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Pakistan is a poor
country, with great extremes in the distribution of wealth. Its per capita
annual income is $490. The
overall illiteracy rate is 62 percent, and is even higher for women. Cotton,
textiles and apparel, rice, and leather products are
the principal exports. The economy includes both state-run and private
industries and financial institutions. The
Constitution provides for the right of private businesses to operate freely in
most sectors of the economy. The Government
has made several economic reforms, including privatizing state-owned enterprises
and reducing tariffs. Politically driven
confrontations with Independent Power Projects (IPPS) and the Government's
inability to repay investors in hard currency
have damaged investor confidence and hampered privatization.
The Government's poor
human rights record deteriorated under the Sharif Government, and there were
serious problems in
several areas; however, the situation worsened with the seizure of power by
General Musharraf, in that after the coup,
citizens no longer had the right to change their government peacefully. Despite
attempts to reform and to professionalize the
police, both before and after the coup police committed numerous extrajudicial
killings and tortured, abused, and raped
citizens. While the officers responsible for such abuses sometimes were
transferred or suspended for their actions, there is
no evidence that any police officers were brought to justice. In general, police
continued to commit serious abuses with
impunity. Prison conditions remained poor, and police arbitrarily arrested and
detained citizens. In Karachi killings between
rival political factions often were carried out with the assistance of criminal
gangs; however, many such killings also were
believed to have been committed by or with the participation of security forces.
The Sharif Government used the
"accountability" process--which supposedly was designed to expose
previous wrongdoing, recoup ill-gotten gains, and
restore public confidence in government institutions--for political purposes by
harassing and arresting a number of
prominent politicians and bureaucrats connected with the main opposition party.
Few of those arrested and questioned were
put on trial; however, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband were
convicted on corruption charges in
April. Bhutto was sentenced to 5 years in prison, disqualified from holding
public office, and fined. The Musharraf regime
used arbitrary detention, including incommunicado detention, against political
figures from the Sharif Government and their
families; and the Musharraf regime's in the Musharraf regimes' anti-corruption
campaign violated due process. Case
backlogs under both Governments led to long delays in trials, and lengthy
pretrial detention is common. The judiciary is
subject to executive and other outside influence, and suffers from inadequate
resources, inefficiency, and corruption.
Despite concerns about damage to the judiciary due to the December 1997
confrontation between the Prime Minister and
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, there were instances prior to the coup
in which the Supreme Court showed a
continued degree of independence. While in February 1998 the Sharif Government
ceased using military courts to try
certain civilian cases at the demand of the Supreme Court, special antiterrorism
courts expanded their jurisdiction to include
murder, gang rape, child molestation, and "illegal" strikes. These
courts are authorized to try terrorists swiftly, and those
convicted may appeal only to a higher military court. In October 1998, the
National Assembly voted for a 15th
constitutional amendment, which would oblige the Government to enforce Shari'a
(Islamic law). However, the Senate did
not vote on the measure before it was suspended by the Musharraf regime in
October. Both the Sharif Government and the
Musharraf Government infringed on citizen's privacy rights. Although the press
continued to publish relatively freely, the
Sharif Government used its large advertising budget to influence content,
journalists practiced self-censorship, the broadcast
media remain a closely controlled government monopoly, and the Sharif Government
made several attempts to curb press
criticism. In particular, the Sharif Government continued its actions against
the Jang newspaper group and jailed and
harassed prominent journalists such as Friday Times editor Najam Sethi. The
Musharraf regime appeared to cease direct
attempts to manage the press, which were common under the Sharif Government. The
Sharif Government imposed limits
on the freedom of assembly. Although it allowed a number of large-scale,
antigovernment demonstrations to take place, it
also prevented demonstrations and strikes and arrested organizers when it
believed that security was threatened, particularly
in advance of the September 4 strike called by general traders and sponsored by
opposition parties. The Sharif Government
limited freedom of association, and targeted the activities of nongovernmental
organizations (NGO's), revoking the licenses
of almost 2,000 NGO's in Punjab. Both Governments imposed limits on freedom of
religion, particularly for Ahmadis.
Three Ahmadis sentenced in 1997 to life in prison for blasphemy remain
incarcerated. Both Governments imposed limits
on freedom of movement. Governor's Rule continued in Sindh province until the
coup, under which its citizens continued to
be denied democratic representation at the provincial level. The Prime Minister
in June appointed an Advisor for Sindh
Affairs, who exercised executive authority in the province without a popular
mandate. After the coup, Sindh shared the same
status as the other provinces; assemblies in the other provinces were suspended
and General Musharraf appointed
governors for all four provinces. The Musharraf Government spoke out against
some of the human rights abuses of the
previous regime and appointed NGO representatives to a number of senior
positions, but it was not clear at year's end
whether the Musharraf regime would take concrete steps to address such problems.
Significant numbers of women were subjected to violence, abuse, rape,
trafficking, and other forms of degradation by their
spouses and members of society at large. The Government failed to take action in
a high profile "honor killing" case and
such killings continued throughout the country. There was considerable
discrimination against women, and traditional
social and legal constraints kept women in a subordinate position in society.
Violence against children, as well as child
abuse, prostitution, and trafficking remained problems. Female children still
lag far behind boys in education, health care,
and other social benefits. There was considerable discrimination against
religious minorities. Both Governments as well as
sectarian groups continued to discriminate against religious minorities,
particularly Ahmadis and Christians. Religious and
ethnic-based rivalries resulted in numerous killings and civil disturbances. The
Government and employers continued to
restrict worker rights significantly. Bonded labor by both adults and children
remained a problem. Debt slavery persisted.
The use of child labor remained widespread, although it now generally is
recognized as a serious problem, and industrial
exporters have adopted a number of measures to eliminate child labor from
specific sectors. Mob violence and terrorist
attacks remained problems.
In May heavy fighting broke out between Indian forces and Kashmiri militants in
the Kargil sector of Indian-held Kashmir,
and continued until July. Regular Pakistani forces were also involved in the
conflict. Civilians were killed on both sides of
the line of control during the conflict, and tens of thousands of persons were
displaced on both sides of the line of control.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:
a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing
Police committed extrajudicial killings. The extrajudicial killing of criminal
suspects, often in the form of deaths in police
custody or staged encounters in which police shoot and kill the suspects, is
common. Police officials generally insist that
these deaths occur during attempts at escape or at resisting arrest; family
members and the press insist that many of these
deaths are staged. Police have been known to kill suspected criminals to prevent
them from implicating police in crimes
during court proceedings. After an attempt was made on the Prime Minister's life
in early January, as many as 40 Sunni
extremists associated with the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, the group believed
responsible, may have been killed in police encounters.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) estimates that there were 161
extrajudicial killings in the first 4
months of the year. In March the Sindh Home Department conceded that at least
two incidents since imposition of
Governor's Rule resulted in extrajudicial deaths. Press reports note that in
Punjab alone 265 individuals were killed in 182
encounters with police between January and June. The Urdu daily newspaper
Khabrain reported on December 6 that there
were 285 police encounters in Punjab in the first 10 months of the year and that
357 persons lost their lives. In October
there were reports of police encounter killings of members of the Sipah-e-Sahaba
Pakistan (SSP) and the
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi by the police in Punjab, following a wave of sectarian
violence in the province (see Section 2.c.).
Estimates of SSP and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi members killed by police in this manner
range from 16 to 40 persons. Police
officials maintain in private that due to the lack of concrete evidence, witness
intimidation, corruption in and threats against
the judiciary, and sometimes political pressure, courts often fail to punish
criminals involved in serious crimes. Police
professionalism is low. The police view the killings of criminal suspects as
appropriate given the lack of effective action by
the judiciary against criminals. The judiciary, on the other hand, faults the
police for presenting weak cases that do not stand
up in court.
Police officers occasionally are transferred or briefly suspended for their
involvement in extrajudicial killings. However,
court-ordered inquiries into these killings so far have failed to result in any
police officer receiving criminal punishment.
Punjabi police killed Tahir Prince on February 10. Following the filing of a
writ by the victim's mother, the Lahore High
Court ordered registration of a case against the police officers involved;
however, no departmental action has been taken. In
general police continued to commit such killings with impunity.
Following the coup in
October, a number of police officials were charged or sanctioned for
extrajudicial killings. On
December 2, the Lahore High Court ordered the registration of cases against the
Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police
Sarghoda Range and six other police officers in the April 5 killing of two
Sarghoda residents. The residents reportedly
were mistaken for a Lashkar-i-Jhangvi member and killed in a police encounter.
On December 7, the Punjab Chief
Secretary announced that three senior Lahore-based police officials would be
removed following the killing of a suspect in
police custody. The suspect was charged in connection with a series of killings
of children in Lahore. One police
sub-inspector was sentenced to death during the year in the 1997 killing of
Iraqi Noel, whom the police officer had taken
into custody.
The police and security forces were responsible for the deaths of a number of
individuals associated with political or
terrorist groups. For example, Punjab police officers killed activists of the
extremist sectarian organization
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, which was implicated in an attempt to kill the Prime Minister
in January. During the year, three
individuals charged with attempting to assassinate the Prime Minister in January
were killed in police custody during an
alleged escape attempt. As of August, 21 activists from this organization were
killed in police encounters, according to press
accounts and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
The Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), an opposition party that has demonstrated a
willingness to use violence to
further its objectives, claimed that its adherents were being targeted
specifically by the police for extrajudicial killings. The
MQM was formed by Altaf Hussein in 1984 as a student movement to further the
rights of Mohajirs, the descendants of
Urdu-speaking Muslims who migrated from India to Pakistan following partition in
1947. It soon became an organization
with criminal elements, which generated income through extortion and other forms
of racketeering. The MQM presently is
split between the original MQM, formerly known as the Mohajir Quami Movement,
and headed by Altaf Hussain
(MQM-Altaf), a large breakaway group (MQM-Haqiqi), and other, smaller factions.
The MQM-Altaf, in part because of its
efficient organization and willingness to use violence and intimidation to
achieve its goals, became the dominant political
party in the Sindh urban centers of Karachi and Hyderabad. The MQM, despite a
number of moderate and nonviolent
leaders now in the Senate, National Assembly, and Sindh Provincial Assembly, has
not been able to separate itself from its
violent past. As a result, it has antagonized followers, suffered violent
breakaways, and continually been at odds with
successive governments. In March MQM Senator Aftab Sheikh accused the Sindh
police, the paramilitary Rangers, and
Government intelligence agencies of abducting two MQM members--Farid and
Shamim--and killing them in custody; the
two reportedly were handcuffed when killed. In July London-based MQM chief Altaf
Hussain accused the Karachi police
of killing Mohammed Shahid after his arrest. Altaf Hussain also claimed in July
that 14 MQM workers were killed
extrajudicially since the imposition of Governor's Rule. In a July report, the
MQM listed 10 persons, mostly MQM
activists, killed in extrajudicial incidents by Karachi police between October
1998 and March. In September MQM activist
Rehan Bandhani died in police custody. According to the daily newspaper The
News, the police initially argued that
Bandhani had died of a heart attack, but a police officer later was charged with
unintentional murder. On September 7, two
MQM activists were killed in an encounter with police; police officials stated
that the two men shot first, but witnesses claim
that the two were taken, unarmed, from their homes and shot by police in a
nearby field.
In NWFP the family of a notorious criminal known as "Shaitan" accused
police of killing him in custody on May 9. The
NWFP government has taken no action; however, the government of the NWFP set up
a committee of inquiry to look into
the death of Pakistan Muslim League youth wing leader Qasim Khan, who died while
in custody of the Peshawar police on
July 18. In 1998, Awais Akram, Arbab Yousah, and Abbas died while in police
custody; in all three cases police officers
were charged in connection with the deaths, but no information was available as
the disposition of the cases at year's end.
Ghulam Jillani, a 14-year-old boy, died while in police custody in Manshera in
May 1998. Then NWFP Chief Minister
Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan dismissed the entire staff of the police station
involved. The Abbottabad session judge led a
committee of inquiry that investigated the incident; the committee held the
Station House Officer and the staff of the police
station responsible for Jillani's death. At year's end, the officers involved
were appealing the decision.
The Sharif Government also used lethal force against political opponents and
underground organizations. Politically motivated violence and sectarian violence
continued to be a problem, although in the weeks following the October
12 coup there were few if any reported cases of such violence. Governor's Rule,
imposed to correct a serious law and order
problem created in part by political tensions in the province, continued in
Sindh until the coup. Despite improved security
conditions under Governor's Rule, there were 75 deaths that were presumed to be
the result of political violence in Karachi.
Terrorist incidents were frequent in the Punjab. On January 3, four persons were
killed and several were injured when a
bomb placed under a bridge outside of Lahore exploded. The bombing occurred
approximately 1 hour before Prime
Minister Sharif was to have crossed the bridge, and was believed to be an
assassination attempt. Two members of the
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi extremist group were arrested in connection with the blast
later that month. According to press reports,
on May 24, at least 10 persons were reportedly killed by an explosion near a
market in Daska, Punjab. There were several
other bombings during the year, some of which resulted in deaths. The
perpetrators of most such bombings were unknown
at year's end. In 1998, there were several bombings in which persons were
killed. At year's end, it was not known who
carried out these bombings.
Women were killed by family members in so-called "honor killings." On
April 6, Samia Imran, who sought a divorce
against the wishes of her husband and family, was shot and killed in the Lahore
office of lawyer Hina Jilani by a man
accompanying her mother. The gunman and the victim's mother fled after the
killing. The gunman later was shot and killed
by police. Three members of Imran's family--her father, mother, and uncle--were
charged in connection with her killing.
However, by year's end, the three remained at large (see Section 5.).
There was extensive religious violence, particularly between rival Sunni and
Shi'a organizations, with 1 newspaper
estimating that 300 persons were killed in sectarian attacks during the last 2
years (see Sections 2.c. and 5).
On January 12, in Peshawar, the wife and son of well-known Afghan moderate Abdul
Haq were shot and killed in their
sleep by unknown assailants. A guard also was killed in the attack. Haq was well
known for his efforts to promote an
intra-Afghan dialog; his brother was a former governor in Afghanistan who has
joined forces with Ahmad Shah Masood
against the Taliban. On March 27, Mohammed Jehanzeb, the secretary of Abdul
Haq's brother (and Taliban opponent) Haji
Qadir, was shot and killed by unknown assailants in Peshawar. On July 14 former
Afghan senator Abdul Ahad Karzai was
shot and killed by two gunmen while returning home from prayers at a local
mosque in Quetta. Between January 1998 and
January 1999, it was estimated that up to 12 Afghan moderates or former members
of the Communist Party were killed by
unknown assailants (see Section 2.d.). Among those reported killed were Dagarwal
Basir, General Nazar Mohammed,
Dagarwal Latif, Hashim Paktyanai, General Shirin Agha, and General Rahim. To
date, there have been no arrests or
convictions in connection with these killings.
In May heavy fighting broke out between Indian forces and Kashmiri militants in
the Kargil sector of Indian-held Kashmir.
