HRCP, activists ask new govt to criminalise enforced disappearances

Karachi: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s co-chairperson Asad Iqbal Butt on Tuesday asked the new government not to make the mistake of taking the human rights issues lightly and urged it to fulfil its promise to criminalise enforced disappearances.

He was addressing a seminar that was held on the completion of 13 years of the enforced disappearance of Dr Deen Muhammad Baloch held at the Karachi Press Club. Butt said that no one had the right to snatch a person’s life, liberty and security. “If someone is involved in a crime, he or she should be presented in the court which will decide the case.”

An enforced disappearance implies the absence of the right to liberty, security, and life, Butt said. Butt said that the HRCP and other rights groups are particularly concerned by the continuing shroud of silence over enforced disappearances in the province, which remains deliberately cut off from the mainstream media. Other speakers, including Tehreek-e-Niswan’s Sheema Kermani, social activist Jibran Nasir, journalist Wusataullah Khan, intellectual Muhammad Ali Talpur, and rights activist Abdul Wahab Baloch, also praised the Sammi Deen Baloch for running a continuous campaign for her father, Deen Muhammad Baloch, for the past 13 years.

Amina Masood Janjua, chairperson of the Defence of Human Rights, and journalist Mohammed Hanif spoke to the moot online.