Pakistan legitimizes forced disappearances
BASIL FERNANDO
Column: Burning Points, UPI Asia Online [ http://www.upiasiaonline.com ]
HONG KONG, China, Jan. 14, 2008

Munir Malik, one of the leading lawyers who inspired the movement for the independence of the judiciary in Pakistan, last week gave an interview to the Asian Human Rights Commission, in which he offered insights into the dynamics that created the movement.

The fight against forced disappearances has been a core component of the movement. Even more revealing is that family members of disappeared persons played a decisive role in the fight for the restoration of an independent judiciary. Malik explains: "There was one issue in which we had taken a stand in virtually every public meeting. That was the case of missing persons.

"Now the CJP (chief justice of Pakistan) was under pressure to hear these cases. In the aftermath of the movement of March 9, 2007, he had said that it is the responsibility of the state to account for every missing person.

"It was not so much that we went after Pervez Musharraf, but we went to look for the missing persons. That antagonized Washington D.C., because they thought that the courts would now be throwing a spanner on the war on terror"¦

" I think one of the other factors (for the mass movement supporting the chief justice) was that, even though pre-March 9 the chief justice was only paying lip service to the cases of missing persons"¦(the families of) those missing persons would continue to picket at the SC (Supreme Court) daily. But these issues attracted civil society."

There have been many disappearances in Pakistan -- in fact, thousands of people. However, this issue has not received adequate attention locally or internationally. The former chief justice took up some cases of disappearances in court, but what will happen now after the dismissal of all judges who refused to sign the Provisional Constitution Order is quite predictable. Out of loyalty to the military regime, these applications on behalf of the people who have disappeared are likely to be ignored.

Documentation on the country's disappearances provides extensive information about a policy line that legitimizes the killing of people after their arrests on the mere suspicion of involvement with terrorist groups. The term "involvement" is interpreted broadly, allowing officers who make arrests to use their discretion to interpret such involvement in whatever way they wish.

Among those who have disappeared are academics, doctors, other professionals and many other people who have played a responsible role in the community. The wife of one of those who disappeared explained in a video interview that she had never been informed of the reason for her husband's arrest, of any involvement that might have led to suspicion concerning his actions, or of his present whereabouts. The video also showed many other family members of disappeared persons demonstrating publicly and demanding accountability from the government.

A forced disappearance consists of many fundamental violations of human rights. It involves illegal arrest, illegal detention, illegal deportation, torture and often killing and the disposal of bodies. All of this illegal violence is done by military agencies or those who are directed by such agencies. The entire process is kept completely secret.

The apparent policy line is that no limitation should be imposed on those who are entrusted to deal with terrorism: they can act completely outside the law; they are above the law.

Once such a suspension of the law takes place, it does not confine itself to disappearances. Assassinations, such as that of Benazir Bhutto, are no surprise within such a context. Nor was it a surprise that a bomb blast targeting protesting lawyers could mistakenly kill and injure a large number of policemen, as occurred last week.

The suspension of the legal provisions that have made forced disappearances possible has spread into the entire body of criminal justice and has killed it. This deadly outcome has taken place in other countries as well, such as Sri Lanka.

The present global discourse against terrorism has created a permissive attitude regarding forced disappearances. The training for this activity happens with the blessing of extreme right-wing elements and intellectuals in developed countries.

The schools stimulating forced disappearances and other gross abuses of human rights have now filtered their violent teachings into the terrain of the military. With such education, causing forced disappearances has become part of an ongoing industry, as the disappearances in Pakistan exemplify.

Forced disappearances and the independence of the judiciary cannot coexist. Therefore, the attack on lawyers who tried to pursue disappearance cases in court and the dismissal of judges who accepted these cases for trial are only a logical consequence of a political system that legitimizes forced disappearances.

To counter this trend, the international community must show much greater leadership on the issue of stopping and eliminating the practice of forced disappearances in a more vigorous and comprehensive manner than it does now.

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(Basil Fernando is director of the Asian Human Rights Commission based in Hong Kong. He is a Sri Lankan lawyer who has also been a senior U.N. human rights officer in Cambodia. He has published several books and written extensively on human rights issues in Asia.)

http://www.upiasiaonline.com/Human_Rights/2008/01/14/pakistan_legitimizes_forced_disappearances/2036/