The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) concluded its 10-day visit to Pakistan on Sept 20. During this mission the group visited Islamabad and the four provinces. The group was in Peshawar on Sept 17 to discuss hundreds of cases of “enforced disappearances” belonging to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata),

The Working Group was represented by Olivier de Frouville, the chair-rapporteur, and Osman El-Hajje. They were also accompanied by Ugo Cedrangolo, secretary of the Working Group, and Alia El-Khatib from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Some local staffers of UN agencies were also present to assist the visitors.

The way the Pakistani intelligence agencies behaved and operated during the visit of the Working Group, provided a glimpse to the visitors of how they operate in this country. Wherever this group went they were chased by sleuths of several agencies. The lone five star hotel in the provincial capital was giving a look as if some spies from some “enemy” country had been staying there.

Around a dozen personnel of different intelligence agencies were present on the first floor of the hotel, where the mission was holding meetings with different groups including civil society and relatives of missing persons. Same was the situation in the main lobby of the hotel where several other intelligence officials were roaming around and tallying information collected by them with each other.

They were collecting information about the people meeting the group and what they had shared with the group. The relatives of the missing persons who visited the hotel also appeared to be sacred because of this intrusion by the agencies. Some of the personnel were seen asking the local organisers to provide them a complete list of the visitors. The officials of the hotel also seemed visibly perturbed because it appeared as if they had committed a grave crime by allowing the meetings on its premises.

Interestingly, just like several of our parliamentarians did not know about the working group and its mandate and they had made fiery speeches in the National Assembly against it, the personnel of the intelligence agencies were also not aware about it. They believed as if the group was visiting Pakistan to collect evidence against the intelligence agencies which would be used against them on international forums.

Looking at this attitude of the agencies the WGEID has in its preliminary recommendation asked the government to guarantee safety of those who had visited them. “The state has to guarantee the safety of those who have met with the WGEID during this visit and to protect them against any form of reprisals, threats or intimidation,” the recommendations state.

Following conclusion of the visit, the WGEID has released a 10-page preliminary findings and recommendations. Some of these recommendations are very relevant and need urgent attention. One of the important recommendations states: “A new and autonomous crime of enforced disappearances should be included in the Criminal Code, following the definition given in the 2006 Convention on the protection of all persons against enforced disappearances, and with all the legal consequences flowing from this qualification.”

Prior to the said convention the Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by the General Assembly in 1992, also mentioned the same point. Article 3 of the Declaration states that Each State shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent and terminate acts of enforced disappearance in any territory under its jurisdiction.

Furthermore, Article 4 of the declaration states that all acts of enforced disappearance shall be offences under criminal law punishable by appropriate penalties which shall take into account their extreme seriousness.The Constitution of Pakistan and the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that a suspect should be produced before the concerned magistrate within 24 hours of his or her arrest.

In Pakistan although certain provisions are available in the law to deal with cases of illegal confinement, but there is no specific provision available which deals with the phenomenon of “enforced disappearances.” Chapter XVI-A of Pakistan Penal Code deals with wrongful restraint and wrongful confinement. Section 340 of PPC defines wrongful confinement as: “Whoever wrongfully restraint any person in such a manner as to prevent that person from proceeding beyond certain circumscribing limit, is said ‘wrongfully to confine’ that person.”

The crime of wrongful confinement carries different sentences ranging from prison terms of one year up to three years keeping in view the duration of confinement.

Similarly, section 157 of the Police Order provides that any police officer who unnecessarily delays the forwarding to a court or to any other authority to whom he is legally bound to forward any arrested person, shall, on conviction, be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year and with fine. Similarly, under section 156 of the Police Order any official found involved in vexatious and unnecessary detention, search or arrest of UN Working Group recommendations need to be implemented any person shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to five years and with fine.

The Working Group also recommends that as a preventive measure against enforced disappearance, any person deprived of liberty should be held in an officially recognised place of detention and brought promptly before a judicial authority.

Looking at the manner the security apparatus operates in the country, it is not expected that this recommendation would be followed. The intelligence agencies have been running their “safe houses” which are not notified detention centres.

Another recommendation which needed to be forthwith addressed states: “Financial aid should be provided to the relatives of the disappeared persons, in particular women and children, in order to help to cope with the difficulties generated by the absence of the disappeared person.” As these missing persons mostly belong to poor social backgrounds, it had become difficult for their relatives to make the both ends meet.

Legal experts dealing with cases of missing persons believe that the government should give serious thought to the findings and recommendations put forward by the Working Group as it would help to a great extent in addressing this phenomenon.