Amnesty finds Pakistani military guilty of HR abuses

Amnesty International (AI) has claimed it found Pakistan military guilty of rights abuses along the Afghan border, using new security laws and a colonial-era penal system to act with impunity.

The Pakistan military authorities have rejected the allegations.

In a report issued on Thursday, AI claimed that lack of justice was fuelling a rights crisis in the northwestern, semi-autonomous region where Taliban and al Qaeda-linked violence was concentrated.

The AI blames Pakistan’s armed forces for arbitrarily detaining thousands for long periods with little or no access to due process.

The report has been prepared on the basis of interviews with victims, witnesses, relatives, lawyers, officials and militants.

The UK-based human rights group said cases of death and torture had been documented where detainees were not brought before court and relatives had no idea of their fate, sometimes for extended periods of time.

“Almost every week the bodies of those arrested by the armed forces are being returned to their families or reportedly found dumped across the Tribal Areas,” said Polly Truscott, Amnesty’s deputy Asia-Pacific director.

“The government must immediately reform the deeply flawed legal system in the Tribal Areas that perpetuates the cycle of violence,” she added.

Although judges have sought to investigate the fate of people who go missing, Amnesty said no military personnel had been prosecuted for alleged torture, enforced disappearance or deaths in custody.

It demanded the repeal of sweeping powers of arrest and detention given to the armed forces in 2011, and called on the jurisdiction of the courts and parliament to be extended to the Tribal Areas.

Amnesty also singled out the Taliban and other militant groups for targeting human rights activists, aid workers, journalists and alleged spies.

The report stated that the Taliban brutally killed personnel of security forces after capturing them and hence violating the law of international human rights.

According to the Amnesty, people were killed in the areas where Taliban and militants had strongholds, posing great threats to the Pakistani community.

ARMY REJECTS ALLEGATION:

However, the Pakistan Army rejected the allegations, calling the report baseless.

While refuting the allegations, a spokesman of the ISPR termed the AI report a “pack of lies and part of sinister propaganda campaign against Pakistan and its armed forces”.

It is a biased report based on fabricated stories twisted to serve an agenda, the spokesman added.

‘font�liy )�#na”,”sans-serif”;mso-bidi-font-family:Verdana;color:#222222’>To another question, Bokhari said it was wrong to perceive that the purpose of presenting statistical data on corruption meant setting an agenda for the caretaker government.

He said the NAB and government were on the same page to eradicate corruption from the country.

“The fact that I’m conducting my fourth press conference in two months shows that the NAB is serious in rooting out corruption.”

He said NAB’s assessment of direct losses in mega projects (mis-procurements) stood at Rs 350 billion.

Bokhari said the Transparency International’s CPI index had been rating Pakistan between 23-27 percent for the last 10-15 years.

“Decrease in rating must be seen in the perspective of increasing number of countries in the index.”

The NAB chief pointed out that international corruption evaluation structures were based on direct leakage parameters, not indirect losses.

He said indirect losses that had not been quantified by the bureau included agriculture sector GDP untaxed‚ revenue department‚ land grabbing and encroachments‚ loans defaults‚ over staffing‚ ghost schools, ghost employments‚ wealth tax losses, custom duties and duty drawbacks.

He said only in the energy sector, losses due to load shedding were approximately

Rs 960 billion a year, or two percent of the country’s GDP.

The NAB chairman said corruption needed to be addressed jointly, we have to jointly fight this problem with dedication.

He said Rs 80 billion had been recovered by NAB in the current year alone. Bokhari advocated that accountability of corruption since 1980s was treated with “benign neglect”.

“Erstwhile, anti-corruption institutions were based on political victimisation and post corruption prosecution, neglecting proactive approach of prevention and awareness regime.”

“NAB is committed to an anti-corruption strategy that is achieving success on pillars of awareness, prevention and prosecution in the same order of priority. The bureau is determined to eradicate corruption from the society and will not spare anyone who is doing this heinous crime,” he concluded.