Regular Pakistani forces also were involved in this engagement, which did not
end until Pakistani forces withdrew in July.
Tension along the line of control was high during this period, and there was
shelling in several sectors. On June 10, the
Pakistani army returned the bodies of six Indian soldiers, which bore signs of
severe torture; however, the International
Committee of the Red Cross declined an invitation to do an autopsy. A senior
police official in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir
estimated that approximately 40 civilians were killed on the Pakistani side of
the line of control.
b. Disappearance
There were no confirmed cases of politically motivated disappearances. Those
killed in intra-Mohajir violence in Karachi
sometimes are first held briefly by opposing groups (or, as the MQM-Altaf
alleges, by security forces) and tortured.
However, bodies of these victims, often mutilated, generally are dumped in the
street soon after the victims are abducted;
however, the incidence of such crimes decreased greatly during year.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The Constitution and the
Penal Code expressly forbid torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading
treatment; however,
police regularly torture, beat, and otherwise abuse persons. Police routinely
use force to elicit confessions; however, there
were fewer such reports during the year than in previous years, particularly in
Sindh after the coup, and human rights
organizations reported greater cooperation from the police in investigating such
cases than in previous years. Human rights
observers suggest that because of the widespread use of physical torture by the
police, suspects usually confess to crimes
regardless of their guilt or innocence; the courts subsequently throw out many
such confessions.
Common torture methods include: beating; burning with cigarettes; whipping the
soles of the feet; sexual assault; prolonged
isolation; electric shock; denial of food or sleep; hanging upside down; forced
spreading of the legs with bar fetters; and
public humiliation. Some magistrates help cover up the abuse by issuing
investigation reports stating that the victims died of
natural causes.
Torture by the police of persons in custody occurs throughout the country.
Police tortured or mistreated prisoners
considered to be opponents or critics of the Sharif Government. On January 4,
Senator Aftab Sheikh and other MQM
officials visited two MQM members of the provincial assembly at Karachi central
prison, including former Labor Minister
Shoaib Bukhari. The parliamentarians accused the police of torturing and
humiliating them for 10 days after their arrest on
November 20, 1998. The prisoners claimed that they had been struck with rifle
butts, slapped, stripped naked, and forced to
stand continuously for up to 36 hours. Seventy prisoners awaiting or undergoing
trial at Karachi prison, all MQM
members, charged that they had been arrested illegally and tortured to induce
confessions. Family members alleged that
they also often had been beaten in raids, and that relatives had been taken as
hostage for those whom the police sought.
Opposition leader Hussain Haqqani alleged that he was tortured, beaten, and
subjected to psychological abuse during his
incarceration by the Intelligence Bureau between May 4 and May 7. Haqqani was
arrested on previous dormant corruption
charges; he claimed that this was a pretext for his arrest. Records of a medical
examination conducted by the High Court
after Haqqani's interrogation subsequently were "lost" by authorities.
Haqqani was transferred to the Federal Investigative
Agency (FIA) on May 7, but remained incarcerated for 21/2 months. During the May
8 arrest of journalist Najam Sethi,
Sethi's wife reportedly was tied up by police (see Section 2.a.).
In May Asif Zardari, husband of former Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto, was taken from
prison to a police interrogation center in Karachi, where he was kept awake for
4 days, beaten, and cut with knives. On May
19, he was taken to a hospital for treatment. Observers doubted police claims
that cuts on his neck were the result of a
suicide attempt. In August the secretary general of the Inter-Parliamentary
Union (IPU) noted in a public statement that the
IPU was "alarmed" over the alleged torture of Zardari.
Despite some cases during the year in which police officers were investigated or
charged in connection with abuse of
detainees, the failure of successive governments effectively to prosecute and to
punish abusers is the single greatest obstacle
to ending or reducing the incidence of abuse by the police. The authorities
sometimes transferred, suspended, or arrested
offending officers, but seldom prosecuted or punished them. Investigating
officers generally shield their colleagues.
Amnesty International (AI) estimates that at least 100 persons die from police
torture each year. The failure to prosecute
and punish abusers in a timely fashion was one of the chief arguments used by
the Government in introducing the 15th
Amendment designed to enforce Shari'a law throughout the country in 1998.
The 1997 Anti-Terrorism Act allowed confessions obtained while in police custody
to be used to convict defendants in the
new "special courts." Human rights organizations and the press
criticized this provision of the law, as it commonly is
believed that the police regularly torture suspects. Police generally did not
attempt to use confessions to secure convictions
under this law and the Government agreed to amend the law after the Supreme
Court in 1998 invalidated this and other
sections of the Anti-Terrorist Act.
Due to greater scrutiny by NGO's and the media, as well as a program of prison
inspections in the Punjab, the incidence of
torture and abuse may be decreasing in prisons. In Karachi human rights groups
are active in particular cases and the
Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) has been effective in bringing cases
against police who make false arrests,
practice torture, or take bribes. Cooperation between the CPLC and the police
human rights complaint cell resulted in the
dismissal of 216 policemen and demotion or fines for 1,226 during the 9 months
between November 1998 and July 1999.
Corruption is an endemic problem among local police officers. Police and prison
officials frequently use the threat of abuse
to extort money from prisoners and their families. Police accept money for
registration of cases on false charges and may
torture innocent citizens. Persons pay police to humiliate their opponents and
to avenge their personal grievances.
In the past, successive governments recruited police officers in violation of
considerations of merit and the department's
regulations. In some instances, recruits had criminal records. In 1997 Punjab
province Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif
declared that his own police were "corrupt and inefficient." He
appointed new senior officials to improve effectiveness,
while resisting pressure to appoint those recommended by influential supporters
to police positions. In an attempt to
increase police professionalism, a Punjab elite police training academy was
established in November 1997 and began
training hundreds of constables. It is widely acknowledged that police
corruption is most serious at the level of the Station
House Officer (SHO), the official who runs each individual precinct. In 1998 300
new SHO's recruited on merit were due
to begin a long-delayed 20-month special training course. If they are allowed to
replace corrupt SHO's, observers believe
that they might improve police performance greatly. However, SHO's are very
powerful (it is suspected that some have
killed senior police officers that were trying to inhibit their corruption), and
observers question whether their replacement is
feasible.
It is accepted commonly, and high-ranking government officials have stated
publicly, that police stations are sold--meaning
that police officials pay bribes to politicians and senior officials in the
department in order to get posted to the police
stations of their choice. The police then recoup their investment by extorting
money from the citizenry.
Even when actions are taken to address police abuses, the results are often
mixed. In urban Sindh, the operation of
citizen-police liaison committees helped to curb some police excesses, but there
are still many complaints of police abuse.
Special women's police stations were established in 1994 in response to growing
numbers of complaints of custodial abuse
of women, including rape. These police stations are staffed by female personnel,
but receive even less material and human
resources than regular police stations, according to human rights advocates.
According to the government's own
Commission of Inquiry for Women, the stations do not function independently or
fulfill their purpose. Despite court orders
and regulations requiring that female suspects be interrogated only by female
police officers, women continued to be
detained overnight at regular police stations and abused by male officers. In a
study of Lahore newspapers from January to
May 1999, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan found 11 cases of violence,
rape, or torture of women while in
police custody. In August 1998, "Nasreen" accused the SHO of Lahore's
Mozang police station of raping her after she
visited the station to register a complaint against her in-laws. At the end of
1998, the case was under internal investigation
by Lahore police; the disposition of the case was unknown at year's end.
Instances of abuse of women in prisons are less
frequent than in police stations. Sexual abuse of child detainees by police or
guards is reportedly a problem as well.
The Hudood Ordinances, promulgated by the central martial law government in
l979, were an attempt to make the Penal
Code more Islamic. These ordinances provide for harsh punishments for violations
of Shari'a (Islamic law), including death
by stoning for unlawful sexual relations and amputation for some other crimes.
These severe Koranic penalties--known as
Hadd punishments--require a high standard of evidence. In effect, four adult
Muslim men of good character must witness
an act for a Hadd punishment to apply. In 20 years, not a single Hadd punishment
has been carried out. However, on the
basis of lesser evidence, ordinary punishments such as jail terms or fines are
imposed. From 1979 to 1995, over 1 million
Hudood cases were filed with the police, and 300,000 have been heard by the
courts. The laws are applied to Muslims and
non-Muslims alike.
Women frequently are charged under the Hudood laws on sexual misconduct, such as
adultery. Approximately one-third of
the women in jails in Lahore, Peshawar, and Mardan in 1998 were awaiting trial
for adultery. Most women tried under the
ordinance are acquitted, but the stigma of having been jailed for adultery is
severe. A Hudood law meant to deter false
accusations is enforced weakly, and one human rights monitor has claimed that 80
percent of all adultery-related Hudood
cases are filed without any supporting evidence. According to Amnesty
International, men accused of rape sometimes are
acquitted and released while their victims are held on adultery charges. The
Commission of Inquiry for Women has
recommended that the Hudood laws be repealed, as they are based on an erroneous
interpretation of Shari'a (see Section 5).
The Federal Crimes
Regulation (FCR), which applies in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA), allows the
punishment of relatives, friends, and neighbors of suspects. Authorities are
empowered to blockade villages or to detain
fellow members of a fugitive's tribe in order to obtain the surrender of a
fugitive. In December 1998, a Shariat court
established by the Tehrik-i-Tulaba, an extremist Islamic group in Orakzai Tribal
Agency, fined six alleged accomplices to a
killing and burned down their homes as punishment (see Sections 1.e. and 1.f.).
Police routinely use excessive force against demonstrators or strikers. In
February police forcibly dispersed a
demonstration in Lahore staged by the Jamaat-i-Islami. Police with batons
charged demonstrators and fired tear gas shells
into the party's Lahore offices. On September 11, police reportedly used force
to break up a demonstration by a coalition of
opposition groups in Karachi, and the headquarters of two major opposition
parties, the MQM and the PPP, reportedly
were damaged. On September 12, police used water cannons, teargas, and sticks to
break up a PPP-organized sit-in in
Karachi. In mid-October, the press reported that police used force to break up a
rally in support of former Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif; more than one dozen protestors reportedly were arrested in Karachi
on October 14. On December 11, police
used force to disperse a demonstration in Lahore that was held to protest the
handling of a serial murder case by the police.
Police charged the crowd, beat persons with batons, and arrested 30 persons.
Police at times also beat and arrested journalists. For example, during a
December 11 protest against the handling of a
criminal case in Lahore, the police beat press photographers and smashed their
cameras after photographers reportedly
recognized a plainclothes policeman, who was hurling bricks into the crowd.
Police authorities failed in some instances to protect members of religious
minorities--particularly Ahmadis and
Christians-- from societal attacks (see Section 5).
On January 3, several persons were injured when a bomb placed under a bridge
outside of Lahore exploded, in what was
believed to be an assassination attempt against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (see
Section 1.a.). On September 6, an
explosion in a madrassah in Karachi injured more than 20 persons; those injured
had rushed to the scene of a previous
explosion, in which there were no injuries. On April 17, unidentified men threw
small explosives at the home of the Army
Corps Commander in Peshawar, injuring five guards. On November 12, a series of
rocket attacks in Islamabad injured one
person. There were several other bombings during the year, some of which
resulted in injuries. The perpetrators of most
such bombings were unknown at year's end.
Prison conditions are extremely poor. Overcrowding is a major problem. According
to the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan (HRCP), there are currently 82,000 prisoners in Pakistani jails, which
have an officially authorized population of
35,833; most prisoners are held in severely overcrowded conditions. In September
an investigative reporter for The Nation
visited Adiala jail in Rawalpindi. According to the reporter, the prison
currently holds 4,277 prisoners but was built for
2,000. A press survey in July revealed that the 16 jails of Sindh province, with
a total capacity of 7,769 prisoners, were
actually housing over 14,000. Karachi central prison is the most overcrowded,
with a population of 4,460 prisoners and a
capacity for only 991; only 2 toilets are available for each 100 prisoners in
the lowest classification of cells. The HRCP
claims that the Lahore district jail, built to house 1,045 prisoners, contains
3,200. The Punjab Home Department admitted
before the Lahore High Court in July that over 50,000 prisoners were being held
in Punjabi jails meant for 17,271. The
department claimed that it had plans on the books to build new jails in 22
district and subdivisional headquarters, but that
the work had been delayed by financial constraints. Some 80 percent of prisoners
are "awaiting trial," mostly for petty
offenses.
Prisoners in jail routinely are shackled. The principal of the institute for
jail staff training in Lahore admitted in a July press
interview that fettering is the most convenient way of administering an
overcrowded jail. While the Pakistan Prison Act of
1894 permits fettering for a variety of offenses, the punishment is usually
given for administrative convenience, or to extract
bribes from prisoners. (The shackles used are tight, heavy, and painful, and
reportedly have led to gangrene and amputation
in several cases.) Although the Sindh High Court ruled the practice illegal in
1993, the practice continues, and outside
observers visiting Sindhi jails regularly see fettered prisoners.
There are three classes (A, B, and C) of prison facilities. Class "C"
cells generally hold common criminals and those in
pretrial detention. Such cells often have dirt floors, no furnishings, and poor
food. Prisoners in these cells reportedly suffer
the most abuse, such as beatings and being forced to kneel for long periods. In
1998, the Senate's Committee on Human
Rights reported to the Prime Minister that at one facility in Hyderabad, 60
prisoners were confined in a space 100 feet by
30 feet with only 1 latrine. Such unsanitary conditions are common in small,
poorly ventilated, and decrepit colonial-era
prisons. Inadequate food, often consisting of only a few pieces of bread, leads
to chronic malnutrition for those unable to
supplement their diet with help from family or friends. Access to medical care
is a problem. Mentally ill prisoners usually
are not provided with adequate treatment and often are not segregated from the
general prison population. Foreign prisoners
often remain in prison long after their sentences are completed because there is
no one to pay for their deportation to their
home country. Conditions in "B" and "A" cells are markedly
better than in "C" cells. Prisoners in "A" cells are
permitted to
have servants, special food, and televisions. The authorities reserve
"A" cells for prominent persons. Especially prominent
individuals--including some political figures--sometimes are held under house
arrest and permitted to receive visitors.
The Government permits prison visits by human rights monitors.
Landlords in rural Sindh and political factions in Karachi operated private
jails (see Section 1.d.).
On June 10, during the Kargil conflict, the Pakistani army returned the bodies
of six Indian soldiers, which bore signs of
severe torture; however, the International Committee of the Red Cross declined
an invitation to do an autopsy (see Section
1.a.).
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
The law regulates arrest and detention procedures; however, the authorities do
not always comply with the law and police
arbitrarily arrested and detained citizens. The law permits a Deputy
Commissioner (DC) of a local district to order detention
without charge for 30 days of persons suspected of threatening public order and
safety. The DC may renew detention in
30-day increments, up to a total of 90 days. Human rights monitors report
instances in which prisoners jailed under the
Maintenance of Public Order Act have been imprisoned for up to 6 months without
charge. For other criminal offenses, the
police may hold a suspect for 24 hours without charge. After the prisoner is
produced before a magistrate, the court can
grant permission for continued detention for a maximum period of 14 days if the
police provide material proof that this is
necessary for an investigation.
