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State and Non-State Actors Alike Threaten Pakistani Women’s Rights

By Umair Jamal

Between Prime Minister Imran Khan’s insensitive remarks and Pakistani Taliban threats, women in the country face an uphill battle for their rights.

Women’s rights activists who organized this year’s International Women’s Day in Pakistan have been accused of committing blasphemy and received death threats from extremist groups in the country. Following the spread of fake material, the Pakistani Taliban, also known as the Tehree-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), told the organizers of the march that “Fix your ways, there are still many young Muslims here who know how to protect Islam and the boundaries set by Allah.”

The spread of fake videos and images on social media suggesting that the organizers of the march had insulted Islam also found attention of the country’s courts. On March 26, a local court in Pakistan ordered the registration of a first information report (FIR) against the planners of the March for allegedly making “derogatory remarks” against Islam.

This happened even after the organizers issued clarifications that the participants did not raise blasphemous slogans and their materials were edited to defame their movement. Women’s rights present a miserable picture in Pakistan. In 2020, the country was ranked at 151 out of 153 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index.

The events around this year’s Women’s Day march highlight a troubling trend of how disinformation is used to discredit marginalized communities in Pakistan. In the past, this has happened in the case of different minority ethnic groups but now we are seeing the same tactics being used against women as a distinct identity group. “I do believe this was very deliberate,” said Farieha Aziz, who is a women rights activist about the vilification campaign against the march organizers. She further notes that “[t]his time it took on a more dangerous dimension,” because of “the assertion that anti-Islam and blasphemous activities have taken place.”

However, this is not how a women’s march should be described or allowed to be propagated in a society where women rights already present a dismal picture. Shenila Khoja-Moolji, a professor of women’s studies told the The Diplomat “the Aurat March is ultimately an effort by women to claim public space and advance their demands related to economic, reproductive, and environmental justice, which influence their wellbeing.”

Khoja-Moolji notes that “in doing so, protestors mobilize meanings of ‘good life’ and gender roles and relations, that produce anxieties in other publics who seek to control and regulate women.”

However, Khoja-Moolji cautions that we should not reduce this to a liberal/Western and Islamic/Eastern binary, the way that those who are levying blasphemy charges against the organizers of the Aurat March are doing. “In fact, demands for gender justice can be completely congruent with Islamic teachings on social justice and equality. So, what we are seeing in the blasphemy accusations is an instrumentalization of Islam to regulate women,” Khoja-Moolji asserts.

Unfortunately, this year’s events do not mark a turning point in the fight for women’s rights in the country. Not to say that there haven’t been huge uphill battles in the past, particularly during the Zia ul Haq regime, but the intersection of violent extremist groups, misinformation and social media, and recent examples of vigilante justice raise the stakes of what is happening today. The struggle in this regard becomes further complicated when a country’s prime minister suggests women’s way of dressing as a reason for rise in rape cases. Last week, Prime Minster Imran Khan in a statement said that an increase in rapes indicated the “consequences in any society where vulgarity is on the rise.”

Khan advised women to cover up to evade temptation. “This entire concept of purdah is to avoid temptation, not everyone has the willpower to avoid it,” Khan said.

If Khan considers women’s dress a reason for rising rape cases, it should not come as a surprise that TTP would want to jump on the same morality bandwagon to win support of the mostly conservative Pakistani population. While the ideological basis of TTP’s disagreement with the march is not surprising, the group’s decision to explicitly and vocally condemn the movement perhaps signals a shift in their perceived spheres of interest.

TTP’s “threats should raise alarm bells for security agencies. These threats are meant to create fear and gain the sympathy of radical segments only to create hurdles for the people who want to raise their voice for women’s rights,” Mahnoor Shaikh, a women rights activist told The Diplomat.

As it appears, Pakistan’s women should be worried about militant groups like TTP, the county’s judiciary, and its prime minister before they start thinking about asking for their fundamental human rights.

https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/state-and-non-state-actors-alike-threaten-pakistani-womens-rights/

Pakistan government accused of sabotaging human rights commission

 Critics say officials are stalling the relaunch of the watchdog to avoid accountability for rights violations. A top court has ordered the ruling party to fill empty positions after the previous ones expired in 2019.

A top court in Pakistan has called on the ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf party to revitalize the country's National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), an independent rights watchdog that has been inactive since 2019, amid accusations that the government is deliberately stalling its functioning.

