AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PUBLIC STATEMENT
AI Index: ASA 33/013/2014
29 August 2014
Pakistan: Impunity Marks International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances
On the eve of the annual International Day of the Victims of Enforced
Disappearances, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Amnesty
International, and Human Rights Watch urge Pakistan’s government to stop
the deplorable practice of state agencies abducting hundreds of people
throughout the country without providing information about their fate or
whereabouts.
Despite clear rulings from the Pakistan Supreme Court in 2013
demanding justice for victims of enforced disappearances, as well as
recommendations from the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or
Involuntary Disappearances in 2012, the Pakistan government has done
little to meet its obligations under international law and the Pakistan
Constitution to prevent enforced disappearances.
The government has failed to establish the facts about the fate and
whereabouts of victims when enforced disappearances occur, has failed to
bring perpetrators to justice, and has failed to provide reparations to
victims, including the families of the disappeared, the three leading
rights organizations said.
Instead, the government has responded by passing the Protection of
Pakistan Act, 2014, which facilitates enforced disappearances by
retrospectively legitimizing detention at undisclosed locations and
providing immunity to all state agents acting in ‘good faith.’ These
steps perpetuate a troubling culture of impunity in Pakistan, casting
grave doubts on the government’s seriousness about ensuring justice and
protecting human rights.
Enforced disappearances—most often of men and boys—occur regularly
throughout Pakistan, including Balochistan and north-western Pakistan,
as well as in Punjab and Sindh provinces.
Balochistan is of particular concern because of a pattern of enforced
disappearances targeting political activists, human rights defenders,
journalists, and lawyers. Disappeared people are often found dead, their
bodies bearing bullet wounds and marks of torture.
Earlier this year, eyewitnesses reported that Zahid Baloch, a human
rights defender and chairperson of Baloch Student Organization-Azad, was
abducted at gunpoint in Quetta, capital of Pakistan’s Balochistan
province, allegedly by personnel of the Frontier Corps, a state security
force widely implicated in enforced disappearances in the province.
Despite widespread protests and appeals for his release from relatives
and human rights groups, the authorities have failed to adequately
investigate his abduction, determine his fate or whereabouts, and bring
those responsible to justice.
In the weeks leading up to Pakistan’s Independence Day, 14
August, dozens of ethnic Baloch were arbitrarily arrested in the New
Kahan area of Quetta, and Turbat and Kharan districts. At present, the
fate or whereabouts of all of these people remain unknown.
Hundreds of men and boys, especially individuals associated with the
Muttahida Quami Movement political party and ethnic Pashtuns accused of
being associated with the Taliban, have been subjected to enforced
disappearance in the city of Karachi over the last two years. Several
members of ethnic Sindhi nationalist groups have also allegedly been
subjected to enforced disappearance in the province of Sindh in the same
period. In north-west Pakistan, the armed forces allegedly continue to
subject men and boys to enforced disappearances in areas where they are
carrying out counter-insurgency operations against the Taliban.
The few investigations carried out by the Pakistani authorities have
been hampered by their refusal or inability to adequately investigate
state security forces and intelligence services implicated in enforced
disappearances.
The ICJ, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch urge the
Pakistani government to take the following steps as a matter of urgency
to affirm its commitment to end enforced disappearances and meet its
obligations under international human rights law:
Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons
from Enforced Disappearance and implement its provisions in law, policy
and practice, and in particular include a new and separate crime of
enforced disappearances in the penal code;
Carry out a thorough review and, as
necessary, amend all security legislation, in particular the Protection
of Pakistan Act, 2014, and the Actions (in Aid of Civil Power)
Regulations, 2011, to ensure its compatibility with international human
rights law and standards;
Ensure that all persons held in secret or
arbitrary detention are immediately released, or charged for a
cognizable crime by civilian courts following international fair trial
standards, and are detained in official places of detention and in
conditions that fully respect their human rights;
Ensure that prompt, thorough, independent
and impartial investigations are carried out into all allegations of
enforced disappearance; perpetrators, including those with command or
superior responsibility, are brought to justice before independent and
impartial civilian courts, consistent with the United
Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearance; and victims, including the families of the disappeared,
have access to effective remedies and receive adequate reparation.
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