Police may arrest individuals on the basis of a First Incident Report (FIR)
filed by a complainant. The police have been
known to file FIR's without supporting evidence. FIR's frequently are used to
harass or intimidate individuals. Charges
against an individual also may be based on a "blind" FIR, which lists
the perpetrators as "person or persons unknown." If
the case is not solved, the FIR is placed in the inactive file. When needed, a
FIR is reactivated and taken to a magistrate by
the police, who then name a suspect and ask that the suspect be remanded for 14
days while they investigate further. After
14 days, the case is dropped for lack of evidence, but then another FIR is
activated and brought against the accused. In this
manner, rolling charges can be used to hold a suspect in continuous custody.
If the police can provide material proof that detention (physical remand or
police custody for the purpose of interrogation)
is necessary for an investigation, a court may extend detention for a total of
14 days. However, such proof may be little
more than unsubstantiated assertions by the police. In practice the authorities
do not fully observe the limits on detention.
Police are not required to notify anyone when an arrest is made and often hold
detainees without charge until a court
challenges them. The police sometimes detain individuals arbitrarily without
charge or on false charges, in order to extort
payment for their release. Human rights monitors report that a number of police
stations have secret detention cells in which
individuals are kept while the police bargain for a higher price for their
release. There are also reports that the police move
prisoners from one police station to another if they suspect a surprise visit by
higher authorities. Some women continue to
be detained arbitrarily and sexually abused (see Section 1.c.). Police also
detain relatives of wanted criminals in order to
compel suspects to surrender (see Section 1.f.). Police have been known to
detain persons in connection with personal
vendettas.
The law stipulates that detainees must be brought to trial within 30 days of
their arrest. However, in many cases, trials do
not start until 6 months after the filing of charges. In 1998 the Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan estimated that there
were almost as many individuals awaiting trial in jails as there were prisoners.
According to the chief justice of the Lahore
High Court, there were over 500,000 civil and criminal cases backlogged in the
province's subordinate court system as of
April. In 62 Lahore city courts, 7,000 prisoners are awaiting trial in 6,000
cases. In 3,500 of these cases, the police have not
even brought a "challan," or indictment, to the court. In 1997 the
Government justified the creation of antiterrorist courts by
citing the large number of murder and other cases that are clogging the regular
court system (see Section 1.e.).
Asif Zardari, husband of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has waited for
over 2 years for his trial on charges of
killing his brother-in-law, Murtaza Bhutto, to begin. Charges were first filed
against Zardari in July 1997 and transferred
successively to two different courts, where several judges refused to preside.
To date only 2 of 223 witnesses have been
heard.
The Government permits visits by human rights monitors, family members, and
lawyers. However, in some cases,
authorities refuse family visits and in some police stations, persons are
expected to pay bribes in order to visit a prisoner.
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have a separate legal system, the
Frontier Crimes Regulation, which
recognizes the doctrine of collective responsibility. Authorities are empowered
to detain fellow members of a fugitive's tribe,
or to blockade the fugitive's village, pending his surrender or punishment by
his own tribe in accordance with local tradition.
The Government continued to exercise such authority, repeatedly, during the
year. Roman Ali, arrested in 1993 at the age of
12 for his fugitive elder brother's crimes, was sentenced to a long prison term
in 1994. In 1996, a petition against this
sentence in the Peshawar High Court was dismissed. During the year, Ali's appeal
to the Secretary of the Home Department
was denied, and his appeal to the Supreme Court was not heard due to the Court's
lack of jurisdiction over the case.
The Government sometimes uses mass arrests to quell possible civil unrest. In
April approximately 600 PPP members were
arrested prior to a planned May 1 demonstration in Islamabad against former
prime minister Benazir Bhutto's April
conviction on corruption charges and disqualification from holding public
office. Most were released on May 2. Early on
July 28, police tore down antigovernment posters and arrested MQM legislators
and activists to halt a peaceful hunger
strike being conducted in front of the Karachi Press Club. Most of those
arrested were released quickly, and the protest was
resumed a few hours later. In August and September, police arrested as many as
2,500 activists from the PPP and the
Muttahida Quami Movement in Karachi and other parts of Sindh province in
anticipation of a September 4 opposition rally.
Several hundred more, including several senior opposition leaders and
parliamentarians, were arrested several days later
prior to an opposition demonstration in Karachi. On September 11, police
reportedly used force to end a demonstration by
a coalition of opposition groups in Karachi; police publicly reported arresting
107 persons in connection with the
demonstration, but other reliable estimates place the number arrested at 600 or
more. Police detained hundreds of MQM
and PPP activists and senior leaders prior to a banned opposition march planned
for September 25, as well as in the days
immediately after it was to have occurred. Among those detained was MQM Senator
Nasreen Jalil, who was arrested at her
home on September 24 and held incommunicado for several days (see Section 2.b.)
until her release on September 29. Also
in September, the Government placed Fazlur Rehman, the leader of one faction of
the religious party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami,
under house arrest to prevent him from traveling to the NWFP tribal areas to
attend a political rally. Rehman previously had
traveled frequently to the region to attend rallies, which are prohibited in the
tribal areas. Rehman was released after 3 days
(see Sections 2.a., 2.b., and 2.d.). In early October, hundreds of religious
extremists, including the leader of the
Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Maulana Muhammad Azam Tariq, and SSP branch president
Maulana Mohammad Ahmad
Ludhianvi, were arrested after a wave of sectarian violence broke out in Punjab
and Sindh. However, since the coup, there
have been reports that arrests of political activists have decreased.
The Sharif Government's "accountability cell," which ostensibly was
created to uncover corruption in an evenhanded
manner, was headed by a close associate of the Prime Minister, Senator Saifur
Rehman, and conducted politically driven
investigations of, and campaigns of vilification against, opposition
politicians, senior civil servants, and business figures.
These investigations were designed to extract evidence and in some cases, the
televised confessions of alleged wrongdoers.
Rehman may have arranged for the arrest of Hussain Haqqani and Najam Sethi (see
Section 2.a.). However, before the
coup, most politicians and bureaucrats who had been charged with corruption or
other crimes were out on bail. In 1998,
authorities arrested and questioned the wife and daughter of former Pakistan
Steel executive Usman Farooqi in an attempt
to pressure the already-imprisoned Farooqi. At year's end, Farooqi remained in
detention. In 1998 in an effort to compel a
former bureaucrat to return to Pakistan, the Government prevented the departure
of family members, even those who were
not citizens of Pakistan, on the grounds that they were
"beneficiaries" of alleged corruption. In July 1998, the Lahore High
Court ruled that this approach was invalid.
In several high-profile arrests of Sharif Government critics, the police or
intelligence services entered homes and arrested
individuals without warrants or due process and held them for periods of days or
weeks. On May 4, Intelligence Bureau
officials arrested opposition leader and journalist Hussain Haqqani without a
warrant and held him incommunicado until
May 7 without filing charges (see Section 1.c.). On May 8, approximately 30
policemen broke into Friday Times editor
Najam Sethi's home, beat him, tied up his wife, destroyed property, and took
Sethi away without warrant. According to
press reports, Sethi was interrogated by the intelligence services as a
suspected "espionage agent." Sethi was held
incommunicado for several days and denied access to an attorney (see Section
2.a.).
On occasion, persons are detained arbitrarily because of disputes with powerful
or well-connected persons. On January 28,
Humaira Mahmood and her husband Mahmood Butt were detained without a warrant by
Punjab police at the Karachi
airport (in Sindh province), as they were trying to leave the country. Mahmood
Butt's mother was also detained. In 1997 the
couple had married against the wishes of Humaira's father, Abbas Khokar, a
member of the Punjab Provincial Assembly
(see Section 5). Mahmood and her husband reportedly were taken separately to
Lahore, where they were detained
separately and were beaten in an attempt to force them to renounce their
marriage. On February 1, the pair appeared in court
in Lahore. After the hearing, Mahmood Butt and his mother were released by court
order; Humaira was released by court
order on February 18.
The Musharraf Government detained without a warrant and without charge several
dozen political figures, military officers,
government administrators, and Sharif family members following the October 12
coup. Nawaz Sharif and members of his
family, including Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif; most of the Cabinet;
several senior advisors to the Prime Minister
or to the Government; and a number of military and police officials were
arrested or placed under house arrest immediately
following the coup. Nawaz Sharif was held incommunicado from the time of his
arrest until he was brought to court on
November 18. Most others were released within a few days; however, at year's
end, 32 were estimated to remain in custody.
Many of those arrested immediately after the coup were held incommunicado.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and
his brother, former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, were held
incommunicado in Chaklala, Rawalpindi; many other
Sharif family members were held with limited outside contact in "protective
custody" in the Sharif estate outside of Lahore
following the coup. The oldest son of Nawaz Sharif, Hussain Sharif, reportedly
was held incommunicado, except for one
occasion on which he was allowed access to counsel, in solitary confinement from
October 12 until a court-ordered visit
with his wife on December 11. Other Sharif family members still in detention at
year's end included Nawaz Sharif's father
Mian Mohammad Sharif; his brother Abbas Sharif; his son-in-law Captain Safdar;
his nephew Hamza Shahbaz (son of
Shahbaz Sharif), and his brother-in-law Chaudhry Sher Ali. Former Information
Minister Mushahid Hussain was kept in
"protective custody," along with his family, at his residence in
Islamabad from October 12 until December 14, when he was
removed by military officers from his home and taken to a government guest house
in Islamabad. He then was held
incommunicado by the military until December 24, when he was allowed to meet
with his family under a court order.
Several key figures among those initially arrested without charge, including
Nawaz Sharif, were being held in connection
with the "hijacking" of General Musharraf's airplane on October 12. On
that day, General Musharraf was returning from a
conference in Sri Lanka, and the commercial aircraft in which he was flying
initially was denied permission to land in
Karachi, purportedly under orders from Prime Minister Sharif. This event, along
with Sharif's summary replacement of
General Musharraf with the Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence
Directorate, Khawaja Ziauddin, led to the
coup. Military officers took over the airport in Karachi and allowed Musharraf's
airplane to land. In the weeks following
Sharif's arrest, he was detained without charge and was denied access to counsel
and to family members (See Sections 1.d.
and 1.e.). A First Incident Report was not filed in the case until November 10.
The FIR charged Sharif with attempted
murder, hijacking, and criminal conspiracy. Former Sharif advisor Ghous Ali
Shah, former Pakistan International Airlines
(PIA) chairman Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, former Director of Civil Aviation Aminullah
Chaudhary, and former Inspector
General of Police Rana Maqbool were charged along with Sharif. The accused were
to be tried before an antiterrorism
court. Nawaz Sharif was formally arrested and remanded to police custody only
after being brought to Karachi on
November 18. On November 19, Sharif first appeared in an antiterrorism court in
Karachi. On November 26, three other
individuals--former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, former Senator Saifur
Rehman, and former secretary to the
Prime Minister Saeed Mehdi--were named codefendants in the case. Sharif
complained of "inhumane" treatment during his
incarceration, including being held incommunicado in a cramped cell. On November
29, the judge in the case ordered him
transferred to an "A" class cell. Following changes in the
Antiterrorism Act (see Section 1.e.), the formal filing of charges
(challan) against Nawaz Sharif occurred on December 8. Nawaz Sharif and his
brother Shahbaz Sharif were paroled briefly
on December 15 and flown by the authorities to Lahore, the day after the death
of Nawaz Sharif's mother-in-law.
Although many of those
detained immediately following the coup were released in the days afterwards or
subsequently
were charged through the court system, several individuals remained in custody
without charge. As of year's end, former
ministers Muhammed Ishaq Dar, Sayed Mushahid Hussain, and Chaudry Nisar Ali
Khan; former Director General of the
Inter-Services Intelligence Bureau Khawaja Ziauddin; Mujibur Rehman, brother of
Saifur Rehman; former Director
General of the Federal Investigative Agency Mohammed Mushtaq; and several other
officials and members of Parliament
or provincial assemblies apparently still were detained without charge.
Private jails are believed to exist in tribal and feudal areas. Human rights
groups allege that as many as 50 private jails,
housing some 4,500 bonded laborers, were being maintained by landlords in lower
Sindh. Some prisoners reportedly have
been held for many years. In the five districts of upper Sindh, landlords have
been defying the courts and police by holding
tribal jirgas, which settle feuds and award fines as well as the death
penalty--even in jails--in defiance of provincial laws.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the district administration in
Umerkot, Sindh, attempted in April to the
release of a family of agricultural workers from their landlord's private jail
in Kunri. A member of the family, Mangal Bheel,
escaped from the prison in January, and approached authorities for help.
The Government does not use forced exile.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
Until the October coup, the Constitution provided for an independent judiciary;
however, in practice, the judiciary was
subject to political influence under the Sharif Government. A series of events
in 1997 led to serious concerns about the
prestige and independence of the judiciary under the Sharif Government. However,
under Sharif the Supreme Court
demonstrated a continued degree of independence on a number of occasions. For
example, the Supreme Court ruled in
February that the military courts used to try certain civilian cases were
unconstitutional. After the coup, the Musharraf
regime pledged to respect the independence of the judicial system, despite
having suspended the Constitution; however,
Provisional Constitution Order Number 1, issued on October 14, provided that all
courts functioning at the time of the
change in government would continue to operate, but that no court would have the
power to issue orders against General
Musharraf or any person exercising powers or jurisdiction under his authority,
thereby effectively removing the actions of
the Musharraf regime from judicial oversight. However, by year's end the
Musharraf regime had not acted to limit the
judiciary. On November 15, PML legislator Zafar Ali Shah filed a petition with
the Supreme Court challenging the October
12 coup. At year's end, the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments about
the legality of the military takeover on
January 31, 2000. Under both Governments low salaries, inadequate resources,
heavy workloads, and corruption contribute
to judicial inefficiency, particularly in the lower courts.
The judicial system involves several different court systems with overlapping
and sometimes competing jurisdictions. There
are civil and criminal systems with special courts for banking, antinarcotics
and antiterrorist cases, as well as the federal
Shariat Court for certain Hudood offenses. The Hudood ordinances criminalize
nonmarital rape, extramarital sex (including
adultery and fornication), and various gambling, alcohol, and property offenses.
The appeals process in the civil system is:
civil court; district court; High Court; and the Supreme Court. In the criminal
system, the progression is magistrate,
sessions court, High Court, and the Supreme Court.
The judiciary has argued that it has not been able to try and convict terrorist
suspects in a timely manner because of poor
police casework, prosecutorial negligence, and the resulting lack of evidence.
In response to this problem, the Sharif
Government passed the Anti-Terrorist Act in 1997; special antiterrorist courts
began operation in August 1997. The
antiterrorist courts, designed for the speedy punishment of terrorist suspects,
have special streamlined procedures but due to
continued terrorist intimidation of witnesses, police, and judges, produced only
a handful of convictions of terrorist suspects
in 1998. Under the Anti-Terrorist Act, terrorist killings are punishable by
death and any act, including speech, intended to
stir up religious hatred is punishable by up to 7 years' rigorous imprisonment.
