Islamabad-The Islamabad High Court yesterday issued notices to secretaries of Law and Justice, Foreign Affairs, Interior and other respondents in a petition seeking proper consular assistance to the Pakistanis imprisoned abroad.

A single bench of IHC comprising Justice Aamer Farooq conducted hearing of the petition moved by Dr Farhat Javed Siddiqui and Zaheer Muhammad and directed the respondents to submit their reply in this matter within two weeks.

The petitioners moved the petition through their counsel Barrister Dawood Ghazanvi and cited Secretary, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its Secretary, Ministry of Interior through its Secretary, Ministry of Overseas Pakistani & Human Resource Development through its Secretary and Overseas Pakistani Foundation through its Director General (DG) as respondents.

They adopted before the court that the petitioners are overseas Pakistanis and raising voice for Pakistani workers, whose fundamental rights have been abridged due to facing detention, imprisonment and execution abroad especially in Gulf countries without proper due process of law, lack of access to lawyers, impartial translators, and lack of consular assistance from Pakistani diplomatic missions abroad.

The petitioners stated that during the 8th Session, 2014 of the National Assembly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released that total of 7,016 Pakistani workers are languishing in jails of various countries and their number has increased since then while nearly 4,000 Pakistanis are imprisoned in Saudi Arabia and UAE on different charges.

They added that in the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Overseas Pakistani and Human Resource Development for the Period (Sep, 2012 to Feb 2015), Senator Sehar Kamran raised the issue of Pakistani prisoners detained in the Saudi jails. It was also informed that some of the females have given birth to children during detention and they were still in jails. The Pakistan Embassy did not issue out-passes to the families, including the children, as the children did not possess the CNIC cards. These families were facing great hardships in Saudi Arabia for coming back to Pakistan.

Their counsel contended that in order to protect the fundamental rights of Pakistani Migrant workers detained abroad, the Supreme Court in its hearing on May 20, 2010, directed the government to make vigorous efforts and arrangements to provide all necessary assistance, including legal aid and payment of fines, for securing the release and repatriation of the Pakistani Nationals detained/imprisoned abroad.

He said that the apex court also directed that a special cell be established in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a special internal- Ministerial Committee, at joint secretary level, comprising Ministry of Interior, Finance, Law and Justice and Human Rights and Foreign Affairs be constituted to deal with these issues on a most expeditious basis.

The counsel argued that the Government of Pakistan has completely ignored drafting of a comprehensive policy to implement the direction of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It has only issued basic “Guidelines for streamlining the institutional mechanism for implementing the directive of the Supreme Court on securing release and repatriation of Pakistanis detained and imprisoned abroad”. This is clearly non-obedience to the Supreme Court direction. Even the government is claiming that it provides legal and financial assistance to the detainees but it does not represent a proper policy document, he added.

Therefore, he prayed, to the court that the respondents may be directed to provide a proper consular assistance to Pakistani migrants imprisoned abroad to protect their fundamental rights. 

He further requested the court that they may be directed to implement the directive of Supreme Court of Pakistan in true letter and spirit and they may be directed to formulate and implement a uniform consular policy to support all Pakistanis imprisoned abroad.

He continued that the respondents may be directed to make forceful representation to secure the due process and fundamental rights of those Pakistanis imminently facing execution in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.