Last year, the Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights informed parliament about 8,648 rights violations that had occurred across Pakistan. These included violence against women, sectarian violence and target killings, sexual harassment and other violations that were reported to the police. This figure also included 141 cases of missing persons, 47 of which were from Balochistan, the Ministry stated. However, rights violations related to the blasphemy laws were not stated as such, but what was noted in the list (and is open to interpretation) was that there had been ‘20 minority-related issues.’ There is a lack of state acknowledgement that unpopular victims of violations need legal counsel, advice and in many cases, protection. But as militant ideas and intolerance become increasingly mainstream, it is human rights defenders themselves that are the target of extremist groups operating with impunity.
Questioning the state’s capacity and will to establish the rule of law, Sam Zarifi, the Asia Pacific Regional Director at the International Commission of Jurists, says the country is conceding space to extremists. “A government that cannot protect its people is systematically failing in its responsibility and cannot call itself a sovereign state,” he says. Zarifi believes that when it comes to representation, the legal community must unite and sign up to represent unpopular defendants needing legal assistance. But in an atmosphere in which extremists threaten and murder with impunity, this is easier suggested than implemented.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), a credible chronicler of rights violations known to lobby and intervene through the courts, focuses on assistance for victims of rights violations; highlights the issue of enforced disappearances, violence against women and minorities and offers legal defense for those accused of blasphemy. It has paid a high price for its stance. In March 2011, Naeem Sabir Jamaldini, HRCP’s Khuzdar district coordinator was shot for his work reporting on rights violations and documenting Baloch missing persons; HRCP’s Pasni coordinator, Siddique Eido, was abducted in 2010 in Gwadar and his body found in April 2011. Zarteef Khan Afridi, a teacher and an HRCP activist in Khyber Agency since 1989, had been receiving threats from the Taliban. He refused to leave the district when he was killed in Jamrud in December 2011, says HRCP chairperson, Zohra Yusuf. He would advocate the rights of women and girls and had trained school teachers which won him the hatred of extremist and obscurantist forces who opposed his critique of seminaries. “The space for rational debate is shrinking,” she says.
Yet another legal activist who had worked with HRCP for over two decades lost his life earlier this month. Rashid Rehman, known for his unwavering commitment providing assistance to defendants without legal representation, had refused to succumb to the threats. Rehman, gunned down in his Multan office, was threatened in an open court for defending a university professor — previously unable to find a legal representation for a year — in a blasphemy case. He had also defended Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US in a fabricated blasphemy case in Multan. A 2012 study by the Islamabad-based think tank, the Center for Research and Security Studies shows an increase in blasphemy accusations with 80 complaints in 2011, up from a single case in 2001. “Extremist groups are successfully targeting ethnic and religious minorities and anybody who dares to speak out in their defence, right up to a government minister is targeted, which means strategically isolating these communities so that they don’t have any allies,” Zarifi points out.
“Many believe that some accused don’t have a right to representation by lawyers,” say Yusuf, citing the murder of Justice Arif Iqbal Bhatti who acquitted two Christian boys in a 1995 blasphemy case. Bhatti, who had received numerous death threats, was murdered in 1997.
Human rights groups have long campaigned against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which carry a death penalty and are frequently used to settle personal scores and persecute religious minorities. Evidence is rarely presented in court and judges are reluctant to hear cases. There is no penalty for false accusations. Indeed, the scope of the law seems to be widening, as seen in the recent example where the Punjab police registered a case of blasphemy against 68 lawyers who publicly protested after a police officer detained one of their colleagues.
As a lawyer who has defended an accused in a blasphemy case explains, the immediate reaction was shock when other associates heard he was involved in such proceedings. “It was as if I deserved to be attacked [if that happened] for providing legal assistance,” he recalls. Speaking to Dawn on condition of anonymity, he says he was warned and roughed up by a group of lawyers within the premises of the SC for his involvement. It is common to hear of lower courts convicting the accused in blasphemy cases, sometimes on little credible evidence, due to the fear of mob violence if there is no conviction.
“Blasphemy cases are in a league of their own because of the kind of emotions they evoke, often followed by violent vigilante actions. While legally representing vulnerable groups, there is pressure and intimidation, but the insecurity felt as an advocate while defending a blasphemy case is unlike anything else,” says senior advocate, Salman Raja.
Other human rights work also evokes reaction from politically-backed perpetrators. When Raja advocated for justice for a 13-year-old victim in Rawalpindi, he was warned to withdraw from the case in March 2012. This led the Chief Justice to order a security contingent for Raja and rights activist Tahira Abdullah for a year. Raja explains that he intervened with Abdullah’s help ensuring that the SC took suo moto notice of the case and an FIR was lodged against the accused. “I rushed to the court and filed a petition when I read the story in Dawn about the prosecutor general acquitting the accused persons. The rape survivor and her family had been threatened by the powerful perpetrators to stay silent and accept compensation. They were very poor and afraid of being seen talking to a lawyer. The girl told us she had been gang-raped. The IG told me in court that I was wasting time. When I provided a safe-house for the gang-rape survivor and her father during the court hearing, the police filed a case against me for kidnapping the woman and her father.” Raja says the police investigation was so shoddy that, without evidence, there was no case. “In 99 per cent of rape cases the accused walk away free. There is no forensic evidence that links the accused to the crime. Rape has become a matter to be negotiated between the victim and the accused with the police merely brokering the deal.”
Human rights work is unlike humanitarian work when results appear quickly. It takes decades of courage and resilience with activists and groups needed to keep tapping away for the desired change. “The HRCP have a track record of standing with the oppressed. They have had to play the role of an opposition political party in Pakistan through consistent advocacy although they are old-fashioned and work with limited resources,” says journalist Mohammad Hanif, who documented the stories of missing persons in The Baloch who is not missing anymore. Rights defenders like the activists who campaign for missing persons, politicians who advocate for the rights of the marginalised minority and the advocates who provide unpopular defendants with legal assistance —whether it is the former President Musharraf or blasphemy accused or rape victims — are increasingly at risk. The result is that, while standing up for human rights remains a noble cause, it is also increasingly dangerous.
Equally importantly, it is itself a right under international protection placed in December 1998 under the special protection of the international community, explains Angelika Pathak, a senior researcher at Amnesty International.
“Pakistan, as a member of the international community, committed itself to protecting and safeguarding the rights of human rights defenders when the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders was adopted. It entered international legal obligations to ensure the rights to life, the security of the person, to freedom from torture and arbitrary arrest and detention and from enforced disappearance when it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention Against Torture in 2010; such commitment also includes the obligation to exercise due diligence in protecting anyone, including human rights defenders, against abuses by private persons,” she adds.
In practice, few of these commitments are honoured. When looking for ways to ensure victims accused in blasphemy cases are given access to justice, Salman Raja suggests the need to think along the lines of the mafia trials in Italy that were transferred from ordinary courts to secret locations with lawyers and judges whose identities were protected. It would be radical, he concedes, but with an effective witness protection programme this approach could administer justice without fear. Measures to protect rights defenders against abuses and investigate instances of such abuses brought to its notice with a view to bringing perpetrators to justice is something the government has systematically ignored and so to fight injustice many more defenders will risk their lives.
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 18th, 2014
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.