The News (26 July 2008)
Saturday, July 26, 2008
By Our Correspondent
LAHORE
Ansar Burney, former federal minister for human rights, on Friday requested the Afghan and the United States Embassies at Islamabad to allow Ansar Burney Trust members to visit Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan in an effort to locate the missing and illegally detained Pakistanis.
In letters to the United States and Afghan ambassadors at Islamabad, Ansar Burney requested that lawyers of his organization be allowed to visit Bagram Jail to find and meet such unfortunate prisoners on humanitarian grounds.
The Ansar Burney Trust, which visits prisons and detention centres almost all over the world to lobby for the improvement of prisoners rights, jail conditions and provide legal and financial assistance to the wrongfully imprisoned prisoners, has received reports over the past year that many Pakistani nationals who had been illegally abducted from their homes and imprisoned without a trial, have ended up in Bagram.
One such case is that of Dr Afia Siddiqui, a lady who was arrested with her three young children in 2003 for suspected links to Al-Qaeda. Since then, it is reported that she has been detained in Bagram detention centre with male prisoners, where she has been sexually abused and tortured to the point of losing her mental balance.
The Trust has also been contacted by family members of dozens of other Pakistani prisoners lodged illegally in Bagram without a trial.
However, in fear of further persecution, they have requested for complete confidentiality in their cases.
Ansar Burney, chairman of the Trust, requested the Afghan and the US governments to allow him and other Trust lawyers to visit the prisoners in Afghanistan as their legal aides appointed by their families.
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