PPP says forces must be accountable in operations

• Senator Babar says countering extremism requires respect for rights, intellectual infrastructure

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar has said that inability to hold security forces accountable in operations against violent extremism can result in alienating the affected people and directly play into the hands of militants and extremists.

Speaking at a seminar on countering violent extremism organised by the National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR) here on Tuesday, he said that the misuse of cybercrimes laws against journalists and bloggers had also stifled the freedom of expression and prevented alternate narrative against violent extremism.

Senator Babar said that respect for the right to freedom of expression was basic to countering the extremists’ narrative. He said that human rights served as a pivot whether kinetic military action against the militants or in the development of alternate narrative against their narrative.

He said that inability to hold security forces accountable has been demonstrated in the state’s inability in the case of agencies allegedly responsible for enforce disappearances. The PPP spokesperson said that Senate’s Human Rights Committee was horrified to learn recently that no relative of the over 50 mutilated bodies of missing persons found dumped came forward to lodge FIR.

“This is a measure of the alienation of the people from the state and the society and the criminal justice system. This deafening silence of the affected families conceals a turbulence that can sweep everything,” he said. “To fight militant mindset we need to build intellectual infrastructure that rests on the foundations of free inquiry and free debate not only in academic institutions but as a way of life,” he said.

However, while freedom of expression was threatened the militants have a field day to propagate hate speech and extremist ideology, he said. In the name of national security, the right to freedom of expression has often been stifled, he said citing the example of the arrest of a journalist in Quetta after he posted on his Facebook a query about the commissions paid to FC by coalminers.

He said that the crushing space for dissent and stifling freedom of expression by the state encourages the militants’ to stifle dissent of their narrative. He said that the extremist mindset cannot be fought militarily; it can be fought by building an intellectual infrastructure.

The state’s abdication of its responsibility towards the rights of citizens creates a void which is filled by ‘charity wings’ of the non-state actors whether in providing education, relief in disaster situations, serving as force multiplier for the militants’ narrative, he said.

Senator Babar said that as for the parliament, it can make laws but not implement them. In 2013, the parliament made the law forbidding banned organisations from resurrection and asked why it was not being implemented.