ISLAMABAD, Dec 10: The government is considering amending Hudood laws in consultation with various religious and political groups to remove discriminatory articles, especially against women and human rights. This was stated by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) stalwarts while speaking at a seminar organised by the party to commemorate international human rights day at the PML House on Saturday.

Interestingly, the National Assembly had rejected by majority a private member’s bill sought to be moved by a MQM legislator Kunwar Khalid Yunas on Wednesday. The bill, the lawmaker said, was seeking to amend the Hudood Ordinance to remove sections discriminatory to women.

Party’s Secretary-General Mushahid Hussain Syed said that human rights violations occurred in Pakistan and in the Muslim world because the law meant for every one was applied only against the weaker and poorer sections of the society while the government machinery protected influential members of the society from application of law.

On the international scene, he said, innocent people were detained and held without explicit charges at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghuraib detention centres even without courts trial which was worst type of human rights violation.

He said we must raise our voice against these excesses against the humanity by super power or any other power wherever it was done.

Hussain said that the PML had realised that there were some discriminatory sections in the Hudood laws which need to be amended and for this purpose Chaudhry Shujaat had held meetings with the eminent legal experts and had also wrote to the president.

He said need was being felt that these laws should be amended in consultation with all stakeholders in a way that discriminatory sections of the law against women were removed.

The PML secretary-general, who was chairman of sub-committee of the parliamentary committee on Balochistan, said that his committee had completed a 132 pages complete report to undo the discrimination which was exercised with the people of Balochistan so far.

Wasim Sajjad sub-committee, which was dealing with the constitutional aspects of the issue, he said was still busy in finalisation of the report.

Hussain said that the recent Makkah OIC summit had drawn a ten year action plan in light of the report of OIC commission of eminent persons of which he was a member from Pakistan.

Mushahid Hussain Syed said that the proposal to rename and reactivate the OIC and to make it a true organ of the Muslim Ummah would go a long way in strengthening human rights in the Muslim states.

The basic idea of the said report, he said, was to enlarge scope of political liberties, human equality, civil and social rights and transparency.