To observe UN International Day in Support of Torture victims the Human Development Organization (HDO), a civil society organization that has been struggling for prevention of custodial abuses and rehabilitation of torture survivors in Hazara division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, arranged colorful program at Central Prison Haripur on June 26, 2013.
The detainees, with juvenile and adolescents in majority, who had one or the other way faced custodial abuses during detention, participated the program.
Members of civil society organizations, media practitioners, prisoners, jail based school teachers of HDO’s Non-Formal Basic Education School for Prisoners, psycho counselors, medical officers, Superintendent jail, Deputy Superintendent, Assistant superintendents, senior warders were prominent among the audience of function.
As part of celebrations, a super six cricket match was played between the teams of juvenile and adolescent prisoners who exhibited their sportsmen skills against each other producing a very lively show of a true contest usually played at the ground of a college or University, Complimented the young cricketers with thundering applause intermittently. The team of torture survivors from juvenile section of the jail won this match by 30 runs.
Poetry contest was another segment of UN’s day aimed at showing solidarity with the torture victims on this occasion. The two teams, each comprising two young inmates, presented the verses of different poets and the team from adolescent prisoners won this contest.
The juvenile and adolescent inmates also presented an exquisitely prepared tableau depicting how detainees, especially have nots, are subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment or treatment during custody of law enforcement agencies in the name of investigation.
The young torture survivors turned artists painted true picture of the role of institutions that are directly dealing with arrest and detention of citizens especially the lower judiciary and medical practitioners. The performers earned kudos from the audience for their theatrical performance on an issue that once lacked attention on the part of authorities and citizens as well.
Since the theme for 26 June 2013 was “Right to rehabilitation”, the speakers, in their addresses, threw light on the universally acknowledged rights of fair treatment and physical and psycho social rehabilitation of victims of custodial abuses.
They said that owing to lack of use of scientific methods the law enforcement agencies have for decades been using torture for breaking a detainee into confession and making him a lesson for others. However the speakers believed that the barbaric methods have failed to control the crime ratio in the society and instead torture and poverty have developed correlation with each other. They said that torture was both cause and effect of poverty and according to international researches, the custodial abuses always served as contributing factor to increase in the crime of domestic violence, child abuse and use of drugs and peddling in the society. Speakers demanded investigation on scientific grounds besides developing a legal system aimed at offering medical and psycho-social facilities to torture victims at district basis.
Jail Superintendent Masud ur Rahman, Muhammad Sadaqat Executive Director HDO, Program Assistant HDO Adeel Ahmed, Faisal Khan (torture victim), Sardar Hafeez torture victim, Bilal torture victim and Ahsan Khan from Rural Development Project were among those who spoke to the participants.
A function of similar nature was also arranged in the women section of jail the same day where they also organized song and dance contest, presented skits in Urdu and Pashto languages.
Issued by; Muhammad Sadaqat, Human Development Organization (HDO), Haripur Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan.