Activists and former NCHR workers have accused Prime Minister Imran Khan's government of delaying the appointment of leadership roles in the commission in order to avoid facing accountability for human rights violations— especially those committed at the hands of the country's military.

After finding several faults with the government's previous advertisements for leadership roles in the commission, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on March 29 directed the federal government to issue an advertisement for a new chairman and NCHR members.

'Unconstitutional' advertisements

Chief Justice Athar Minallah ruled the previous advertisement for the NCHR positions to be unconstitutional. The first advertisement included a maximum age limit, which the court ruled should be removed to make the selection process more inclusive.

Another issue was raised regarding the ambiguity of the language of the advertisement, as the expression "inviting suggestions for suitable persons" did not hold the same meaning as the term "inviting applications."

Minallah thus directed the Human Rights Ministry to present the names of potential candidates to the prime minister and opposition leader after taking suggestions. The court also directed the ministry to present its order and a new summary in the next cabinet meeting.

The former chairman of the commission, Justice Ali Nawaz Chowhan, told DW that these inconsistencies in the advertisements were intentionally placed by the government, as officials have a vested interest in sabotaging the commission's efforts to monitor and report on mounting human rights violations,such as enforced disappearances. "This government neither has the urge nor the passion to truly work for human rights. What is the point of having a Ministry of Human Rights without having an independent human rights commission?" said Chowhan. The four-year tenure of NCHR members expired on May 30, 2019, and since then, the roles have not been filled.

NCHR's role in international conventions

The NCHR Act was introduced in 2012 to mandate the promotion, protection and fulfillment of human rights according to the constitution and international treaties. One of the mandates is to abide by the Paris Principles, adopted by the UN General Assembly. Pakistan is a beneficiary of economic benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and is responsible for implementing the UN's Core International Human Rights Treaties. Though the commission was established in order to meet the criteria set by international conventions, critics say future NCHR findings could put Pakistan's economic benefits, such as the GSP, at stake. "The government has reduced the NCHR to a skeleton. We published 35 reports, bringing attention to and investigating human rights violations, but the government does not want its failures exposed, which is why they are delaying these appointments: so that the international image does not suffer," said Chowhan.

Blame-game between political parties

Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari denied that the government was deliberately delaying the appointments, and told DW that officials had followed due process by advertising in 2019, at the end of the last term. Mazari said NCHR posts were readvertised in October 2020, and added that Khan had sent a list of preferences to the head of the opposition in December.

"We keep getting excuses from the opposition, who are yet to send us their nominations. They keep saying it is because he [opposition leader Shahbaz Sharif] is in jail, but it's not like he is not functioning. The pressure should be on the opposition, not us, so we can actually move forward from this matter," said Mazari.

She said the delay was also caused by logistical and legal bottlenecks. "We either change the whole law to be more smooth or make do for now, this is how it's operating at the moment,” she said. According to the CIVICUS Monitor's December 2020 report, the state of civic space in Pakistan continues to be classified as "repressed." According to Human Rights Watch, in 2020 the Pakistani government harassed and at times prosecuted human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists for criticizing the government, and used draconian sedition and counterterrorism laws to stifle dissent. Prominent human rights defender Tahira Abdullah told DW that she believes that Pakistan's human rights activists have a duty to stand up for a fully independent NCHR.

"The NCHR can only be effective if a truly independent chairperson and commissioners are appointed, and only if there is an end to all interference in the NCHR's autonomy, committed by state institutions, political offices and bureaucracy," said Abdullah.

https://www.dw.com/en/pakistan-government-accused-of-sabotaging-human-rights-commission/a-57124832

Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari extends supports to all demands of the employees of Balochistan government.

Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has asked Balochistan government to accept all the genuine demands of its employees without any delay and expressed sympathy and solidarity with the provincial government employees who are on the streets under a mass protest nowadays. In a press statement issued here, the PPP Chairman said that people of Pakistan are reeling under unbearable inflation generated by the selected regime of Imran Khan and it has become very difficult to survive for the poor employees like the downtrodden people. 

 Bilawal Bhutto Zardari extended support to all the genuine demands of the employees of Balochistan government and asked Party’s Provincial leadership to personally visit the protesters to express solidarity with them.

https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/24616/