‘Caught in a web’: Pakistanis in Saudi jails need more help

Stakeholders call for extending consular protection policy, prison transfer treaty to protect citizens abroad

ISLAMABAD: Comprising the second largest migrant worker population of Saudi Arabia, Pakistanis are among the most vulnerable to get caught in the kingdom’s criminal justice system. But with no consular protection policy, these hapless citizens are often left at the mercy of a system they have little knowledge or resource to navigate.

This was stated by speakers as global rights body Human Rights Watch and Justice Project Pakistan launched their joint report "Caught in the Web: Treatment of Pakistanis caught in the criminal justice system of Saudi Arabia" which was launched in the capital on Wednesday.

Outgoing Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar noted that detained Pakistanis very rarely if ever, receive any response from the Pakistani government agencies which they turn to for help.

“We should have a cell, in one or various relevant ministries, that has the mandate to examine, pursue and investigate the cases of these Pakistani prisoners abroad,” Babar said.

He further lamented that a state like Pakistan, which itself has little respect for a citizen's life and whose own record of the broken criminal justice system is pathetic, cannot be expected to stand for the life and liberty of its citizens caught on the wrong side of the law in Saudi Arabia or anywhere.

About the criminal justice system in Saudi Arabia, he recounted the case of Abdul Ghafoor who had landed at the Madina airport in August 2016 and disappeared the next day. He said that the foreign affairs committee of the Senate had proposed an investigation into Ghafoor’s disappearance from the point when he had an altercation with a police officer at the gate of Masjid-e-Nabvi.

He recommended creating a database of Pakistanis imprisoned abroad which is regularly updated and contains particulars of all overseas Pakistani prisoners and progress of their cases.

The report, which interviewed 12 Pakistanis who had been interned in Saudi prisons and families of nine other detainees, stated that except in one case, none of these 21 Pakistanis had a defence lawyer present largely because they did not have the resources to locate or pay a lawyer while in prison.

MNA Dr Shireen Mazari, while responding to a question, emphasised the importance of article 4(1) of the Constitution which bounds the state to protect its citizens at home and abroad.

She stated that while we bemoan the shortcomings of the Saudi criminal justice system, we must focus on what we can do at our end to assert the rights of our own citizens.

“All political parties, should put in their manifestos and force the Foreign Office to have a universal consular protection policy. We should also negotiate bilateral agreements that allow Pakistani citizens in KSA and Gulf countries to serve their sentences at home,” Mazari.

Senator Sehar Kamran called for increasing the number of community welfare officers which utilises the community welfare fund to hire effective legal representation for Pakistanis detained in that country.

JPP Executive Director Sarah Belal said that per the stakeholders and the findings of the report, Pakistan must enact a consular protection policy at the earliest and demand that Saudi authorities promptly alert them whenever a Pakistani is detained. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2018.