On July 30, 2005, Pakistani businessman Masood Janjua was travelling by bus with a friend, Faisal Faraz, to Peshawar from the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
Somewhere along the way, they disappeared.
Their families immediately started a search. Eventually, they discovered that the two men had been forcibly disappeared by forces loyal to the then President Pervez Musharraf.
Today, the families are still without any information on their whereabouts.
Not just India; the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) of the United Nations, too, has raised the issue of forced disappearances in Pakistan.
’16 years of torture and misery’
Hours after India spoke at the UN on serious human rights violations being perpetrated by the Pakistan government, the OHCHR highlighted the plight of Amina Masood, wife of Masood Janjua.
“Our three children were very young at the time. It would be impossible for anyone to understand what we have all gone through during these 16 years of torture and misery,” said Amina.
She was speaking at the 21st Session of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) in Geneva, Switzerland, which began on September 13. In each session, the CED reserves a space of tribute to victims of enforced disappearances to share their testimonies. Such testimonies are key for the CED to identify options to support both them and the government authorities involved.
Amina Masood described the period of shock and anguish that she went through when her husband disappeared. She said she was “grievous and emotionally broken”. The family had to take care of the children, and her husband’s business was left to deteriorate.
“It took me many months before I realised what had happened and that I needed to get up from the bed and start searching for my loved one,” she said. “As I got up with extraordinary pain and determination, I started an endless, nerve-wracking battle in which I never rested.”
Together with three other families of disappeared people, she started a movement, protesting in front of locations such as Pakistan’s Parliament House, the Supreme Court, and the presidential residence.
She told the CED that in Pakistan, enforced disappearances have become a “widespread social evil” and explained that among the people disappeared are activists, human rights defenders, writers, poets, journalists, students and lawyers.
In her statement, Amina Masood and the group Defence of Human Rights (DHR) run by her highlighted the importance of the Pakistan government taking advantage of the momentum to ratify the International Convention.
India raises issue of human rights abuses in Pakistan
On Wednesday, the first secretary in India’s permanent mission in Geneva, Pawan Badhe, raised the matter of grave human rights violations in Pakistan. Exercising India’s right to respond to comments made by Pakistan and the OIC on Kashmir, Badhe said the country does not need lessons from a “failed state” like Pakistan, which is the “epicentre of terrorism and worst abuser of human rights”.
Dissenting voices from civil societies, human rights defenders, journalists are muzzled daily in Pakistan, with the support of the government. Enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, murders and abductions have been used as a tool for subjugation and to muzzle any form of dissent or criticism. The impunity with which such abuses have been carried out exposes the hollowness of Pakistan’s commitment to human rights, said Badhe
Pakistan has failed to protect the rights of its minorities, including Sikhs, Hindus, Christians and Ahmadiyas. Thousands of women and girls from minority communities have been subjected to abductions, forced marriages and conversions in Pakistan and its occupied territories. Pakistan has been engaged in systematic persecution, forced conversions, targeted killings, sectarian violence and faith-based discrimination against its ethnic and religious minorities. Incidents of violence against minority communities, including attacks on their places of worship, their cultural heritage, as well as their private property have taken place with impunity. A “climate of fear” continues to drastically impact the daily lives of minorities, he added.
Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and Ukraine-Russia War Live Updates here.
Comments
0 comment