Cases are to be decided within 7 working
days, but judges are free to extend the period of time as conditions require.
Trials in absentia were permitted, then
subsequently prohibited in October 1998. Appeals to an appellate tribunal also
were required to take no more than 7 days,
but appellate authority since has been restored to the High and Supreme Courts,
under which these time limits do not apply.
Under the Antiterrorist Act, bail is not to be granted if the court has
reasonable grounds to believe that the accused is guilty.
Because of the law's bail provisions, Islamic scholar Yusuf Ali was unable to
obtain bail. After the suspension of this
provision, judges continued to avoid hearing his bail application. He was held
in a "C" class cell from March 1997 until his
release in June.
Leading members of the judiciary, human rights groups, the press, and
politicians from a number of parties expressed
strong reservations about the antiterrorist courts, charging that they
constitute a parallel judicial system and could be used as
tools of political repression. Government officials and police believed that the
deterrent effect of the act's death penalty
provisions contributed significantly to a reduction in sectarian terror after
its passage. The antiterrorist courts also are
empowered to try persons accused of particularly "heinous" crimes,
such as gang rape and child killings, and several
convicts have been executed under these provisions. In 1997 cases filed under
section 295(a) of the Penal Code (one of the
so-called blasphemy laws) were transferred to the antiterrorist courts. Human
rights advocates feared that if blasphemy
cases were tried in the antiterrorist courts, alleged blasphemers, who in the
past normally were granted bail or released for
lack of evidence were likely to be convicted, given the less stringent rules of
evidence required under the Anti-Terrorism
Act.
In November 1998, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced the establishment of
military courts in Karachi, which had
been under Governor's Rule since October 1998. These courts were to try cases
involving heinous acts and terrorism, which
the Government stated were a serious challenge to public authority that the
existing court system was inadequate to address.
They were intended to bring swifter justice to the city, which had been plagued
by terrorism, violence, and a general
breakdown in law and order. Military courts began operating in December 1998. In
January the Supreme Court ruled in an
interim decision that military trial courts could not impose the death penalty.
On February 17, the Supreme Court ruled that
the military courts were unconstitutional and ordered the establishment of
additional antiterrorist courts; however, it allowed
the sentences already handed down by the military courts to stand. The
antiterrorist courts were to operate under the
supervision of two Supreme Court justices, and both courts of first instance and
appellate courts were to render decisions
within 7 days; in practice, this did not occur. In response, on April 27, the
Sharif Government promulgated an ordinance
transferring cases from military trial courts to antiterrorist courts and
expanded the jurisdiction to cover the same types of
offenses as the military courts, including murder, gang rape, and child
molestation. Various "civil commotion" offenses
(including writing graffiti and putting up wall posters) also were added to the
jurisdiction of the antiterrorist courts. In
August the Sharif Government again promulgated the April antiterrorism ordinance
but dropped the injunctions against
graffiti and wall posters. The April ordinance made strikes and go-slows illegal
as "civil commotion" offenses; both were
punishable by incarceration and fine (see Section 2.b. and Section 6). Prior to
August, some opposition leaders and
members of the human rights community feared that the "civil
commotion" offenses would be used to suppress political
dissent. In the first 7 months of the year, the military trial courts, which
operated until mid-February, sentenced two persons
to death in Sindh, and antiterrorism courts subsequently sentenced 42 persons to
death in the same province. Two of the
sentences have been carried out and the rest are on appeal. On December 2, the
Musharraf Government again modified the
ATA provisions, by adding a number of additional offenses to the ATA, including
acts to outrage religious feelings; efforts
to "wage war against the state"; conspiracy; acts committed in
abetting an offense; and kidnaping or abduction to confine a
person. By ordinance the Musharraf regime created a special antiterrorist court
in Sindh presided over by a High Court
justice rather than a lower level judge, as is usually the case. The amended
provision permits the High Court justice to
"transfer...any case pending before any other special court...and try the
case" in his court. Supporters of Nawaz Sharif
maintained that these changes were designed to assist the Musharraf regime with
its prosecution of Sharif.
The Musharraf regime also established special courts to deal with
"accountability," or corruption, cases. On November 16,
the Musharraf regime created by ordinance a National Accountability Bureau (NAB)
and special accountability courts to try
corruption cases. The NAB was given broad powers to prosecute such cases, and
the accountability courts were expected to
try cases within 30 days. The ordinance allows those suspected of defaulting on
government loans or of corrupt practices to
be detained for 90 days without charge and, prior to being charged, does not
allow access to counsel. The NAB was created
in part to deal with as much as $4 billion (approximately PRs 208 billion) that
it is estimated is owed to the country's banks
(all of which are state-owned) by debtors, mainly from among the wealthy elite.
It was believed that many wealthy and
politically well connected persons had taken out bank loans over the years with
no intention of repaying them. The NAB
has stated that it would not target genuine business failures or small
defaulters and does not appear to have done so. In
accountability cases, there is a presumption of guilt, and conviction under the
ordinance can result in 14 years'
imprisonment; fines; and confiscation of property. Those convicted also are
disqualified from running for office or holding
office for 21 years. According to unconfirmed press reports, the Musharraf
regime made an informal decision that the
military and the judiciary would not fall under the jurisdiction of the NAB. The
Musharraf regime denied this. However, by
year's end, no serving members of the military or the judiciary have been
charged by the NAB. On November 17, the day
after General Musharraf's well-publicized 4-week grace period to repay loans
expired, the military began arresting those
suspected of defaulting on bank loans. Persons were arrested throughout the
country on default or corruption charges; by
year's end, it was estimated that at least 100 persons may have been arrested on
charges of defaulting on bank loans or
corruption. Those arrested were prominent persons, from across the business and
political spectrums; some were also
retired military personnel and government bureaucrats. Those included on a
published list of persons charged with
corruption by the NAB included deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. On
December 27, former Punjab chief minister Arif Nakai was disqualified from
holding office for 21 years, after he admitted
on December 18 that he took approximately $37,000 (PRs 1.9 million) from
official accounts to finance his family's travel
to Saudi Arabia. Nakai repaid the amount to the NAB. Some persons expressed
concern over the concentration of power in
the NAB, the fact that the NAB chairman is a member of the military, and the
presumption of guilt imposed on those tried
for corruption.
The civil judicial system provides for an open trial, the presumption of
innocence, cross-examination by an attorney, and
appeal of sentences. Attorneys are appointed for indigents only in capital
cases. There are no jury trials. Due to the limited
number of judges, the heavy backlog of cases, and lengthy court procedures,
cases routinely take years, although defendants
are required to make frequent court appearances. Under both the Hudood and
standard criminal codes, there are bailable
and nonbailable offenses. According to the Criminal Procedures Code, the accused
in bailable offenses must be granted
bail. The Code also stipulates that those accused in nonbailable offenses should
be granted bail if the crime of which they
are accused carries a sentence of less than 10 years. Many accused, especially
well-connected individuals who are made
aware of impending warrants against them, are also able to obtain pre-arrest
bail, and thus they are spared both arrest and
incarceration.
The federal Shariat Court and the Shari'a bench of the Supreme Court serve as
appellate courts for certain convictions in
criminal court under the Hudood ordinances. The federal Shariat Court also may
overturn any legislation judged to be
inconsistent with the tenets of Islam. However, these cases may be appealed to
the Shari'a bench of the Supreme Court. In
two areas of NWFP--Malakand and Kohistan--Shari'a law was instituted beginning
in January, in the first by regulation
and the second by an ordinance. On September 20, a bill was passed by the NWFP
Assembly that incorporated the
Kohistan ordinance into law; Shari'a law now applies in Kohistan (see Section
2.c.).
The judicial process continued to be impeded by bureaucratic infighting,
inactivity, and the overlapping jurisdictions of the
different court systems. Heavy backlogs that severely delayed the application of
justice remained, due to scores of unfilled
judgeships and to archaic and inefficient court procedures. The politicized
appointment process also holds up the
promotion of many lower court judges to the High Courts. Although the higher
level judiciary is considered competent and
generally honest, there are widespread reports of corruption among lower level
magistrates and minor court functionaries.
On June 11, 16-year-old Mohammad Saleem was convicted by an antiterrorist court
of killing three police officers;
however, Saleem was tried and acquitted of the same charges by a court in
January on the grounds of insufficient evidence
and lack of a motive.
On August 21, two MQM members, Mohammed Saleem and Ahmed Saeed, were convicted
in an antiterrorist court of the
1997 killings of two foreign employees of Union Texas Petroleum and their
driver. The two were sentenced to death, as
well as to and approximately $40,000 (PRs 2 million) in fines. Many questioned
the fairness of the trial, since the
convictions were based largely on the confessions of the accused; the
confessions later were retracted on the grounds that
they were obtained by the police through the use of torture.
Persons in jail awaiting trial sometimes are held for periods longer than the
sentence they would receive if convicted. Court
officials report that each judge reviews between 70 and 80 cases per day, but
that action is taken on only 3 or 4 each week.
Eighty thousand criminal cases were reported pending in Sindh at the end of
1997, 67,800 of which were in Karachi. The
Law Ministry, in reply to a question in the National Assembly in 1997, reported
that there were over 150,000 cases pending
with the superior judiciary, which includes the Supreme Court and the four
provincial High Courts. During the year, there
were approximately 125,000 cases pending. Clogged lower courts exacerbate the
situation; the majority of cases in the High
Courts consist of appeals of lower court rulings. Once an appeal reaches the
High Court, there are further opportunities for
delay because decisions of individual judges frequently are referred to panels
composed of two or three judges. There
continued to be charges that magistrates and police, under pressure to achieve
high conviction rates, persuade detainees to
plead guilty without informing them of the consequences. Politically powerful
persons also attempt to influence magistrates'
decisions and have used various forms of pressure on magistrates, including the
threat to transfer them to other
assignments.
Press reports in July
noted that hundreds of prisoners remained in the Karachi central prison after
the completion of their
sentences. The Sindh Home Department stated that at least 10 percent of
under-trial prisoners in Karachi central prison had
no access to free legal aid or the possibility of bail, even if qualified.
Reporters interviewing male prisoners in 1 block
discovered that 18 out of 110 prisoners, or 16 percent, were not represented by
attorneys. As of March, 6,000 cases were
awaiting trial in 62 Lahore courts, with 7,000 prisoners awaiting a court date.
In 3,500 of these cases, the police have not yet
submitted a "challan," or indictment.
The Penal Code incorporates the doctrine of Qisas (roughly, an eye for an eye)
and Diyat (blood money). Qisas is not
known to have been invoked; however, the Penal Code's provision for Diyat
occasionally is applied, particularly in the
NWFP, with the result that compensation is sometimes paid to the family of a
victim in place of punishment of the
wrongdoer. Under these ordinances only the family of the victim, not the State,
may pardon the defendant. The Hudood,
Qisas, and Diyat ordinances apply to both ordinary criminal courts and Shariat
courts. According to Christian activists, if a
Muslim kills a non-Muslim, he can compensate for the crime by paying the
victim's family Diyat; however, a non-Muslim
does not have the option of paying Diyat and must serve a jail sentence or face
the death penalty for his crime. Failure to
pay Diyat in non-capital cases can result in indefinitely extended
incarceration, under Section 331 of the Diyat ordinance. In
1998 the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan noted that there were 58
individuals still in prison after the completion of
their jail terms because they could not pay the Diyat. The HRCP made public the
case of one such convict, Nosheran Khan,
in the NWFP. Khan has been in prison since 1996 and cannot be released until he
pays his Diyat fine of approximately
$3,843 (PRs 20,000).
Appeals of certain Hudood convictions involving penalties in excess of 2 years'
imprisonment are referred exclusively to the
Shariat courts and are heard jointly by Islamic scholars and High Court judges
using ordinary criminal procedures. Judges
and attorneys must be Muslim and be familiar with Islamic law. Within these
limits, defendants in a Shariat court are
entitled to the lawyer of their choice. There is a system of bail.
The Hudood ordinances criminalize nonmarital rape, extramarital sex (including
adultery and fornication), and various
gambling, alcohol, and property offenses. Offenses are distinguished according
to punishment, with some offenses liable to
Hadd, or Koranic punishment (see Section 1.c.), and others to Tazir, or secular
punishment. Although both types of cases
are tried in ordinary criminal courts, special, more stringent rules of evidence
apply in Hadd cases; Hadd punishments are
mandatory if there is enough evidence to support them. Hadd punishments
regarding sexual offences are most severe for
married Muslims; for example, if a married Muslim man confesses to a rape or
there are four adult male Muslim witnesses
to the act, the accused rapist must be stoned to death; if the accused rapist is
not Muslim and/or married, if he confesses, or
if the act is witnessed by 4 adult males (not all Muslim), the accused must be
sentenced to 100 lashes with a whip, and such
other punishment, including death, as the Court may deem fit in the case. The
testimony of four female witnesses, or that of
the victim alone, is insufficient to impose Hadd punishments. If the evidence
falls short of Hadd requirements, then the
accused may be sentenced to a lesser class of penalties (Tazir); since it is
difficult to obtain sufficient evidence to support
the Hadd punishments, most rape cases are tried at the Tazir level of evidence
and sentencing (under which a rapist may be
sentenced to up to 25 years in prison and 30 lashes). No Hadd punishment has
ever been applied in the 20 years that the
Hudood ordinances have been in force. For Tazir punishments, there is no
distinction between Muslim and non-Muslim
offenders. Under Tazir the evidentiary requirement for financial or future
obligations is for two male witnesses or one male
and two female witnesses; in all other matters, the court may accept the
testimony of one man or one woman (see Section
5).
Administration of justice in the FATA is normally the responsibility of tribal
elders and maliks, or leaders. They may
conduct hearings according to Islamic law and tribal custom. In such proceedings
the accused have no right to legal
representation, bail, or appeal. The usual penalties consist of fines, even for
murder. However, the Government's political
agents, who are federal civil servants assigned to tribal agencies, oversee such
proceedings and may impose prison terms of
up to 14 years. Paramilitary forces under the direction of the political agents
frequently perform punitive actions during
enforcement operations. For example in raids on criminal activities, the
authorities have been known to damage surrounding
homes as extrajudicial punishment of residents for having tolerated nearby
criminal activity (see Sections 1.c. and 1.f.).
In remote areas outside the jurisdiction of federal political agents, tribal
councils occasionally levy harsher, unsanctioned
punishments, including flogging or death by shooting or stoning. For example, in
May a local "jirga," or council, sentenced
a man to death in Mohmand agency for the killing of relatives. The council also
expelled the man's brother from the area. In
December 1998, a Shariat court established by the Tehrik-i-Tulaba, an extremist
Islamic group in Orakzai Tribal Agency,
fined six alleged accomplices to a killing and burned down their homes as
punishment.
