AHRC: Young Women Held in Pak Military Torture Cells

[Smooth Operator]

AHRC: Young Women Held in Military Torture Cells

January 12, 2009 at 10:33 am

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission

Ms. Zarina Marri, a 23-year-old schoolteacher from Balochistan
province, was arrested in late 2005, and has been held incommunicado in an army torture cell at Karachi, the capital of Sindh province. She has been repeatedly raped by the military officers and is being used as a sex slave, to induce arrested nationalist activists to sign state-concocted confessions.

One man, who was arrested by a state agency and kept in military
torture cell almost for nine months, narrated the story of this young
woman to Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Fronti&#232;res, RSF); nowpublic.com <http://www.nowpublic.com; the International Red Cross; and at Woolwich Court in London. The
current whereabouts of the young woman are not known. It has been
asserted that women who are fighting for the greater autonomy of
Balochistan are being arrested by the state agencies and being forced
into sex slavery in their custody.

Mr. Munir Mengal, the managing director of a Balochi-language
television channel, was arrested on April 4, 2006 from Karachi
International airport by the state intelligence agencies and
transferred to a military torture cell in Karachi for nine months
(GENERAL APPEAL (Pakistan): Alarming situation of forced disappearance of political and human rights activists in Balochistan
). He narrated the story of the forced sex slavery of the young
teacher Zarina Marri whom he encountered in a military cell.
According to the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Mr. Munir Mengal
witnessed many human rights violations in this military prison.
Mengal says that, &#8220;a young Balochi woman, Ms. Zarina Marri, was used as a sexual slave by the officers. They even once threw her naked into my cell. I did not know what had happened to this mother of a family who was arrested by the army in our province.&#8221;

Another Balochi nationalist (name omitted by request), who was
arrested by the military intelligence agency twice and kept in
military cells in different cities, has confirmed to the AHRC that
there were young Balochi females seen at those two torture cells,
naked and in distress. The prominent Balochi nationalist leaders say
that they know fact that young Balochi women are being arrested,
either during or after protest demonstrations on the disappearances
and are missing. They also know about the women are sexually abused in the military custody but they cannot say so publically because of their sanctity and harassment of their families.

Mr Munir Mengal was also tortured and his penis was severely injured when he refused to have sex with Zarina Marri. He told RSF, &#8220;on 27th January, 2007 at 6 pm Major Iqrar Gul Niazi (Military Intelligence) called me in his office and showed me some nude pictures, and laughingly told me that you have been a director of a TV channel so certainly you have good relations with actresses.&#8221;

When he returned to his cell he found **** pictures strewn all over
it. Around 12 pm a low-ranking military officer called Subedar
brought a female there. She was trembling and weeping. &#8220;He threw her on my body and told me, &#8216;You know what to do with her. You are not a child we have to tell what to do with her.&#8217;&#8221; Mr. Mengal says after half an hour the officer returned, and seeing them sitting apart, abused them and forcibly took off their clothes. Mengal said he was stunned when the woman began praying in the Balochi language. She told Mengal her name was Zarina Marri and that she belongs to the Kohlu area, headquarters of the rebel Marri tribe, a scene of a
bloody insurgency that begun in 2005. She said she was a
schoolteacher and that the army personnel had abducted her along with her one-year-old.

&#8220;They accuse us for spying for the Baluchistan Liberation Army,&#8221;
Zarina Marri said. She begged Mengal to kill her. I have been
undressed several times for them.&#8221;

Mengal said on the refusal to have sex, the intelligence officials
inflicted cuts on his private parts. &#8220;I thought I would lose my
manhood,&#8221; he said. Ms. Zarina told to Mengal that she has seen some
females in the torture cell but was not allowed to talk with them.

At the time of this incident Colonel Raza of the Pakistani Army was
in charge of that cell. After a few days he was transferred to
Rawalpindi, Punjab province and Colonel Abdul Malik Kashmiri came as head of the military torture cell.

