Our missing rights

Like ‘missing persons’, many human, civil, political and social rights too remain missing in our hybrid democracy. Despite the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 70 years ago and the inclusion of most of its provisions into the 1973 constitution, the people of Pakistan yearn for their basic rights as equal humans.

In a country where constitutional rule has been repeatedly subverted and remains under a cloud, one can hardly expect the fulfilment of commitments to enforce human rights.

At a sombre session organised at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), it was recommended that parliament take cognizance of the huge jump in terms of recommendations to address human rights’ shortcomings: from 167 in 2012 to 289 in 2017. The HRCP called upon parliament to implement 168 measures the government had agreed to “support”, consider ways to enforce 121 steps that it had taken positive “note” of and review the “rejection” of four recommendations.

The UN Working Group in its plenary session on March 19, 2018 had found out that none of the recommendations “supported” or “noted” by Pakistan were implemented. This shows the criminal neglect of the concerned authorities towards the commitments they have been making while enjoying junkets to Geneva where the UN’s Human Rights Council holds its meetings. Usually, rather than agreeing to improve the dismal record of their respective human rights violations, the occasion is used by India and Pakistan to exchange accusations against each other.

Once case in point is the violation of the rights of minorities in both countries. If the UN admonishes India for grave violations of human rights in Indian-held Kashmir, New Delhi vehemently rejects it; and if the ‘missing persons’ issue is raised by human rights watchdogs, Islamabad calls it misguided. In their ongoing ‘hybrid, fifth-generation warfare’, hostile authorities in the Subcontinent conveniently term their respective human rights groups as the ‘fifth column’. Unfortunately, rather than being heard in the best interest of the people of their own countries, human rights defenders become victims of collateral damage in a hostile environment where people are the real sufferers.

The arrest of leading human and social rights activists in India and the victimisation of dissenting voices in Pakistan expose the similar authoritarian mindset of postcolonial structures. If the Indian authorities want a cover-up of the atrocities they are daily committing in Indian-held Kashmir, the official expectation in Pakistan is not to refer to the excesses being meted out against our own people. The disdain shown by ministers on both sides towards their countries’ minorities is yet another testimony about a similar self-serving authoritarian mindset in the two nations. If observance of human rights, minorities’ and women’s rights is the obligation of the member countries of the UN, so it is the moral obligation of human rights activists to stand against violators of rights and freedoms.

After the creation of Pakistan, two committees were formed to set the guiding principles of the new constitution and to elaborate the fundamental human rights headed by Mohammed Ali Jinnah who had set the principle of equality of all citizens regardless of their ethnicity, religion, gender and social status in his speech to the inaugural session of the constituent assembly on August 11, 1947. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was ratified by Pakistan’s first foreign minister Sir Zafarullah Khan is yet to be implemented in letter and spirit.

The findings of the committee on human rights became a part of the 1956 constitution — with glaring distortions. Yet they were not enforced and could not make it to the 1960 constitution that was arbitrarily imposed by Ayub Khan who even refused to concede adult franchise, federalism, civil liberties and freedom of expression. It was the 1973 constitution which to some extent guaranteed human, civil, political, social and economic rights, with however overriding limitations imposed by obstructive laws and arbitrary amendments. But most of these rights are either blatantly violated or circumvented by various prohibitive and discriminatory laws. Similarly, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women; Convention on the Rights of Child, Environmental, Cultural and Developmental Rights and various protocols to enforce these covenants and protocols got little or no attention, barring rare exceptions, from successive governments.

Today, Pakistan sits at the bottom of the list of countries with a terrible record in terms of human, social, political and civil rights, women and minorities’ rights in particular. The rights to life, fair trial, fair franchise, freedom of expression and education, good health, clean water and environment, gainful employment and decent living are non-existent for a majority of Pakistanis. The mainstream political parties are busy with their power games and are oblivious of the social and economic rights of the people. The democratic movement has exhausted its energy, after the compromises and betrayals by most of the national and provincial leaders.

Rights based movements are being suppressed. Civil society is being liquidated and extremist militias and sectarian groups are filling the vacuum. As the corporate media struggles to survive, media freedom has been constrained on various pretexts. In the name of accountability, the right to fair trial is being sacrificed. And the financial and economic crises are adding to the miseries of the people who are left with no viable alternative.

While commemorating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and evaluating the third Universal Period Review, the HRCP rightly called for parliament to implement the steps that were agreed to or noted by Pakistan regarding the effective enforcement of human rights. This also calls for the strengthening of the monitoring, auditing and implanting mechanisms of human, social, civil and political rights. The Ministry of Human Rights, formed by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, remains without resources and necessary instruments during the first tenure of the minister for human rights, who happened to be my brother Mumtaz Alam, as is the case now under Ms Shireen Mazari. The ministry should be strengthened and guided by an authentic council of human rights activists. The unofficial watchdogs of rights and freedoms deserve to be respected and the voices of the people should be heard.

Issues such as missing persons, censorship, freedom of expression, alienation of the people from areas disturbed by conflict, poverty, equal rights, lack of social services for the people at large, inflation and unemployment should be given priority by both government and the opposition. The situation calls for the broader unity of rights-based social and democratic movements on an agenda of social, political, economic and cultural rights. But without bringing a systemic change, the people of Pakistan cannot enjoy the rights and freedoms they deserve.

The writer is a senior journalist. Email: imtiaz.safma@gmail.com

Twitter: @ImtiazAlamSAFMA