HYDERABAD: Representatives of Sindh’s civil society organisations on Monday slammed attempts to make new laws to impose curbs on civil society and urged the government not to frame any such law without adequate participation and consultation of civil society.

They expressed concern over harassment, arrest and murders of human rights activists and said the current state of affairs was badly impacting human rights, dignity of citizens, peasant and labour rights, right of organisation, minorities’ rights and freedom of expression in the province.

They were speaking at the Sindh Convention of Pakistan Civil Society Forum (PCSF) held at the Hyderabad Press Club.

“This forum unconditionally supports democracy and its principles, however, we condemn lawlessness and violation of human rights, particularly assassination of Parveen Rehman of Orangi Pilot Project, Sabeen Mehmood of T2F and picking up of Saeed Baloch of Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum and the union of Fishermen’s Cooperative Society,” said Karamat Ali, executive director of Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research.

He said the process of usurpation of the right to association and information actually started in the regin of military dictator Gen

Ziaul Haq, who imposed a complete ban on rights organisations and student unions.

Suleman G. Abro of the Agri­cultural and Forestry Workers Coordinating Organisation said the forum would hold a national convention in Islamabad to discuss challenges to civil society.

Punhal Sariyo of the Sindh Hari Porhiyat Council said that workers were facing a great many hardships because they did not have any rights. Only one per cent of workers were organised in unions, he added.

Prof Mushtaq Mirani of the Sindh Democratic Forum said that it was the state’s prime responsibility to safeguard rights of its citizens but in Pakistan the state had completely failed to fulfil its responsibility.

He pointed out that Council of Common Interests was required to meet every three months but it had not met even after passage of nine months, which was a violation of the Constitution.

The government was doing nothing for the recovery of missing persons and, unfortunately, the present opposition too was not playing its role, he said.

The speakers said the minorities in the country, particularly in Sindh, were being discriminated against on a number of fronts and forced conversion of underage Hindu girls and murder of women in the name of karo-kari (honour killings) continued unabated.

They said the civil society demanded complete transparency in the census scheduled for March and asked the National Assembly, Senate, and provincial assemblies to support passage and ratification of the UN declaration on rights of peasants and other rural workers. The government should realise the right to food and nutrition for all citizens, they added.

They demanded complete legal and financial autonomy for local governments to enable them to implement laws to protect health and livelihood of people.

Ghulam Mustafa Baloch of the Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO), Mahnaz Rahman of the Aurat Foundation, Anwar Rashid (OPP), Shahnaz Sheedi (SAP-Pk), Asad Iqbal Butt (HRCP) and Javed Soz also spoke on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2015