ISLAMABAD, March 5: Leading human rights activists, lawyers, academics and politicians told a panel of eminent jurists from the International Commission of Justice at a public hearing here on Monday that US polices had pushed the region to the brink of disaster.

The hearing, presided over by ICJ jurists, was organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The jurists were informed that the US polices had introduced evils of drugs, lethal arms, religious and ethnic extremism and intolerance and had perpetuated military regimes in Pakistan at the cost of its people, democracy and human rights.

They said that CIA had fought the Cold War with drug money, depoliticised Pakistan society, strengthened religious parties, trained Jihadis and backed the regime of military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq.The jurists’ panel consisted of Justice Arthur Chasklson, former chief justice of South Africa and president of South Africa’s Constitutional Court, and Prof Vitit Muntarhborn, UN’s Special Rapporteur.The hearing, the 12th in a series held around the world, will continue on Tuesday, followed by a press conference on Wednesday.

Former law minister Iqbal Haider said that under the false notion of “strategic depth” Pakistan supported the policy of the United States which recruited mercenaries under the banner of Jihad to fight its war against Russian forces in Afghanistan, banned political parties and gave free rein to religious zealots.

During the process, he said, lethal weapons had been provided to militants and the whole society had been depoliticised. Before that, he said, Pakistan had a civilised and peaceful society without the evils of drugs and arms.

“Jihadis did not cause as much damage to India as they did to Pakistan, rather they brought this country to the verge of being declared a terrorist state,” Mr Haider observed.

Now, he said, the US was responsible for the misuse of terrorism law in Pakistan and this law was being used to settle political scores and rivalries, and for arrests, disappearance and handover of innocent people to the US government in return for some money.

Former Senator Farhatullah Babar said that intelligence agencies should be brought under the ambit of law and made answerable to parliament to end the practice of enforced disappearances and unprecedented violation of human rights.

He said the government should also sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances adopted by the UN in December last year and the UN Convention Against Torture.

“All detention centres of the intelligence agencies must be made public and governed by law and no one should be held in secret or incommunicado. The authorities must allow the accused to engage defence lawyers of their choice,” Mr Babar observed.

He said the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, loosely defined the terms terror and terrorist, as “stoning and brick batting or any other form of mischief to spread panic.”

“Although the Constitution forbade torture in any form, Pakistan’s criminal law does not mention the word torture anywhere and there is no offence known as torture in the Pakistan Penal Code or in the Police Order,” Mr Babar said.

After 9/11, he added, a new phenomenon of enforced disappearance had emerged and hundreds of citizens had been made to disappear allegedly by intelligence agencies of the country.

“No one knows the exact number of people kidnapped by these agencies during the past five years but the number runs into several hundreds if not thousands,” he observed.

The Official Secrets Act, he said, also needed a thorough review as it had been used against the freedom of media.

Justice Chaskalson observed: “Its (Pakistan’s) society faces serious threats. However, in other countries that the panel visited previously, concerns have been voiced against the negative impacts of terrorism and counter-terrorism measures on human rights and the rule of law.”