EDITORIAL : THE DAWN, PAKISTAN

 

Human rights record

IN the introduction to its 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices , the US State Department has listed “specific countries where abuses were especially serious”. One of these countries is Pakistan. Along with only two other states in South and Central Asia and 23 other states around the world (from over 190 that were included in the report), we are among a subset of nations that have failed particularly badly to provide citizens with the dignity, equality and justice they deserve. The detailed write-up on Pakistan makes it clear why, with a slew of abuses that should be a source of embarrassment for the nation. More disturbingly, the violations are all too familiar: extrajudicial killings and detentions, torture, discrimination against religious minorities, violence against women, honour killing, murders of journalists, bonded labour — the list goes on. While some specific instances reared their heads last year, including increasing targeted killings in Karachi, discoveries of the dead bodies of missing people in Balochistan and murders in the name of the blasphemy laws, the broad categories have remained the same. Recent years have also seen the addition of terrorism and of actions against suspected terrorists and militants, thousands of whom have been detained or killed without trial.

Nor did we need the United States to tell us all this — Pakistani human rights activists and journalists have been pointing out human rights abuses for decades, sometimes at great risk to their lives and their families. Consistently, however, any steps taken by one organ of the state are stymied by another or are abandoned due to inertia or lack of political will. Gen Kayani`s promised investigation into a 2009 incident of soldiers carrying out extrajudicial killings seems to have been forgotten. Judicial inquiries into the cases of missing people are obstructed or delayed. And there are certain issues the government treats as being untouchable through legislation, such as violence against women and the blasphemy laws.

Given that the report was not conducted by an international human rights agency but rather a particular country`s government, it is tempting to respond with questions about the United States` own human rights record. This is particularly true when it comes to drone attacks and to torture and extrajudicial detention, especially the continued existence of Guantanamo Bay and its trials by military commissions. But criticism of this kind cannot become an excuse to ignore our own unacceptable human rights record. It is a source of deep shame that anyone is able to declare us among the worst offenders in the world when it comes to protecting the rights of our own citizens.

 

Missing ministers

THE rule dividing the two items on Dawn` s page 5 on Saturday was not really required. The line is usually there to separate unconnected pieces of news. In this case, the distinction was difficult to make. The page had a five-column picture showing Chaman`s Bibi Tuhiba in her father`s arms along with two other children and a young man. Tuhiba`s claim to fame is that hers is one of the three new polio cases in the locality — this at a time when polio should have been eradicated from the country. And if this reminder of the inability of the government officials to do their duty by the people was not sad enough, to the left of the sombre picture, across the dividing line, was a news story about the truant ministers who find the climb up to the elected upper house in the country all too taxing an exercise to be done regularly. On Friday, as Chairman Farooq Naek called out for ministers, he was lucky to find a couple sitting somewhere in the house. While the chair managed to activate the two ministers at hand by asking them to move to their allotted seats, the duo deserved some credit at least for showing up in a place their cabinet colleagues have routinely found unworthy of their exalted presence.

If the honourable ministers are put off by the gravity of the business that awaits them in the upper house, they appear to have similar feelings for the more happening lower house of parliament. Concerned — or simply relevant — ministers are often missing from the National Assembly, too, and it is not odd for one cabinet minister to be fielding questions on behalf of another. This betrays a lack of enthusiasm on the part of public representatives to perform in a job that is otherwise so coveted, in which case the rule that divides Tuhiba and the Senate would be justified. Importantly, the cabinet members also stand apart from a prime minister who is much at home at his desk in the house and who swears by the supremacy of parliament.

Fishermen`s plight

THE manner in which Pakistan and India habitually keep the poorest of the poor hostage to interstate relations speaks poorly of the two countries’ commitment to resolving the real issues. Reports about fishermen from one country being picked up by the security forces of the other appear in the newspapers with such frequency that they hardly draw comment. Most of the fishermen are taken into custody because they have inadvertently strayed into the other country’s maritime territory, but there have been cases where they have been picked up from the high seas as well. Not in a position to hire lawyers or to expect any sort of justice, they are sent to jail. The length of detention is indefinite, usually lasting until Pakistan and India embark upon yet another round of talks, upon which they are repatriated with back-slapping all around. But by then, their livelihoods have been destroyed because their fishing vessels, which constitute their main asset, have been
permanently confiscated. This is the reality faced by 10 Indian fishermen who were remanded into judicial custody in Karachi last Wednesday.
If Pakistan and India cannot settle even this most basic point, then it would seem that the two countries’ relationship is based on false pretences. In over six decades, there has been little progress on prioritising the formulation of an agreement in this regard. Neither country has made any real effort to ensure that these people, amongst the most deprived sections of the populations on both sides of the border, are dealt with in a humane manner. Despite all the fanfare whenever there is a thaw in India-Pakistan relations, the real issues — those that concern the people — remain unaddressed. Yet the fact is that until issues such as these are settled, no real progress can be said to have been achieved.