Forgotten: Pakistani prisoners abroad need greater consular access

IHC issues notices to secretaries of foreign office, interior, DG overseas Pakistanis

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has been moved seeking greater consular support for Pakistanis who have been detained in various countries.

Hearing the petition on Wednesday, IHCs’ Justice Aamer Farooq issued notices to secretaries of the ministries of law, foreign affairs, interior and the director general of the overseas Pakistanis, directing them to submit replies within a fortnight.

Petitioners, Dr Farhat Javed Siddiqui and Zaheer Muhammad, through their counsel Dawood Ghazanavi, had contended that Pakistanis were facing incarceration and even executions abroad, especially in the Middle East, without being provided access to due process, legal assistance, impartial translators and a lack of consular assistance from Pakistani diplomatic missions abroad.



In 2014, the NA was told that 7,016 Pakistani were languishing in jails in various countries, including 4,000 in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE). The government, Ghaznavi contended, had failed to protect these citizens. He further stated that Pakistani missions rarely take action in such matters despite being aware of the facts and repeated pleas from families of those detained.

Migrants  imprisoned in jails abroad are frequently tortured, forced into signing confessions they do not understand,  denied access to unbiased translators, denied a fair chance to present their case and are often sentenced to be beheaded for drug trafficking ignoring the fact that they had been coerced into working as “mules”, the lawyer argued.

Convicted of crimes, these Pakistanis are subsequently executed without prior information and buried in mass graves as if they never existed.  Ghaznavi pointed out that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are signatories to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and in this respect Article 36 obligates the host countries to share information of prisoners with their country of origin.

The petitioners pointed out that Pakistani mission abroad do not have a record of Pakistanis on death row in Gulf countries nor do they have information about bodies of executed nationals from Saudi authorities. A total of 45 Pakistanis have been decapitated in the gulf kingdom since 2014 on drug trafficking charges.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2016.