Daily Times

Pakistan’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is scheduled to take place on November 13. UN member states will get together in Geneva to review the country’s human rights record and make recommendations for improvement.

We have recently seen Pakistan make tall promises about its ‘deep commitment’ to human rights and engagement with UN human rights mechanisms, especially around elections for the Human Rights’ Council.

But how seriously does Pakistan really take these commitments? One way to make this assessment is to see how Pakistan has engaged with the UPR process in previous cycles, including to what extent it has implemented recommendations it accepted at that time.

First a quick note about the UPR process, a key mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council.

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) had established the Human Rights Council in 2006 to replace the then existing Human Rights Commission, seen as a politically selective institution in its treatment of individual states. By contrast, the Human Rights Council was tasked by the UNGA to undertake a UPR of ‘the fulfillment by each state of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all states’.

Since 2006, all 193 UN Member States have had their UPRs, and have participated in creating a unique mechanism in which UN Member States can make recommendations to fellow States on how to improve their human rights performance.

During its second UPR in 2012, Pakistan received 167 recommendations – of which it rejected seven, ‘noted’ 34, and accepted 126.

The seven recommendations rejected by Pakistan related to some of the most serious human rights violations in the country. The country strongly opposed calls to stop the ongoing security operation aimed at silencing dissent in Balochistan. It denied any State repression in the province – a denial that persists despite the Supreme Court acknowledging evidence that the security agencies are responsible for perpetrating extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, including that of journalists, political activists and human rights defenders.

Other recommendations rejected by Pakistan included adopting an official moratorium on the death penalty with a view to abolishing capital punishment in law and practice, repealing blasphemy laws, and reconsidering laws that criminalise adultery and non-marital consensual sex.

The Government’s outright rejection of these recommendations constitutes a serious disregard of Pakistan’s obligations under international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and ignores long-standing pleas by international and national human rights organisations.

It is equally telling that a majority of the recommendations that Pakistan did accept refer to vague commitments that lack a sense of urgency, and are not necessarily action-based. These recommendations, for example, urge Pakistan to ‘continue its efforts’ to protect women and children; combat social inequality, poverty, and terrorism; and strengthen democratic institutions.

Pakistan did, however, make a number of concrete commitments as well.

One set of recommendations it accepted relates to criminalising enforced disappearances, bringing perpetrators to justice, and strengthening the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CoIoED).

During its second UPR in 2012, Pakistan received  167 recommendations — of which it rejected seven, ‘noted’ 34, and accepted 126

In the four years since Pakistan’s last UPR, the authorities have not taken any steps to fulfill these commitments: enforced disappearance is still not recognised as a distinct and autonomous criminal offence; the CoIoED remains largely ineffective, failing to register criminal complaints against alleged perpetrators; and not a single person has been convicted of offences arising from cases of enforced disappearance. Instead, Pakistan has passed laws that seek effectively to ‘legalise’ enforced disappearances and provide blanket immunity to those responsible.

Another set of recommendations accepted by Pakistan relates to preventing the misuse of blasphemy laws, and amending these laws to make them consistent with Pakistan’s obligations under the ICCPR.

Reforms, however, appear nowhere on the Government’s agenda, which continues to deny the abuse of the blasphemy laws, ignoring the dozens of people killed with impunity after blasphemy allegations, and countless others who have lost precious years of their lives in detention – often in solitary confinement – on fabricated blasphemy charges. In more than 90 per cent of the cases, courts go on to eventually acquit the accused, but not before they have had their reputations destroyed and their lives deeply disrupted – injustices made possible by the discriminatory, vague, and poorly drafted blasphemy laws.

In fact, in its 2015 mid-term assessment of the implementation of 67 recommendations accepted by Pakistan, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) found that 38 recommendations – a large majority -were not implemented at all, 29 recommendations were only partially implemented, and not a single recommendation was implemented in full.

When faced with difficult questions about its human rights record, Pakistan has in the past resorted to denial, misrepresentation of the truth, or attacks on NGOs and human rights activists for ‘making up’ allegations to ‘defame Pakistan’.

For example, in response to concerns about the abuses related to the enforcement of blasphemy laws, Pakistan has claimed, ‘no one has been punished’ under the blasphemy laws, and that the blasphemy laws are non-discriminatory – assertions that are demonstrably false.

Similarly, when questioned about impunity for serious human rights violations like enforced disappearances, the Government has claimed that it ‘takes action against perpetrators’. Yet, the fact remains that the Government is unable to name a single perpetrator of enforced disappearance brought to justice in Pakistan.

As Pakistan’s third UPR approaches, the National Commission of Human Rights (NCHR), UN human rights mechanisms, and over a dozen national and international human rights organisations, including the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), are all in agreement that the human rights situation in the country has in many ways deteriorated since the last UPR.

This time around it won’t be so easy for the Pakistan delegation to get away with half-truths and doublespeak at the UN on Monday.

The writer is a legal adviser for the International Commission of Jurists. She can be reached at reema.omer@icj.org; twitter: reema_omer

Published in Daily Times, November 11^th 2017.