Is someone having a tough time accepting harsh realities?
In a damning account of the country’s human rights situation the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) highlighted in its annual report that more Pakistanis had been killed in so-called ‘encounters’ than by gun violence or suicide attacks in 2017. Days later the home of the editor of the annual report Mayram Hasan was raided and robbed in peculiar fashion.
That the culprits explained how they had entered the house a day before as well but left as Maryam was not at home indicates that they wanted her to be present for the ordeal to send a clear message. Another telling aspect of the break-in is that the two culprits were more interested in data stored on her laptop and hard disks rather than other valuables not to mention how she was interrogated about her work engagements. Clearly this was no run-of-the-mill robbery rather a planned attempt at recovering and destroying sensitive data and intimidating the HRCP official.
Co-founded by the late Asma Jahangir the HRCP has for over thirty years remained a credible non-profit organisation fighting the tough fight for human rights in Pakistan. Such cowardly attempts to somehow subdue the harsh realities clearly defined with facts and figures in the organisation’s annual report are futile. Perhaps another reality that the perpetrators employing these Gestapo tactics aren’t aware of is that in this day and age with the fluidity of information and the technology that aids it; there is very little that can be done to censor, control or thwart it. The truth one way or the other will come out.
Such incidents also don’t do any favours to our image around the world. Western countries take human rights violations quite seriously and consider it an important metric in gauging their relationship with countries like Pakistan. The threatening and harassment of a senior member of the HRCP sends a very negative message to foreign countries. The HRCP has correctly urged the Punjab government to identify and apprehend the persons responsible. Not only must this investigation be done it should also be seen to be done.