Mr Munir Mengal was released from the military torture cell on 4th
August 2007 and was held in a civilian jail on August 5th. The
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representatives met
him in Khuzadar jail, where he provided them with a detailed briefing
which they wrote down. The next day their doctor also checked the
injured portion of his penis. Mr. Andrew Barterlays, the officer of
ICRC who visited Mr. Mengal several times in jail, told Mr. Mengal
that until he was out of custody the ICRC could not take up the issue
of Zarina Marri, because both their lives would be threatened.

The Asian Human Rights Commission has already reported that 52
torture cells are run by the Pakistan army, please see following link
(PAKISTAN: 52 illegal torture and detention centres identified
), Karachi was stated to have three military torture cells. The
testimony by Mr. Munir Mengal has revealed the most heinous methods of army torture, using young women as sex slaves to induce political opponents to sign the government-concocted confessions of terrorist and anti-state activity.

The AHRC severely condemns the use of women as sex slaves by the
Pakistan army and for keeping these women incommunicado. Pakistan is the signatory to Convention on the Elimination of All Forms Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) but women are being used as sex slaves in a gross violation of the Convention by army officers.

The AHRC urges the government of Pakistan to immediately hold a
judicial investigation into the women detainees being used as sex
slaves by the army officers in their detention centers, and to arrest
all the army officers posted in the torture cells; both in Karachi and
in the rest of Pakistan. The perpetrators of these heinous crimes must
be brought before the law. The government should ascertain the
whereabouts of the women arrested from Balochistan province who have disappeared after their arrest, including Zarina Marri. It is the
duty of the government to search for the missing persons taken by
State intelligence agencies, who have held them in torture cells for
many years.

Pakistan proudly calls itself the Islamic Democratic State but its
rulers appear to lack the courage to bring its own military into
check. It is a military that engages in torture and some of the most
heinous methods of breaking the spirit of those that it considers the
enemy, it is a military that pays no heed to the norms of civilised
behaviour and is one that, if not brought to book will convert
Pakistan into a barbaric state.


Asian Human Rights Commission

 

[SurvivoR]

I think you Indians are gone bonkers

This Indian lie has been posted by another Indian on the same forum in the same section.

Please spare us from reading the same lie by posting it again and again.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Widespread Baloch anger, condemnation over Zarina Marri episode

By Malik Siraj Akbar

QUETTA: The Asian Human Rights Commission&#8217;s (AHRC) startling report about young Baloch women being held in the country&#8217;s military torture cells and forced into sexual slavery has sparked a new wave of angry reactions from Baloch nationalist political parties in Balochistan.

In a fresh report, the AHRC disclosed that a 23-year old Baloch school teacher, Zarina Marri, had been arrested in late 2005, and &#8220;had been repeatedly raped by the military officers and is being used as a sex slave, to induce arrested nationalist activists to sign state-concocted confessions.&#8221; The report quoted sources as saying that &#8220;there were [referring to an eye-witness account] young Balochi females seen at those two torture cells, naked and in distress&#8230; the women are sexually abused in the military custody but they cannot say so publicly because of their sanctity and harassment of their families.&#8221;

Balochistan National Party (BNP) secretary general Habib Jalib Baloch told this writer on Tuesday that he was outraged but not surprised over this report. The Pakistan army was repeating the history of its wrong-doings that occurred in Bangladesh in 1970s in Balochistan now. Throughout the country&#8217;s history, Balochistan came under four military operations and each time the army attacked the houses of the people and took their women in their custody.
During the rule of General Ayub Kha, he recalled, Baloch women were picked up by the army personnel and their heads were shaven while in the other cases they were subjected to sexual violence. This practice continued during the governments of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and General Zia-ul-Haq while the fresh incidents are a continuation of the Musharraf government policies. Jablib, also a lawyer by profession, said he had personally met a Baloch mother of two from Dalbandin district who had told him that forces had raided their home to arrest her husband but took her away.

&#8220;When the government functionaries found no clues of her husband, they arrested his wife along with her two children. On her return, she said such treatment had been meted out to that the she could not tell anyone about it because of fearing to be dishonored,&#8221; he recalled.

