ISLAMABAD: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Thursday pointed out that failure to address the issue of the Musharraf period ordinances struck down by the Supreme Court (SC) posed serious questions regarding the validity of actions taken under the ordinances that were not validated.
According to a report titled “State of Human Rights in 2010” issued by HRCP, contempt proceedings against the PCO judges for ignoring the SC’s order of November 3, 2007 continued but they constantly enjoyed their wages without doing any work.
It said the government and the SC remained on the collision course for a better part of the year and at a moment of alarm the SC held midnight sitting and passed an order against any withdrawal of the 2009 notification whereby the judges had been restored.
The report said frequent invocation of the suo moto jurisdiction once again raised the question whether this was the only way to ensure proper governance. It stated that 2010 was a fairly hectic year for the judiciary and a new procedure for the appointment of judges of the superior courts was put in place but at one stage the SC had to intervene to save the system from collapse in Balochistan and serious strains elsewhere.
Although 30 Acts were passed in 2010 the government had difficulties in expediting legislation. Dozens of bills passed by the National Assembly were pending adoption by the Senate and the Domestic Violence Bill, duly approved by the National Assembly, lapsed as it could not be pushed through the Senate within the prescribed period.
The report said continued award of death sentence pushed the death row population to around 8,000 with nearly 6,000 death penalty convicts in Punjab alone. “The security forces did not allow journalists and the civil society to freely visit the conflict-hit regions. The threat of abduction and target killing in parts of Balochistan and Fata made them virtual no-go areas,” it said.
Thirty-four new cases of enforced disappearance were reported to HRCP while bodies of 59 missing persons were recovered from various parts of Balochistan.
It stated relations between political parties, even between coalition partners, remained turbulent and were characterized by discord over national issues. Violence, both political and otherwise, led to the death of over 750 people in target killings in Karachi alone.
Women parliamentarians remained the most active legislators, introducing nine private members’ bills in 3rd parliamentary year, and 22 out of the total 26 in 2nd parliamentary year that ended on March 16, 2010.
The report said the security forces personnel subjected journalists to physical attacks, intimidation and arbitrary detention. Extremist militants and criminals hired by private individuals also harassed and assaulted them.
As many as 118 people were killed and 40 injured in 117 targeted killings in Balochistan. They included 29 non-Baloch settlers and 17 members of the Hazara community.
Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2010 was adopted but on the contrary not a single women parliamentarian was part of the committee formed to draft 18 Amendment Bill.
The report said that 34 percent of the people suffered from a psychological disorder. The 2,399 committed suicide in the country and another 1,174 attempted suicide mainly due to stress or anxiety on account of illness, domestic disputes, financial problems or unemployment.
AFP adds: Religious minorities in Pakistan are increasingly under attack but political parties are unwilling to protect them, the country’s leading human rights watchdog said Thursday.
“2010 has been a very bad year for minorities,” said IA Rehman, Secretary General for the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), unveiling its annual report at a news conference in Islamabad.
The HRCP condemned a wave of unprecedented attacks on minorities, including members of the Ahmadi community, whom Muslims consider heretics and whom the Pakistani government has officially declared non-Muslim.
The commission said 418 people were killed last year in violence between rival Muslim communities, including 211 in suicide attacks.
Among those were 99 Ahmadis — more than the total number of the minority group killed in the previous 14 years, it said. “We had unprecedented killings of Ahmadis in 2010 and the government hasn’t got the guts to console and sympathies with them,” said Rehman.
The organisation also drew attention to discrimination suffered by the Christian minority — which it said represented less than two percent of the roughly 170 million population — notably through bias in the blasphemy laws. “People have been killed for demanding changes in the procedures of the blasphemy law,” said Rehman.
“There is very little improvement in the condition of human rights prevailing in Pakistan,” said HRCP President Mehdi Hasan.
The HRCP condemned indifference on the part of the main political parties, including those in power, with regard to human rights violations.
“It is the duty of the government to protect,” said Hasan. “The problem is that our mainstream political parties do not have these things on their priority list or their political agenda.”
