• HRCP’s 38th general body meeting opposes plan to amend ATA to allow three-month preventive detention
• Calls for revisiting provincial labour codes in consultation with trade unions
• Seeks probe into ‘alarmingly high number’ of extrajudicial killings
• Demands immediate release of rights activist Idris Khattak

KARACHI: Drawing urgent attention to what it described as deteriorating human rights and weakening democracy in the country, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has demanded that all political parties reach a consensus on civilian autonomy and guarding federalism.

The demand was made in the 38th annual general meeting of the HRCP held here on Sunday.

A large number of rights activists belonging to the organisation gathered at the Beach Luxury Hotel to discuss the country’s prevailing situation. HRCP chairman Asad Iqbal Butt chaired the meeting.

“Where the state should be focusing on efforts to uphold the rule of law, reduce violence against women, children and transgender persons, protect the rights of workers and peasants, and fulfil people’s right to health and education, it has instead prioritised its own authority at the expense of democratic norms and people’s fundamental rights,” said a press release issued after the meeting.

It said the HRCP strongly opposed the proposed amendment to the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 that seeks to authorise the civil and armed forces to employ up to 90-day preventive detention on mere suspicion.

“The HRCP believes that the climate emergency is now an existential crisis for the country. The most pressing issues are the lethal levels of air pollution in Punjab, posing serious risks to health, and the immediate threat of water scarcity, especially in lower riparian Sindh, where the construction of canals on the Indus under the Green Pakistan Initiative has raised objections from small farmers and peasants,” it added.

The HRCP said that the government must focus on strengthening trade unions and seriously consider instituting a living wage, especially for vulnerable workers.

“HRCP believes that the provision of healthcare and education is the duty of the state. Student unions must be restored and special attention paid to the plight of incarcerated fisherfolk, stateless persons and rising suicides triggered by poverty, particularly in Thar.”

It said that the contentious provincial labour codes must be revisited in consultation with trade unions.

“We strongly oppose the Gilgit-Baltistan Land Reforms Bill 2024, which seeks to centralise control over private, communal and ancestral land in the guise of ‘reforms’ for development. This appropriation of land by powerful vested interests will further marginalise people and stoke unrest. The state must give Gilgit-Baltistan its due constitutional rights as demanded by its residents,” the HRCP statement said.

It said the HRCP deplored the increasing use of “short-term enforced disappearances”, including against the political opposition, and once again demanded that the head of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances be removed “for sheer incompetence”.

“The conduct of the state has been marked by violence with impunity and a tendency to succumb to far-right ideologies. This was evident from the extrajudicial killings of two people accused of blasphemy in Umerkot and Quetta, from continued attacks on Ahmadiyya graveyards and sites of worship with police complicity,” it said, adding that hundreds of people accused of online blasphemy languishing in Punjab jails amid allegations of torture.

“The alarmingly high number of extrajudicial killings, especially in Sindh, must be investigated and perpetrators held to account,” it added.

HRCP noted with concern the fact that its chairperson was detained for questioning by the police and four FIRs filed against its members in connection with their human rights work, the press release added.

“The sharp rise in militancy in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including increasingly regular attacks on construction workers, miners and polio workers, is rapidly moving towards a point of no return. HRCP calls on Baloch and Baloch-Pakhtun leaders to sit together and devise an independent solution to the crisis in the province. Pakhtun leaders in Kurram must do the same to resolve the months-long conflict in the district,” the HRCP statement said.

The general body meeting also discussed the detention of human rights defender Idris Khattak and said that he has now spent five years in captivity following a military trial “on fabricated charges”.

The organisation demanded that he must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2024