20000317

HRCP report '99

a charge-sheet

against Nawaz govt

MEHMUD AHMED

ISLAMABAD: The 300 and odd-page Human Rights Commission of Pakistan report for the year 1999 is more than 80 percent charge-sheet against Nawaz Sharif administration citing its failings to protect the women, children, religious minorities and freedom of thought, expression and association, onslaught on the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and violations of human rights generally.

The Report released here on Thursday at an assembly of media, NGOs and human rights activists by Commission Chairman Afrasiab Khattak surveyed the fields of law, attempts to tighten religious laws, government-judiciary relations, the crime scene, the conditions of the prisoners, the state of freedoms of thought, conscience, movement, expression, association and assembly, the situation of women and children, labour and education as well as conditions prevailing in the health, housing and environment sectors.

It registered its deep concern and anguish over the army's takeover of the

country and thus interruption in the political process and noted that it will do little to serve the long-term interests of the people or of democracy - or even of the armed forces themselves.

The Commission said it recognised that the ousted government had painted the country into a corner, and forced all opposition out of the parliament and caused differences on issues to be reduced to a despairing and unified a desire for its outright removal.

While it criticised the Nawaz administration for interpreting popular mandate as a sanction for major decisions, not by the consensus of the majority party but by "undebated whims and wishes of the leader of the party and his near ones", the Commission reminded its successors of recognising that their actions will, nevertheless, lack legitimacy and express popular consent.

Hence the forces must, therefore, as speedily as possible, the Report added, "unweave themselves out of the situation they feel has been thrust on them" by drawing up a time-table spanning weeks or months to return the country to the democratic governance.

At sometime it called upon the politicians to have "their eyes opened" and take stock of their past and present situations and identify the causes of their failures leading to the collapse of elective governance.

The main events highlighted by the Commission were that 17 presidential ordinances were issued by the Nawaz Sharif administration up to the time of its ouster while its successor had ruled through seven ordinances and 10 different orders since October 12 last year.

Under the efforts to "Islamize" the system the Report listed the judgement of the Shariah Appellate Bench on interest and that of the Federal Shariah Court on the family laws changing the Ayub-era legislation on polygamy, divorce, registration of marriage and inheritance of orphans and then went on highlighting a petition filed against the appointment of Rana Baghwandas, a non-Muslim jurist as judge of the Sindh High Court. The Commission said Justice Rana was next in line to be the Chief Justice of the SHC, he was transferred to the Supreme Court to by-pass his ascension to that office.

Dealing with the state of religious minorities, the Commission said those continually stalked with the Ahmadis a prime victim from the continuous use of the Anti-Ahmadi laws of Zia period to the "unilateral change of the name of Rabwah, the Ahmadi town. The Christians were particular victims of the anti-blasphemy law and Hindus and the scheduled castes, especially their girls, were easy objects for forcible conversions.

A prime example of institutional decline, the report listed was the erosion of public trust in the judiciary. The power figures were assumed more than even before to be above the law and the tendency in any conflict with high government figures, as in the outcome of Jang Group, was to work for a compromise out of court.

The Commission has pointed out referring to the acquittal of ruling-party legislators tried in the storming of the Supreme Court case and despite videotape evidence, the "officials goons" were seen fit for acquittal.

The public rejection of the judgement, the Report said was so transparent that the Chief Justice later felt obliged to admit a petition for a review by a larger bench.

The Report spoke of repeated government annoyance with the judiciary and pointed out some cases in instance where the Law Minister had criticised the Supreme Court's declaration of military trial courts as un-constitutional and then their expansion courts under anti-terrorist laws while a petition against those was subjudice, pointed out that the "fatal mistakes" made by the trial judges and their lack of legal acumen as spotlighted by the Sindh High Court in an appeal.

The Commission also referred to the political funding by the ISI in 1990 elections and pointed out to the remarks of the Supreme Court that it could not go into it as it was outside its domain and that the agency maintaining a political cell was "justified in the present-day environment". (Chief Justice Saeeduzaman Siddiqui was to write a judgement in the case initiated by Asghar Khan, retired first Pakistani chief of the Air Force but could not do so because of his pre-mature retirement from the Bench in January last. The case is likely to be re-argued before a new Bench yet to be appointed by the new Chief Justice.)

The report, however, said that politically motivated killings in Karachi had dropped during 1999 and out of 546 murders, 155 died of sniper firing, 130 were found tortured before killings, 89 fell to police encounters and 44 became victims of incidents like bomb blasts.

Snatching of cars and scooters dropped from 777 in January, '99 to around a 100 per month towards the end of the year.

But the crime situation in the Punjab, the report said had spiralled in almost all categories from 1998. While the murders were reported to be 4,715, kidnappings 6,102 and rape and gang rape 1,931. The vehicle thefts were in excess of 6,000 and robberies and dacoities in the region of 5,000 during last year.

The honour killings which the report said had at least in two cases before the Lahore High Court been upheld, the figures stood at: the Punjab 303, Sindh 271. It did not mention figures for the NWFP and Balochistan.

The sectarian killings were reported to be 69 while the Commission thought the actual number "was clearly much higher".

According to the Commission 561 persons had died at the hands of the law-enforcing agencies of which 527 were killed in "encounters" and the rest inside lock-ups.

The number of prisoners in jail throughout the country were estimated to be 80,000 and more than half of which were in the most-populus province, the Punjab. There were as many as 3,728 prisoners on death row of which 107 were juveniles.

The bulk of the prison population consisted of under-trials or those awaiting trials. The Commission said that in some cases the wait for trial was indefinite. For example Saeed-ul-Haq had been in Karachi jail for 28 years, Ghulam Rasool had been in Sialkot jail for 17 years and Siraj and Munir Shah in Karachi for 15 and 12 years respectively.

The number of people banned from travel abroad at one time during the year had risen from 1,700 to 6,000 and had included several legislators and other political figures, mostly the MQM and the PPP activists were included in the ban during Nawaz Sharif reign. After the military takeover, the bank defaulters, tax-evaders and the alleged corrupt bloated the exist control list (ECL) further.

Reviewing the freedom of religion, the report said the judiciary had felt the force of the orthodoxy as in the case of Justice Shaiq Usmani who was forced to resign following expression of his opinion on the inequality of inheritance between daughter and son. It also cited the challenged thrown to the appointment of Rana Bhagwandas as a Judge of the Sindh High Court on the ground that a non-Muslim could not be superior judiciary in an Islamic state.

Sometime the judges themselves fuelled orthodoxy, the report pointed out referring to the remarks of a judge during a hearing in a blasphemy case that without waiting for judgement the "people should go ahead and themselves give the culprit what he deserved". The judge was later said to have denied making the remarks.

On the freedom of expression, the Report spokes of the "arm twisting of the Jang Group" and arrests of Rehmat Shah Afridi of the Frontier Post, Najam Sethi of the Friday Times and Hussain Haqqani and couple of others who, the Report said without identifying them, had faced some rough moments for helping the BBC team in its documentary on Sharif family's business dealings.

The Report also deals with cases of bonded labour, illiteracy, lack of housing facilities and growing environmental problems in the country.