Research analyst raises human rights violations in Pakistan at UNHRC

 A research analyst has raised the violations of human rights and atrocities by the army in Pakistan.

Michela Mutovciev, a Research Analyst at Amsterdam-based EFSAS think-tank made her intervention during the Interactive dialogue with the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances during the 54th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday.

She said, “Our organisation would like to express its appreciation for your commitment to the plight of the people of Pakistan, who continue to live under the rule of a Military Establishment operating with impunity. Particularly concerning is its attitude towards all forms of opposition and dissent, targeting human rights advocates, political activists, and journalists, through the practice of forced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, abductions and torture as part of State policy”.

Mutovciev said although this UN Working Group has examined 800 cases in Pakistan, the country’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances has registered more than 8,000, while Pashtun and Baloch groups claim these to be in tens of thousands.

The research analyst told the UN that these modus operandi have seemingly evolved and even the killing of Pakistani dissidents abroad is not an exception anymore.

“Sajid Hussain in Sweden, Karima Baloch in Canada, Arshad Sharif in Kenya and the failed attempt to murder a Netherlands-based Pakistani blogger are cases in point”, she said adding that the Pakistani people live in an environment of extreme fear, which the military establishment continues to reinforce.

She later urged for urgent intervention of this Council is crucial to push Pakistan towards the imposition of the rule of law and the democratization of society, guaranteeing an end to enforced disappearances inside and outside the country and the ultimate respect for human rights. (ANI)