The HRCP report

There are lies, damned lies — and statistics. So goes the old saying, and whilst the latest report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) is most certainly not telling untruths, the statistics therein are capable of more than one interpretation. Particularly when the figures that are not there are factored in, namely those for the first three months of 2016. The HRCP report tells us that 4,600 Pakistanis died in violent incidents in 2015; which is a 40 per cent drop in violent deaths over the 7,622 who died thus in 2014. Any drop is to be welcomed, and 40 per cent is a very sizeable reduction by any standards. Levels of anti-state violence in 2015 dropped to below where they were in 2008. There were 31 per cent fewer suicide attacks, a total of 18 over the year and 41 terrorist attacks in 25 districts — in and of itself hardly a figure to be comforted by. Journalists fared poorly and Pakistan remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for representatives of the Fourth Estate. Four were killed in 2015 and media personnel were attacked 15 times with complete impunity across the country and throughout the year, likewise those who stood for the upholding of human rights. This is still a shameful record despite being a ‘reduction.’

Slightly better news comes from the sectarian front with only 58 incidents and no reported sectarian ‘clashes’ though some might see this as open to question at the very least. Hundreds died or were injured in faith-related incidents, again a shameful statistic. Police encounters — a polite euphemism for extra-judicial killings — saw 2,108 men and seven women killed in 2015. There were 939 women who were victims of sexual violence — almost certainly a significant under-reporting and a risibly low number of 279 cases reported of domestic violence. ‘Honour crimes’ — 987 cases and the tip of the iceberg. Children had a bad year as well with 3,768 cases reported. Paradoxically, any rise in the number of incidents of child abuse represents an improvement as what is known as a ‘climate of disclosure’ develops and children are more confident that their report of being abused is going to be taken seriously by whoever they report it to. Child abuse, particularly sexual abuse, is emerging from the shadows with the numbers abused almost equally split between boys and girls aged 11-14. Slightly surprisingly, Sindh recorded a 42 per cent reduction in the murder rate but crime in general rose in both Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa while Punjab saw a small overall reduction.

Let us avoid the trap of false equivalencies and own the reality — Pakistan is a violent country in every respect, be it confined to hearth and home or death at the hands of terrorists. Some parts of the country are more prone to suffer extremes of violence than others but again the reality is that, as evidenced by the horrors of the Lahore bombing on March 27, anybody, children included, can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Violent death is a thread within the national narrative and responses to it — the Lahore bombing is ancient history as far as the media are concerned a week later — suggest that it produces a response of learned inability to react other than fleetingly and stereotypically. When there is a robust response to a violent act as with the military taking unilateral action in Punjab post-Lahore, there are those who move swiftly in order to preserve the status quo and specifically vote banks.


There will be those who seize on the HRCP report and quote selectively from it to support a positive interpretation of the violence-curve nationally, and it would be a falsehood. The drop in incidence and incidents is likely linked to ongoing operations primarily by the military and paramilitary forces, which are doing the job that the police forces everywhere have signally failed to do. We await the 2016 figures with some trepidation.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 3^rd, 2016.