Human Rights Commission of Pakistan report 2014
A damning report editorial Daily Times, April 20, 2015
That the state of human rights in Pakistan is woefully bad is no secret
but it is the annual report compiled by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
(HRCP) that really drives this point home. Titled ‘The State of Human Rights in
2014’, its statistics portray a bleak and alarming picture of a country mired
in violence, hate and militancy. As many as 1,723 Pakistanis lost their lives
last year in terror attacks and 3,143 were injured. There were 1,206 militant
attacks inside the country out of which 26 were suicide strikes. As many as 144
attacks were sectarian-fuelled and 14 journalists and media workers were killed
in what the report has labelled the “most dangerous country in the world for
journalists.” The figures get worse when the report veers towards the state of
our hapless minorities: Hindus, Ahmedis, Christians, Zikris and Shias, none
were safe. Blasphemy-related cases and charges were on the rise, especially
against minority members. The entire report is a seething indictment of
everything that is wrong with the country in the arena of human rights. The
report also noted that the government has made no moves to introduce
legislation to ensure the protection of our beleaguered minorities.
The 2014 report is not much different from the
report released by the HRCP in 2013. Our national statistics relayed the same
kind of doomsday scenario. Why is it that every year our eyes are opened yet
the government turns the other cheek? It is impossible that these horrendous
figures miss the attention of our authorities, so why are HRCP reports not used
as a guide to better the state of human rights in our country? In 2014 we
witnessed the brutal burning to death of a Christian couple in a brick kiln,
attacks against women were unabashedly on the rise and polio teams were
targeted and murdered more than ever before. These are not just numbers; they
are the ground reality of what presently makes up the fabric of our society.
The HRCP must be congratulated for
always trudging through the murky waters and making every effort to wake up the
slumbering incumbents. It must be a tough job shouting from the rooftop every
year to fix the state of affairs, to remedy the lot of the people but to never
have your voice heard. For that, the HRCP deserves credit for sheer
perseverance, for being the voice of the marginalised who just do not seem to
matter. *
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