05 December 2004	Sunday	22 Shawwal 1425

ISLAMABAD, Dec 4: Pakistan is working to sign the global Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention Against Torture, officials told Dawn.

In reply to a question about signing and ratification of UN conventions, Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said Pakistan has its reservations on the Convention on International Criminal Court.

He said Pakistan has already signed the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Civil rights movements and NGOs have been demanding that Pakistan sign Rome statute under which the International Criminal Court (ICC) was set up. They have also been demanding that the government sign and ratify the Convention Against Torture.

Earlier, the foreign office had ducked People's Party Parliamentarians question on whether Pakistan government had signed the Convention Against Torture.

Senator Farhatullah Babar had asked whether the government had signed and ratified the Convention Against Torture (CAT), the Convention on International Criminal Court (ICC), the Convention of Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and if not, why?

In a written reply Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri stated, "the information is being collected."

The PPP said it was surprising that the foreign minister did not know whether Pakistan had signed the conventions and sought shelter behind "collecting information."

When asked Senator Babar

said he had submitted the question on November 5 and the minister had three weeks to collect information and give a reply on November 26 when the Senate met for its 18th session on Friday. He said the government had not signed the three conventions and yet it did not want to say so and that is why the minister skirted the question.

Talking to Dawn, the PPPP senator said arbitrary detentions, kidnappings by intelligence agencies and torture in custody were some of the serious forms of torture which could not be perpetrated easily by any government if it had signed the Convention Against Torture (CAT).

He said the reluctance by the government to sign the CAT showed that it wanted to continue the abominable practice of arbitrary detentions and kidnappings by the security agencies.

He said it was ironic that in Pakistani criminal law also there was no mention of torture. "We do not recognize torture in our law, even in the Police Order there was no provision for preventing torture," he maintained.

He said India had signed CAT and Bangladesh was a state party to the convention. He said under a protocol added to the CAT in 2002 the UN human rights machinery was authorized to access places of detention.

Similarly 97 countries had signed the statute on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and also ratified it.

The ICC has the power to investigate, prosecute and convict individuals whether as part of or in relation to the government in power, a group rebelling or aiming to change the government or status quo. Pakistan had voted in favour of the ICC at the UN conference in 1998 when Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister. But with the coming of military government Pakistan has refused to sign it citing various reasons, he said.