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