LAHORE: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Tuesday held protests on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

Office-bearers of the rights body took out rallies in the 10 cities where it has offices.

HRCP Secretary-General I. A. Rehman said: “Sri Lanka’s ratification of the Convention on Enforced Disappearance and its pledge to criminalise the practice is a welcome step. He said other states in the region should follow suit and show that they are serious about their commitment to human rights by making enforced disappearance a specific crime in their domestic law.

Protests in 10 cities mark victims’ day

According to a press release, a conference on ‘Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances’, organised by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and HRCP, was held earlier and lawyers and activists from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had observed that large-scale enforced disappearances in South Asia can only be addressed if all governments in the region immediately criminalise this serious human rights violation.

Tens of thousands of cases have been documented in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and India and since 2009 and there has also been a surge in enforced disappearances in Bangladesh.

“Under international law, an enforced disappearance is the arrest, abduction or detention by State agents, or by people acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the detention or by concealing the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person which places the person outside the protection of the law.

“In Pakistan, the practice of enforced disappearances has in recent years become a nationwide problem. While mostly prevalent in Balochistan, the federally and provincially administered tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a number of cases are now also being reported from Sindh. To date, not a single perpetrator has been held to account.”

A brochure, which the HRCP distributed during its Lahore protest, says disappearances are still widespread and it could be proven through the proceedings of the National Commission on Disappearances. According to the commission’s record, there has been 2,584 disappearances during March 1, 2011 and July 2016. The KP accounts for the highest number with 1,362 disappearances, Sindh 965, Punjab 682, Balochistan 265, Fata 101, Azad Kashmir 36, Islamabad 36 and Gilgit-Baltistan 1. It only proves that problem is still not only prevalent but worsening, it claims.

In Nepal, even after 10 years since the end of the armed conflict, the fate and whereabouts of more than a 1,000 possible victims of enforced disappearance remain unknown and perpetrators have still not been brought to justice.

In India, between 1989 and 2009, more than 8,000 enforced and involuntary disappearances were reported in Kashmir alone. Many cases have also been reported in the northeast of India, particularly in Manipur. Immunities granted by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), in addition to other laws, have made prosecuting suspected perpetrators close to impossible.

Since 2009, there has also been a surge in enforced disappearances in Bangladesh, with reports of dozens of opposition political activists, human rights defenders students and journalists being “disappeared”.

Sri Lanka has the highest incidence of enforced disappearances in the world as a result of its decades-long conflict. In 2015, Sri Lanka became the first South Asian state to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.

The UN General Assembly has repeatedly described enforced disappearance as “an offence to human dignity”.

“Despite thousands of cases of enforced disappearances across South Asia, the governments have failed to follow their legal obligation to treat these crimes as the serious human rights violation they are,” said Sam Zarifi, ICJ’s Asia Director.“ South Asian governments have done very little to support the victims and survivors of enforced disappearance, or to ensure the rights of their family members to truth, justice and reparation.”

A comprehensive set of reforms, both in law and policy, is required to end the entrenched impunity for enforced disappearances in the region and criminalising the practice would be a significant first step, said ICJ and the HRCP.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2016