Justice (r) of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and former chief justice of Sindh High Court (JHC) Justice Wajihuddin Siddiqui has said the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance (PPO) is contrary to the provisions of the constitution of Pakistan and all stakeholders including government, judiciary and political parties must play their due role to safeguard the human rights and basic liberties of the citizens.
Addressing a seminar on human rights organised by Pasban-e-Pakistan at Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Thursday, he said men in plainclothes had been harassing people with impunity. He said the Supreme Court of Pakistan may order the police to arrest the accused in Parveen Rehman’s murder case. “We all are responsible for the present situation and the government, political parties and judiciary have to correct their directions.” He said if necessary amendments were made in the anti-terrorism act, there would be no need of the PPO.
He said the present government got the PPO approved from the parliament in July 2013 and said it would announce the date from which it would be implemented. He it was also announced that special courts would also be established.
He said as per this ordinance, in case of seeing any serious crime, the authorized military and non-military officials could open firing. He said now this ordinance had been challenged in the court even before its implementation; therefore, all what was being done in the garb of this ordinance was illegal.
He said this ordinance was against article 10 and 10-A of the constitution of Pakistan. He said as the constitution guarantees protection to the lives citizens, this ordinance was violative to it. He claimed that on one hand extra-judicial killings were also happening and on the other the country was facing drone attacks. The whole country, especially Karachi and Balochistan, were braving targeted killings, kidnappings for ransom and different terrorist mafias had been enjoying a free hand. He said strong body masters were roaming everywhere to harass the citizens as they had read in spy novels while being young.
Quoting the example of Parveen Rehman’s murder, he said she was killed on March 13, 2013, but the killers were yet to be arrested.
He said the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance and Protection of Pakistan Act both were unnecessary and had proper amendments been introduced in the anti-terrorism act, it would have been sufficient to serve the purpose. He said with the introduction of proper laws, the USA and UK had successfully overcome the terrorism in their countries besides safeguarding the human rights and basic liberties.
MNA Dr Arif Alvi, the member of core committee of PTI, said they were not satisfied with the PPO. He said his party presented maximum amendments to improve the ordinance. He said he himself tabled 42 amendments on the forum of assembly, but the government while finalising the ordinance accepted about 20 amendments and rejected other 12 basic amendments which were necessary to safeguard the rights of citizens.
Siddiqui said this was why the PTI did not vote in the favour of this ordinance. He said they still had reservations on this ordinance and they thought the concentration of power was unnecessarily against the basic rights of citizens.
Pasban-e-Pakistan President Altaf Shakoor said that Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarian (PPPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) were responsible for the approval of the PPO whom it termed a ‘black law’.
He said the PPPP and the PML-N directly voted in the favour of PPO while the PTI supported it indirectly by not taking part in voting. He said though the PTI was playing a laudable role for making a new Pakistan, but how a new Pakistan could be formed if the nation was enslaved with the black laws like PPO. He asked Bilawal Zardari, Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan to apologise from the nation for passing the PPO and take efforts to revoke it.