severe threat. The following is the last paragraph from his essay, “Is torture ever justified”,
“I had a few spare hours before I was due to speak at an event in Edinburgh, so I decided to visit the castle there. My wanderings inside led me inevitably to the subterranean 19th century military prison, in the PRISONS OF WAR section. As I walked alone into one of the open cells I thought about my years of isolation in Guantánamo. But at least this cell had natural light and was twice as big. Suddenly, I heard the shouts of American voices and doors slamming shut and being bolted. For just a moment, my heart began to pound. And then I walked out. The young American tourists were just fooling around locking one another in the cells. As I ascended the stairs and left I thought, ‘If only they knew, if only they knew.’”
To return to Shafqat, Nawaz Sharif promised an investigation into this case. Torture in custody remains rife in Pakistan. IA Rehman, Director of Human Rights Commission Pakistan (HRCP) told DAWN media that investigation through torture was a common practice of police in Pakistan, he stated,
“Torture is a colonial legacy, which has been continued in Pakistan for decades. Torture is generally used to extort confessional statements from detainees. It has become societal attitude. Most of jail inmates are under trial prisoners, which is tantamount to torture as well. Similarly handcuffing of under custody is illegal, but the police still use it. The state agents justify torture in good faith for national security.”
What is so disturbing, is that such attitudes and behaviour are turning state agencies into criminal forces of terrorism which is inciting yet more terrorism through retaliation attacks.
Reprieve report, a hearing for Shafqat’s case will be held tomorrow (Tuesday) at Sindh High Court. Maya Foa, Director of Reprieve’s death penalty team, said:
“The execution of anyone convicted when they were just a child is illegal, not to mention morally abhorrent. Shafqat’s innocence, and the fact that his ‘confession’ was extracted after nine days of brutal police torture, make the Pakistani government’s attempts to kill this young man even more horrendous. Minister Nisar promised an inquiry into Shafqat’s conviction because he knows that it was wrong to begin with – it is a shocking abuse of office that he has reneged on this commitment. Shafqat’s execution – and all others – must be halted so that the inquiry that was so rightly promised can go ahead. If it does not, it will show exactly how much weight the rule of law now carries in Pakistan.”
Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad . She is a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT ‘Action = Life’ Human Rights Award’ for “upholding truth and justice”. She is also a survivor of US “collateral damage”.
Carol Anne Grayson (Radical Sister) blog 