Pakistan's top rights activist Asma Jahangir has blasted the Pakistan government for demonstrating “disproportionately high passion” against the execution of two war criminals in Bangladesh.
“The government was only confirming the fact that two men were political agents and working for the cause of Pakistan,” the country's English daily the Dawn quoted her as saying.
The response sent a message that the government of Pakistan had extraordinary love and affection for the opposition members in Bangladesh than its citizens, Jahangir told reporters at the Supreme Court on Monday, according to a report run by the newspaper yesterday.
“Equal passion, we hope, will be shown by the government for the people on death row in Pakistan than being hanged elsewhere in the world by denying due process,” she said.
The rights activist was reacting to the response by the foreign office and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan expressing anguish and concern over the execution of BNP leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed.
Jahangir said Pakistan should first take up the issue of capital punishment through unfair trials here and of those Pakistanis who were being consistently executed in Saudi Arabia and then show disproportionately high passion for the politicians of Bangladesh.
“Are these two Bangladeshi more important than the people living in Pakistan?” she asked. If the answer is in the affirmative, the government should also explain why and what for, she insisted.
She was of the opinion that the hangings in Bangladesh would “further deepen the divide and haunt its politics in the future”. She said all human rights activists who monitored these trials “agreed that due process had not been given to the two accused”.
“We've condemned the unfortunate developments and even given out urgent appeals to the Amnesty International and other international human rights organisations in this regard,” she added.
The two politicians, said Jahangir, were executed “without affording due process”. The same right was being denied to the people facing trial in military courts on terrorism charges, she observed.
“We're against the death penalty and unfair trials whether in Pakistan, Bangladesh or elsewhere,” she said, adding that everybody knew that the trial of the two Bangladeshi politicians was “flawed”, but the role of Pakistan was something which was not understandable.
“If they [Pakistan government] are against the death penalty or the undue process, they should look into the trials being conducted by the military courts,” she said.
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