The apex Court, on March 26,
heard a petition filed by Jamat-e-Islami Senator Professor Ibrahim Khan. The
petitioner accused the army of violating human rights in the provincially
administered tribal areas (PATA). Being under the spotlight is never good —
especially for the intelligence agencies. When subjected to questioning by the
apex court, the intelligence agencies will always fall short of presenting sound
arguments with conviction. The reason for this is simple: most functions that
the intelligence agencies perform are illegal, illegitimate and unauthorised.
One such practice is unlawful detention, which helps intelligence agencies
gather actionable intelligence and information. From eradicating minor irritants
to capturing high value targets like Osama bin Laden, this technique is being
employed in detecting and neutralising enemies in the war on terror. Yet, it is
illegal and against war ethics.
It is the responsibility of any state to keep all its prisoners alive and in
good health. This responsibility can only be fulfilled if the prisoners are
accounted for in state-controlled prisons and not kept in secret prisons and
detention centres. The superior courts in the country only represent the state
and in doing their job, ensure that only the laws of the state prevail and not
the violation and defiance of these laws on the orders of some henchmen. And
here lies the catch. Either we can be a state where the law of the land rules or
we can be one in which another parallel state can be run by those who consider
themselves unaccountable.
Ideally, the ISI should have informed the Supreme Court about its real and
genuine concerns. Firstly, it cannot afford to pass on the dangerous detainees
in its secret detention centres to the slow moving court system in the country
as it does not provide swift justice. Secondly, whenever such criminals were
handed over to them in the past, the courts were unable to prevent a large
number of these hardcore criminals walking away free.
Instead, what the ISI revealed to the Supreme Court, interestingly, was that
“through a comprehensive deradicalisation programme, attempts were being made to
revive the loyalties of the detainees towards Pakistan”. If this was the noble
idea, then was there a requirement for the ISI to have secret detention centres
all across the country? Detainees in such centres have been held and retained
for years now. No reformed detainee or beneficiary of this programme has ever
contacted his family members or informed the general public about his changed
loyalties. There are over 350 petitions for missing persons pending before the
Peshawar High Court alone.
The “survivors of the war on terror” in detention centres deserve no sympathy.
Yet, their continued survival in good health is what the state needs to ensure.
This will not be possible if the centres being maintained remain secret. The
worsening situation in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan already bears witness
to the cost that the nation is paying for the extrajudicial actions being
undertaken by our security agencies. Had the intelligence agencies’ “detention
technique” worked, we would not have had over 49,000 people killed at the hands
of terrorists, since 9/11. Due to the presence of secret detention centres,
people in Pakistan will continue to figure in the “missing persons list” as
against the “detained, being interrogated or being reformed list” that the
intelligence agencies must maintain.
One of the great challenges for the incoming government would be to discontinue
the practice of unlawful detention and close all secret intelligence detention
centres. It will only be able to ensure this if it invests in improving the
capacity and the security conditions of the country’s existing prisons and
reforms the judicial system to provide speedy justice.
Lastly, the army should finally abandon its obsession with conventional wars.
Most of its military budget is consumed in planning, training and equipping
itself to fight such wars. It’s the non-conventional war that we fight today.
Will the next government be able to redefine our threat perception? Will the
army allow the Pakistan-India peace process to move forward? With a huge
standing army deployed and poised to confront challenges from our neighbouring
foe, the state will never be able to spare required funds and create a security
apparatus for meaningfully confronting the internal threat. These threats will
then only mushroom and grow and so will many prisons and illegal detention
centres.