– Assess the implications of the political status of GB for the local population.

– Determine the extent and impact of curbs on freedom of movement, expression, association, and assembly in the area.

– Establish facts concerning the misuse of anti-terrorism laws—especially under Schedule IV of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997—against human rights defenders and political activists.

– Assess people’s access to digital rights in GB.

– Examine the factors responsible for the reported rise in sectarian tension. – Identify why the number of blasphemy cases registered in GB had surged in recent months.

– Investigate the forced acquisition of community-owned lands by the state for various purposes—including projects under the purview of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)—and assess the impact of this acquisition on local populations facing displacement.

– Investigate the impact of climate change in GB, with a focus on climate justice.

The team visited the towns and districts of Skardu, Gilgit, Shigar, Sost, Aliabad, Gulmit, and Ghizer, holding focus group discussions, consultations and key informant interviews in each location. The mission concluded with a press conference held in Gilgit on 8 June 2022. During its five-day visit, the mission met representatives of political parties, civil society organisations, women’s rights activists, the legal fraternity, religious groups, the trader 2 community, labour leaders, student leaders, victims of natural disasters and armed conflict, and government functionaries. This report draws primarily on respondents’ oral testimonies and key informants’ analysis of the human rights situation.

Given the complexity and diversity of the issues affecting the area, HRCP made every effort to hold extensive deliberations to document stakeholders’ perspectives, the challenges they faced, and the solutions they presented. HRCP is grateful to all those respondents who took the time to speak to the team (including many who travelled from other parts of the area to meet the mission) or helped obtain information on the human rights situation in GB.

The post Gilgit-Baltistan: The long wait for a constitutional identity appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Where the state should be focusing on efforts to uphold the rule of law, reduce violence against women, children and transgender persons, protect the rights of workers and peasants, and fulfil people’s right to health and education, it has instead prioritized its own authority at the expense of democratic norms and people’s fundamental rights. HRCP calls on all political parties to reach a consensus on civilian autonomy and guarding federalism.

The government must focus on strengthening trade unions and seriously consider instituting a living wage, especially for vulnerable workers. HRCP also believes that the provision of healthcare and education is the duty of the state. Student unions must be restored and special attention paid to the plight of incarcerated fisherfolk, stateless persons and rising suicides triggered by poverty, particularly in Thar. The contentious provincial labour codes must be revisited in consultation with trade unions.

HRCP believes that the climate emergency is now an existential crisis for the country. The most pressing issues are the lethal levels of air pollution in Punjab, posing serious risks to health, and the immediate threat of water scarcity, especially in lower riparian Sindh, where the construction of canals on the Indus under the Green Pakistan Initiative has raised objections from small farmers and peasants.

We strongly oppose the Gilgit-Baltistan Land Reforms Bill 2024, which seeks to centralize control over private, communal and ancestral land in the guise of ‘reforms’ for development. This appropriation of land by powerful vested interests will further marginalize people and stoke unrest. The state must give Gilgit-Baltistan its due constitutional rights as demanded by its residents.

HRCP deplores the increasing use of short-term enforced disappearances, including against the political opposition, and calls once again for the head of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances to be removed for sheer incompetence.

The conduct of the state has been marked by violence with impunity and a tendency to succumb to far-right ideologies. This was evident from the extrajudicial killings of two people accused of blasphemy in Umerkot and Quetta, from continued attacks on Ahmadiyya graveyards and sites of worship with police complicity at the instigation of the TLP, and hundreds of mostly young people accused of online blasphemy languishing in Punjab jails amid allegations of the FIA’s involvement in their torture. The alarmingly high number of extrajudicial killings, especially in Sindh, must be investigated and perpetrators held to account.

HRCP notes with concern the fact that its chairperson was detained for questioning by the police and four FIRs filed against its members in connection with their human rights work.

The sharp rise in militancy in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including increasingly regular attacks on construction workers, miners and polio workers, is rapidly moving towards a point of no return. HRCP calls on Baloch and Baloch-Pashtun leaders to sit together and devise an independent solution to the crisis in the province. Pashtun leaders in Kurram must do the same to resolve the months-long conflict in the district.

HRCP wishes to draw special attention to the detention of human rights defender Idris Khattak, who has now spent five years in custody following a military trial on fabricated charges. He must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Asad Iqbal Butt
Chairperson

The post HRCP general body calls for consensus on civilian autonomy, climate justice and land rights appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

This situation underscores just how integral environmental rights are to the realisation of fundamental human rights, such as the rights to life, health, food, water and sanitation. Without a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, people (particularly vulnerable groups) cannot live at a level commensurate with the minimum standards of human dignity. This is why a new social contract must be envisioned, one rooted in climate justice—the concept that climate change is an ethical, legal and political issue rather than solely environmental.3 The disproportionately adverse effects of climate change on the fundamental rights of the most vulnerable communities in Pakistan must be acknowledged and the state’s responsibility to these communities fulfilled by building a more resilient system of governance that puts climate science first.

This study examines the impact of the floods from three perspectives: the right to health, the right to shelter and the right to livelihood. It also analyses the policies and (in)action that have led to Pakistan bearing the brunt of the impact of climate change despite contributing less to global emissions than other countries.4 It draws on expert analysis from a high-profile roundtable held by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in December 2022. The study is complemented by case studies of flood-affected persons and relief workers from different parts of Pakistan who were interviewed by six teams of human rights workers and journalists during a series of fact-finding missions conducted in September 2022.

While Pakistan has every right to demand climate reparations, it must also look within and articulate a strategy to ensure that its most vulnerable groups receive climate justice, and to secure all people’s rights to shelter, health and livelihood amid the climate crisis. Both state and society must recognise that the climate crisis is not a comfortably distant prospect—it is happening here and it is happening now.

The post A Clarion Call for Climate Justice appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Farmers, whose lands the government has begun to take over, are up in arms against forcible evictions and various state pressure tactics, while activists continue to voice their concerns about the project’s environmental cost.

With numerous civil society organisations and rights activists stirring into action, HRCP constituted a fact-finding mission to scrutinise the various impacts of the project, most notably violations of human rights, and to present possible mitigation measures to assist landowners as well as other civil society partners. In this regard, a consultation was organised on 26 January 2021, mostly with subject experts, urban planners, environmentalists, lawyers and HRCP members, including chairperson Hina Jilani. HRCP members also attended various protests and meetings to collect data for this report.

A mission comprising Raja Ashraf (HRCP Punjab vice-chair) and Fatima Faisal Khan and Salman Sikandar (staff members) visited several affected villages on 4 March 2021 and interacted with residents to determine first-hand the human cost of the project and see facts as they exist on ground.

This report is based on material collected during these field visits as well as consultations and interviews with numerous stakeholders—including protesting farmers and environmental experts—held from January to March 2021. It concludes with a set of findings emanating from the mission’s work, along with recommendations for civil society partners on the way forward.

The post The Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.