21st amendment a bad move and military courts a bad idea: IA Rehman

Karachi
Noting that Pakistan’s judiciary had been subjected to successive blows, noted human rights activist IA Rehman backed his argument by mentioning Ziaul Haq’s Provisional Constitution Order of 1981 and the treatment meted out to former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in 2007.
“Now the whole judiciary has been set aside with the setting up of the military courts. So, where are the people going to get justice with no recourse to any appeal?” Rehman, the secretary general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, asked while addressing the staff and students at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (Szabist) and the media on Friday.
He was giving an overview of the crises stalking Pakistan and the political and social dilemmas the country was currently facing.
About the Pakistan Protection Act, he termed it a bad law as it legitimised physical torture and kidnappings by the minions of governmental agencies.
However, he added that at least the law was debated and first piloted through the National Assembly in the last quarter of 2013 and passed in the last quarter of 2014 after a thorough debate and violent disagreements.
The 21st Amendment, he noted, something that hit out at the very basis of the constitution, took only three days to be approved and there was no debate or discussion on it.
He regretted that despite the amendment’s negative characteristics, it was disappointing to see that not a single political party had even discussed it.
As for the hate and frenzy being spread in society, he said that even government schools were spreading acrimony and sectarian hatred through their curricula while the authorities that were supposed to nip these pernicious trends were least bothered.
As for Balochistan, he queried as to what the authorities concerned were doing while people were being killed in the province and their bodies callously dumped by roadsides, a practice that was now also being witnessed in Sindh.
“How can democracy thrive when independent views over national issues are treated as a crime, a capital offence?” he asked.
Rehman questioned as to how people could be expected to work for democracy when democratic institutions were throttled and not allowed to function.
“The disruption of social behaviour has now permeated the vitals of society.”
Talking about the oft-quoted palliative of “whose national interest”, he said: “People have a right to know what is being done. Everybody has a problem and the reason for that is bad governance.”
He added that we were all busy circumventing rule and regulations and if no discourse or discussion on various national and social ills were allowed, things would continue to turn from bad to worse, making a mockery of our nationhood.
The human rights activist said Pakistan was a multinational state and all the nationalities inhabiting it had absolutely equal rights and privileges. He reminded the audience that denial of these rights to the majority of our people saw the country break up in December 1971.
Social activist Shahnaz Wazir Ali appreciated the views put forth by Rehman and exhorted all those present to work to cultivate a spirit of tolerance and intellectual magnanimity so that all of us could join forces to jointly confront the challenges facing us.
Dr Riaz Shaikh of Szabist, while introducing the speaker, highlighted his services to the country in the field of human rights.