It is a flight he will never forget. Flanked by two Pakistani intelligence officials, Syed Fawad Ali Shah was forced onto a passenger jet headed from Malaysia to Islamabad.
Having fled Pakistan more than a decade earlier, the journalist says he dreaded what awaited him when he landed.
“When they bring me inside the airplane, then I’m thinking that today’s my last day, that they will kill me,” Shah said.
In his first interview with a news outlet since being forcibly returned to Pakistan last August, Shah told VOA about his experiences.
Shah detailed his abduction from Malaysia, the five months he spent in what he described as various “black sites” in Pakistan where agents interrogated and tortured him before he was freed on bail, and about the long legal fight still ahead.
As an exiled journalist, Shah was alert to possible threats. So when cars suddenly pulled up next to him at a gas station in Kuala Lumpur on August 23, he says he immediately knew the men had come for him.
“I ran away, and then they followed,” Shah told VOA, recalling how in his haste he fell and injured himself, before the men caught him.
Shah was driven to an immigration center in Putrajaya, a city some 37 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur. There, he said, “They told me the Pakistani intelligence agencies demand us to give you back to Pakistan.”
Two days later, Shah found himself being boarded onto a Pakistan International Airlines flight.
He was conscious for the trip, but the journalist said he was injected with an unknown substance that prevented him from moving or speaking during the flight.
He had fled to Malaysia in 2011. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders says he had been kidnapped and tortured for a few months prior to that for his critical coverage of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. Pakistan had been trying to repatriate him since then. Now, it appeared, they had succeeded.
The Malaysian government in January said it deported Shah at Pakistan’s request, saying Islamabad had claimed Shah was a police officer wanted for disciplinary proceedings. Shah said he never worked for the police.
Neither Pakistan’s nor Malaysia’s Washington embassy replied to VOA’s emails requesting comment.
When asked about Shah’s case, Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told VOA, “I would like to say that this case is before the courts, and I would not like to pass judgment on any statement made by Mr. Shah or anybody else, including the media. The courts will hear the evidence and justice will be done in this case.”
Interrogations, beatings
The first month was the hardest, Shah said. That’s when the interrogations and torture were the worst. His captors wanted the names of sources Shah had inside the Inter-Services Intelligence agency. When he refused, he said, “They beat me, and they gave me electric shocks.”
About one month into the detention, the intensity of interrogations waned. From that point, Shah said, he mainly was subjected to sleep deprivation and being forced to stand for long periods — still bad, he said, but more bearable than the electric shocks and beatings.
While Shah was secretly detained, his wife, Syeda, tried to get answers as to her husband’s whereabouts.
She had last spoken with him by phone on August 22, then heard nothing until January when the Malaysian government announced he had been deported months earlier.
Pakistani officials told her that Shah was not in Pakistan, she said.
In February, Shah resurfaced in the main prison in the city of Rawalpindi. A month later, his legal team secured his bail.
Now they are working on having the charges against him thrown out in a process known as “quashment,” said Imaan Mazari-Hazir, one of his Islamabad-based lawyers.
The charges include defamation, intimidation of officials, and posting “false, frivolous and fake information” online. His lawyers say the charges are groundless.
But having a convincing case isn’t enough, according to Mazari-Hazir. “We have a very strong case, but the problem in Pakistan isn’t just how strong is your case,” she said. “It depends on judges.
“The legal process in Pakistan is used as punishment,” she added. “Even where you know that you’re not going to secure a conviction, the idea is process as punishment.”
Barriers keep Shah in Pakistan
The legal fight is one of several barriers blocking Shah from leaving the country.
Authorities have blocked him from renewing his passport for 10 years and he is barred from traveling outside Pakistan. A Pakistani Federal Investigation Agency document on the case, viewed by VOA, cited Shah’s involvement in “undesirable activities.”
The 10-year ban was shocking to Nate Schenkkan, who researches transnational repression at Freedom House. “If you haven’t been convicted, then what’s that on the basis of?” Schenkkan said. “It is arbitrary and disproportionate.”
Preventing Shah from being able to acquire a new passport is an example of mobility controls, where officials leverage power over government-issued documents to control their citizens.
A 2021 report by Freedom House found at least 21 countries use mobility controls as a form of retaliation.
“It becomes a way that the state still has control over you, still has a lever over your decisions,” Schenkkan said. “It traps you in a situation in which you’re not safe.”
Shah feels desperate, he told VOA one morning from his car outside an Islamabad court. “I only need protection. I only need protection,” he said. “In Pakistan, I cannot stay.”
It’s been a long time since the reporter has felt anything resembling security. “I cannot perform my journalistic duty,” Shah said. “My safety is constantly in jeopardy, and I live in constant fear of being kidnapped or killed.”
