U.S. citizens tortured in Pakistan?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Human Rights Watch yesterday reported that two brothers were illegally apprehended in Pakistan last summer, then held and tortured over a period of eight months, allegedly at the behest of the U.S. government.

Sure, it sounds like a familiar story. But there’s a twist: first of all, the brothers, though they live in Pakistan, are U.S. citizens. Second, one of the two, Zain Afzal, had been abducted under similar circumstances only a few months earlier. After being questioned and tortured–and suffering a burst eardrum and severe lacerations on his back–he was released the next day.

According to the men, FBI agents dropped by to question them in jail at least six times. On these occasions, Zain Afzal, who was being asked the same questions he answered the first time he was abducted, told the agents he was being tortured by his jailers, only to be told by the FBI agents that the matter was “beyond their jurisdiction.” (Oddly, very few American media sources have picked up the story.) According to the Afzal brothers, not only did the FBI threaten to send them to Cuba, their Pakistani captors did as well. Go Team America! Pakistani torturers are now threatening their prisoners with Guantanamo!

In other news, Amnesty International, in its newly released 2005 human rights report, accuses the United States of damaging human rights by its treatment of detainees. To which White House Spokesman Scott McClellan responded, “The United States is leading the way when it comes to protecting human rights and promoting human dignity.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate