Source/Credit: DailyTimes | Pakistan
By DT Staff | December 10, 2011
LAHORE: State has become dysfunctional in providing basic human rights to the people. Though parliament exists it either cannot assert its constitutional duties or does not want to assert itself in the presence of the powerful military, which is dominating both internal and external affairs. The Pakistani society and the government remain under the strong grip of the military, which does not allow them to interfere in the affairs of the armed forces, says a statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day on Saturday.
The year 2011 was no different from the previous years for the human rights defenders. This year it was more open and blatant when government ratifies the different covenants and conventions of UN. The government has still not developed any mechanism to provide protection for the human rights defenders and sometimes it is observed that law enforcement authorities were harsher with the HR defenders.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has documented the killing of 18 human rights defenders during the year by the state intelligence agencies.
The Pakistan government has dodged not only the UN but also the European Union, which pursued the government to withdraw all its reservations on many articles of the International Community on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the CAT. The European Union had conveyed that these reservations had made Pakistan ineligible for the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) Plus status to be accorded in 2014 by the European Union. To settle the issue, the prime minister chaired an Inter-Ministerial Meeting, the cabinet, at the end of June 2011, in which it was decided to withdraw its reservations on Articles 6, 7, 12, 13, 18, 19 and 40 of ICCPR. The reservation on Article 3 was narrowed down to Personal Law and Law of Evidence, and the reservation on Article 25 was restricted to the election of the President of Pakistan. On the CAT it was decided to withdraw reservations on Articles 3, 4, 6, 12, 13 and 16. The reservation on Article 8 was retained. The declarations on Article 20 as provided in Article 28 (1) and Article 30 (1) were also retained. This eye wash effort, to make fools of the international community, was done by the government to avail itself of multiple trade concessions, privileges and enhanced trade activities with the European Union.
The year 2011 started with the killings of hundreds of persons including those of high profile personalities; the governor of a province and a federal minister of minority affairs, by the extremist religious groups who infiltrated the law enforcement agencies. The arrest of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, on blasphemy charges from some mosque leaders took religious intolerance and fanaticism to its highest peak. The state played a dubious role to appease religious extremism. It remained a silent spectator in the killings of Salmaan Taseer, former governor of Punjab, and former federal minister of minority affairs Shahbaz Bhatti. The government’s ineptitude to stop religious and sectarian intolerance has strengthened the banned militant religious groups so that they are able to organise and collect funds in the streets and hold huge rallies.
During the year, in Karachi, alone, 1,800 people were killed and political parties from ruling coalition were involved in ethnic target killings. The minister of interior says that during two years 3,938 people were killed in Karachi city. In Balochistan, during the year disappearances by the plain clothed persons continued and more than 100 persons were disappeared. Around 100 missing persons were extra-judicially killed and the family members of the victims claim that these persons were abducted by law enforcement agencies.
Nearly 161 persons have been charged with blasphemy in the country during the year so far. Nine of them were extra-judicially murdered. Murders in the name of karo kari, (killings in the name of honour), are reported daily. Target killings in Karachi and different parts of Balochistan are on the rise. Sectarian killings have been continuing, even without any consideration of Eid days or Ramazan. The government has not introduced any reforms in the judicial criminal justice system. The present criminal justice system is generally based on torture, ill-treatment and corruption, which always provide impunity to the perpetrators.
The investigation system remains the main cause of torture and ill treatment and illegal detention. Torture is still treated as the best way for the investigation system. Every year thousands of people are tortured in custody at either the police or in illegal detention centres. Every police station in the country is running private torture centres besides the police stations themselves or conducting torture in private houses.
A government commission was informed about the numbers of missing people but has traced only some dozens out of the hundreds of missing people.
The poverty index has declined in comparison with last year. At least 30.6 percent of Pakistanis were living below the poverty line in 1998-99 while 28.3 percent were living below the poverty line in 2004-5 (World Bank). One percent (0.64 percent plus 0.37 percent) of households owned over 35 acres while 9.66 percent owned between five and 12.5 acres and 18.25 percent households owned less than five acres of land.
This year, the floods have claimed about 1,040 people, directly affected 2.2 million, 20 million in overall, collapsed houses of 1.5 million, inundated 4.2 million acres of land. The loss of crops alone is estimated to be Rs 5.6 billion while three millions are still in need of food while some affected were dying of hunger and starvation. The most vulnerable groups exposed to flood and rains were children and women, pregnant women in particular, who are the majority of deaths and the affected.
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