Operation Raddul Fasaad has been launched in the aftermath of the recent deadliest suicide attack at Sehwan Sharif. The blast claimed lives of 88 devotees and injured hundreds more at a crowded shrine. Jon Boone in his article, ‘Pakistan launches crackdown as Isis shrine attack toll rises to 8’”, published in The Guardian cites military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa who appealed for calm, telling Pakistanis: “Your security forces shall not allow hostile powers to succeed.” But, in a strongly worded statement, he vowed: “Each drop of the nation’s blood shall be revenged and revenged immediately.” This was not the usual condolence offered after every ruthless attack to national security in Pakistan but was characterized by a severe agitation to avenge the innocent lives in retaliation to the national lament. A statement was issued by ISPR that over 100 militants have been shot dead in nationwide security crackdown. “In wake of recent upsurge in terrorist incidents in the country, officials searched 350 houses, arresting at least 42 suspects,” according to the news sourced.
Have we ever strived to unveil the reality of those ‘nameless’ people who are anonymously detained and incarcerated in the unknown internment center without being afforded a fair trial or even a legal assistance? Aren’t we ignoring the possibility that these people could be innocent, one of us who have been termed as ‘scapegoat’?
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in its report in 2015 revealed that “After APS incident, Pakistan resumed executions of all death penalty convicts, instead of just those convicted of those terrorism offences. The overwhelming majority of the individuals executed through the year were not ‘hardcore terrorists’, for whom the executions had purportedly been resumed.” Taha Siddiqui and Declan Walsh in an article published in The New York Times say, “Mr. Muhammad was one of dozens of detainees who have died in military detention in Pakistan in the past year and a half, amid accounts of torture, starvation and extrajudicial execution from former detainees, relatives and human rights monitors.”
Allowing individuals to approach Human Rights Committee can be a great step towards full realisation of all human rights guaranteed by ICCPR. Unfortunately, Pakistan has not signed the First Optional Protocol to ICCPR. This is the major hindrance in the accomplishment of the task of censuring human rights violations. It can be argued that this might lead to arguments in support of state sovereignty, substantive and procedural concerns which can be threatened by signing the Optional Protocol. But in reality, this would be a major step to urge government to focus on developing and perfecting legal procedures in order to prevent human rights violations. The reservations entered by Denmark with regard to the Optional Protocol were, “The majority of the rights in the Covenant did not carry immediate legal effect and, considering the vague nature of the rights and the principle of progressive realization, believing that the majority of rights were insufficiently judiciable and less suited to form the basis of an individual complaints mechanism.” This argument lacks credibility in the context of Pakistan where the institutions have failed to provide an effective procedure to assure a transparent inquiry into the matters of human rights violations. All claims for not signing the Optional Protocol which asserted that the domestic courts are capable of providing effective remedies to the citizens have badly failed. The cases heard in Military Courts are not public neither reported, thus diluting the due process standards. The notion of ‘faceless judges’ in military courts has lead to doubt the impartiality and independence of the authority. Trinidad and Tobago’s statement upon re-ceding to the Optional Protocol attempts to modify the “legal effect” of Article 1 in its application to Trinidad by not allowing prisoners under sentence of death to bring such communications. This reservation destroys the purpose and object of the ICCPR and is highly discriminatory to particular segment of the society being denied such right.
Given the current socio-political conditions of the country where Pakistan is fighting against terrorism, there is a high probability that the occurrences of human rights violation might accelerate. Pakistan should sign and ratify the First Optional Protocol to ICCPR because the benefits derived at the cost of human rights will likely weaken Pakistan’s fragile democracy and ultimately undermining its efforts to counter terrorism.