A Pakistani human rights organisation filed petitions in Peshawar’s High Court yesterday, on behalf of the victims of Washington’s illegal drone strikes in the country’s tribal regions.
The Foundation for Fundamental Rights (FFR) filed the petitions on behalf of more than 50 tribesmen killed in a single US drone attack in March 2011.
FFR legal director Shahzad Akbar said that the petitioners were challenging both the complicity and inaction of the federal government.
Mr Akbar said that the government had failed to discharge its constitutional duty to protect its citizens by condoning or turning a blind eye to the US drone attacks, which he estimated to have killed 2,800 civilians over the past seven years.
Clive Stafford Smith of the London-based legal action charity Reprieve said: “If my child were killed by a Predator drone in the English countryside, I would expect there to be very serious and immediate consequences.
“A Pakistani child should enjoy the same protection.”
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