15 Years in Solitary Confinement
By Saleem Khan • Aug 3rd, 2008 • Category: Misc • 11 Comments •Solitary confinement, colloquially referred to as “the hole” or “the pound”, is a punishment or special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is denied contact with any other persons, excluding members of prison staff. Usually cited as an additional measure of protection (of society) from the criminal, it has also been called a form of torture. In some cases it is also used to protect the prisoner from others. (Wikipedia)
Here the story of solitary confinement is not of any criminal but of 2 innocent sisters, Nighat aged 37 and Riffat aged 25. They freed after 15 years of solitary confinement from Lahore. The said news spread like jungle fire in whole country and bleeds every-one’s heart.
Rescue officials and area people raided a house near Bari Studios, Iqbal Town and got the two sisters freed, who underwent 15 years of agony. Nighat and Riffat were chained and put into solitary confinement by their own brother.
Rescue officials took both sisters and their father to Services hospital for initial check-up and later shifted them to a mental hospital. During last 15 years, Nighat and Riffat were poorly fed and clothed and were not even able to walk on their feet when they were freed. There were times when they had to eat plant leaves for survival. In the presence of area elected representatives, rescue officials got them released. The accused brother apparently wanted to grab the house, the only property of the family. He had also refused to marry his sisters with a fear that girls’ in-laws would demand share in the house. It is a human barbarism of its own kind.
According to doctors, solitary confinement for such a long period has caused a specific psychiatric sense of deprivation in these sisters and it will take some time for them to recover.
Unlike our historical predecessors, 21st century humanity has well-developed concepts of human rights, democracy, and egalitarian social responsibility, and yet we still descend into the same pit of human barbarism in different shapes. In fact, the argument could be made that the current moral state of humanity has actually decayed since the early part of the millennium, in light of humankind’s greater degree of knowledge concerning what is right and wrong. Human barbarism seems to transcend the passage of time so thoroughly that even vast changes in our fundamental belief systems have left it unchanged.
Ultimately, we have to confront the possibility of a tragic flaw existing in the heart of all humanity–the idea that at any time, given the right set of circumstances, one can be stripped of the clothes of civilization and moral responsibility and run brutal and naked into the forest of human barbarism.
I came to conclusion that, No society that permits that to happen can be called civilised. No social order that causes it to happen deserves to survive.
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Is this some thing left to happen in Pakistan? Where is Humanity??? Where is love of Brother??? Why we are so materialistic that we forgets every relation for the sake of this bloody money. Is this what we will take with us or empty hands????
Allah says to people that your stomoach will never be filled with money… only thing that will fill it is “Soil of Grave”.
What kind of Human barbarism it is??? Or should I invent a new word for such events….????
Nice work done by Saleem.
Saleem! What was predicted as perceptive thoughts, the same is symbolizing as insignia of talent.
You have rung the bell to door of best, and heading to crush and ruin the false image that, we are short of talent.
Please receive my warm gesture to safely cross the cause ways, sprinkling the wave of intellect and fabulous presentation among the lost. Thumbs up
Please allow me to have my say .
Solitary confinement or (isolated captivity)
A, well known, concept since, centuries.
Usually, practice nowadays, among confiscated war captives, political rivals, spies, immigrants, abductees, criminals and referrer after capital punishment.
Although the subject has scattered multi dimensional meaning in the book of law with elaborated discussion and affiliated chain of attached paraphernalia’s but in order to keep the term in the contest of article would requires a bit conceptual background usages socially so to demarcate and deliberately used the term in lieu.
In Law, habeas corpus is a term that is extensively used in day to day grievances and litigation for recovery under suspected illegal detention of subject by the enforcing authorities so to bring the detainee under judicial custody thereby escaping such acts that may endanger his life and also to bring in to circular the charges being placed on the individual.
Literally the term is “you shall have the body.” Or in a lay man terminology “an accused person must be presented physically before the court with a statement demonstrating sufficient cause for arrest”.
The habeas corpus concept was first expressed in the Magna Charta, a constitutional document forced on King John by English landowners at Runnymede about 800 years back. In law Magna Chart concepts has the essence of bible of law.
