Disturbing testimony from Pakistan Police Torture Project

As part of our exciting new project, Reprieve is now gathering evidence of police torture in Pakistan to create a record which the Pakistani authorities can no longer ignore.

This is the anonymous testimony of a victim of torture at Dadyal Police Station - a typical story:

“The policemen would take it in turns, beating us for about 10 minutes, and then those policemen would leave and more policemen would come in and just carry on beating us.

One beat me and then another beat me. They had sticks – like broom handles, about an inch thick, and bamboo canes. They would beat me on my fingers and on the soles of my feet, and then beat me on the back so that I could not sit or lie down. They had a pile of sticks in the corner of the room so that whenever they broke one, they could just get a new one. One would grab my head from behind and hold my arms behind my head, and another policeman would beat me. They beat me all over.

They beat the soles of my feet so badly. The first day when they beat my feet it hurt really badly, the second day it hurt really badly and the third day, but by the fourth I could see the cuts and the blood flowing, but I had just lost the sensation in that part of my body.

When they kicked me it was like they were playing football kicking me. They would say, “Come on – I want to practice boxing on your face” and would just punch me again and again in the face. They seemed to think they were being funny. They punched me so many times that I lost many of my teeth - I can’t remember whether I lost them when they were punching me, or when they threw me to the floor and my head hit the ground.

I would lose consciousness and not know how long I had been out. Lots of fresh policemen came and they basically just beat us for 14 days.

For long periods they would not give us any water – and when they did it was dirty and I could not drink it as we did not know what was in it. I remember one guard would ask me if I wanted water, and then if I said yes, the other would beat me.

As they were beating us the policemen would tell us that they knew we were innocent and that there were people who had paid for us to be beaten. They told us that they had to beat us in order to keep their jobs. I could not believe it when I heard this. I thought this was the kind of thing that only happened in fiction, or in films.”

Reprieve needs your help to show just how widespread police torture is in Pakistan. We are now gathering personal accounts to create a body of evidence which the Pakistani authorities can no longer ignore. 

If you know someone who has been tortured or abused by the Pakistan police, please contact a member of the team as soon as possible: Nawaz Hanif – 0782 8602248, Tasneem Woozeer – 0787 7727053, Sara McCallum – 0777 9992305