Amnesty International has asked Pakistan to stop its “outrageous crackdown on peaceful protests by families seeking justice for the enforced disappearance of their loved ones”. The International Human Rights Organisation has said this in a briefing released on Thursday. It has also pointed out the deteriorating conditions of human rights in Pakistan. See here.
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Amnesty International is a non-governmental organisation based in the United Kingdom that advocates for human rights. According to the organization’s website, it has over ten million members and supporters worldwide. See here.
Amnesty International coincidentally released the report on the same day when the estranged Baloch community celebrated its day of Independence. On August 11, 1947, a tripartite deal was concluded between the Khanate of Kalat and Pakistan under the supervision of the British. Under this tripartite agreement, the Kalat kingdom was recognised as a sovereign nation. However, Pakistan had sent its armed forces and annexed Balochistan in March 1948.
Amnesty International stated in its briefing, ‘Braving the Storm: Enforced Disappearances and the Right to Protest,’ that Pakistani authorities are using “harassment, intimidation, and even violence” to stifle peaceful protests by families of the disappeared. See here.
Under the International law, forced disappearance is considered a serious violation of human rights and is classified as a crime. Pakistan has been accused of suing the tool to suppress the raging insurgency in Balochistan, in its largest and most resource-rich province. Activists have described the plight of the Baloch people, including students and women, who are being forcibly kidnapped by security agencies and are being persecuted for inquiring about their whereabouts.
The human rights organisation used the case of Gul Naaz, whose brother vanished from the city of Mingora in 2009, as an example. She claimed that the police would come to her house, interrogate her family, and put pressure on them to stop her from protesting. Another example is of Amina Masood Janjua, who has been fighting against enforced disappearances since her husband vanished in 2005. Amina Masood Janjua revealed to Amnesty International that she had received threatening phone calls from unknown callers.
Amnesty highlighted the fact that the Pakistani government employs violence to quell or disperse protests.
“On June 13, police in Sindh province used unnecessary and unlawful force to break up a peaceful protest in Karachi by relatives and civil society, protesting against the disappearance of two Baloch students, Doda Baloch and Ghamshad Baloch. Fawad Hasan, a journalist who was covering the sit-in, told Amnesty International that he witnessed police slapping female protesters, beating male protesters with batons and sticks, and kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach”.
Amnesty International has urged Pakistan’s government to allow all peaceful gatherings of the families of the missing persons and to “end the practise of enforced disappearances and outlaw it entirely.” It went on to say that “Pakistan should also ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED).”
Pakistan was embroiled in a severe controversy in mid-July after its security forces released a statement claiming to have killed nine “terrorists” in an encounter in Ziarat. Seven of those killed were identified as Baloch men who had been kidnapped by security forces and killed in custody, but were shown to have been shot in an encounter.
Amnesty International’s Dinushika Dissanayake, Deputy Regional Director for South Asia, said in a statement: “Families of the disappeared are constantly let down by authorities through their lack of access to justice, the ineptitude of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, and the failure of state institutions to hold perpetrators accountable or even provide any answers.”
