January 24, 2006	Tuesday	Zilhaj 23, 1426

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 23: Human rights violations in Pakistan have increased since the country joined the US-led war on terror, the World Social Forum (WSF) would be informed when it meets in the Venezuelan capital Caracas Jan 24-29.

A forum forged by people’s movements as an alternative to the elitist World Economic Forum (WEF), the WSF purposely holds its meeting the same time that WEF meets in Davos. Pakistan will be represented by President Gen Pervez Musharraf at this year’s Davos meeting.

Iqbal A. Dehto, secretary general of the Pakistan chapter of Amnesty International told Dawn on Monday that after five years of intense interaction, peoples’ movements everywhere in the world have joined forces to prove that “another world is not only possible, it is happening”.

Nowhere was it happening more profoundly than Venezuela, he said. “The country is home to a peaceful revolutionary process that has brought education and healthcare to millions through the redistribution of oil profits. In fact, the whole Latin American region is now in search of an alternative economic system.”

Mr Dehto a WSF meeting will also be held in Karachi in March as its concerns about Pakistan where national resources have been hijacked by the landed aristocracy and the middle class and the poor have been ousted from the decision-making process.

That Pakistan’s predicaments have worsened since it took the role of the frontline state in the US’s so-called war on terror, was evident from the ongoing military operations in Balochistan and the tribal areas and absence of political autonomy and real democracy, the Amnesty official said.

“Some 7,000 people are on death row in Pakistan. They include juveniles convicted by various courts,” he said, listing some of the concerns of the WSF which include arbitrary arrests and detentions, unfair trials under anti-terrorist legislations, torture, rapes, deaths in custody, extrajudicial executions and disappearances.

“The Pakistani government has consistently failed to exercise due diligence in protecting members of religious minorities and women from violence by private actors and to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice for such abuses”, Mr Dehto observed.

Rights were also violated of the people detained, and then handed over to the US authorities, on suspicion that they might have been associated with terrorist. Now people were being killed inside Pakistan in the US attacks. The killing of 18 innocent civilians in Bajaur was the latest such attack.

“The participation of Pakistan in the war on terror has added another layer to the human rights violations. Hundreds of people have been arbitrarily arrested, disappeared in custody and in some cases handed over to other countries without reference to domestic legal safeguards related to extradition and in violation of the country’s laws which prohibits transfer of detainees in situations in which they are at risk of serious abuse.

“Several of these transfer from Pakistan to the US custody and the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay have testified the torture and inhuman treatment of inmates at the custody of the US army”, said the IA official while pledging to take up these issues at WSF.

The member organisation of the WSF in Pakistan are also worried about the repercussions of the specific laws on the lives of the people. For example people are hauled up under Blasphemy Law for no crime but exercising the right to freedom of religion.

The Hudood laws provides for cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments. It also discriminate against women in that it does not admit their testimonies and fails to adequately distinguish between fornication and rape, he said.

The law of Qisas and Diyat makes murder a private offence for which the family of the victim can forgive the perpetrator and end prosecution. This facilitates impunity to both honour killing and deaths in custody, he added.

Pakistan, Mr Dehto noted, has not yet ratified major human rights treaties like the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Convention against Torture (CAT).