“There were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Pakistan during the year,” states United States (US) State Department in its 2023 Country Report on Human Rights Practices.
Karachi: The State Department report on Human Rights raised alarming concerns in Pakistan about human rights abuses committed by the state. The report reviewed each human rights issue and described violations such as arbitrary killing, including extrajudicial killing, torture, and cases of cruel, inhuman treatment or punishment, with official authorities involved. It also highlighted life-threatening prisons, targeting political opponents, and breaches of citizens’ privacy, including instances where families were punished for alleged offenses to coerce them into presenting themselves to security forces.
Restrictions on free speeches, affecting the media, and the internet. Journalists face violence and censorship, with female journalists often being harassed and targeted. Gender-based violence is prevalent, including domestic abuse, sexual violence, forced marriage, and child marriage. Minority groups such as ethnic and religious communities, as well as LGBTQ+ individuals face discrimination. The transgender community is being targeted in the country.
Enforced disappearances
On forced disappearances, the report has detailed accounts of missing persons in Sindh and Balochistan provinces. The state’s agencies pick them up without legal process, and the detained persons are not allowed pursuing legal action in the accordance with law. Besides forcibly detaining citizens, there is transnational repression against individuals who live aboard, with the state appearing to silence them. Human rights violations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were also highlighted.
It mentioned data regarding missing persons by the state, including organizations run by Balochs and Sindhis human rights activists. The reports stated that in August by government’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced disappearances, of the 9,967 missing-person cases reported to the commission since 2011, 7,714 were solved, while 2,253 remained pending.
However, report indicated that actual numbers of missing persons are higher than what government’s commission claimed.
Claimed by activists 500 Sindhis were missing, with more than 142 disappearing in 2022 alone. The Voice of Sindhi Missing Persons reported that 80 Sindhi persons had disappeared in Sindh province alone between January and August, many of whom were reportedly associated with Sindhi nationalist parties. Similarly, the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, 177 Baloch persons disappeared in the province between January and July, with an alleged 6,808 persons forcibly disappeared since 2000, as mentioned in the report. In KP, government’s Commission on Enforced Disappearances, 3,380 persons were reported in 2022.
Activists and government are not on the same page when it comes to the US Human Rights Report
“This year’s report is once again conspicuous by its lack of objectivity and politicisation of the international human rights agenda,” Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement on Thursday.
A prominent activist, Sasui Lohar, leading Voice for Missing Persons of Sindh. She has been actively advocating for missing persons issue since her father, Hidayat Lohar was abducted in 2017. After 4 years, he was gunned down on February 16, 2024, in Nasirabad, near Larkana city, Sindh, Pakistan. Now, she is in the streets demanding justice to bring the culprits to court.
When asked Lohar about Pakistan’s government reaction to the US report on the Human Rights situation in the country, Lohar responded that it’s obvious the state wouldn’t accept such a report because it highlights its crimes. She said the state that is involved in abducting and killing citizens. Moreover, no one holds them accountable for their crimes. “Will they accept by saying that they are committing human rights violations?”
She added that she could list of the victims of missing persons, but she shared her own family’s example where her father abducted and, four years later, was gunned down. She asked the state who killed her father if the state was not involved. Then from the police to the judges, everyone avoided including the name of state agencies in the First Information Report.
“I welcome the US report on Human Rights 2023 in Pakistan, which sheds light on Human Rights violations,” Lohar says. “Enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings are facts throughout Pakistan, and numerous families are victims. It is the truth – not a lie.”
Qazi Khizer, Vice Chairman of the Sindh Chapter of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says, “In Pakistan, human rights violation has not been reduced. Instead, it is increasing day by day.” He mentioned that he did not go through the US report on Human Rights but acknowledged that certain realities cannot be ignored, such as targeting minority groups, child marriages, the vulnerability of women, and not the least, enforced disappearances.
Dr. Deen Mohammad Baloch from Balochistan has been abducted for over a decade without being produced in court. Asif Dayo from Sindh is another case, with his sister protesting for his release. Even in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, cases of enforced disappearances are being reported, he said.
Khizer stated that the state was violating its own constitution. The state agencies abducted citizens without warrants, and when the families went to the police stations to register an FIR, they were denied. He added that courts would neither a person, who had abducted about their whereabouts nor conduct any investigations in such cases, which could uncover more facts.
“Now, in the country, everyone knows that enforced disappearances cases are happening. The state cannot avert its eyes from such a grave issue,” Khizer says.
A leading activist, Aamna Baloch, Organizer for the Baloch Yakjheti Committee, recently led a protest in Karachi during Eid, calling for the release of missing persons. She welcomed the US report and demanded that the international committee investigate enforced disappearance cases.
Baloch added that young men Balochs from Lyari in October 2023 were abducted. In March this year, their dead bodies were found in Manghopir. Kin of Baloch missing persons went to Islamabad, and voices across Pakistan are being raised against enforced disappearances.
“We never expect that the Pakistan government will either confess to its human rights violations or hold accountable those who are involved in them,” Baloch says.
Read About The Rise News
Please follow our comment policy.