From Human Rights Watch:
U.S. FBI agents operating in Pakistan repeatedly interrogated and threatened two U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin who were unlawfully detained and subjected to torture by the Pakistani security services, Human Rights Watch said today.
The brothers Zain Afzal and Kashan Afzal were abducted from their home in Karachi at about 2 a.m. on August 13, 2004. They were released on April 22, 2005 without having been charged.
During eight months of illegal detention, Zain Afzaland Kashan Afzal were routinely tortured by Pakistani authorities to extract confessions of involvement in terrorist activities. During this period, FBI agents questioned the brothers on at least six occasions. The FBI agents did not intervene to end the torture, insist that the Pakistani government comply with a court order to produce the men in court, or provide consular facilities normally offered to detained U.S. citizens. Instead, they threatened the men with being sent to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay if they did not confess to involvement in terrorism.
If they had turned out to be terrorists, this would be somewhat easier to justify. But they weren’t, and this situation brings up the question of how far we can and should go with our anti-terror tactics. On the one hand, you don’t want people who you strongly suspect are terrorists to get away. But on the other, it is very scary to think that you could be held for months and interrogated without cause. Add torture to that scenario and it’s more than scary. Law-abiding US citizens shouldn’t have to be afraid of their own government, of being sold out by their own government, or of having their own government turn a blind eye as they are abused.