HRCP stands firm on submitting verified cases of disappearances to inquiry commission

HRCP stands firm on submitting verified cases of disappearances to inquiry commission

Lahore: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has said that it has consistently submitted complete and verified information to the various official probes into enforced disappearance. HRCP said this in
a statement following comments by Justice (r) Javed Iqbal, head of an inquiry commission on missing persons, over the weekend. The former judge had said that there had been baseless propaganda pertaining to the number of missing persons in the country and
that the authorities had been unable to compile the complete details of those on the list of missing persons. He had also claimed that foreign agencies were involved in the issue of missing persons.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said: “HRCP has never forwarded hearsay or any cases which it had not verified to the inquiry commission and always submitted information as per the United Nations proforma for victims of
enforced disappearance. That the commission of inquiry had succeeded in tracing many of the missing persons whose cases were submitted by HRCP was largely because all available details had been provided. The Balochistan government’s reported failure to provide
complete details of missing persons on the list it had submitted to the commission is something only that government can explain.

While propaganda and vested interests may be there, even Justice Iqbal would perhaps agree that Pakistani intelligence agencies have a lot to explain regarding enforced disappearances. The ex-judge’s claim of ‘concrete evidence’
of involvement of foreign agencies in abduction of Pakistani citizens raises the question of why the authorities have not managed to prevent their actions in Pakistani territory, shared the evidence with the people or taken up the matter with the countries
in question. HRCP has been pursuing the case of enforced disappearances in the Supreme Court and elsewhere since January 2007. Why should it take years to discover foreign hands? It would be a sad day for justice in Pakistan if honourable judges started uncritically
endorsing the intelligence agencies’ brief.”

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=25558

Posted by Fayyaz Yaseen on Jun 12 2012. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry