Following a deal initially supported by the United States, the Pakistani government ceded power to tribal leaders aligned with the Taliban in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in exchange for cooperation against Taliban operations in the area. The area has since been plagued with beheadings, violent prevention of a polio vaccination campaign, and other attacks on civilians by pro-Taliban forces. These acts are ignored by the Pakistani government which has also turned a blind eye towards U.S. launched missile attacks upon schools and mosques as Taliban training camps. In October, a week of fighting between insurgents in the town of Mirali displaced 80,000 people, many of whom have yet to be recovered. Human rights organizations have verified the use of detainment by intelligence agency personnel to suppress and terrorize political activists opposed to the military regime, particularly in the provinces of Baluchistan and Sindh. Meanwhile, honor-killings and atrocities against women and religious minorities carried out at the direction of vigilante feudal councils have continued unabated. Despite the Supreme Court’s attempts to investigate these matters, Pakistani law-enforcement forces have been uncooperative and singularly resistant to divert sufficient resources to support these efforts.

Many missing persons recovered in Pakistan during the course of the past few years have reported being kidnapped, held for interrogation, and tortured in detention centers in major cities in Pakistan as well as other countries, including the United States’ detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Such cases have established procedures for extradition of suspects, including a judicial inquiry, and are in violation of Pakistan’s Extradition Act of 1972. Methods of torture have included beatings, electric shock, and acid burning (of face and genitalia). Monitoring groups have also verified reports of detainees being rearrested after their initial release, purportedly for their attempts to publicize the details of their illegal detention and interrogation on part of intelligence agencies, which include Intelligence Bureau (IB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Inter Service Intelligence (ISI), and Military Intelligence (MI).

The Pakistan government has admittedly made extra-judicial arrests under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 1997, which allows for extra-judicial confessions obtained under torture, and presumption of the guilt of the accused. Members of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and other rule of law advocates have criticized the ATA for requiring undue haste in prosecution. Of approximately 240 cases of disappearances received by the Pakistan Supreme Court, 105 of the detained have been released, as reported by the government. Insofar as these releases are verified, they have primarily come about due to increased pressure in the last year by key individuals in the Pakistani judiciary emphasizing the rule of law, and by international human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. 485 cases of enforced disappearances were scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court for November 13, 2007. However, given General Musharraf’s dismissal of Supreme and High Court judges on November 3rd, it is extremely unlikely that these cases will be heard anytime soon.

On March 9th, General Pervez Musharraf illegally ousted and replaced Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary. A gag was placed on media sources following images of the violent suppression of demonstrations on part of lawyers and others in support of the Chief Justice by the police and armed members of political parties sympathetic to General Musharraf. Members of the opposition parties were also arrested. The Chief Justice was subsequently reinstated after Supreme Court judges ruled his suspension to be illegal.

On November 3, 2007, General Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the Constitution. Characterized by constitutional scholars as Martial Law, “emergency” measures included replacing the Chief Justice and curbing news outlets throughout the country. A majority of members of local high courts and federal courts were also suspended and placed under house arrest, and the Constitution was suspended. On November 4th, 55 members of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission were also arrested in a crackdown on human rights activists. During the course of the weeks following the imposition of a state of emergency, thousands of lawyers, journalists, activists and the members of the regime’s political opposition were rounded up, beaten, and jailed by Pakistani police and military personnel for demonstrating against the imposition of martial law.