Another related form of rough justice operating in the NWFP, particularly in the
tribal areas, is the concept of Pakhtunwali,
or the Pakhtun Tribal Code, in which revenge is an important element. Under this
code, a man, his family, and his tribe are
obligated to take revenge for wrongs--either real or perceived--in order to
redeem their honor. More often than not, these
disputes arise over women and land, and frequently result in violence, such as
the Samia Imran case (see Section 5), in
which a woman seeking a divorce against the wishes of her husband and family was
shot and killed in April in the office of
lawyer Hina Jilani, apparently at the behest of her family.
There are limited numbers of political prisoners. Certain sections of the Penal
Code directly target members of the Ahmadi
faith. Since they were adopted, Ahmadis incarcerated under these provisions
number approximately 200, according to
Ahmadi sources. A number of minority religious groups argue that other sections
of the Penal Code--particularly the
related blasphemy laws--are used in a discriminatory fashion by local officials
or private individuals to punish religious
minorities. While precise numbers are unavailable, the Ahmadis estimate that 61
of their coreligionists were charged in
criminal cases "on a religious basis" as of August (see Section 2.c.
and Section 5).
Some political groups also argue that they are marked for arrest based on their
political affiliation. The Muttahida Quami
Movement, in particular, has argued that the Sharif Government has used
antiterrorist court convictions in Sindh to silence
its activists. f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
The Government infringes on citizen's privacy rights. The Anti-Terrorist Act
allowed police, or military personnel acting as
police, to enter and to search homes and offices without search warrants, and to
confiscate property or arms likely to be
used in a terrorist act (which is defined very broadly). This provision was
never tested in the courts. While the Antiterrorist
Act was partially suspended in 1998, the Government promulgated new
Antiterrorism Ordinances in October 1998 and in
April. By prior law, the police had to obtain a warrant to search a house, but
they did not need a warrant to search a person.
Regardless of the law, the police entered homes without a warrant and have been
known to steal valuables during searches.
In the absence of a warrant, a policeman is subject to charges of criminal
trespass. However, policemen seldom are
punished for illegal entry. In late September, the family members of persons
sought by the police in connection with a
banned opposition march reported forcible, warrantless searches of their homes
(see Section 2.b.).
The Government maintains several domestic intelligence services that monitor
politicians, political activists, suspected
terrorists, and suspected foreign intelligence agents. Credible reports indicate
that the authorities routinely use wiretaps and
intercept and open mail. In his order dismissing former Prime Minister Bhutto in
1996, President Leghari accused the
Government of massive illegal wiretapping, including eavesdropping on the
telephone conversations of judges, political
party leaders, and military and civilian officials. In 1997 the Supreme Court
directed the federal Government to seek the
Court's permission before carrying out any future wiretapping or eavesdropping
operations. Nonetheless, that same year, a
lawyer for a former director of the Intelligence Bureau, charged with illegal
wiretapping during Benazir Bhutto's second
term in office, presented the Supreme Court with a list of 12 government
agencies that still tapped and monitored telephone
calls of citizens. The case is pending in the Supreme Court. A press story in
October 1998 quoted anonymous cabinet
ministers who complained of wiretapping of their telephones by the Intelligence
Bureau.
Police sometimes arrest and detain relatives of wanted criminals in an attempt
to compel suspects to surrender. In some
cases, the authorities have detained entire families in order to force a
relative who was the subject of an arrest warrant to
surrender (see Section 1.d.). In September two adult children of opposition
party leaders were arrested in Karachi when
police could not locate their parents in a sweep conducted by police prior to a
planned opposition march (see Section 2.b.).
While the Government generally does not interfere with the right to marry, the
Government on occasion assists influential
families in efforts to prevent marriages entered into without the consent of the
families involved. For example, between
December 1998 and February, Punjabi police attempted to stop Humaira Mahmood and
her husband Mahmood Butt from
living together as man and wife. The couple were married legally in 1997, but
Humaira's father, Abbas Khokar, a member of
the Punjab provincial assembly, did not approve of the marriage and enlisted the
police to help him prevent the pair from
living together once he discovered the marriage had taken place (see Section 5).
In July police in Kot Ghulam Mohammed
(Mirpurkas district, Sindh) raided the home of Javed Dal and arrested his family
members as hostages. Dal had eloped with
his cousin. His wife's father, Somar Dal, used his influence as a member of the
Sindh National Front executive committee
to instigate the arrests, which were carried out without warrants (see Section
5). The authorities also fail to prosecute
vigorously cases in which families punish members (generally women) for marrying
or seeking a divorce against the
wishes of other family members, such as in the case of Samia Imran, who had
sought a divorce against the wishes of her
influential father and was killed in April, apparently at the behest of the
family (see Section 5).
Press reports routinely describe couples who are less fortunate, such as Abdul
Ghaffar and Shabana Bibi of Gila Deedar
Singh, who were abducted from a Gujranwala court on May 15 by 16 armed men
representing Shabana Bibi's parents, who
opposed the match. At year's end, the couple's fate was not known.
Upon conversion to Islam, the marriages of Jewish or Christian men remain legal;
however, upon conversion to Islam, the
marriages of Jewish or Christian women, or of other non-Muslims, that were
performed under the rites of the previous
religion are considered dissolved (see Sections 2.c.).
The Frontier Crimes Regulation, the separate legal system in the FATA, permits
collective responsibility, and empowers the
authorities to detain innocent members of the suspect's tribe, or blockade an
entire village (see Section 1.d.). The
Government demolished the houses of several alleged criminals, as well as the
homes of those who allegedly tolerated
nearby criminal activity.
On December 13, a Shariat court established by the Tehrik-i-Tulaba, an extremist
Islamic group in Orakzai Tribal Agency,
fined six alleged accomplices to a killing and burned down their homes as
punishment (see Sections 1.c. and 1.e.). On
December 29, riots occurred in Karachi in response to the demolition by security
forces of up to 300 homes in the low
income Gharibabad neighborhood, which is widely considered to be an MQM-Altaf
stronghold. Authorities claimed that
the homes were built without permits and that they sheltered terrorists and
criminals.
In March three young girls who had converted to Islam from Christianity were
removed from their parent's custody by a
court (see Section 2.c.). The girls' parents attributed the loss of their girls
to the influence of religious extremists who
packed the courtroom, and claim to have suffered harassment because of the case.
However, the importance of the parent's
religion in the judge's decision was not clear. The girls' family since has
moved, and reportedly is in hiding.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press, and citizens
are broadly free to discuss public issues;
however, journalists practice a degree of self-censorship, and the situation
with respect to freedom of speech and of the
press deteriorated during the first 10 months of the year, as the Sharif
Government attempted to silence several critics, and
to influence directly the substance of media reporting. At year's end, the
Musharraf regime had not attempted to exercise
direct control over views expressed in the print media. Nonetheless, views
expressed in editorials and commentary are often
frank and pointed in their criticism of the Government. True investigative
journalism is rare; instead the press acts freely to
publish charges and countercharges by named and unnamed parties and individuals
representing competing class, political,
and social interests.
Anyone who damages the Constitution by any act, including the publication of
statements against the spirit of the
Constitution, can be prosecuted for treason. However, prosecutions under this
provision have been rare. The Constitution
also prohibits the ridicule of Islam, the armed forces, or the judiciary. This
provision served as grounds for the 1997
charges against the presidential candidacy of Rafiq Tarar, based on press
statements made several years previously that
were critical of the judiciary. The charges against Tarar later were dismissed.
The Penal Code mandates the death sentence for anyone defiling the name of the
Prophet Mohammed, life imprisonment
for desecrating the Koran, and up to 10 years in prison for insulting another's
religious beliefs (i.e., any religion, not just
Islam) with intent to outrage religious feelings (see Section 2.c.). The
Antiterrorist Act stipulates imprisonment with
rigorous labor for up to 7 years for using abusive or insulting words, or
possessing or distributing written or recorded
material, with intent to stir up sectarian hatred. No warrant is required to
seize such material (while the Antiterrorist Act was
partially suspended in 1998, the Government promulgated new Antiterrorism
Ordinances in October 1998 and in April). In
November two journalists, Zahoor Ansari and Ayub Khoso, were sentenced to 17
years in prison and a fine by an
antiterrorist court; they were sentenced to 10 years under Section 295(a) and 7
years under the Antiterrorist Act. The
journalists, who worked for the Sindhi daily newspaper Alakh, were charged with
publishing derogatory words against the
Prophet and insulting the religious feelings of Muslims, according to press
reports (see Section 2.c.).
The competitive nature of politics helps to ensure press freedom, since the
media often serves as a forum for political
parties, commercial, religious, and various other interests, as well as
influential individuals, to compete with and criticize each
other publicly. Although the press does not criticize Islam as such, leaders of
religious parties and movements are not
exempt from the public scrutiny and criticism routinely experienced by their
secular counterparts. The press traditionally
has avoided negative coverage of the armed forces, and the Office of
Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has served to
hold press coverage of military matters under close restraint. Officially, the
ISPR closely controls and coordinates the
release of military news and access to military sources.
Detailed public discussion of the military as an institution is hampered
severely since any published discussion, let alone
criticism, of the defense budget is proscribed by law. However, in 1997 this
code of silence was undermined when a
National Assembly committee, by discussion of defense appropriations and
corruption in defense contracts in open session,
made possible (and legal) newspaper coverage of the same issues. Discussion of
the defense budget continued during the
year, especially in the English language press. The resignation of Chief of Army
Staff General Jehangir Karamat in
October 1998 also was widely discussed in the press.
Government leaks, while not uncommon, are managed carefully: It is common
knowledge that journalists, who routinely are
underpaid, are on the unofficial payrolls of many competing interests, and the
military (or elements within it) is presumed to
be no exception. Favorable press coverage in 1998 of the Prime Minister's family
compound/hospital/college south of
Lahore was widely understood to have been obtained for a price. Rumors of
intimidation, heavy-handed surveillance, and
even legal action to quiet the unduly curious or nondeferential reporter are
common. The Government has considerable
leverage over the press through its substantial budget for advertising and
public interest campaigns and its control over the
supply of newsprint and its ability to enforce regulations. Human rights groups,
journalists, and opposition figures accused
the Government of attempting to silence journalists and public figures,
especially when critical of the Prime Minister or his
family. A number of high profile cases of arrest and intimidation of government
critics during the year support these
claims. The owners of the Jang newspaper group, which publishes widely read Urdu
and English language dailies, and had
published articles unflattering to the Sharif Government, state that the Sharif
Government made a number of demands on
the group in 1998. These demands included that Jang fire 16 senior journalists
who were critical of the Sharif Government
and replace them with journalists of the Sharif Government's choosing; that Jang
publications refrain from publishing
negative articles about the Sharif family; that Jang publications support the
adoption of the 15th Amendment; and that Jang
publications adopt a progovernment editorial slant. There is credible evidence
that Senator Saifur Rehman, a close associate
of the Prime Minister and head of the Accountability Bureau, demanded that they
be fired. The Sharif Government froze
Jang group bank accounts, ceased placing government advertising in Jang
newspapers, filed approximately $13 million
(PRs 676 million) in income tax notices with the group, sealed Jang warehouses,
severely limited Jang's access to
newsprint, and raided the group's offices in December 1998. The Sharif
Government filed sedition charges against Jang
publisher Mir Shakil Ur Rehman. Police again raided Jang premises on January 31,
reportedly confiscating newsprint. In
February the Sharif Government suspended its sedition case against Rehman and
ceased direct interference with publication
of Jang group newspapers. However, by August, Jang had modified its editorial
content, stopped allowing one prominent
journalist to use her own byline, and hired pro-Government journalists. At
year's end, the tax charges remain outstanding.
In May a crackdown on the press began. Prominent journalist Najam Sethi, editor
of the weekly newspaper Friday Times,
was arrested and detained on May 8 after an April 30 speech in New Delhi in
which Sethi highlighted a number of crises
faced by the country; the speech previously was published without incident in
the Lahore-based Friday Times newspaper.
Sethi also allegedly had assisted a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
reporting team that was investigating corruption
within the Prime Minister's family. Approximately 30 policemen broke into
Sethi's home very early in the morning, beat
him, tied up his wife, destroyed property, and detained Sethi without a warrant.
According to press reports, Sethi was
detained and interrogated by Government intelligence services as a suspected
"espionage agent." Sethi was held
incommunicado for several days and was denied access to an attorney. On May 13,
a plainclothes police detachment seized
over 30,000 copies of the Friday Times, essentially the entire press run for the
week. Police produced no warrant or court
order. On May 20, the Supreme Court ordered that Sethi be allowed visits with
his wife. On June 1, Sethi was transferred
from the custody of the Inter Services Intelligence Department to police
custody. At that time, Sethi was ordered held for 7
days on police remand, pending a hearing by an antiterrorist court magistrate
regarding charges of "antinational activities"
filed by a ruling party member of the National Assembly. On June 2, following
intense international pressure and strong
criticism from the Pakistani Supreme Court, the Attorney General dropped the
charges against Sethi and ordered him
released. Sethi was released the same day. However, Sharif Government pressure
on Sethi did not end with his release from
jail. Sethi was called to appear before the Chief Electoral Commission to defend
himself against charges made by a ruling
party member of the National Assembly that Sethi's name should be struck from
Muslim electoral rolls. The Pakistan
Muslim League legislator argued that Sethi was a non-Muslim as defined by
Section 260 (3) of the Constitution, and he
further argued that as a former federal minister, his comments in New Delhi
disqualified him for further legislative service
under Sections 62 and 63 of the Constitution. These sections disqualify those
who "oppose the ideology of Pakistan" from
serving in the National Assembly or Senate. The case against Sethi was dismissed
by the Chief Election Commissioner on
October 6. In June Sethi found that he had been placed on the Exit Control List,
and reportedly was not permitted to leave
the country to receive a human rights award in London. According to Sethi, there
are also approximately 50 tax cases
currently filed against him and his family.
Other journalists also were targeted, many of whom also had assisted the BBC
documentary team that was investigating
corruption within the Sharif family. On May 4, the Intelligence Bureau detained
opposition political leader and
commentator Hussain Haqqani. A vocal critic of the Government, Haqqani
highlighted wrongdoing by government officials
in his writings, and assisted the BBC documentary team investigating corruption.
Haqqani was held by the Intelligence
Bureau between May 4 and May 7, based on corruption charges filed previously.
According to Haqqani, his interrogators
demanded to know why he had been critical of the Government and questioned him
about the activities of Najam Sethi;
Haqqani was beaten while in custody. Haqqani was transferred to Federal
Investigative Agency custody on May 7. On May
10, Haqqani's lawyer was allowed access to his client. Haqqani was released on
bail on July 30. The charges are still
pending. The authorities also harassed other journalists involved in the BBC
documentary. Idrees Bakhtiar, the BBC's
correspondent in Karachi, was questioned by police and subjected to a
warrantless search of his home in February.
Mehmood Ahmed Khan Lodhi, a journalist, was questioned by police authorities
from May 2-4 concerning his involvement
in the documentary. Lodhi was released after journalists covering the Punjab
provincial assembly boycotted the May 4
assembly session to protest Lodhi's arrest. Imtiaz Alam, current affairs editor
of The News, reportedly received threatening
phone calls, including death threats, regarding his contacts with the BBC film
crew; on May 5, unknown persons set his car
on fire. Ejaz Haider, news editor at the Friday Times, also reported receiving
death threats in early May.
