US gives Pakistan an 'F' in human rights

Extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture or abuse of prisoners and detenues and rape of women by security forces were widely reported in Pakistan during 1996 with the overall human rights situation remaining poor.

Though the Pakistani government publicly pledged to address human rights problems, particularly those involving women, child labour and minority religions, the situation has not shown much change and remains bleak, says the recently released US State Department Human Rights Report on 193 countries.

It said the police, investigative and intelligence agencies and politically motivated court cases were used to harass and arrest political opponents of the government. Prison conditions remained bad.

The judiciary has been subject to influence through constitutionally permitted transfers of judges and appointment of temporary judges to the high courts and the Supreme Court.

A Supreme Court ruling in March, however, limited the government's power over judicial appointments and transfers.

There was no serious government effort to reform the police or judicial systems or to prosecute those responsible for abuse.

The police continued to conduct illegal searches and infringe on citizens' privacy, for example through mail censorship.

Case backlogs led to long delays in trials, and lengthy pretrial detention was a problem, the report said and added that the government imposed limits on the freedom of assembly, religion and movement.

It said political groups, including the Mohajir Quami Movement and their opponents were responsible for a large number of killings in Karachi.

Religious zealots continued to discriminate against and persecute religious minorities, basing their activities in part on legislation that discriminates against non-Muslims.

Government imposed procedural changes have made the registration of blasphemy charges more difficult. Religious and ethnic rivalries resulted in numerous murders and civil disturbances.

Traditional social and legal constraints kept women in a subordinate position in society. They continued to be subjected to abuse, rape and other forms of degradation by their spouses and members of society at large.

The government and employers continued to restrict workers rights significantly. The use of child and bonded labour remained widespread, despite legislation to restrict these practices and the signing of a memorandum of understanding on child labour with the International Labour Organisation.

Little was done to improve basic conditions for children. Female children actually fell further behind their male counterparts in areas like health care and education.

The report said that the number of extra-judicial killings committed by security forces, often in the form of deaths in police custody or staged encounters in which the police shot and killed the suspects, increased.

Prior to the removal of the Benazir Bhutto government, police killings of suspected criminals and others had become so common that no government official had given due attention to the practice.

There are allegations that rival political groups and mafias use police to kill each other's activists in such fake encounters.

There are also widespread reports that suspected criminals are murdered by the police to prevent them from implicating police in crimes during court proceedings.

The report said that police officials agreed in private that due to the lack of concrete evidence of corruption in the judiciary and sometimes of political pressure, the courts often failed to punish criminals involved in serious crimes.

Police viewed these killings as appropriate in light of the lack of action by the judiciary against criminals.

President Farooq Ahmed Leghari charged in his dissolution order against Bhutto's government that thousands of people in Karachi and other parts of the country, who were killed in police encounters and in police custody, had been deprived of their right to life in violation of article nine of the constitution.

Most of these killings occurred in Sindh in clashes between the government and factions of the MQM.

However, there were no known politically motivated disappearances, the US State Department report said.

It said torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of punishment by police remained a common practice. Police routinely used force to elicit confessions.

Common torture methods included, beating, burning with cigarettes, whipping the soles of the feet, sexual assault, prolonged isolation, electric shock, denial of food or sleep, hanging upside down, forced spreading of legs and police humiliation.

Some magistrates and doctors helped coverup the abuse by issuing investigation and medical reports stating that the victims died of natural causes.

The overall failure of successive governments to prosecute and punish abusers was the single greatest obstacle to ending or even reducing the incidence of abuse, the report said.

The law regulated arrest and detention procedures, however, the authorities did not always comply with its provisions. The constitution provided for an independent judiciary, but in practice the judiciary was far from independent.

Through the president's power to transfer high court justices and appoint temporary and ad hoc justices, the executive branch has been able to influence the supreme court, the provincial high courts and the lower levels of the judicial system.

There are increased efforts by the government and private groups to restrict the freedom of press, but those efforts had little practical effect on press reporting.

UNI