Daily Times

In August 2015, Zeenat Shahzadi, a Pakistani journalist who had been following the alleged enforced disappearance of an Indian engineer, Hamid Ansari, went “missing” from Lahore.

According to Zeenat’s family, she had been receiving threatening phone calls asking her not to pursue the case before her alleged enforced disappearance.

Two years later, her fate and whereabouts remain unknown.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has mentioned Zeenat’s case in its latest report (released on August 30, 2017)titled – “No more ‘missing persons’: the criminalization of enforced disappearance in South Asia”.

In Pakistan, enforced disappearances are largely reported in the North-

Western region, where people accused of belonging to militant organizations or of involvement in terrorism-related activities are known to have “disappeared”.

The practice is also reported in large numbers in Balochistan, where there are ongoing movements for self-determination and greater provincial autonomy, as well as in Sindh, against people belonging to or perceived to be sympathetic with nationalist groups.

With the ‘disappearance’ of a number of bloggers and journalists earlier this year, the practice of enforced disappearance appears to be expanding — both in terms of geographical reach and the categories of people being targeted

With the “disappearance” of a number ofbloggers and journalists earlier this year, the practice of enforced disappearance appears to be expanding – both in terms of geographical reach and also the categories of people being targeted.

The number of cases of enforced disappearance has recorded significant increases in the early 2000s, beginning with Pakistan’s involvement in the US-led “war on terror” in late 2001.

The practice has now become a national phenomenon. Defence of Human Rights, has reported that more than 5,000 cases of enforced disappearance have still not been resolved.

The Voice of Baloch Missing Persons alleges 18,000 people have been forcibly disappeared from Balochistan alone since 2001.The officially constituted Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, which has been granted a three-year extension on Friday, on the other hand, reports 1,256 cases of alleged enforced disappearance as of 31 July 2017.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, whichdocuments human rights violations in 60 selected districts in the country, has documented nearly 400 cases of enforced disappearance since 2014 from the 60 districts it monitors.

So far the Government has failed to bring perpetrators to account in even a single case involving enforced disappearance.

On the contrary, it has enacted legislation that facilitates the perpetration of enforced disappearance – including by explicitly legalizing forms of secret, unacknowledged, and incommunicado detention – and giving immunity to those responsible.

Enforced disappearance is not recognized as a distinct crime in Pakistan.

Police register complaints of enforced disappearances against ‘unknown persons’ under section 346 of the Penal Code that relates to “wrongful confinement in secret”, and prescribes a penalty of two years imprisonment.

Families of “disappeared” people have also made habeas corpus petitions in the high courts and the Supreme Court under Article 199 and 184(3) of the Constitution respectively, requesting the courts to find out the whereabouts of their “missing” loved ones.

Courts have responded by directing concerned authorities to “trace” the whereabouts of “missing persons” and producing them before court.

The Supreme Court first took up the issue of the widespread practice of enforced disappearances in Pakistan in December 2005, when it took suomotunotice under Article 184(3) of the Constitution of a news report citing the growing numbers of enforced disappearances in the country.

During the hearings, the Supreme Court acknowledged evidence establishing that many of the “disappeared” were in the custody of the government agencies and summoned high level officials before the Supreme Court to explain the legal basis of the detention and to physically produce the detainees.

As the number of cases of enforced disappearances pending in the Supreme Court steadily grew, the Court directed the Government to establish aCommission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearance to investigate enforced disappearances across Pakistan and to provide recommendations to curb the practice.

The 2011 Commission was initially established for six months but its mandate has since been extended a number of times, and the Commission remains in operation at the time of writing.

Among other functions, the Commission has the mandate to “trace the whereabouts of allegedly enforced disappeared persons”, “fix responsibility on individuals or organizations responsible”, and “register or direct the registration of FIRs against named individuals…who were involved either directly or indirectly inthe disappearance of an untraced person.”

Despite the broad mandate, the Commission has failed to hold perpetrators of enforced disappearances criminally accountable.

In one of its strongest judgments yet on the practice of enforced disappearances, the Supreme Court held in the Mohabbat Shah case that the unauthorized and unacknowledged removal of detainees from an internment centre amounted to an enforced disappearance.

The Court expressed concern at the “Kafkaesque workings” of the government forces and held that “no law enforcing agency can forcibly detain a person without showing his whereabouts to his relatives for a long period” and that currently, there was no law in force in Pakistan that allowed anybody to “unauthorizedly detain undeclared detainees”.

Notably, the Supreme Court also held that even though Pakistan has not yet become a party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), principles enunciated in the Convention are applicable in Pakistan in the interpretation of other rights such as the right to life.

The Government responded by filing for a review of the judgment, askingthe court to delete remarks implicating the agencies as such findings could “demoralize the troops”.

The Pakistani Government has committed to criminalize enforced disappearances on multiple occasions. However, it has taken no concrete steps to fulfil this commitment.

For example, the Government constituted a “Task Force on Missing Persons” in 2013 to provide recommendations on how to deal with the prevalent practice.

The Task Force submitted its report in December 2013. While the report has not been made public, members of the Task Force have revealed that one of the recommendations in its report was the criminalization of the practice.

The Committee also urged that Pakistan should also ensure that “all allegations of enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killings are promptly and thoroughly investigated; all perpetrators are prosecutedand punished, with penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crimes.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad. He served as the Executive Editor of Express Tribune until 2014

Published in Daily Times, September 9^th 2017.