Recently in Pakistan Category
ISLAMABAD: The new government must immediately release dozens of people “secretly” detained by intelligence agencies as part of President Pervez Musharraf’s co-operation with the US-led war on terrorism, human rights activists said on Sunday.
THE GUARDIAN, RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN
Thursday, Jan 31, 2008, Page 9
On the morning of Aug. 10, 2006, Britain awoke to the news that the security services and police were alleged to have foiled a terror attack that was to have been unprecedented in magnitude and mercilessness, according to senior Scotland Yard officers.
Using smuggled liquid explosives and detonators made from camera flashlights, Islamist terrorists were said to have been plotting to bring down 10 airliners over the Atlantic. Three thousand people or more were to have died.
The report in The Guardian daily comes ahead of a meeting between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Downing Street later on Monday.
Speaking to The Guardian, Rauf's lawyer Hashmat Ali Habib said: "It wasn't an escape from custody. ... You could call it a 'mysterious disappearance' if you like, but not an escape."
"The Pakistanis are simply not interested in handing him over to the British. They never have been, although it is not clear why not."Column: Burning Points
Published: January 14, 2008
HONG KONG, China, Munir Malik, one of the leading lawyers who inspired the movement for the independence of the judiciary in Pakistan, last week gave an interview to the Asian Human Rights Commission, in which he offered insights into the dynamics that created the movement.
The fight against forced disappearances has been a core component of the movement. Even more revealing is that family members of disappeared persons played a decisive role in the fight for the restoration of an independent judiciary. Malik explains: "There was one issue in which we had taken a stand in virtually every public meeting. That was the case of missing persons.
By Zofeen T. Ebrahim
Karachi, Jan 13 (IANS) Emergency has been lifted and a brand new apex court set up in Pakistan, but the bench still refuses to entertain cases of human rights violations, specially those of enforced disappearances, says former law minister Iqbal Haider.
"We should wash our hands off these cases," says Haider. Those who have disappeared have often been labelled terrorists or threats to national security, yet none have been charged with any crime so far.
ISLAMABAD, Oct 11: Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on Thursday gave a concession to the government, allowing it to regularise the ‘disappearance’ of all the missing persons, but reiterated that the Supreme Court had substantial evidence that the people were in the custody of intelligence agencies.
“We are deliberately exercising restraint due to the national interest and, therefore, openly asking the government to regularise the custody of the missing persons,” the CJ observed, adding that the court would not be in a position to give the concession again.
