LONDON, May 28: Pakistan has failed to protect minority sects and women and prisoners still face torture and even death, Amnesty International said in its annual report released on Tuesday.

The government failed to provide adequate protection to minorities against attacks by radical groups, the AI said, pointing in particular to the attacks in Karachi on professionals belonging mainly to the Shia sect.

It said the state similarly failed to protect women from abuse, with several hundred girls and women having been killed for alleged “shaming” of their families.

In Sindh alone, some 62 women had been killed in so-called “honour” crimes in the first four months of 2001, the London-based group said. “Although widely reported, abuses were routinely ignored by the state,” it charged.

Torture and deaths in custody also remained a problem in Pakistan last year with some 40 deaths in police custody or prison, the Amnesty report claimed.

It said: “Police had made several attempts to outlaw torture — in Sindh, officials issued standing orders not to use torture — but it continued in other parts of the country.”

Amnesty also noted Pakistan’s ongoing use of the death penalty, sometimes after apparently unfair trials, a continued ban on public political rallies, and sweeping new legislation last September to maintain law and order.

At least 50 people were sentenced to death, some after unfair trials, the AI claimed adding that 13 or more were executed.

It said that President Pervez Musharraf had assured the group at the end of December that no refugee would be forcibly returned to Afghanistan.—AFP