State of the people

In a year when Pakistan was invited to become a member of the UN Human Rights Council, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s annual report for 2017 – dedicated to the late Asma Jahangir, as brave a fighter for the cause of human rights as the country has ever seen – paints a picture of a country where there is little respect for the rights guaranteed to us by the constitution. Launched on Monday, ‘The State of Human Rights in 2017’ points to an increase in violence related to blasphemy accusations following the lynching and murder of student Mashal Khan. Rather than his killing being a wake-up call of how demonstrably false accusations of blasphemy are used to settle vendettas, it seems only to have accelerated the trend. This points to a sickness in our country, where we misuse religion – and the authorities tolerate that misuse – to justify violence.

The report faults the government for not taking strong action against mob violence and says it is complicit in allowing discriminatory prosecutions to be initiated. Along with increases in attacks linked to blasphemy, there is a corresponding increase on attacks on minority groups and women. The report speaks of how 12 million women still aren’t registered to vote and how extremist groups specifically go after members of vulnerable minority groups. It has also been noted that Pakistan accounts for 10 percent of all global newborn deaths and has the largest absolute number of children out of school. The country is struggling to meet the UN Sustainable Goals for 2018 while the Global Gender Gaps reports released by the World Economic Forum showed that Pakistan continued to rank as the world’s second worst country with respect to parity between men and women.

The most shocking revelation in the report may be that in 2017 more Pakistani were killed in so-called ‘encounters’ than in suicide attacks. As the infamous case of Rao Anwar has shown, law-enforcement authorities have not paid much attention to the right to due process guaranteed to every Pakistani citizen. Along with extrajudicial killings, the HRCP report points to an increase in enforced disappearances – citing the number of cases received by the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances. The government needs to show a greater sense of urgency in tracking down these ‘missing’ people and following rule of law when detaining suspects. The crackdown on some media channels and journalists has also come under review in the report, with strong condemnation for these actions. At the same time as people continue to be picked up and held without charge, extremists are able to hold the entire country hostage. According to the report, “The people’s right to socio-economic activities is curtailed by intolerance and extremism and authorities are lenient for fear of political backlash.” As a country, we now need to pay closer attention to the shocking yet routine violation of human rights chronicled in the report and pressure the government to live up to the ideals of our constitution.