A 46- page report was published by Human Rights Watch providing further evidence of UK complicity in torture in Pakistan. The report, ‘Cruel Britannia: British Complicity in the Torture and Ill-treatment of Terror Suspects in Pakistan’ condemned the UK government as being in a “legally, morally and politically invidious position”. The report is largely based on evidence collected from suspects and their lawyers and also members of the Pakistan Intelligence service, the ISI. 

Although stopping short of accusing the UK government of directly torturing terror suspects it does provide evidence of complicity. The report details accusations made against the UK government of supplying questions to be asked to terror suspects. Although the official government policy is that it does not condone torture, it has consistently failed to investigate the source of the intelligence used by the Pakistani ISI. 

The UK government responded to Human Rights Watch’s report, saying: “There is no truth in the more serious suggestion that it is our policy to collude in, solicit, or even directly participate in abuses of prisoners. Nor is it true that alleged wrongdoing is covered up.”

This report adds to the mounting legal and moral pressure on the UK government to set up an independent judicial inquiry into intelligence practices in the “War on Terror”. Ian Cobain, a Guardian journalist and campaigner, described the report as “uncomfortable reading for the government”. Practices of security forces in Pakistan have also been highlighted by the trial of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui which opens this week in New York. In a letter to the Guardian in February, foreign secretary David Miliband said that the government takes allegations of mistreatment “very seriously”.