Pakistan has decided to express serious reservations against the UN working group report on enforced disappearances in the country released last month, according to a senior foreign ministry official.
“We have serious reservations on some parts of the report which will be communicated to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) through diplomatic channels,” the official told The Express Tribune while requesting anonymity .
According to the official, much of the report is unacceptable to Pakistan.
“Most of its parts are merely ridiculous and based on wild allegations against army, law enforcement institutions and intelligence agencies levelled by irrelevant and irresponsible individuals who do not possess evidence matching international standards of justice to prove their charges.”
The official added that the report lacked strong evidence to substantiate findings against state institutions.
“The report is still under serious consideration in the ministry and a proper rejoinder will be placed on record to contest it. Pakistan has every right to challenge the findings of the report. We want to get objectionable parts set aside before the presentation of the final report to UNHRC.”
A major reservation Pakistan has against the report is the number of missing persons in Balochistan it mentions.
“Pakistan totally disagrees with the UN group’s finding that 14,000 persons are still missing in Balochistan… the numbers of missing persons are highly exaggerated, objectionable and challengeable… the UN group itself admitted it calculated those figures based on information received from ‘some sources’,” the official said. He added that it was essential for the working group to disclose those sources and ask for the computerised national identity cards of the 14,000 persons it alleges are missing.
According the official, the UN group also did not take Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal’s statement to UNHRC into account. Justice Iqbal, who heads the government appointed commission on missing persons, maintained the total number of missing persons in Balochistan was less than 30 now.
“We strongly feel that issue of missing persons in Balochistan has been blow out of proportion by the UN group,” said the official, adding that the report had failed to take Pakistan’s stated policy on the army’s role in Balochistan as well.
Foreign office spokesman Muazzam Khan confirmed Pakistan had reservations against the UN report. He added that the government had neither accepted nor rejected the report as yet. Khan said he was not in a position to reveal the grounds of the reservations without consulting the relevant desk at the ministry, though.
The 10-pages report, prepared by the UN working group after its 10-day visit to Pakistan last month, accused members of security and Intelligence agencies of violating human rights all over the country during the last 23 years.
Edited by Zeeshan Ahmad
Published in The Express Tribune, October 13th, 2012.
COMMENTS (7)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
It is interesting- an accuser is being accused.
The numbers may or may not be far off with regards to missing persons but the important issue is, is that men are dying and missing and this needs to be rectified as it is totally unacceptable in this day and age.
Pakistan wants " evidence matching international standards of justice"..in other words "concrete evidence" ...
Too late! You could have made your point earlier on when the UN team was in Balochistan.
Mia mugalte may na raho . Face the ground realities and feel the turning point .
@Polpot: Yes the cat is out of the bag........ the nation which came into being by annihilating another and grabbing its resources, is now out to grab the resources of other countries........the cat is now after the energy and other resources of Balochistan and Central Asia. Balochistan assumes importance because it also provides a corridor to the latter. Because of the greedy cat, soon we would have another ungovernable land, like Afghanistan.
The cat is out of the bag..... ++++++++++++++++++ No point in crying over split milk.