A number of journalists--including Ejaz Haider Bokhari of the Friday Times,
Imtiaz Alam of the News, and Dawn
Islamabad bureau chief Mohammed Ziauddin--were subjected to warnings from police
or anonymous sources regarding
their criticism of government policies. In March Dawn correspondent M.H. Khan
was charged in Hyderabad for a story
that showed photographs of fettered prisoners. Police looking for
"objectionable" material raided the Karachi home of
News reporter Gul Nasreen Akhter. In July the news editor of the Sindhi daily
Kawish was arrested in Kotri, apparently
after criticism of the police in the press. On July 5, the staff of the magazine
Pulse arrived at work to find that the offices
had been broken into and raided by unknown persons, shortly after the magazine
had published a series of stories detailing
corruption within the Intelligence Bureau. An editorial in the News noted that
reports of Sindhi journalists or editors being
taken into custody "regularly appear" in newspapers. News reporter
Moosa Kaleem was detained in August on unspecified
charges. Journalist Maleeha Lodhi in January reported harassment including death
threats, phone tapping and threatened
accountability cases because of her position at the Jang publication The News.
Foreign reporters also reported harassment by the Sharif Government during the
year, after publication of stories
unflattering to the Sharif family.
The increasing harassment
and detention of journalists during the first 10 months of the year led to
increasing
self-censorship by members of the press. For example, by August, the Jang group,
which had suffered harassment earlier in
the year, acceded to some of the Government's demands regarding its reporting,
editorial content, and hiring, including not
publishing stories critical of the Prime Minister and his business interests.
Following the October 12 coup, the Musharraf regime appeared to cease direct
efforts to manage the press, which were
common under the Sharif Government. Articles critical of the Musharraf regime
appeared regularly in the press. After the
coup, editors and journalists reported no attempts by the ISPR or other
government agencies to influence editorial content.
However, some journalists continued to practice self-censorship as a
precautionary measure, and the Supreme Court
charged Dawn journalist Ardeshir Cowasjee with contempt of court on October 26
following comments Cowasjee made on
television regarding corruption in the judiciary. The chief legal advisor to
General Musharraf, senior National Security
Council member Sharifuddin Pirzada, appeared as a friend of the court on behalf
of Cowasjee.
At year's end, the case had not been resolved. During a December 11 protest
against the handling of a criminal case in
Lahore, the police beat press photographers and smashed their cameras, after
photographers reportedly recognized a
plainclothes policeman, who was hurling bricks into the crowd (see Section
1.c.). The following day, apparently acting on
erroneous information, the Lahore police entered the Lahore Press Club and tried
to block all entry and exit points in an
attempt to stop a follow-up demonstration. The demonstration, actually scheduled
for December 13, was held without
incident.
The State no longer publishes daily newspapers; the former Press Trust sold or
liquidated its string of newspapers and
magazines in the early 1990's. The Ministry of Information controls and manages
the country's primary wire service--APP,
the Associated Press of Pakistan. APP is both the Government's own news agency
and the official carrier of international
wire service stories to the local media. The few small privately owned wire
services usually are circumspect in their coverage
of sensitive domestic news and tend to follow a government line.
A Print, Press, and Publications Ordinance, requiring the registration of
printing presses and newspapers, was allowed to
lapse in 1997 after several years of waning application. In practice,
registering a new publication is a simple administrative
act, and is not subject to political or government scrutiny.
Foreign books must pass government censors before being reprinted. Books and
magazines may be imported freely, but
are likewise subject to censorship for objectionable sexual or religious
content. English language publications have not been
affected by the direct proscription of books and magazines promulgated by the
Chief Commissioner in Islamabad, who
banned five Sindhi-language publications in the second half of 1997 for
"objectionable material against Pakistan," i.e.,
expressions of Sindhi nationalism.
Privately owned newspapers freely discuss public policy and criticize the
Government. They report remarks made by
opposition politicians, and their editorials reflect a wide spectrum of views.
The effort to ensure that newspapers carry their
statements or press releases sometimes leads to undue pressure by local police,
political parties, ethnic, sectarian, and
religious groups, militant student organizations, and occasionally commercial
interests. Such pressure is a common feature
of journalism, and, when a group is extreme in its views, can include physical
violence, the sacking of offices, the
intimidation or beating of journalists, and interference with the distribution
of newspapers. At times landlords and their
agents, who have become accustomed to terrorizing the powerless on their lands
in an atmosphere of impunity, also retaliate
against journalists who shed light on their crimes. Journalists working in small
provincial towns and villages generally can
expect more difficulties from arbitrary local authorities and influential
individuals than their big city counterparts. However,
violence against and intimidation of journalists is a nationwide problem.
The broadcast media are government monopolies. The Government owns and operates
the bulk of radio and television
stations through its two official broadcast bureaucracies, the Pakistan
Broadcasting Corporation and Pakistan Television
(PTV). Domestic news coverage and public affairs programming on these broadcast
media are controlled closely by the
Government and traditionally have reflected strongly the views of the party in
power. One private radio station, one
television broadcaster, and a semi-private cable television operation have been
licensed under special contractual
arrangements with the Government (these were under investigation for possible
corruption in making deals, but so far no
irregularities have been found). The semi-private television station, Shalimar
Television Network (STN), occasionally has
been closed due to disputes with the Ministry of Information and to financial
difficulties. None of these stations is
permitted to produce news and public affairs programming; the private television
station rebroadcasts or simulcasts the
regular PTV evening news. The Shalimar Television Network also rebroadcasts PTV
news, in addition to current affairs
programming from foreign broadcasters, such as the British Broadcasting
Corporation. While the STN routinely censors
those segments considered to be socially or sexually offensive, rarely, if ever,
are foreign news stories censored for content.
In July, soon after STN aired news stories critical of the Sharif Government's
handling of the Kargil crisis, the
government-owned and operated Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) announced
plans to turn the STN into an
"all-news" channel, scheduled to start in October; after the coup, the
starting date was rescheduled for March, 2000. This
station would be under direct government control. The Prime Minister established
strict rules regulating morality in
government broadcasting and advertising on PTV in 1997, banning western-style
dancing, male and female co-hosting of
programs, and depictions of women washing in soap commercials. In January 1998,
the government of Punjab stated that
dances performed by women would be banned from television broadcasts, but took
no steps to implement the decree. The
Ministry of Information monitors advertising on all broadcast media, editing or
removing advertisements deemed morally
objectionable. The Secretary for Information was quoted in the press as stating
that additional, private television and radio
channels would soon be licensed, echoing a pledge made by General Musharraf.
However, by year's end, no such licenses
were granted. Satellite dishes are readily available on the local market and are
priced within reach of almost everyone with a
television set--well into the lower-middle classes. South Asian satellite
channels (usually India-based) have become very
important sources of news and information, as well as popular entertainment. On
October 12, as the coup was occurring,
television and radio programming was interrupted for several hours.
Literary and creative
works remain generally free of censorship. Dance performances, even classical
performances, are
subject to protest by certain religious groups. Obscene literature, a category
broadly defined by the Government, is subject
to seizure. Dramas and documentaries on previously taboo subjects, including
corruption, social privilege, narcotics,
violence against women, and female inequality, are broadcast on television, but
some sensitive series have been cancelled
before broadcast.
The Government and universities generally respect academic freedom. The
atmosphere of violence and intolerance fostered
by student organizations, typically tied to political parties, continued to
threaten academic freedom, despite the fact that a
1992 Supreme Court ruling prohibits student political organizations on campuses.
On some campuses, well-armed groups
of students, primarily from radical religious organizations, clash with and
intimidate other students, instructors, and
administrators on matters of language, syllabus, examination policies, grades,
doctrine, and dress. These groups facilitate
cheating on examinations, interfere in the hiring of staff at the campuses,
control new admissions, and sometimes control
the funds of their institutions. At Punjab University, the largest university in
the province, Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba (IJT--the
student wing of the religious political party Jamaat-i-Islami) imposes its
self-defined code of conduct on teachers and other
students. On December 21, 18 persons at Quaid-e-Azam University were injured in
a clash between Pakhtun and Sindhi
students at the university. There have been no arrests in connection with the
incident.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The Constitution provides for freedom "to assemble peacefully and without
arms subject to any reasonable restrictions
imposed by law in the interest of public order;" however, while the
Government generally permits peaceful assembly, it
occasionally interferes with large rallies, which are held by all political
parties. Since 1984 Ahmadis have been prohibited
from holding any conferences or gatherings.
District magistrates occasionally exercised their power under the Criminal
Procedures Code to ban meetings of more than
four persons when demonstrations seemed likely to result in violence.
During the year, police made preventive arrests of political party organizers
prior to announced demonstrations. In August
police detained as many as 2,500 workers of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP)
and the MQM in Sindh several days before
a planned September 4 strike organized by the PPP. On September 24, Sindh
provincial authorities prohibited a march that
was to be held by opposition parties on September 25. Police blocked off the
starting point for the march and detained
hundreds of MQM and PPP activists and senior leaders prior to the event, as well
as in the days immediately after it was to
have occurred. Among those detained was MQM Senator Nasreen Jalil, who was
arrested at her home on September 24
and held incommunicado for several days; she was released on September 29. The
family members of those sought by the
authorities reported forcible, warrantless searches, and at least two adult
children of absent opposition party leaders were
arrested when police could not locate their parents (see Sections 1.d. and
1.f.). In October the authorities blocked a march
planned by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in Kashmir. Police arrested as
many as 250 activists prior to and
during the planned event.
The MQM has been harassed in its regular political activities, especially by the
Sindh police. In one of several such
incidents, the police cordoned off the MQM headquarters ("nine zero")
on July 31 and surrounded a residential area.
Persons living in the area were barred from leaving for work, and visitors were
not allowed to enter. On the same day,
according to the MQM, a busload of supporters coming from Nawabshah to support
an MQM hunger strike was stopped
near nine zero and told to leave Karachi. On August 14, as party members
enforced a strike by threatening shopkeepers
with pistols in Hyderabad, police beat MQM marchers. However, larger and more
prominent demonstrations, such as the
party's August 14 Independence Day march to the tomb of Pakistan's founder, took
place with only minimal harassment.
In August the Government issued a new ordinance related to the antiterrorism
courts (see Section 1.e.). One section of the
ordinance made "illegal strikes, go-slows, (or) lock outs..."
punishable by up to 7 years' imprisonment and a fine. A wide
spectrum of opposition groups opposed this measure, fearing that it would be
used to silence legitimate dissent. Some
groups argued that the ordinance was adopted specifically to counter opposition
plans to organize a strike on September 4.
Police sometimes used excessive force against demonstrators. In September, large
numbers of police were deployed in
Karachi in preparation for a September 4 opposition strike. The police killed
two MQM activists. On September 4, police
used water cannons, teargas, and batons to counter a PPP sit-in in Karachi on
September 12. On September 25, persons
who attempted to hold a march, which had been prohibited, were dispersed by
police, who beat and used tear gas against
them. In October police used force to disperse a planned march by the Jammu and
Kashmir Liberation Front in Kashmir.
The authorities sometimes prevented leaders of politico-religious parties from
traveling to certain areas if they believed that
the presence of such leaders would increase sectarian tensions or cause public
violence. In April, the leader of the
Tehrik-i-Nefaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM), Mullah Sufi Mohammad, was released
from house arrest in Malakand. In
April meetings of five or more persons were banned in Malakand division, but
were lifted shortly afterwards when Sufi
agreed to address only his party's meetings. In September Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami
leader Fazlur Rehman was placed under
house arrest by the Sharif Government to prevent him from traveling to NWFP
tribal areas to address a political rally (see
Section 1.d.). In November the Musharraf regime also briefly placed Rehman under
house arrest to prevent him from
leading a political demonstration in the NWFP.
The Constitution provides for freedom of association subject to restriction by
government ordinance and law; however,
while these ordinances and laws apparently have not been used since the martial
law period, the Sharif Government targeted
the activities of NGO's, revoking the licenses of almost 2,000 NGO's in Punjab.
In November, the government of Punjab
lifted the ban on the registration of NGO's imposed under the Sharif Government,
but the NGO's previously delicensed
remained so at year's end. There are no banned groups or parties.
c. Freedom of Religion
Pakistan is an Islamic republic in which approximately 95 percent of the
population is Muslim, and while the Constitution
grants citizens the right to "profess, practice, and propagate" their
religion, the Government imposes limits on freedom of
religion. The majority of the population is Sunni Muslim, but 20 to 25 percent
of the population is Shi'a. The Constitution
requires that laws be consistent with Islam and imposes some elements of Koranic
law on both Muslims and religious
minorities. While there is no law establishing the Koranic death penalty for
apostates (those who convert from Islam),
social pressure against such an action is so powerful that most such conversions
take place in secret. Reprisals and threats
of reprisals against suspected converts are common. Members of religious
minorities are subject to violence and
harassment, and police at times refuse to prevent such actions or charge persons
who commit them. For example, according
to the HRCP, in one case prior to 1999, Muhammad Akram was threatened with death
by an influential local religious
organization after he joined the Ahmadiyya community, whose members are regarded
as non-Muslims under the
Constitution. The threat was published on the organization's own letterhead, but
no legal action has been taken against the
group.
"Islamiyyat" (Islamic studies) is compulsory for all Muslim students
in state-run schools. Students of other faiths are not
required to study Islam but are not provided with parallel studies in their own
religion. In practice many non-Muslim
students are compelled by teachers to complete the Islamiyyat studies. An
education policy announced by the Government
in 1998 included provisions for increased mandatory Islamic instruction in
public schools.
Minority religious groups feared that the explicit constitutional imposition of
Shari'a (Islamic law) favored by the Prime
Minister in his proposed 15th amendment and his goal of Islamizing government
and society might further restrict the
freedom to practice non-Islamic religions. The Sharif Government countered that
the proposed amendment contained
specific language protecting the rights of minorities. In two areas of the
NWFP--in Malakand and Kohistan--Shari'a law
was instituted beginning in January, in the first by regulation and the second
by an ordinance. On September 20, a bill was
passed by the NWFP Assembly that incorporated the Kohistan ordinance in into
law; Shari'a law now applies in Kohistan
(see Section 1.e.). On December 23, the Supreme Court ruled that interest is
un-Islamic and directed the Government to
implement an interest-free financial system by June, 2001. Discriminatory
religious legislation has added to an atmosphere
of religious intolerance, which has led to acts of violence directed against
minority Muslim sects, as well as against
Christians, Hindus, and members of Muslim offshoot sects such as Ahmadis and
Zikris (see Section 5). Since the coup, no
action has been taken on the 15th amendment.
Then-Prime Minister Sharif spoke out in support of the rights of religious
minorities, and hosted a Christmas dinner in
1997 for 1,200 persons. In September, the Government removed colonial-era
entries for "sect" from government job
application forms to prevent discrimination in hiring. However, the faith of
some, particularly Christians, often can be
ascertained from their names. General Musharraf and members of his staff
apparently consulted with religious minorities
on some cabinet appointments.
