Root cause for the existing culture of torture needs to be identified- AslamShakir

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, AslamShakir has said that the root cause for the existing culture of torture in the society needs to be identified.

Speaking at the closing session of the National Dialogue on the implementation of the OPCAT, Minister of State, Aslam said that first thing that needs to be done is identifying the root cause for the existing culture of torture in our society.

“The first thing we need to do is identify the root cause for the existing culture of torture in our society. We need to do a complete situation analysis and come up with immediate and long-term preventive measures. Non-state actors, such as media and civil society also has an important part to play in this regard,” he said.

Aslam said that the discussions held in Bandos Island Resort have given a clear indication of the difficult path that lay ahead in making our nation torture free. He said that this dialogue also highlighted the pressing need to build capacity and cooperation between all state actors as well as non-state actors.

“Currently there are existing systems and mechanisms which need to be strengthened and new ones put in place to fully implement the SPT and NPM’s recommendations.I would like to express our support for the proposal made by the NPM to hold an annual dialogue between concerned parties to touch base on areas of progress and identify areas which need further improvement. We need to find ways to address these issues within the existing mechanisms and also bring in innovative ways to address the issue. For this we need technical and financial assistance from the international community,” he said.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs also expressed thanks to the APT and SPT, for all the hard work they have put into this to make the Dialogue a success. He said that the Ministry looks forward to continued engagement with them to address the issues that were highlighted during the discussions.