Jalib said the number of Baloch women illegally picked up by the army varied from situation to situation but it was more than a hundred. Every army raid on the houses of the suspected insurgents is followed by the arrest of their women. Since the army men stay away from their homes for a long time, he charged, they see such situations as an opportunity to quench their sexual thirst through the innocent females of the area.

&#8220;We will resist this practice tooth and nail. The international community should take notice of the army actions particularly the use of women as sexual slaves,&#8221; said the BNP secretary general.

Dr. Imdad Baloch, senior vice president of the Balochistan National Movement (BNM), reacted emotionally to the report: &#8220;We are helpless before this is a mighty army. It has given us one more reason to say why we can not co-exist with Pakistan any longer,&#8221; he said, recalling his own ordeal in a military torture cell for around seven months in 2005-2006: &#8220;We were subjugated to the worst form of torture. If the politicians could be hung naked upside down then it is not surprising that the barbarian army is using our women as sexual slaves.&#8221;

Imdad said the army maintained its torture cells in every town of Balochistan.

The Baloch Women&#8217;s Panel (BWP) leader Dr. Hani Baloch said the number of Baloch women languishing in the torture cells was more than 150 with majority of them belonging to Dera Bugti, Kholu, Kahan and Sui areas.
&#8220;The women and children are arrested and put into torture cells for an indefinite period when their homes are raided by the army officials. Islamabad has proved that the Baloch cannot live with the state of Pakistan anymore. We have no hopes from the country&#8217;s judicial system. We only look upon the Baloch armed groups to come and get us rid of the injustices being perpetrated against us,&#8221; she commented.

The AHRC said it severely condemned the use of women as sex slaves by the Pakistan army and for keeping these women incommunicado. &#8220;Pakistan is the signatory to Convention on the Elimination of All Forms Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) but women are being used as sex slaves in a gross violation of the Convention by army officers,&#8221; said the report.

It added: &#8220;The AHRC urges the government of Pakistan to immediately hold a judicial investigation into the women detainees being used as sex slaves by the army officers in their detention centers, and to arrest all the army officers posted in the torture cells; both in Karachi and in the rest of Pakistan. The perpetrators of these heinous crimes must be brought before the law. The government should ascertain the whereabouts of the women arrested from Balochistan province who have disappeared after their arrest, including Zarina Marri. It is the duty of the government to search for the missing persons taken by State intelligence agencies, who have held them in torture cells for many years.&#8221;

Former leader of the Opposition in Balochistan Assembly, Kachkol Ali Baloch, demanded that the United Nations Human Rights Council should immediately intervene and stop the rape of Baloch women by the Pakistani army inside the torture cells. &#8220;We have been yelling for the past many years that Balochistan is facing the worst forms of human rights violation. The only hope for us are the international human rights organizations and the impartial media,&#8221; he added.

This blogger repeatedly endeavored to contact Major General Athar Abbas, director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), and the station officer in Quetta, Major Shafaat Hussain, to seek the army&#8217;s reaction to the AHRC report and the Baloch anger. None of them was available for comments.

 

[SSGPA1]

If it is true then culprits should be hanged in public.

I have checked news about Zarina Marri and none of the Pakistani papers has reported this. Indians have also not reported this.

However, she is all over the blog world but you know that anyone can start a blog.

As far as pkpolitics and AHRC are concerned, there are serious doubts about their claims about Pakistan.

These folks serve political purposes for money.

I am sure PA will conduct an inquiry and bring the truth out.

 

[Kasrkin]

This is not properly sourced and looks very dubious. I cannot find reference to sexual abuse in any of the links, and the link themselves hardly seem authentic. But one thing is hard to deny: someone somewhere is hell bent on defaming the P.A.

 

[Kasrkin]

The Baloch Women&#8217;s Panel (BWP) leader Dr. Hani Baloch said the number of Baloch women languishing in the torture cells was more than 150 with majority of them belonging to Dera Bugti, Kholu, Kahan and Sui areas.
&#8220;The women and children are arrested and put into torture cells for an indefinite period when their homes are raided by the army officials. Islamabad has proved that the Baloch cannot live with the state of Pakistan anymore. We have no hopes from the country&#8217;s judicial system. We only look upon the Baloch armed groups to come and get us rid of the injustices being perpetrated against us,&#8221; she commented.

