Govt to make National Commission for Human Rights fully operational: minister

Says govt making all-out efforts to root out the menace of terrorism

ISLAMABAD:

The Federal Minister for Human Rights Zahid Hamid has said the government is committed to making National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) fully operational.

He said that the establishment of an independent human rights institution was proof of the government’s commitment to protect citizens’ rights in Pakistan, particularly the rights of women, children and minorities.



The minister went on to say that terrorism had exposed multidimensional human rights challenges in Pakistan and the government was striving to eradicate the scourge from the country.

The minister was speaking at a local club on Tuesday at a high-level dialogue on the ‘Role of National Human Rights Institutions’, jointly organised by National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), Asia Pacific Forum (APF) and Democracy Reporting International (DRI). Currently, NCHR is almost nonfunctional as no funds have been released for it so far, nor have the members of the commission been paid their salaries yet.

Other panelists who spoke on the occasion included German ambassador Ina Lepel, Pip Dargan of Asia Pacific Forum, Shafqiue Chaudhary and Anis Haroon, members of NCHR, Zulfiqar Shah, team leader DRI, and Zafarullah Khan of the Center for Civic Education.

In his welcome address, Shafique Chaudhary gave a vote of thanks to the delegates of APF for their substantial support to NCHR. He then briefly elaborated the history of national human rights institutions, saying that the need for establishing them was realized in the 1940s and later worked out in different parts of the world.



In his remarks, Zulfiqar Shah said that NCHR’s partnership with APF was appreciated and would be helpful to strengthen the foundations of the institution. He stressed the need for the establishment and operationalisation of strong institutional mechanisms for the protection of human rights and improving security situation, instead of compromising citizens’ rights.

He offered DRI’s full support and urged the NCHR to play its role to ensure compliance on Pakistan’s international human rights commitments.

Pip Dargan of APF said that the forum is an autonomous network of 22 human rights institutions of Asia Pacific region. Capacity building of NHRIs and exchange of knowledge and experiences of NHRIs are the key objectives of APF, he added.

Zafarullah Khan shared that Pakistan’s first ever committee for the fundamental rights of citizens and minorities was constituted on August 12, 1947, which was headed by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He added that the establishment of NCHR would change the culture of the denial of rights in Pakistan.

The German ambassador Ina Lepal said that the establishment of NCHR was a landmark development, which showed Pakistan’s commitment to ensuring compliance on international human rights obligations.

Ali Nawaz Chowhan, chairman NCHR, said that the creation of Pakistan was on the basis of human rights, therefore they were central to us.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2016.