In February 1997, a mob looted and burned the Christian village of Shantinagar
in Punjab. Local police participated in the
attack and are suspected of having instigated the riot by inventing spurious
charges that a Christian man had desecrated a
copy of the Koran. Hundreds of homes and a dozen churches were destroyed, and
20,000 persons were left homeless. The
central Government took immediate relief action, deploying troops briefly to
restore order, and the Prime Minister visited
the village. The Government has rebuilt damaged and destroyed homes, but has not
provided compensation for personal
property lost in the incident. The villagers remain fearful of further attacks,
and the police officers believed to be responsible
for the riot, though transferred and briefly suspended, have not faced criminal
sanctions. The 86 persons who were charged
with offenses related to the attack remain free on bail and there was no
indication that authorities planned to bring them to
trial. In March 1998, a district court in Rawalpindi removed three sisters, ages
11 to 15, who had converted from Christianity to
Islam, from the custody of their Christian parents. The importance of the
parents' religion in the judge's decision, however,
was not clear. A subsequent court decision in March, over the parents'
objections, awarded custody of the two youngest
girls to their older sister (who reportedly had converted to Islam) and her
Muslim husband; the eldest of the three girls
reportedly had married her attorney. The girl's parents attributed the loss of
their girls to the influence of religious
extremists who packed the courtroom, and claim to have suffered harassment
because of the case. The girls' family since
has moved, and reportedly is in hiding.
The Ahmadis are subject to specific restrictions under law. A 1974
Constitutional amendment declared Ahmadis to be a
non-Muslim minority because, according to the Government, they do not accept
Mohammed as the last prophet of Islam.
However, Ahmadis regard themselves as Muslims and observe Islamic practices. In
1984 the Government inserted Section
298(c) into the Penal Code, prohibiting Ahmadis from calling themselves Muslim
and banning them from using Islamic
words, phrases, and greetings. The constitutionality of Section 298(c) was
upheld in a split-decision Supreme Court case in
1996. The punishment for violation of this section is imprisonment for up to 3
years and a fine. This provision has been
used extensively by the Government and anti-Ahmadi religious groups to harass
Ahmadis. Ahmadis continue to suffer
from a variety of restrictions of religious freedom and widespread societal
discrimination, including violation of their places
of worship, being barred from burial in Muslim graveyards, denial of freedom of
faith, speech, and assembly, and
restrictions on their press. Several Ahmadi mosques remained closed. Since 1984,
Ahmadis have been prohibited from
holding any conferences or gatherings. Tabloid-style Urdu newspapers also
frequently whip up popular emotions against
Ahmadis by running "conspiracy" stories.
Section 295(a), the blasphemy provision of the Penal Code, originally stipulated
a maximum 2-year sentence for insulting
the religion of any class of citizens. This sentence was increased to 10 years
in 1991. In 1982 Section 295(b) was added,
which stipulated a sentence of life imprisonment for "whoever willfully
defiles, damages, or desecrates a copy of the holy
Koran." In 1986 another amendment, Section 295(c), established the death
penalty or life imprisonment for directly or
indirectly defiling "the sacred name of the holy prophet Mohammed." In
1991 a court struck down the option of life
imprisonment. These laws, especially Section 295(c), have been used by rivals
and the authorities to threaten, punish, or
intimidate Ahmadis, Christians, and even orthodox Muslims. No one has been
executed by the State under any of these
provisions, although religious extremists have killed some persons accused under
them. Since 1996 magistrates have been
required to investigate allegations of blasphemy to see whether they are
credible before filing formal charges. During the
year, the Ministry of Religious Affairs announced the creation of "Peace
Committees" to review charges of blasphemy
before the police can act on them; however, these committees are not yet
operative. On September 8, Ataulla Waraich was
arrested and charged under Section 298(b) after he constructed an Ahmadi mosque
on his property; during the year, Qim
Ali was charged with violating Section 298(c) because he stated that he was a
Muslim, and Dr. Abdul Ghani Ahmadi was
charged under Sections 295(a), 295(c), 298(c) for preaching. In September 1998,
a Shi'a Muslim, Ghulam Akbar, was
convicted of blasphemy in Rahimyar Khan, Punjab, for allegedly making derogatory
remarks about the Prophet
Mohammed in 1995. He was sentenced to death, the first time a Muslim had been
sentenced to death for a violation of the
blasphemy law. The case remained under appeal as of June 30; there was no
further information on the case at year's end.
Ghulam Hussain, a Shi'a Muslim, received a 30-year jail sentence and a $1,500
(PRs 75,000) fine for blasphemy against
the companions of the prophet.
According to Ahmadi sources, 80 Ahmadis were implicated in criminal cases on a
"religious basis" (including blasphemy)
in 22 cases between January and early December; 44 Ahmadis were charged with
violating blasphemy and anti-Ahmadi
laws during 1998. According to these sources, a total of 195 Ahmadis have been
charged under the law since its inception.
A Christian organization, the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP),
used public sources to compile lists of
accused under the blasphemy law. By the NCJP's statistics, 14 incidents
involving accusations of blasphemy on the part of
Muslims took place between January and June. Ghulam Mustafa, an Ahmadi religious
teacher, was charged for preaching
on February 15 under Sections 298(c) and 295c. Intizar Ahmad Bajwa was charged
in Purur under 298(c) on May 19. On
June 21, three Ahmadis were arrested and another three were charged with
blasphemy in Sheikupura, Punjab. Seven
Ahmadis were charged in Bakhoo Bhatti, Punjab, with blasphemy on July 3. Mustaq
Ahmad Saggon and Nasir Ahmad, two
Ahmadis, were charged in Muzaffargarh on July 19 under Section 295 for preaching
and distribution of religious literature.
The case has been transferred to an antiterrorist court at Dera Ghazi Khan. On
July 30, according to Ahmadi sources, a
subdivisional magistrate ordered an Ahmadi mosque sealed in Naseerabad, Sindh;
it remained sealed at year's end. Three
Ahmadis were convicted of blasphemy in December 1997. Abdul Qadeer, Muhammad
Shahbaz, and Ishfaq Ahmad were
found guilty of violating Section 295(c) and sentenced to life imprisonment and
$1,250(PRs 50,000) fines. Lawyers for the
men have appealed the decision to the Lahore High Court, whose ruling had not
been issued by year's end. The Lahore
High Court has turned down an application for bail while this appeal is under
consideration. Their request for bail has been
taken to the Supreme Court, which has not yet given a date for a bail hearing.
In the meantime, the men are serving their
sentences in the Sheikhupura jail. A number of other persons are in jails
awaiting trial on blasphemy charges. A Muslim
religious scholar, Muhammad Yusuf Ali, was charged under Sections 295(a) and (c)
and was jailed in a class "C" cell from
March 1997 until his release in June. Due to threats by religious extremists,
his wife had to resign from her job as a
professor and go into hiding with their children.
On December 14, a group of several hundred persons looted and burned property in
Haveli Lakha, Okara district, Punjab
that belonged to Mohammad Nawaz, a local Ahmadi leader accused of planning to
build an Ahmadi house of worship. A
neighbor reportedly incited the incident by accusing Nawaz of building the house
of worship after the two were involved in
a property dispute. Nawaz, a doctor, reportedly intended to build a free
standing clinic next to his home. The mob destroyed
the clinic, which was under construction, and looted and burned Nawaz's home.
Police arrived at the scene, but did nothing
to stop the crowd. By year's end, neither the neighbor nor anyone in the crowd
had been arrested or questioned in
connection with the incident, and police had taken no steps to find or return
any of Nawaz's property. However, Nawaz and
his two sons were arrested by the police on December 15 and charged with
blasphemy. On December 20, Nawaz and his
sons were granted bail, but the blasphemy case against them was pending at
year's end. Other Ahmadis in Haveli Lakha
also were charged with blasphemy in connection with the incident, even though
they were not in the town at the time. Abdul
Sattar Chaudhry, Muhammad Yar Jandeka, and Nasir Jandeka were charged under
Section 298(c) for declaring themselves
Muslims.
The predominantly Ahmadi town and spiritual center of Rabwah often has been a
site of violence against Ahmadis (see
Section 5). On November 17, 1998, the Punjab assembly unanimously passed a
resolution to change the name of the
Punjab town that serves as the administrative religious center of the Ahmadi
community from "Rabwah" to "Chenab
Nagar." The son of a prominent Muslim fundamentalist filed charges in March
against prominent Ahmadi leaders in
Rabwah. He charged that Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the country's senior Ahmadi leader,
and retired Colonel Ayyaz Mahmud,
the leader of the Ahmadis in Rabwah, had directed Ahmadi activists to cross out
the name Chenab Nagar on a recently
installed plaque and write in Rabwah. The plaque also contained Koranic verses.
The Ahmadi leaders denied this allegation.
On April 30, Ahmad and three of his colleagues were arrested on blasphemy
charges for allegedly inciting the desecration
of the plaque. The blasphemy charges against three of the four eventually were
dropped, and the four were released after
spending more than a week in jail. However, Ahmad still faces charges under
Section 295(c), and the three others still face
criminal charges under the Maintenance of Public Order Act.
In October Shafiq Masih, a Christian, was acquitted of a blasphemy charge under
Section 295(c), but was sentenced to 8
years' imprisonment under Section 295(a) for having uttered derogatory comments
against the Prophet Mohammed; he is
appealing the decision. In December Hussain Masih, a Christian charged with
blasphemy under Section 295(c), was
granted bail due to lack of evidence, according to Christian activists. Masih,
his son Isaac, and Sehr Ghuri had been accused
in November 1998 of making derogatory remarks against the Prophet Mohammed and
against the Muslim community.
Ghuri was previously released on bail; Isaac Masih never surrendered to the
authorities. Ayub Masih (a Christian detained
since October 1996) was convicted of blasphemy under Section 295(c) for making
favorable comments about Salman
Rushdie, author of the controversial book "The Satanic Verses" and was
sentenced to death in April 1998. Ayub's family
and 13 other landless Christian families were forced from their village in 1996
following the charges. Masih survived an
attempt on his life in 1997, when he was shot at outside of the courtroom while
on trial. Although the case was pending
appeal before the Lahore High Court, Ayub's principal defender, Faisalabad Roman
Catholic bishop and human rights
activist John Joseph, committed suicide in May 1998 with a handgun outside the
Sahiwal court where Ayub had been
convicted, to protest the conviction. The High Court appeal is still pending.
Following the Bishop's suicide, there were
violent incidents in Faisalabad and Lahore, involving both Christian and Muslim
perpetrators. Another Christian, Ranjha
Masih, was charged with blasphemy during one of these incidents after throwing
rocks at an Islamic sign; he remains in a
Faisalabad prison. Nazir Masih, a Christian arrested and charged under Sections
298 and 298(a) in August 1998 for
allegedly insulting the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed, was released on bail
during the year.
In March a judge in the antiterrorist court of Muzaffargarh sentenced Muhammad
Ishaq to 17 years in jail and a $2,000
(PRs 100,000) fine for propagating "un-Islamic" ideas. Ishaq was a
member of the association of Partisans of Islam. In
November two journalists, Zahoor Ansari and Ayub Khoso, were sentenced to 17
years in prison and a fine by an
antiterrorist court. The journalists, who worked for the Sindhi daily newspaper
Alakh, were charged with publishing
derogatory words against the Prophet and insulting the religious feelings of
Muslims, according to press reports (see
Section 2.a.).
Sectarian violence and tensions continued to be a serious problem throughout the
country. One newspaper reported that
there have been 300 persons killed in sectarian violence in Punjab in the last 2
years (see Section 1.a.). However, sectarian
violence decreased after the October 12 coup.
In April Prime Minister
Sharif established a 10-member committee of religious scholars whose declared
purpose was to
eliminate growing sectarian terrorism and religious dissension in the country.
The committee collapsed after a few weeks
because Shi'a leaders were unhappy with the committee chairman, Dr. Israr Ahmad,
head of the Tanzeem-e-Islami, who
reportedly has a reputation for religious intolerance. In the same month,
President Rafiq Tarar chaired a seminar in Lahore
to foster better understanding between Christians and Muslims. At this
interfaith gathering, participants discussed
reconciliation efforts since the February 1997 anti-Christian violence in the
Christian community of Shantinagar in Punjab,
in which mobs looted and burned the village. Hundreds of homes and a dozen
churches were destroyed, and 20,000
persons were left homeless.
However, after the coup, sectarian violence decreased. General Musharraf
emphasized the rights of religious minorities in
his speeches, and the Musharraf Government stated that it was committed to
protecting the rights of religious minorities.
According to persons in religious minority communities, the Musharraf Government
made efforts to seek minority input
into decision-making and offered cabinet positions to individuals from religious
minority communities. General Musharraf
appointed an Islamic religious scholar to the National Security Council. When
blasphemy and other religious cases are
brought to court, extremists often pack the courtroom and make public threats
about the consequences of an acquittal. As a
result, judges and magistrates, seeking to avoid a confrontation with the
extremists, often continue trials indefinitely, and the
accused is burdened with further legal costs and repeated court appearances.
Many judges also seek to pass the cases to
other jurists. Prior to his killing in 1997, Lahore High Court justice Arif
Iqbal Hussain Bhatti, one of the two judges who in
1995 ruled to acquit accused Christian blasphemers Salamat and Rehmat Masih,
received several death threats from Islamic
extremist groups. Bhatti's killer, presumed to be a religious extremist, was
arrested during the year, and is being held in
Camp Jail in Lahore.
The Government distinguishes between Muslims and non-Muslims with regard to
political rights. In national and local
elections, Muslims cast their votes for Muslim candidates by geographic
locality, while non-Muslims can cast their votes
only for at-large non-Muslim candidates. Legal provisions for minority reserved
seats do not extend to the Senate and the
Federal Cabinet, which currently are composed entirely of Muslims. Furthermore,
according to the Constitution, the
President and the Prime Minister must be Muslim. The Prime Minister, federal
ministers, and ministers of state, as well as
elected members of the Senate and National Assembly (including non-Muslims) must
take a religious oath to "strive to
preserve the Islamic ideology, which is the basis for the creation of
Pakistan" (see Section 3).
Upon conversion to Islam, the marriages of Jewish or Christian men remain legal;
however, upon conversion to Islam, the
marriages of Jewish or Christian women, or of other non-Muslims, that were
performed under the rites of the previous
religion are considered dissolved.
