Abid
Ullah Jan
ARE
WE living in Pakistan? If we do, why should we approve tyranny
with our silence? Why are we ignoring laws under which mere suspicion
is enough to punish any one of us without conviction by a court
of law?
Official media reported on Sunday, November 17, that the newly
promulgated “anti-terrorism” law would now allow police
to detain terror suspects for up to one year, without filing any
charges. Ignoring the fact that one-year imprisonment in itself
is a punishment, the ordinance was approved by the General Musharraf’s
hand picked federal cabinet last month but was only issued overnight
and came into effect immediately.
Days have gone past, but we have yet to see the mainstream media
showing concern over bestowing government agencies with undue
powers by a handful of government servants, who have taken law
making for 145 million citizens in their hand. No one has stood
up to protest that making a law of far-reaching importance for
the citizens within a day of the swearing in of the new parliament
amounts to mocking at the sovereignty of the parliament and ridiculing
the elected members.
When it comes to mere suspicion, anybody could be a suspect. Police
and other security agencies have now full authority to pick up
any person as a suspect, probe his assets and bank accounts of
his spouse, children and parents. Even after release on bail,
the suspect would be prohibited from visiting public places, such
as movie theaters, airports, parks, train stations or hotels.
Such a suffocating life would be imposed on anyone just for being
a suspect. What kind of suspicion would it be that 12 months would
not be sufficient for convicting the suspect? Still the suspect,
a human being, would be chocked to madness with the proposed kind
of punishment without conviction.
Irrespective of the debate whether this is promotion or restraining
terrorism, history of the last 30 years in particular clearly
shows that merely making more and more draconian laws and chipping
away liberties of everyone in the society cannot curb violence
and terrorism. What we need is a strong commitment and political
will to implement the existing laws without fear and favor.
It is not a hypothesis to state that the recently promulgated
draconian law would be used to muzzle the press, silence the critics
and harass those who oppose government policies from any forum.
Musharraf regime’s recent record of exploiting the so-called
accountability law for manipulating elections, breaking political
parties and achieving 'desired' political results is a hint for
the future. Musharraf has taken far more advantage of the “war
on terrorism” than anybody else through advancing his personal
political agenda with the help of such repressive laws and their
subsequent translation into action.
The misuse of accountability law helped the military government
make and break allies and thus failed to achieve the desired political
results. The new law to curb terrorism can now be used more lethally
than accountability law. The US-led war on terror has inspired
an era of unprecedented repression and human rights violations
in countries where dictatorial regimes do not want to openly take
such actions against their opponents.
The new laws have handed these regimes broad new authority to
arrest, detain, punish and even kill ordinary citizens in the
name of war on terrorism. No one is counting instances in which
government authorities, fully backed by American agents, have
abused their authority. In some cases they went to extent of killing
targeted suspects.
When you do not need any evidence to keep someone behind the bars
for one year; when you do not need any evidence to invade and
occupy a country; when you do not need any evidence to kill someone
with unmanned aircraft, you don’t need any evidence to kill
any citizen at will without any evidence. We are worthless subjects
of newly occupied colonies at the mercy of an imperial power.
Our viceroys need no evidence to prove that someone is involved
in terrorism; mere suspicion is enough to exact the inhuman punishment.
What a great age we are living in which the champions of human
rights have turned into champions of dominating the entire globe.
The Supreme Court should step in to restore the public confidence
in the laws of the land. National Assembly and the Parliament
should redraft statutes to clear up any confusion about what the
law requires and for what purpose. One of the biggest challenges
the nation faces is that its government has been forced to fighting
enemies of America without sacrificing civil liberties at home.
The newly promulgated law failed to rise to that challenge.
The results will be far abusive from the human rights perspective
than the shrill statements of some politicians would suggest.
The new law grants the government one more sphere in which it
gets to unilaterally choose the rules under which it will pursue
its enemies in the name of war on terrorism. The system of government
control is fast expanding. Which parts of this system need to
be reined in is a profoundly difficult question, one that the
newly elected political leaders and political analysts seem depressingly
uninterested in asking.
We need to vigorously discuss and debate the new definitions of
oversight and authority the government wants to have over our
private lives. Political parties, human rights bodies, members
of the legal fraternity and enlightened public opinion need to
condemn and denounce the new law and persuade the regime to leave
the matter to be decided in the parliament. The Supreme Court
also needs to take notice of the new draconian law as was done
in the case of the law proposing to set up military courts in
the past.
This is a war, the US administration has said, without foreseeable
end. We therefore need to struggle to avoid the abusive system
from becoming a permanent feature of our government and justice
system. We need not wait until personally becoming victims of
this modern form of tyranny.
