A WELCOME break from the past was witnessed on Tuesday when members of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Human Rights argued that the parliamentary panel ought to concentrate on rights violations in the country instead of criticising the National Commission for Human Rights. On previous occasions in the past, the forum has been the focus of complaints and point-scoring for, allegedly, having ‘embarrassed’ the country, when in truth it has only been attempting to carry on with its work. This time, though, once Human Rights Secretary Rabiya Javeri Agha reiterated that the NCHR was completely independent, MNA Munaza Hassan commented that there was a good deal of human rights work to be done. This included, she added, making public the standing committee’s performance report to see if any item on its agenda had been completed. Other parliamentarians, too, spoke up to agree that there were many important issues that were being neglected by the committee.

Putting it thus is to vastly understate matters; the reality of Pakistan’s abysmal human rights record is widely known and concerns have been voiced not only inside the country but also by international observers. It is imperative that the NCHR be afforded maximum autonomy and resources so that it can do whatever is possible to alter the country’s human rights trajectory. Numerous challenges lie in the way of this goal, as, at the moment, the rights of Pakistan’s citizens are being violated on practically all fronts. For the situation to change, and for people to believe that there is concern in the corridors of power about their wellbeing, the government will have to listen to what others are saying about our rights record. It will have to ensure that there is no interference in the work of institutions that have been tasked with promoting human rights in the country and probing complaints of violations, and that Pakistan is fulfilling both its constitutional and international obligations.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2017