The Government designates religion on passports. In order to get a passport,
citizens must declare whether they are Muslim
or non-Muslim; Muslims must also affirm that they accept the unqualified
finality of the prophethood of Mohammed and
declare that Ahmadis are non-Muslims.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration, and
Repatriation
Most citizens enjoy freedom of movement within the country and the freedom to
travel abroad; however, the Government
limits these rights. The authorities at times prevent political party leaders
from traveling to certain parts of the country; on
September 3, the Government placed Fazlur Rehman, the leader of one faction of
the religious party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami,
under house arrest to prevent him from traveling to the NWFP tribal areas to
attend a political rally. He was released 3 days
later (see Section 2.b.). Travel to Israel is prohibited by law. Government
employees and students must obtain "no
objection" certificates before travelling abroad, although this requirement
rarely is enforced against students. Citizens
regularly exercise the right to emigrate. However, an Exit Control List (ECL),
which is constantly being revised, is used to
prevent the departure of wanted criminals and individuals under investigation
for defaulting on loans, corruption, or other
offenses. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that there were
1,738 individuals reportedly on the ECL in
late 1998, including 56 parliamentarians. As of early November, the press
reported that as many as 8,000 persons suspected
of corruption were believed to be on the ECL, many of them placed there by the
Musharraf regime. After the coup, all
parliamentarians also were placed on the ECL. No judicial action is required to
add a name to the ECL, and there is no
judicial recourse or formal appeal mechanism if one's name is added. The process
for adding names to the list is not open
to public scrutiny. Zafaryab Ahmed, a prominent human rights activist, was
placed on the ECL in 1998 and was not allowed
to leave the country until December 1998. However, in some instances, courts
have directed the Government to lift
restrictions on some ECL-listed politicians' travel abroad. For example, Benazir
Bhutto, former Prime Minister and leader
of the PPP, was placed on the ECL and was prevented from leaving the country in
December 1998. Bhutto was allowed to
leave later that month following a court order to the Government to lift the
travel restriction against her.
The Sharif Government
continued to use ECL authority to harass opponents and assist the politically
powerful. Politicians
who angered the Sharif Government were regularly placed on the Exit Control
List, often hearing about the restriction only
when attempting to board international flights. Journalist Najam Sethi, who was
charged with treason by the Sharif
Government (see Section 2.a.), also was placed on the ECL, and reportedly was
not permitted to leave the country in June to
receive a human rights award in London. According to press reports, Syed Qamar
Abbas, a former member of the NWFP
assembly, was placed on the ECL while he was on trial for murder; he was removed
after his acquittal. The ECL sometimes
is used by the politically powerful in connection with personal disputes.
Humaira Mahmood, a woman who married in
defiance of her father's wishes, was placed arbitrarily on the ECL in December
1998 by her influential father. In January
she and her husband were arrested when trying to leave Pakistan from Karachi
airport. The couple eventually was allowed
to depart Pakistan following intervention by the Lahore High Court (see Sections
1.d., 1.f., and 5).
The Musharraf regime stepped up the use of the ECL, particularly to prevent
those suspected of loan defaults or corruption
from leaving the country. According to press reports, over 3,000 names were
added to the exit control list after the
Musharraf regime came to power. The focus apparently was on potential loan
defaulters, as part of the Musharraf regime's
emphasis on accountability. The army enforced the ECL, especially after the
expiration of the grace period for the
repayment of defaulted loans on November 17. After October 12, there continued
to be periodic reports of persons denied
permission to travel. The Musharraf regime refused permission for former senator
and human rights activist Nasreen Jalil
to travel to a conference on penal reform held in Nepal in November. Human
rights activist Asma Jehangir also was
prevented from attending a meeting in Kosovo in December, in her capacity as
U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial
Killings.
Pakistan has not signed the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
and has not adopted domestic legislation
concerning the treatment of refugees. In December the office of the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
noted a change in the practice of granting "prima facie" status to all
Afghans in the country; under the new policy, all
refugee determinations are to be made on a case by case basis. Means for
screening Afghan refugees have not yet been
established, but the shift in policy implies an increase in the number of
Afghans to be repatriated and a decrease in the
admission of new arrivals.
The Government cooperates with the office of the UNHCR and other humanitarian
organizations in assisting refugees.
First asylum has been provided to refugees from Afghanistan since 1979, when
several million Afghans fleeing Soviet
occupation poured across the border. There still are believed to be 1.2 million
Afghan refugees in Pakistan who have been
granted first asylum. In addition to refugees recognized and assisted by UNHCR,
a large number of unregistered Afghans
are believed to live in the country, mostly in urban areas.
The Government has not granted permanent legal resettlement to Afghan refugees
but allows them to live and work in
Pakistan. Many are self-supporting and live outside of refugee camps, which has
resulted in some hostility among local
communities, whose residents believe that Afghans take job opportunities from
them and contribute to crime in the country.
On June 13, police in Peshawar swept Afghan shop keepers and their patrons out
of the Hayatabad Kar Khanah market
area, demolishing stalls as they went, and beating persons who resisted. This
incident, along with the March press reports
concerning the possible confinement of refugees to camps and the April
relocation of Afghan refugees from the Nasir Bagh
camp, led some to fear an attempt by the provincial government to make life more
difficult for Afghan refugees and thus to
encourage them to return to Afghanistan. The press reported on similar
initiatives in Islamabad and Rawalpindi in
November and December, but these plans had not been implemented by year's end.
At the same time, authorities in Quetta
detained a number of newly arrived Afghans, mostly non-Pakhtun minorities, with
plans to deport them. UNHCR was
permitted to screen a number of these detainees and those determined to be
refugees were not deported.
Most refugee villages (camps) are well established, and living conditions
resemble conditions in neighboring Pakistani
villages, although assistance to the refugee villages has dropped off
considerably since the early 1990's. Most recent arrivals
have moved to urban areas such as Peshawar and Quetta, but some have been
located in camps such as New Akora Khattak
camp, established in 1996. Conditions for newly arrived Afghans are less
favorable than for refugees in the
long-established camps. For example, sanitation, health care, shelter, and fresh
water have been ongoing problems in New
Akora Khattak, although new shelters, schools, and health facilities were
established during the year. Some of the most
recently arrived families still reside in makeshift tent dwellings. On April 23,
the office of the Commissioner for Afghan
Refugees began relocating 874 Afghan refugees from Nasir Bagh camp to make room
for construction of a new highway.
Some of these refugees were sent to New Akora Khattak camp. However, many
reportedly returned to Afghanistan or
moved to other locations in Pakistan. The relocation effort later slowed in
1999.
According to the UNHCR, there were no reports of the forced return of persons to
a country where they feared persecution.
The Government is cooperating with the UNHCR to support voluntary repatriation
of Afghans to rural areas of
Afghanistan considered to be safe. During the year, approximately 92,000 Afghans
returned to Afghanistan; in 1998,
approximately 93,000 Afghans returned to Afghanistan.
Afghan refugees have limited access to legal protection and depend on the
ability of the UNHCR and leaders of their
groups to resolve disputes among themselves and with Pakistanis. Police
frequently attempt to prevent Afghan nationals
from entering cities, and there are reports that some have been forced back into
refugee camps. Most able-bodied male
refugees have found at least intermittent employment, but they are not covered
by labor laws. Women and girls obtained
better education and health care than is currently available in Afghanistan from
NGO's who provided services. However,
Afghan women working for NGO's occasionally have been targets for harassment and
violence by conservatives, including
Taliban sympathizers, in the Afghan refugee community.
Afghan moderates also reportedly have been the targets of harassment and
violence from conservatives in the Afghan
refugee community, including Taliban or Taliban sympathizers. On January 12 in
Peshawar, the wife and son of
well-known Afghan moderate Abdul Haq were shot and killed in their sleep by
unknown assailants. Haq is well known for
his efforts to promote an intra-Afghan dialog; his brother was a former governor
in Afghanistan who has joined forces with
Ahmad Shah Masood against the Taliban. On March 27, Mohammed Jehanzeb, the
secretary of Abdul Haq's brother (and
Taliban opponent) Haji Qadir, was shot and killed by unknown assailants in
Peshawar. On July 14, moderate Afghan tribal
leader and former senator Abdul Ahmad Karzai was shot and killed by two gunmen
while returning home from prayers at a
local mosque. Between January 1998 and January 1999, it was estimated that up to
12 Afghan moderates or former
members of the Communist Party were killed by unknown assailants (see Section
1.a.). Among those reported killed were
Dagarwal Basir, General Nazar Mohammed, Dagarwal Latif, Hashim Paktyanai,
General Shirin Agha, and General Rahim.
By year's end, there had been no arrests or convictions in connection with any
these killings. On December 4, a fire was
reportedly set at the home of an Afghan moderate active in the intra-Afghan
dialog movement in the Shamsatu refugee camp
in Peshawar. The moderate's car and part of the moderate's residential compound
were burned, but no one was injured.
The resettlement of Biharis continued to be a contentious issue. The Biharis are
Urdu-speakers from the Indian state of
Bihar who went to East Pakistan--now Bangladesh--at the time of partition in
1947. When Bangladesh became independent
from Pakistan in 1971, the Biharis indicated a preference for resettlement in
Pakistan. Since that time, approximately
250,000 Biharis have been in refugee camps in Bangladesh. While the Mohajir
community--descendants of Muslims who
immigrated to present-day Pakistan from India during partition--supports
resettlement, the Sindhi community opposes it. In
1993 the Government flew 342 Biharis to Pakistan and placed them in temporary
housing in central Punjab. No further
resettlement has occurred.
Tens of thousands of persons reportedly left their homes on both sides of the
line of control during the Kargil conflict; 100
villages on the Pakistani side of the line of control were reportedly evacuated
in mid-June. In June there reportedly were
14,000 displaced persons from Indian-held Kashmir living in 20 camps on the
Pakistani side of the line of control.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their
Government
Until the military coup on October 12, citizens had the right and the ability to
change their government peacefully. With
certain exceptions, citizens 21 years of age and over had the right to vote.
However, several million nomads and bonded
laborers could not vote because the National Election Commission had ruled that
they did not "ordinarily reside in an
electoral area", nor [did] they own or possess "a dwelling or
immovable property in that area." Bonded laborers with an
address and an identity card were eligible to vote. Political parties were
allowed to operate freely after the full lifting of
martial law in 1988. Unregistered political parties were permitted to
participate in elections. Members of the national and
provincial assemblies were elected directly. The Constitution required that the
President and the Prime Minister be
Muslims. Even before the coup, the Chief of the Army Staff historically had
exercised influence on many major policy
decisions. After the imposition of a military government, the Constitution was
suspended and representative bodies,
including the National Assembly, the Senate, and the provincial assemblies, were
suspended indefinitely. However, the
Musharraf regime did not ban political parties, and the parties active prior to
the coup, including the Pakistan Muslim
League, continued their activities. The Musharraf regime pledged to return to
democracy, but did not provide a timetable for
elections by year's end. In December General Musharraf stated that local
elections would be held by the end of 2000. Other
senior government officials believe that these elections could be held as early
as September 2000. General Musharraf also
pledged to carry out electoral reforms, including the appointment of an
autonomous electoral commission and the
reconstitution of accurate, comprehensive electoral rolls, but took no action to
implement such reforms by year's end.
General Musharraf appointed a cabinet in late October and early November.
Musharraf also appointed new governors in all
four provinces in October.
National elections for
national and provincial assemblies last were held in February 1997. Election
observers, including
teams from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and groups representing the
European Union, the Commonwealth
of Nations, and the South Asian association for regional cooperation, concluded
that the elections were generally "free and
fair" with no evidence of systemic or widespread abuse of the electoral
process. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan
Muslim League won a majority of seats and formed a government.
Elections for local government bodies were held in Punjab in May 1998. Although
ruling party candidates won the most
seats, the provincial government did not name chairmen to these bodies or allow
them to take office until December 1998.
Specially nominated women, worker, and peasant representatives were chosen,
after long delay, in October 1998. Elections
were held in Baluchistan in March and a chairman was named in August. Elections
have not been held in the two other
provinces since 1993, when these bodies were dissolved by a caretaker government
because of charges of corruption. Local
government elections were postponed indefinitely in NWFP and Sindh. In the
interim, appointed civil servants continued to
administer local governments in all four provinces. Since the coup on October
12, there have not been any active local
bodies in any of the provinces. Local body elections are tentatively planned to
occur in 2000.
Citizens' right to change the government has been restricted at the local level
in Sindh. Elected local bodies (the rough
equivalent of district and city councils) were replaced in April 1998 by
appointed Khidmat (service) committees, which were
packed heavily with supporters of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, and were
widely seen as an attempt to eliminate the
need for local elections in Sindh. In November 1998, the Sharif Government
imposed Governor's Rule in the province of
Sindh. This decision followed a threat to the Sindh's ruling PML coalition
government by one of its primary coalition
partners. The reason cited by the Sharif Government for the imposition of
Governor's Rule--which suspended the
democratically elected provincial legislature and invested the State's appointed
governor with the authority to oversee the
province's affairs--was a critical law and order problem within the province. On
June 17, then-Prime Minister Sharif created
the position of Advisor on Sindh Affairs, and appointed Syed Ghous Ali Shah, a
member of the PML, to the post. Despite
the effective continuation of Governor's Rule in Sindh, Shah, not the governor,
enjoyed executive powers in the province
under the Sharif Government. Neither elected nor responsible to an elected body,
Shah had primary responsibility for the
management of the government of Sindh until his arrest following the October 12
coup. Suspension of the Sindh assembly
did not require new elections, but members were able to do little more than give
speeches and propose private bills 1 day a
week. In September Syed Ghous Ali Shah announced the creation of an appointed
"Members Advisory Council for the
Prime Minister's Advisor on Sindh." The members of this council were to
have the powers of a provincial minister, but the
council was eliminated after October 12.
In October the local and provincial governments, including in Sindh, were
suspended by the Musharraf regime; the
provinces are ruled by governors appointed by General Musharraf.
Because of a longstanding territorial dispute with India, the political status
of the northern areas--Hunza, Gilgit, and
Baltistan--is not
resolved. As a result, more than 1 million inhabitants of the northern areas are
not covered under any
Constitution and have no representation in the federal legislature. The area is
administered by an appointed civil servant.
While there is an elected Northern Areas Council, this body serves in an
advisory capacity and has no authority to change
laws or to raise and spend revenue. In May the Supreme Court directed the
Government to take steps within 6 months that
would provide the residents of the northern areas with government by their
chosen representatives and an independent
judiciary. The court left it to the Government to determine how this objective
would be achieved. On November 3, the
Musharraf regime allowed previously scheduled elections to take place in the
northern areas. Independent candidates and
candidates from the PML, the PPP, and the Tehrik-e-Jafria Pakistan won seats.
The right of citizens to
change their government also has been hampered at the provincial level by the
failure to release the
1998 census figures and by the likely underestimation of the population of Sindh
and, in particular, Karachi. The national
census, held after a delay of 7 years, was carried out in March 1998. The census
was postponed repeatedly due to pressure
from ethnic groups and provincial rivalries. Census figures serve as the basis
for determining political representation and
also for allocating funds to the various provinces from the federal treasury.
Residents of areas who expected results that
indicated either greater population shifts to their regions or smaller shifts
away from their regions disputed preliminary
census results. The 9.26 million census figure for Karachi, for example, is
estimated to be 3 to 5 million short of the actual
figure.
Although women
participate in Government, and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is leader of
the opposition, they are
underrepresented in political life at all levels. Six women held seats in the
217-member National Assembly, up f