Early last year,
Pakistani anti-drone activist Kareem Khan received an unannounced visit at his
Rawalpindi home from over a dozen unidentified men, some in police uniforms.
He was subsequently abducted without being offered
any explanation and, over the course of the next nine days, interrogated about his anti-drone work
and tortured. After a local court ordered Pakistan’s intelligence
agencies to produce Khan he was released and told not to speak
to the media.
Khan was due to
travel to Europe to testify before parliamentarians about a December 2009 U.S. drone
strike
on his North Waziristan home that killed his brother and son along with a local
stonemason staying with his family. He had also filed a case against the Pakistani
government for its failure to investigate the
deaths of his family members.
There is a long history in Pakistan of irksome journalists and activists being
disappeared,
tortured,
or killed
by the state. Kareem Khan’s abduction and torture, however, is not just another
example of the criminality of the Pakistani state. It also reveals a broader
pattern concerning the U.S.-led War on Terror and its global consequences.