ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday hinted that the government would soon introduce a bill in parliament against torture and called for convening sessions of the Senate and National Assembly on Monday.

In a tweet, the prime minister termed torture “unacceptable in a civilised society” and asked the interior ministry to expedite tabling ‘Anti-Torture Bill’ in the National Assembly.

“Torture is unacceptable in a civilised democratic society and it goes against the spirit of Islam, our Constitution and our international legal commitments,” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, the prime minister decided to call a joint sitting of the parliament in the near future to get two Financial Action Task Force-related bills passed that were rejected recently by the opposition in the Senate.

Talking to Dawn, PM’s Adviser on Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan said the government had decided to convene the sessions of the Senate and the National Assembly from Sept 7 (Monday) to pass important legislations regarding appointment of judges, health sector and amendments to Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

Imran says torture is unacceptable in a civilised, democratic society

He said the decision had been made in a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Imran Khan. The meeting was also attended by National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar, Law Minister Farogh Naseem, PM’s advisers Babar Awan and Shahzad Akbar.

He said the meeting decided to convene session of the two houses of parliament from Monday for important legislations.

In reply to a question about the two FATF-related bills, he said a joint sitting of the parliament would be held for passage of these bills. However, the date of the joint session would be decided later, he said.

He said the meeting desired that the opposition should play a positive role in the passage of the FATF-related legislation as it was in the interest of the country.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2020