SPEAKING
FREELY Pakistani rhetoric blind to
reality By Dawood I Ahmed
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
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It has been said
that governments of developing countries sometimes
engage in the rhetoric of international
human-rights for strategic and manipulative
reasons - that they simply create national
human-rights institutions and ratify international
human-rights treaties to placate international and
domestic critics and donor states, rather than out
of any genuine desire to promote a holistic
concept of human rights.
It's argued that
such espousing of and rhetoric about
international
human rights can often
act as a shield to cloak chronic ill-governance
and a worsening human-rights situation at home.
Such skepticism would not have gone amiss
in Geneva as Pakistan was reviewed by other states
on October 30 under the Universal Periodic Review
process at the Human Rights Council of the United
Nations.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani
Khar carefully crafted an opening speech boasting
about the achievements of the Pakistan Peoples
Party-led government since 2008. The speech made
repeated mention of the catch-words "democracy"
and "women's rights". Even drone strikes - or
their purported illegality rather - surprisingly
received a paragraph of attention. The freedom of
the media is mentioned along with welfare programs
such as the Benazir Income Support Fund.
This is progress no doubt, at least from
one perspective, but the average Pakistani, had he
attended the session, might have felt at least a
bit confused and disillusioned. Many would have
wondered whether the references to improvements in
the situation of human rights made in her speech
were about the same lawless country, where,
according to Human Rights Watch, the "human rights
situation deteriorated significantly in 2011".
It is probably fair to say that a large
number of Pakistanis would have been particularly
annoyed by the smug contentment that the Pakistani
delegation might have felt as they touted their
achievements and received plenty of praise and
only mild slaps on the wrists from the many other
states that participated.
As domestic
approval ratings of the government have fallen
remarkably since 2008 (64% to 14%), one should be
very, very careful of being deluded by the
rhetoric of human rights espoused in international
fora by the Pakistani government.
In
reality, there is little to be praised. The
Pakistani government's statement at the UN was
notable not for the touting of predictable words
that donor states or Western allies may want to
hear, such as democracy and terrorism, but the
absence of words such as blasphemy, enforced
disappearances, ethnic violence and grinding
poverty. While the government boasted of its great
achievements in these past four years, it had
little substantive or convincing to say about the
worsening human rights and security situation in
the country.
Apart from the assertion by
Ms Khar, that the period 2008-2012 has been the
"most active period of legislation making on human
rights in the history of Pakistan", what concerns
ordinary Pakistanis is not the rhetoric of reform
invoked in Geneva but the almost complete absence
of human rights improvements on the ground in
terms of political, social and economic rights.
Pakistanis know very well that legal and
constitutional amendments can only take you so far
and claims to have enacted laws should not be
trusted as a sign of improvement - in fact,
passing certain laws can have the persevere effect
of providing international cover for the incumbent
government to tout its democratic credentials even
as it remains increasingly corrupt and impotent at
home.
Yes, as she asserted, the government
has enacted laws aiming to protect women victims
of violence, but at the same time, Pakistan's rank
in the Global Gender Gap Report has fallen even
below its already shameful ranking.
Yes,
there is a free media but Pakistan has also become
the most dangerous country in the world for
journalists, especially those critical of its
armed forces.
Yes, as Ms Khar stated, the
right to Information (Article 19A) is recognized
as a protected right even as the government
routinely bans YouTube for odd reasons.
What about the right to life. Numerous
enforced disappearances are still carried out in
Balochistan - many under the watchful eye of the
current government, and extra-judicial killings
carried out by political parties, criminals and
the like in the port city of Karachi have made
life unbearable for its many residents.
And for all the talk of alleviating the
plight of the poor, what about a dangerously
declining standard of well-being (in the space of
one year between 2010 and 2011, Pakistan's ranking
fell from 125 to 145), or the fact that there are
allegations that the welfare fund set up by the
government, to arguably promote the economic
aspect of human rights, is marred by allegations
of corruption and nepotism.
Or what about
the increasing number of tragic suicides recorded
by abject and poor Pakistanis as a last resort to
their economic woes?
Further, the
situation for minorities, be it ethnic minorities
such as Hazara or religious minorities such as
Ahmadiyya or Christians, has continued to worsen
in the past four years.
And nice as
abstract references to "democracy" and "economic
rights" sound to foreign donors and governments,
one would imagine Pakistani citizens care at least
as much about everyday obstacles to their ability
to enjoy in full their human rights such as rising
food scarcity and the more or less steady
prevalence of corruption since 2008 (scores
ranging between 2.3 and 2.5).
To be sure,
it is not that the current PPP government has done
any worse a job than the alternatives - a military
dictatorship or a Pakistan Muslim League
government. Similarly, the government has not
created many of the human rights problems that
plague the country. In fact, many countries do
worse than Pakistan: they don't even bother to
enact legislation.
The point, rather, is
how big a gulf exists between the confidence with
which the Pakistani government can assert a
positive paper record on human rights, simply by
making some token changes to its legislative
framework and referencing words and achievements
that some states in the international community
and local elites want to hear, even as the reality
remains, by every indicator, that life is becoming
increasingly hard to live for a majority of
Pakistanis due to a deeply worsening human rights
and security situation.
The government may
have some achievements to their credit but
improving human rights is not one of them.
Dawood I Ahmed is a Pakistani
lawyer who attended Pakistan's Universal Periodic
Review at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. He
has practiced law at the international law firm,
Linklaters and worked at the United Nations and
Comparative Constitutions Project. His writings
have been published in the Guardian, Foreign
Policy and the Pakistani papers, DAWN and Express
Tribune, amongst other publications.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their
say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
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