ISLAMABAD, Dec 22: People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar has submitted two resolutions in the Senate seeking to enlarge the scope of the law on declaration of assets and broaden the base of human rights.
Talking to Dawn here on Wednesday, the PPP senator said he had moved these two resolutions after getting no response from the government in the previous Senate sessions when he raised these issues through questions and point of order. In the previous Senate session, he said, his question regarding signing of the Convention Against Torture (CAT) was "ducked" by the Foreign Office.
The question asked was "whether the government of Pakistan had signed and ratified CAT, the Convention on International Criminal Court, the Convention of Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and if not, why not?" However, he said, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri said in a written reply, "The information is being collected."
The resolution, submitted by Mr Babar, seeking to broaden the base of human rights states: "This House is of the view that the government should seriously consider on priority basis signing the Convention Against Torture."
The PPP senator said civil rights movements and NGOs had been demanding that Pakistan should sign and ratify the convention. India had already signed it and Bangladesh was a state party to the convention.
He 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 CAT. He said a protocol added to the convention in 2002 also authorized the UN human rights machinery to access places of detention.
Mr Babar said some months ago, his move to bring on the floor of the House for review of the law under which the security agencies kidnapped and detained citizens was disallowed on the ground that it was a "sensitive issue."
Through another resolution, the PPP senator has called for enlarging the scope of the law on declaration of assets. It states: "This House is of the view that it will serve the interests of transparency and good governance if the scope of the law on declaration of assets and liabilities is enlarged so as to include also in it other segments of the society."
Giving reason for submitting the resolution, Mr Babar said at present it was mandatory only for the parliamentarians to annually submit a statement of their assets and liabilities which were also published.