Wow, what an impartial, non-militant, integral source. I can see they certainly don&#8217;t have any ulterior motive as far as defaming the P.A. No militant agendas here in this report, not at all. These people SHOULD be in jail for instigating, supporting, facilitating indiscriminate and racial terrorism.

 

[BATMAN]

I think you Indians are gone bonkers

This Indian lie has been posted by another Indian on the same forum in the same section.

Please spare us from reading the same lie by posting it again and again.

No I think they care bit too much about Mr. Mangel that's why first order to Zardari was to extend appologies to him.
This Marri must have been a fictional character or another indian chracter recruiting soldiers for Mengal army.

 

[Major Dad]

AHRC: Young Women Held in Military Torture Cells

January 12, 2009 at 10:33 am

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission

Ms. Zarina Marri, a 23-year-old schoolteacher from Balochistan
province, was ...............................................................pays no heed to the norms of civilised
behaviour and is one that, if not brought to book will convert
Pakistan into a barbaric state.

Asian Human Rights Commission

It is a beaten **** & bull story concocted by the same mafia who is indulged in such nefarious activities and ****** tactics against Pakistan since decades and if it’s important to know their names then they are no other than cunning Indians. Surprisingly Indians would always lose their sleep for Bengalis, Sindhis, Balochis and Pushtuns but what they would always forget is that their own house is not in order since long. Currently there are at least over fifty insurgencies are going on in India out of which at least eighteen are the separation movements including Kashmir and Jharkhand. Leaving let alone the Eastern India, UP the Northern Province is also becoming a blister in the Indian feet. Amidst this all it doesn’t look good if Indians talk of human and freedom rights of someone.

Now coming to Zarina Marri ( I wonder if she exists) case, the script is written by a real professional story teller who forgot that he wrote the same script during East Pakistan insurgency in 1971, hence it lacks thrill and attraction second time. There are certain flaws in the story, which needs immediate clarification and I would like to share those with my friends on this august forum:

• What Zarina Marri was doing in a so-called torture cell of Karachi, amongst the male prisoners? Was that for a reason that Munir Mengal should note her presence there like Yvonne Ridley who noted Afia Siddiqui’s presence at Bagram Base, and report it to AHRC?
• What stopped the staff of that so-called torture cell from eliminating Munir Mengal when they knew that releasing him would cause some trouble?
• The Pak army’s human services, ever since Pakistan’s independence, rendered to their countrymen, is on record and every sensible Pakistani would acknowledge it. So, it looks ridiculous that while serving in the far flung areas as the part of medical and rescue teams no such indecent incident ever reported but surprisingly the army selected some torture cell in the middle of a busy city, an apt place to rape some fictitious character?
  
• This funny story is spread over internet through dozens of blog which is a no big deal as anyone has an access to various cyber domains. Even if I am asked today, by tomorrow I can promise to publish at least fifty blogs carrying the stories and pictures of high profile Indian female politicians’ having illicit relations with their colleague politicians, what to talk of those genuine thousands of stories about the Indian army’s heinous crimes and inhuman acts against the inopportune Kashmiris.
  
• Why this story is only publish in just one newspaper whose current editorial editor is known for having close ties and ‘evening relations’ with the Indian High Commission in Islamabad and was he not caught along with a couple of other same type journalists while coming out of the high commission’s wet party, under the influence, a couple of years back?

What these Sardars and Nawabs have been doing to the inopportune and trodden poor Balochis for decades is known to everyone, so no one is willing to buy this B***HT anymore. The world knows very well about the unethical activities in which the Indian consulates in Afghanistan are involved. There terrorists’ camps to train the desperate and ill-informed youth of Balochistan and the Frontier province are known to everyone. So why don’t the writer of this story should go and script this hilarious story for some Star Plus soap?