ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has announced it will challenge in the Supreme Court the controversial anti-terrorism bill passed by the National Assembly the other day.
PTI Chief Imran Khan, while talking to reporters outside the Parliament House, severely criticised the move of the government to get the controversial Protection of Pakistan Bill passed through the lower house of the Parliament on the basis of its majority, announced it would be challenged in the apex court. The party has also got the support of the two opposition parties, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Awami National Party (ANP), in this connection.
PTI Vice Chairperson Shah Mehmood Qureshi who was accompanied by Imran also said this law would turn Pakistan into a police state. He said they had decided to challenge it in the court on the basis of its certain clauses that were violation of human rights. He also said his party had the support of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on the issue.
Protection of Pakistan Bill, containing two presidential ordinances, gives powers to the security forces to shoot suspects on sight, detain them for an extendable period of 90 days and conduct raids without search warrants. Under the law, any case from any court could be transferred to special courts for trial and citizenship of a Pakistani could also be cancelled.
Reuters adds: Opposition parties were planning to challenge a sweeping new anti-terror law in court, politicians said on Tuesday, because they feared it would legalise human rights’ violations.
The Protection of Pakistan Bill was passed late on Monday amid protests from members of the Parliament and condemnation from international rights groups such as Amnesty International.
The law grants sweeping powers of arrest and detention to Pakistan’s already powerful security forces.
When the National Assembly approved the bill, the opposition party members tore up its copies and threw them up in the air and walked out of the assembly in protest.
Lawmakers warn the law is too broad and that anger over abuses by the police and army is already fuelling the growing militancy. The main opposition, the Pakistan People’s Party, has led protests against the law in the National Assembly.
The government ministers, including the law minister and the information minister, as well as members of the ruling party’s legal team, were not available for comment.
International rights bodies have accused Pakistani security forces of abducting, torturing and murdering civilians.
The security forces, battling increasingly violent Islamist militants as well as separatist rebels in some places, deny violating human rights.
Amnesty International has said the law contains no safeguards against abuse. “Rather than addressing the real law and order failings in the country, the government is taking the easier option of giving sweeping powers to security agencies,” said Mustafa Qadri, a Pakistani researcher for Amnesty International. “These laws represent some of the most repressive security laws in Pakistan’s history,” he noted.
The law says all statements made during detention are admissible as evidence and also reverses the burden of proof, placing the onus on the accused to prove they are not guilty. It also does away with the power of high courts to review lower courts’ decisions.
“Under this law, you are guilty until proven innocent. It’s against the very basic principles of law,” said Fawad Chaudhry, a media adviser for Pakistan People’s Party.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif won enough seats in the parliamentary elections last May to pass unpopular laws without the support of other parties. The law is rooted in a long-running power struggle between an activist Supreme Court and the traditionally powerful military.
Since 2008, judges have been investigating the cases of hundreds of prisoners held by security forces in secret without any charge.
Human rights lawyers and relatives have been fighting for years to get information about the detainees. Most of them charged with a crime have not appeared in any court while others were acquitted, but seized after they were freed.
The military has usually refused to produce the detainees despite the insistence of judges. The new law will give the military legal protection.
“You are now giving legal cover for the things security forces are already doing, like detaining people for long periods of time with no attention to rights and declaring them terrorists with little or no proof,” said senior MQM member Haider Abbas Rizvi.