we are in dire need of an effective anti-terrorism legislation in the country to curb this menace.
LAHORE: The newly passed Pakistan Protection Bill is being strongly criticised from different quarters on various grounds. It is being termed a black law that violates the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Before opposing this law, we should not forget that we, as a nation, are in a state of war that has claimed the lives of thousands of Pakistanis. This war is now posing a serious existential threat to our state. There exist various violent non-state actors in the country who are busy in certain anti-state disruptive activities across the country. Owing to certain lacunas in the existing criminal justice dispensation, these anti-state elements somehow manage to go scot-free all the time. Therefore, we are in dire need of an effective anti-terrorism legislation in the country to curb this menace.
Following the 9/11 incident, the US proactively reacted as a state by taking some drastic steps, including the enactment of the Homeland Security Act. Like the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, it established more than some 100 secret prisons known as “black sites” throughout the world outside US territory and jurisdiction. The antiterrorism legislation in India and the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1997 in Sri Lanka also indicate a firm resolution on the part of these states to combat terrorism. As a matter of fact, the antiterror laws, enacted and enforced all over the world, have been controversial and open to general criticism. Nevertheless, their utility and effectiveness cannot be denied. Now, if there are concerns that no person should be apprehended and detained in custody arbitrarily, then, at the same time, no person should also be allowed to take another person’s life as the right to live is the most basic and inalienable fundamental right.
Mohsin Raza Malik
Published in The Express Tribune, April 10th, 2014.
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