April 14, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 25, 1428

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LAHORE, April 13: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has criticised the federal cabinet for its failure to condemn the ‘fatwas’ (religious decrees) being delivered across the country, even when one of its own members has been targeted.

“Such an attitude proves that the government is part of the extremism issue,” it alleges.

“The HRCP has under these circumstances no hope that the crisis can be resolved particularly when there seems to be a clear collusion between the obscurantist forces and the government which has completely abdicated the responsibility of combating the growing trend of ‘fatwas’ threatening political leaders, activists and now even a sitting minister,” HRCP Secretary-General Syed Iqbal Haider observed in a press statement released on Friday.

Mr Haider said the suggestion by the federal religious affairs minister to set up a ‘jirga’ (a tribal judicial forum) to resolve the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa’s issue despite a legal ban on such forums bore testimony to such a collusion. It aimed at nothing but continuation of the violence by the seminary students, he added.

The refusal to take action against the ‘fatwas’ that threatened the life and welfare of human rights activists, including the HRCP leaders, was a government’s failure which had allowed extremism to thrive, he said.

The HRCP leader alleged that clerics had been given a free hand to act as judges in matters of morality, seminary students rampaged through streets, edicts of all kinds were being delivered regularly and citizens were the ultimate sufferers. “The state is clearly shirking its responsibility of ensuring protection to life and property.”

The situation could only lead to deepening of the crisis which was now spreading to small towns and cities all over the country, Mr Haider said, suggesting that the issues could be addressed only through the return of meaningful democracy. —Correspondent