Committee Against Torture discusses Pakistan's military courts

The UN's Committee Against Torture heard a number of comments about Pakistan's military courts at its meeting yesterday in Geneva, Dawn reports. Excerpt:

Ms Graer and E. Belmir raised the issue of powers of military courts to try civilians, asking why the trials were conducted in secret and why no monitors were allowed? She noted that there were no written judgements of cases tried in military courts.

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Commenting on the CAT’s reservations against military courts, Saroop Ijaz of the Human Rights Watch pointed out that the government had not fulfilled its commitment to introduce reforms to improve the civil justice system. In fact, it could continue ad infinitum as the government no longer had the motivation to introduce the reforms it promised in January 2015.