Lahore: The practice of enforced disappearances in Pakistan is no longer restricted to conflict zones alone. It has become a tactic for suppressing dissenting voices wherever they are present, says a report published by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).

To support the argument, the report refers to the ‘disappearance’ of a number of secular bloggers and journalists from across Pakistan earlier this year.

The report titled No More “Missing Persons”: The Criminalisation of Enforced Disappearance in South Asiaurges South Asian governments to criminalise the practice of enforced disappearance, adding that it has long been used against insurgent groups or in the name of ‘countering terrorism’. The ICJ study notes that South Asia has the highest number of credible and unresolved cases of enforced disappearances in the world.

The study is based on commission’s work in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

In Pakistan, the report says, estimatesof enforced disappearances cases range from 1,256 to more than 18,000. Most of these cases have been reported from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan and Sindh provinces.

The report has raised concerns about presence of detention centres along the north-western border. The practice has also been reported in large number in Balochistan and, recently, in Sindh, mostly against political activists.

The report notes with concern that despite attempts by families of victims not a single perpetrator has been held criminally accountable for enforced disappearance in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The police’s refusal to register First Information Reports (FIRs) against members of law enforcement, security or intelligence agencies has also been termed problematic.

Immunity enjoyed by members of the armed forces in all five countries studied for the report for actions undertaken in the mere name of national security has been identified as a barrier to eradication of the practice.

The report states that there is aclear lack of political will to hold to account perpetrators of rights violations.

Discussing the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the report says that the court has issued several strongly worded opinions, including when it called for the establishment of a commission of inquiry to investigate cases of enforced disappearances and noted that principles enshrined in the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Disappearance (ICPPED), not ratified by Pakistan, are applicable in the country. The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearance established in 2011 hasn’t made any significant progress, the report notes.

It questions the SC’s recent decision to uphold the validity of constitutional amendments empowering military courts to try civilians, including those kept in secret detention, for terrorism-related offences. Meanwhile, it notes, courts in Pakistan tend to delay hearings on petitions challenging laws that facilitate secret detentions.

The SC verdict in the Mohabbat Shah case has been mentioned as one of the court’s strongest judgements yet on the practice of enforced disappearances. The Apex court had held that unauthorised and unacknowledged removal of detainees from an internment centre amounted to an enforced disappearance. It expressed concern at the ‘kafkaesque workings’ of security forces and held that “no law enforcing agency can forcibly detain a person without showing his whereabouts to his relatives for a long period”.

South Asian states have been urged to ensure that all acts of enforced disappearance as defined by international law constitute a distinct criminal offence under domestic criminal law of these states. It says that it is needed to provide a proper foundation for authorities to implement the duty to promptly investigate allegations of enforced disappearance and to prosecute or extradite alleged perpetrators.

Published in Daily Times, August 31st 2017.