Enforced Disappearances in Pakistan

Report of Cageprisoners and Reprieve research mission to Pakistan

As part of our work on detentions in the War on Terror, Cageprisoners has been charting the complicity of various governments around the world in order to determine their culpability and responsibility to help those who have been denied due process. In the course of our findings a startling level of cooperation was witnessed between the governments of Pakistan, the United States of America and the United Kingdom, particularly between their intelligence agencies.

With almost two thirds of those in Guantanamo Bay having been kidnapped from Pakistan rather than the battlefield of Afghanistan, it was assumed that such figures were as bad as complete picture could possibly reveal itself to be. However, during the course of our investigation in Pakistan it has emerged that number of those being held in secret detention from Pakistan go into the thousands.

Amnesty International contacted Cageprisoners requesting a speaker at their Conference on Enforced Disappearances as well as other organisations. Formulating a plan with the organisation Reprieve, a research mission was commissioned by our respective organisations to investigate as fully as possible the extent of secret detention in Pakistan and its effects on the families of the victims. For the first two weeks of October Asim Qureshi (Researcher in International Law for Cageprisoners) and Zachary Katznelson (Senior Legal Counsel for Reprieve) travelled to Islamabad to begin tracing the extent of the problem.