HRCP march demands legislation to stop enforced disappearances

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) held a march on Friday against enforced disappearances from Teen Talwar to the Karachi Press Club.

HRCP Vice Chairperson Sindh Qazi Khizr, NTUF General Secretary Nasir Mansoor and Sammi Deen Baloch, leader of the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons, participated in the protest along with members of civil society organisations and individuals from various walks of life.

Addressing the rally, Mansoor said enforced disappearances were oppression. “If rights are not given, divisions occur,” he remarked as he demanding that the state stop the injustice. Sammi thanked the HRCP and those political and social organisations that organised the rally. “Whenever we complain to the state that oppression is taking place, they ask us to condemn certain incidents,” she said. “What kind of state is this that which, instead of preventing injustice, makes us issue condemnations?” she asked.

She said that previously, only the Baloch were affected with enforced disappearances, but now all ethnicities were. She lamented that if the missing persons did not return, they were found as mutilated corpses.

Sammi said many tactics had been employed to suppress their peaceful movement. “We are peaceful people, but our peaceful voices are not heard,” she said. The HRCP, in a statement, called for the state to eliminate the heinous practice of enforced disappearances and acknowledge that it constituted a crime against humanity under the international law.

The commission demanded that the federal government recover all the victims of enforced disappearance promptly and safely and present them before courts of law. Those accused of crimes must be dealt with under the law and their right to due process and fair trial must be upheld.

They protesters also demanded legislation against enforced disappearances as a matter of priority, making the practice a criminal offense. They demanded that the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance be ratified and implemented.

They also demanded holding accountable all individuals and institutions involved in perpetrating or facilitating enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and the custodial torture of forcibly disappeared persons.

Another demand that was made was appointment of a new chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances and restructure the commission such that it responded to the needs of victims’ families more effectively.

The HRCP also called for extending an invitation to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to report its findings. Lastly, the protesters demanded ensuring that the victims’ families were allowed to safely exercise their right to freedom of expression and assembly.