Who’s responsible?
Little surprise that HRCP’s annual report (2016) makes for typically sombre reading. Each year, for the past few years, our political elite take credit for fighting to preserve democracy, and so on. Yet the lot of the people – whom democratic institutions are supposed to revolve around – hardly ever seems to improve. The report noted with concern, for example, that there had been a rise in incidents of sexual harassment, disappearances and targeted attacks against Ahmadis in the last year, to name just a few of its findings. Similarly, there have been worrying increases in cases of honour killings, rapes, abductions, etc.
Much of the blame for the present situation must be placed on the government. Some of the report’s other findings, like 44pc children suffering from stunted growth, expose the government’s ‘priority deficit’. While it boasts building highways and power plants — while neglecting schools and hospitals — it cannot really boast optimal employment of available resources. Then there is the little regard it gives to institutions like parliament, where issues of governance and problems of the people must be debated. Unfortunately, the ruling party betrays little realisation of the deteriorating human rights situation.
The opposition cannot escape blame either. For the first half of this electoral cycle, all much of it could think of was uprooting the PML-N government. And as the second half draws to a close it can hardly think beyond winning the next election and, of course, overthrowing the incumbent before then if possible. And then there’s popular media; so obsessed with intrigue, conspiracy and political cat fights that, at best, it can find some space for human rights issues at the end somewhere. It is ironic, to say the least, that the government machinery’s connection with the people is weakening just as democracy is seemingly strengthening in the country.