The Pakistan Police Torture Project

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 that the Pakistani authorities will not be able to ignore. If you know someone who has been tortured or abused by the Pakistan police, please contact us.

Reprieve’s Pakistani Police Torture Project has support from numerous community leaders, religious leaders and public figures, notably Moazzam Begg, the Association of British Muslims and The British Pakistani Christian Association. The PPTP would like to thank these individuals and organisations for their continued support.

“After having helped free me and dozens of others from Guantanamo Bay, Reprieve is now tackling the abuses that average Pakistanis regularly experience at the hands of the Pakistani police. Please help them if you can.” - Moazzam Begg

“Reprieve are a crucial organisation punching above their modest size on a global level against the human rights abuses of Guantanamo Bay and more. I support the Pakistan Police Torture Project and hope you can as well" - Riz Ahmed (Musician and Actor - Four Lions, Road to Guantanamo etc) 

We need your help!

Through our work representing British nationals facing the death penalty in Pakistan, Reprieve have frequently come across cases involving police mistreatment. 

In fact, despite Pakistan having good legislation and policies banning torture in place, it appears that some police officers continue to use brutal techniques to secure confessions and extort money from those accused of crimes. The police will often specifically target British Pakistanis – as a result of their perceived wealth and lack of local contacts. 

Unfortunately, it is difficult to take targeted action against abusive police officers on the basis of anecdotes alone. For this, we need evidence to prove that specific instances of police misconduct have taken place. This is the aim of the Pakistan Police Torture Project. If we can obtain evidence of specific instances of police mistreatment, we can use this evidence to hold police officers to account and to end the current culture of impunity. This, in turn, will help those police officers who are honest and decent to do the right thing and to comply with Pakistani law by refusing to torture and accept bribes.

There can be no doubt that there is the political will for change. The law clearly states that torture is wrong. We now need help to make sure that the police obey the law, just like everyone else is expected to.

We are asking anybody who has experienced police mistreatment, or knows someone that has, to come forward and speak to us. Everything you say is treated with the strictest confidentiality and we will only do with your information what you permit. Everything we do is free – we have never asked anyone for money, and never will.

What can we do?

Reprieve will use evidence gathered from victims in three ways: to assist, prevent and reform. Through our Fellowship Programme, we work closely with skilled and experienced lawyers in Pakistan who can take action against the police and make a difference – they just need the evidence. If you choose to come forward, we can use your information in three ways:

Assist those currently facing the death penalty as a result of confessions extracted through torture.

Prevent more people from suffering torture, or spending years in jail awaiting trialon false charges after 'confessing' under torture.

Reform using political and legal avenues to ensure that the police are held accountable for breaking national laws prohibiting police brutality .

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The PPTP team is heavily involved in local communities so that they can reach as many victims as possible. In order to do this effectively they require the assistance of community leaders, faith groups, Imams, councillors and anyone else active within their community. Reprieve is offering Outstanding Contribution Awards in recognition of the assistance the PPTP has received from certain individuals.

The winners of this month's Outstanding Contribution Award are:

Zubeda Limbada - is a Project Manager with Birmingham City Council working on policy and active within the local community. She is alumni of the Oxford University Young Muslim Leadership Programme (2006), a member of the British Council (Africa) Interaction Programme and the BBC WM Regional Audience Council. She has greatly assisted the PPTP team from providing advice about interaction with the community to arranging meetings with key community members where she will also be in attendance. 

Tassaddaq Hussain - is the Public Relations Officer for Green Lane Mosque, Small Heath, Birmingham. He is the representative for his mosque on the committee for Preventing Violent Extremism - Communities and Local Government Committee. The mosque has previously been awarded as a 'model' mosque by the Islam Channel. The mosque despite having a no leafleting policy has been kind enough to meet with the PPTP team twice and taken a large number of flyers to give to their congregation. The team hope to continue to work with them. 

Previous Winners: Nasreen Akhtar, Sheikh Muhammad Amin-Evans, Mohammed Abbasi, Sufi Abid Hussain, Rubab Mehdi Rizvi