A liberty declared in the Magna Charta was on the concept that:
“No free man shall be seized, or imprisoned, or diseased, or outlawed, or exiled, or injured in any way, nor will we enter on him or send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.”
This principle evolved to mean that “no person should be deprived of freedom without due process of law”.
In order to prosecute as part of accountability, of such irrational laws of cruel nature much of the hue and cry was raised and the champs of the humanity legislated multiple dominant promulgation in the name of human rights violation but none proved to be fatal to the term and its theme of ever changing ways and modalities.
Due to its ever changing modalities much of the interest was diverted through the affair of ultimate behavioral change that could become the fate of individual being subjected to such cruel and inhuman mode of punishment.
Most of these people that are in these cells, remains there for 23 hours a day or more, and are only put to light for half an hour.
Such trend toward solitary confinement has now become the chapter of discussion that worries experts in terms of terminology as incarceration, which in terms of medical field is near strangulation, hence ditching some one as buried alive.
In the book of crime and investigative procedures although such acts of solitary confinement are reflection of inhuman behavior whereas on the contrary, some times it becomes the necessity so to breach the chain of interception and cessations of continuation of severe crime that disrupts the humanity at large .
Such acts of severe crime had previously been reported in which criminal happenings were performed through the prison cell.
Similarly spies and persons under such interrogation are always subjected to strict confinement as communication in the form of person can be delivered by utilizing mode which becomes the fate as arrest.
To scrutinize the phenomena as after effects of such solitary confinement and confiscation in terms of personality and behavior, professionals on the subject have declared the confinement as devastating and harmful concept.
Dr. Henry Weinstein, a psychiatrist who has studied prisoners in solitary, says that such individuals “ suffered symptoms ranging from “memory loss to severe anxiety, hallucinations to delusions, and, under the severest cases of sensory deprivation, people go crazy.”
If I recall my personnel observation from my previous exposure to examined such prisoners, I would add to the chapter of verses that such patient have weight lost ,with massive muscle wasting along with disoriented thoughts in terms of time and space and inability to withstand their own weight and balance along with dislike of light .
These factors although not because of physical abuse or such unwanted application of means of interrogation but nevertheless were the precursors of such confinement.
With the advent of advancement, research and dispersion in field as excellence, new modes of criminal aptitude also developed so also the means to counter.
People become civilized, societies polished and crime sophisticated.
Similarly, modernization subjected these societies to engage life in earning and then burning wealth in lieu of health.
Modes were utilized where as means were sacrificed.
Nature mutated as habit to trait and trait rebutted to become behavior, in terms of quality.
Quality became the point of perception as weightage and domain of prestige and honor.
This was the turning point of dominance of quality over the essence of character that became the point of caliper as only measuring criteria.
The built-in desire took over the lust and lust cashed the character so to derange the behavior.
This derangement of behavior in turn becomes the menace of society that gave birth to the crime.
A crime is an act that is a means of falsehood and unpleasant impression in a society because of its nature to distort malice and sabotage social values and means.
Every such factors that assist motivation of crime by deliberate assistance and negligence are the supporter of that crime, whether it be a person, or bunch as society.
The same is true for the state and state man and law and legislation with implementing authorities.
In my opinion no one should plead or demand clemency from such happening that had been served in the book of nature as evidence of negligence.
Shame, on all of us, that, we, being neighbor, could not bother, to wake our conscience, so to dig facts, for 15 years. Regards
Greed denotes desire to acquire wealth or possessions beyond the needs of the individual, especially when this accumulation of possession denies others legitimate needs or access to those or other resources.Some desire to increase one’s wealth is nearly universal and acceptable in any culture, but this simple want is not considered greed. Greed is the extreme form of this desire, especially where one desires things simply for the sake of owning them (such as the desire to have great amounts of money not to purchase objects, but possession or the money is an end in itself). Greed typically entails acquiring material possessions at the expense of other person’s welfare.
Coveting another person’s goods is usually called envy, a word commonly confused with jealousy. The two words denote opposite forms of greed. We may envy and wish to have the possessions or qualities of another, but jealously guard the possessions or qualities we believe we have and refuse to share these with others.
