Muhammad Asad
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan must ratify the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), to pause unending cases of enforced disappearances in the country. It was shared by the Chairperson of Defense of Human Rights (DHR), Ms. Amina Janjua along with other leaders of her organization a during a news conference in Islamabad on Thursday.
Defense for Human Rights (DHR), is an human rights advocacy organization working for promotion of human rights in the country over the past several years.
According to Ms. Janjua, Pakistan Criminal Code Amendment bill 2021 failed to address the issue of enforced disappearances because of its threatening provisions of clause 514, which restricts the provision of information to the families of the victim regarding their loved ones. Therefore, human rights defenders and civil society of Pakistan demand an immediate amendment/correction in subject clause of the bill.
Ms. Janjua said that force full disappearing of a person and disallowing information about his presence or well-being to his family is a cruel and inhumane act and must be pause immediately.
According to her, year 2021 remained unlucky in respect of recovery of enforced disappearances cases because the commission on enforced disappearances remained failed to fulfill its obligation in respect of resolution of all disappeared cases during ending year.
According to her, all though victim families could not recovered their loved ones duirng this year, however New Year will bring new hopes for them and Defense for Human Rights (DHR) and other human rights organizations along with civil society of the country will continue their work to resolve their problem.
While providing details of DHR efforts in this regard, Amina said that Defense for Human Rights (DHR) has filed more than 20 cases in various courts on enforced disappearance cases besides organizing awareness campaigns in big cities of country including Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta.
The organization also held various programs of poetry, fine arts and seminars to mark various occasions such as international day for enforced disappearances and international week for enforced disappearances etc.
According to Chairperson of DHR, government of Pakistan must recovered all enforced disappeared persons before 31 December 2021, otherwise DHR will hold an unending hunger strike for recovery of all enforced disappeared persons in the country.
Ms. Janjua appealed to the Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa to play their role in resolution of the issue of enforced disappearances in the country and end sufferings of the victim families.
According to Ms. Janjua, DHR is fully committed to its cause and will continue its support to the victim families through awareness campaigns, legal actions and peaceful advocacy until resolution of the problem.
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