PESHAWAR: NGO expresses concern over Afghan DPs arrest
Bureau Report
PESHAWAR, Dec 14: Expressing concern over large scale arrests of Afghan refugees under the Foreigners Act, the Society for Human Rights and Prisoners Aid (SHARP) has asked the government to consider them as refugees as the government had given them refuge on humanitarian grounds.
In a press release issued in connection with the International Prisoners Day to be observed on Sunday, Liaquat Banori, chairman of SHARP, an NGO working for human rights and welfare of prisoners, regretted that the prisons in Pakistan were in very miserable condition.
All the plans, programmes regarding the reformation and rehabilitation were not possible due to over-populated prisons. “Jails are meant for convicts but due to prevailing laws and ignorance of the authorities, the people (involved) in minor offences are rotting in the jails,” he added.
The SHARP chief regretted that unfortunately a system could not be developed in 55 years to make the country “a welfare state where the basic rights of the citizens are protected.” Governments had always tried to introduce penal laws to protect their vested interests and no change had ever been made in the procedural laws to ease the process in the justice system, he maintained.
The human rights activist claimed that more than 80,000 prisoners were inhabiting 72 prisons of the country having total capacity of merely 37,000 prisoners. Boarstal jails for juveniles, he added, required to be established at least initially at provincial level and then divisional level in future to avoid keeping children with habitual offenders. Similarly, woman jails were required to be established separately, he added. “Presently, woman jails are within the existing jails under the supervision of male officers as in charge,” he stated.
Banori expressed concern over increasing incidents of torture cases in jails. He said only in Rawalpindi three prisoners reportedly died within one month due to negligence of the jail authorities. Similarly, many prisoners were killed by the jail authorities due to inhuman attitude and torture in different jails in the current year.
About the imprisonment of Afghan refugees, he said the Pakistan government had agreed with the Afghan government and the UNHCR for repatriation of Afghan refugees within certain period, which further established legality of their stay in Pakistan. In this situation, he added, Foreigners Act did not apply on Afghan refugees, but even then hundreds of refugees were arrested and detained in Karachi.
The SHARP chairman suggested to the government that the schedule of bailable and non-bailable offences be rescheduled. The bail procedure for the minor offences, he said, should be revised and the destitute prisoners in minor offences be released on personal surety. Court should take notice of the cases of prisoners without surety on priority basis.
He further suggested that legal assistance units be developed at every Bar level which needed to be patronised by the Bench because without support from the Bench these centres could not effectively work.
Banori said minor children detained with their mothers needed the attention of the community. Special attention of the government, NGOs and the social sector, he added, was needed for providing better facilities and assistance to the prisoners and prisons.
