Daily Times

An effective means all over the world to deal with terrorism is that courts of law punish terrorists by following the due course of law. The Pakistani courts of law have largely been unable to punish terrorists for their violent acts of terrorism against innocent people as well as the security forces. The courts have been acquitting terrorists and many believe that one reason why they have been doing so is that the current Pakistani laws are not strict enough to hold terrorists accountable in the courts of law and that there is a need for stricter laws. The government of Pakistan has now proposed new laws called ‘action in aid of civil power in the federally administered tribal areas and provincially administered tribal areas’ to ensure punishment for militants involved in acts of terrorism in FATA and PATA. But many human rights activists believe that the laws could be abused by the government or the army to harm innocent people and political opponents because it gives power to the armed forces to detain and interrogate terror suspects for an indefinite period. Pakistan’s Supreme Court Bar Association’s President Asma Jahangir has already announced to challenge these laws in court if the government implements them.

Recently, a seminar was held in Peshawar to determine the civil society perspective on the action in aid of civil power in FATA and PATA. Political parties, lawyers and civil society’s representatives participated in the seminar. A divided opinion emerged among the participants regarding the laws. Among the political parties, the difference of opinion occurred along pro- and anti-Taliban lines. The political parties that have a longstanding anti-Taliban stance and have greatly suffered in Taliban atrocities supported the laws and those with a pro-Taliban stance, who have suffered no or insignificant harm at the hands of the Taliban, opposed the laws. Awami National Party (ANP), Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) supported the laws. Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) opposed the laws.

The government should ensure that the new laws are not used against innocent people, but the JI and PML-N’s opposition to the laws should not be taken at face value. Reportedly, the JI representative in the seminar said that, “The laws were in violation of Article 247 of the constitution as the two regulations violate human rights in the tribal areas.” It sounds strange to hear the language of human rights and constitutionalism from the JI. This party aligned itself with Generals Zia and Musharraf to defile the constitution of Pakistan and has a long, well-documented history of association with militant Islamist groups, starting from Al-Badr and Al-Shams to the Taliban and al Qaeda. It is the hypocrisy of the party that when it comes to the defence of Islamist militants it uses the discourse of human rights, although it has always availed itself of all the opportunities to abuse the human rights of its ideological and political opponents by all means including violence and threats of violence.

The PML-N’s stance on religious militancy and terrorism in Pakistan fully concurs with the intelligence establishment of Pakistan. The party has been using a pro-Taliban discourse against the war on terror to express its two key aspects, one, its pro-Taliban right wing affiliation and, two, to condemn General Musharraf, who was wrongly seen by the West as a liberal anti-terrorism man. The PML-N leaders, whose government was illegally toppled by General Musharraf, expressed their hatred of Musharraf in a language that was sympathetic to the Taliban’s violent ideology. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s request to the Taliban to spare Punjab from their attacks was not a mere slip. The statement was well in line with the right wing ideology of the party. So closely is the party linked with terrorist organisations in Pakistan that even the Barelvi religious scholars of Punjab have openly accused some top PML-N government officials in Punjab of having contacts with the Taliban and have even demanded the resignation of the provincial minister, Rana Sanaullah, who has been publicly seen participating in public meetings of the anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba militant group.

To date, without any sense of responsibility that one would expect from a leading political party in the largest province of Pakistan, the PML-N website declares: “The number of people with an extremist mindset in Pakistan is very small, but there is a much larger number of people, especially in NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and the tribal areas (FATA), who regard the war on terror as a campaign against Islam.” This is a highly objectionable statement. It contradicts the ground reality and, secondly, it reflects the party’s lack of political interest in the terrorism-hit Pakhtun areas. Most dreaded terrorist organisations, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi are based in Punjab. They continue to operate in the province and the Taliban from the Punjab dominate the Taliban groups in FATA. Nothing in the PML-N’s conduct shows that the party is concerned about the rising religious bigotry and full-scale public activities of banned religious organisations in Punjab, especially the connections of such activities with the terrorism in the Pakhtun areas both in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The PML-N’s support base is the right wing middle class of Punjab. This middle class, which has not suffered at the hands of the Taliban like the people in FATA and PATA, is generally sympathetic to the Taliban. This is the real problem with the PML-N. It does not want to displease its right-wing support base by taking a clear anti-terrorism stance to arrest the growing religious bigotry in the province and by taking measures to eliminate the terrorist groups operating in Punjab and inflicting terrorism on the Pakhtun area. The above statement, quoted from the party’s website, is meant to appease the anti-American, pro-Taliban right-wing middle class of Punjab. The statement is not given out of consideration for people’s sufferings in the ongoing terrorism in the Pakhtun area.

Secondly, unlike the ANP and PPP, who have think tanks that have worked out plans about integration of the tribal area in the mainstream legal and political framework of Pakistan, the PML-N does not seem to have a well thought out plan about the integration of FATA. This clearly implies that the party is comfortable with FATA suffering as a strategic space under the control of the intelligence establishment of Pakistan.

There is a need for more stringent laws to deal with terrorists who have committed brutal acts of terrorism, and the ruling PPP-ANP coalition should ignore the view of the JI and PML-N in the context of these parties’ pro-Taliban track record. It is, however, important that the government of Pakistan adequately address the concerns of the human rights activists on the new laws for FATA and PATA.

The writer is a PhD Research Fellow with the University of Oslo and is author of the book Taliban and Anti-Taliban