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WORLD SOCIAL FORUM:
A Chance to Reach 'Missing' Persons
Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Mar 23 (IPS) - Of several local issues bound to get an
international airing during the World Social Forum that opens here on
Friday, most deserving is the case of persons gone 'missing' as a result of
this country's deep involvement in the 'war on terror' prosecuted by the
United States, in neighbouring Afghanistan.
''They must be torturing my son. I know they do, from the newspaper reports
of people who have come back (from detention),'' says Nasima Bibi who is
currently sitting on a ''hunger strike unto death'' outside the Karachi
Press Club in the hope that someone will tell her what happened to Sharif.
She and the Baloch family now plan to observe a sit-in at the World Social
Forum venue. ''We were told that if we go there, some foreigners will hear
about us and tell the whole world about our anguish and how the government
treats its citizens,'' she says tearfully in between reciting verses from
the Holy Quran. ''Disappearances have been noticed over the last couple of
years,'' explains I.A. Rehman, chairman of the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan (HRCP)
Although the HRCP does not have accurate numbers, the body estimates that
''between several hundred and several thousand'' have vanished. Rehman
himself attributes this alarming trend to ''a lack of respect for due
process by officials involved with this so called war on terror.''
While cases are being reported from all parts of the country, most are
concentrated in the Punjab, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and also
Balochistan, where a nationalist movement has turned increasingly violent in
recent months.
According to the HRCP's fact-finding efforts, some of the detainees are
being held in prisons in Punjab and Balochistan while the vast majority are
in places of detention that are kept unknown.
Says defence analyst Hasan Mansoor: ''People belonging to any specific
ethnic, sectarian or religious group often go 'missing' when a conflict with
the state arises or gains momentum. This time, it is the turn of nationalist
groups to be hunted, mainly those of Balochi origin. However, there are some
who belong to Sindhi nationalist parties as well.''
The desperation of people trying to trace the whereabouts of missing
relatives is typified by the tragic story of Nasima Bibi. After her son, a
newly appointed doctor at the rural health centre in Kech district, was
picked up while sitting with friends at a small roadside tea stall on Nov.
17, 2005, attempts to locate him have hit a wall.
''They would sit at that spot every evening and hold their poetic and
literary discourses, my brother being an ardent short story writer. There
was nothing unusual about that day,'' said Ghani Sharif, the younger
brother. A third brother, studying law in Karachi, has taken time off from
his semester to stage a protest outside the Quetta Press Club.
Local police refused to entertain their complaint on the grounds that they
could not proceed against another government agency. ''We then tried to
lodge one (of kidnapping) against anonymous people, but this time the excuse
given was that since we knew he'd been picked up by the military
intelligence agency, it was not possible,'' explained Ghani.
Attempts to file a petition at a sessions court failed. The family then
pleaded with the Balochistan high court to intervene. ''We've heard nothing
positive so far and it's been four months. When the representative from the
Frontier Constabulary (a paramilitary force in the tribal areas) and the
police were summoned by the court, they denied any knowledge of my
brother.'' The next hearing is on Apr. 5, 2006.
Secretary-General of the HRCP and a former senator, Syed Iqbal Haider terms
denial of knowledge an inhuman and illegal practice. ''In the court of law
they (authorities) have to disclose the whereabouts but not necessarily the
charges. Here they blatantly deny knowledge of the person.'' This, he added,
''gives rise to the suspicion that these allegations are unsubstantiated and
there are no charges and no crime committed by the people picked up.''
Arbitrary arrests, said Haider, damaged the credibility of military
intelligence agencies and is counterproductive for the U.S. cause they are
supposed to be fighting for, as nobody is convinced that those detained have
anything to do with terrorism.
According to Rashid Rizvi, a retired judge, the most frightening aspect of
this issue is the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, which was amended in 2003 to
give ''authorities unfettered power to detain a person, that too, without
disclosing charges, for a maximum period of 12 months''. Surprisingly, no
one has objected to this, not even the bar council, although this is as good
as ''deprivation of the right to life,'' said Rizvi.
Change the faces and names and the pattern of most cases runs along the same
lines as that of the Baloch family.
One of the better known 'disappearance' cases is that of Dr Aafia Siddiqui,
named suspect by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. This
doctorate in neurological science, from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), was picked up in the April of 2003 and never heard from
afterwards.
The sisters Arifa and Saba Baloch, who made headlines last year, after being
arrested on suspicion of being would-be suicide bombers, were let off, after
six months, with warnings not to discuss their ordeal.
But Ali Asghar Bangulzai, Brahim Baloch, Dr Allah Nazar Baloch are the names
of a few detainees who have not been so lucky and have remained missing for
over eight months.
''It's this 'not doing enough' U.S. pressure (to get the Pakistan army to
crack down on suspects especially in areas bordering Afghanistan) on the
political establishment of President Pervez Musharraf that forces him to
perform this way,'' says an irate Haider. ''What the authorities don't
realize is that this callous and barbaric action is motivating peaceful
citizens to militancy.''
Nafisa Shah, a woman mayor and a rights activist, also blames the
disappearances on the ‘war on terror' which, she says, has taken away what
little legal protection Pakistani citizens enjoyed. "Our people, especially
the poor, always had a vague citizenship as far as their rights are
concerned."
Haider agrees that by and large the victims are those who do not have the
''right connections'' or are too poor ''to meet the expenses of discovering
the whereabouts of loved ones''. (END/2006)
Source: Inter Press Service News Agency
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