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Amnesty Says Pakistan Military, Taliban Guilty of Abuses
[An Nahar] The Pakistain military and the Taliban are guilty of rights abuses with a lack of justice fueling a crisis in the tribal areas on the Afghan border, a report by Amnesia Amnesty International said Thursday.

The military is using new security laws and a colonial-era penal system to act with impunity in the northwestern, semi-autonomous region where Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked violence is concentrated, the watchdog said.

The military rejected the allegations as a "pack of lies and part of a sinister propaganda campaign" against the armed forces.

Imagine that.
A front man for the military rejected the allegations as a "pack of lies and part of a sinister propaganda campaign" against the armed forces.

The military has arbitrarily jugged
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
thousands for long periods with little or no access to due process, said the report, based on interviews with victims, witnesses, relatives, lawyers, officials and thugs.

Cases of death and torture have been documented, detainees are not brought before court and relatives have no idea of their fate, sometimes for extended periods of time, said the London-based human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
group.

"Almost every week the bodies of those tossed in the slammer
You have the right to remain silent...
by the armed forces are being returned to their families or reportedly found dumped across the tribal areas," said Polly Truscott, Amnesty's deputy Asia-Pacific director.

"The government must immediately reform the deeply flawed legal system in the tribal areas that perpetuates the cycle of violence," she added.

Although judges have sought to investigate the fate of people who go missing, Amnesty said no military personnel had been prosecuted for alleged torture, enforced disappearance or deaths in jug.

It demanded the repeal of sweeping powers of arrest and detention given to the armed forces in 2011, and called on the jurisdiction of the courts and parliament to be extended to the tribal areas.

Pakistain says more than 35,000 people have been killed as a result of terrorism in the country since the 9/11 attacks on the United States and that its forces have for years been fighting homegrown gunnies in the northwest.

A front man for the Pakistain military refuted the allegations, calling it a "biased report based on fabricated stories twisted to serve an agenda".
Posted by: Fred 2012-12-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=358020