BUDHISM
believe greed is based on incorrectly connecting material wealth with happiness. This is caused by a view that exaggerates the positive aspects of an object; that is, acquiring material objects has less impact than we imagine on our feelings of happiness. This view has been correlated by studies in the field of happiness economics, which confirm that beyond the provision of a basic level of material comfort, more wealth does not create greater happiness
Hawis, Laluch ( Greed ) acording to Islam:
Greed is the excess fondness of money and fortune. It is one of the bad manners that draw to various evils and sins. Greed is selfish excessive or uncontrolled desire for possession or pursuit of money, wealth, food, or other possessions, especially when this denies the same goods to others.
Amir al-Muminin (as) said: “Know with certainty that you cannot achieve your desire and cannot exceed your destined life. You are on the track of those before you. Therefore, be humble in seeking and moderate in earning because often seeking leads to deprivation. Every seeker of livelihood does not get it, nor is everyone who is moderate in seeking deprived.”
Amir al-Muminin (as) said: “A greedy man will always find himself in the shackles of humility.”
Amir al-Muminin (as) said: “Greed is the key to trouble and carries man to hardship. It causes him to commit sin.”
Imam Hasan Mujtaba (as) said: “The annihilation of people lies in three things: Arrogance, Greed and Envy. Arrogance causes destruction of the religion and because of it Shaitan (Satan) was cursed, and Greed is the enemy of one’s soul, and because of it Adam was expelled from Paradise, and Envy is the guide to wickedness, and because of it Qabil (Cain) killed Habil (Abel) - the two sons of Prophet Adam (as).”
Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (as) said: “In his love for the world, the greedy is like the silkworm: the more it wraps in its cocoon, the less it has of escaping from it, until it dies of grief.”
Imam Jafar Sadiq (as) said: “If son of Adam were to possess two valleys of gold and silver, he would long for a third. Son of Adam, your stomach is but an ocean or a valley that cannot be filled in with anything except dust.”
Hi everyone, you all seemed to be under a wrong a impression here. THEY WERE NOT FORCED TO BE IN THAT POSITION, THEY CHOSE IT THEMSELVES. They have got a disease called schizophrenia, now I am not going to go inside details, but just for the sake of understanding: it produces an effect due to which we can’t differentiate between reallity and imagination. So they had this disease. Nobody here is to be blamed
Where have you been Fayaz Nizamani ?
Goood, I have to check it out next time. Thanks
but still FAYAZ ,what were their neighbors doing .look if they have this disease or what so ever ,their neighbors took some action .
i did not read much on this till now .but now i go and see what s the matter .by the way i read that their brother had some personality disorder and these sisters have diagnosed as having psychosis ,which is not that difficult to treat .(if you have seen after some great illness or sudden illness people start talking nonsense or strange things …its psychosis …and it resolves by the time along with drug therapy) this is what i heard on EXPRESS NEWS.
What ever disease or illness it was, i don’t want to go in that detail. As a human being medical treatment is must. If they were ill then why no body took them to hospital. Means their brother. Who was he who decided to put them for 15 years of solitary confinement? It is just like giving 2 time life imprisonment. I can’t say it right. Whether it is case of any disease or psychology.
Dear Dr RazaHaider,
First thanks for your nice words. You are one of them who motivated me to write and express my feelings. I can’t reach up to your intellectual level but trying to express what ever I feels. Thanks for your real support. I mean it.
In USA after kennedy act of 1960, there are 1,80,000 prisoners who are MENTALLYILL mainly due to the efforts of a lobby who think that MENTALLYILL MUST HAVE A RIGHT TO REFUSE TREATMENT and they should not be instititutionalised. nOW IN usa MENTALLYILL WHO ARE MOSTLY BLACKS AND HISPANICS ARE KEPT IN PRISONS INSTEAD OF ASYLUMS AND GIVEN TREATMENT.
This lobby is active in India also and we the parents and carers are fighting against this lobby. It is easy to blame the brothers but mentallyill sisters are kept in isloation ward is due to Indian Lunacy act 1912 provisions
hi,i am adeel age 24 from pakistan.i am looking for a uk or usa visa .send me a sponser .my number is 03064898146