The Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights on Thursday called for a holistic legislation for rehabilitation of those Pakistani who have been released from Guantanamo Bay like prisons and tasked National Commission on Human Rights and Law and Foreign Affairs ministries to prepare draft legislation in this regard. The call came during discussion on payment of compensation to Pakistani nationals recently released from Bagram prison in Afghanistan. The representatives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other ministries contended that there is no law to address the issue.
The meeting held here with Senator Nasreen Jalil in the chair. Pleading for compensation and rehabilitation of the prisoners of Bagram prison, Senator Farhatullah Babar said there were many more ill-fated prisoners in Guantanamo Bay who were handed over during Musharraf regime without due process of law and about whom nothing was known. He quoting from General Musharraf's biography said his government had captured 689 militants and handed over 369 to the CIA without trial for bounties totaling millions of dollars. Intriguingly this confession was deleted from the Urdu translation of "In the Line of Fire", he said.
He questioned, "Fifteen years down the line, we ought to know who those 369 unfortunate people were; what their crime was; where they were taken; whether any trial was conducted and where they are now. We owe it to all those innocent who were wrongly incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay or in Bagram or in other such centers," he added. Senator Babar said that providing justice to them calls for holistic legislation, adding the Parliament would be failing in its duty if it did not raise voice for rule of law and compensate these unfortunate people.
Later talking to journalists outside the Parliament House, he said that after the promulgation with backdated effect from 2008 of the Action in Aid of Civil Power Regulation 2011, several dozen internment centers were set up in different parts of the country. The regulation was given backdated effect to encourage the law enforcement agencies to bring into the open those caught during fight against militancy in Swat and Malakand, and initiate their open trial. However, these internment centers had overtime been turned into Pakistani Guantanamo Bay prisons and virtual black holes from which no information was forthcoming, he said.
The committee also discussed the issue of preventing misuse of the blasphemy law. The members were of the view that while no change in the law is contemplated, it is necessary to devise ways and means to prevent its misuse. It decided to make a brief on the recommendations made by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the Council of Islamic Ideology and the recent IHC judgment in a blasphemy case and seek the views of all provincial governments and stakeholders on it within a specified timeframe.
The committee was informed that the Council of Islamic Ideology has also proposed in its reports 2000-01 and 2003-04 that the offender who registers a false case under 295 (C) should be given the same punishment as provided to the offender of blasphemy. In its report in 1997-98 the Council also recommended that the complainant who lodges a complaint under 295 (C) be required to produce two witnesses in support of his accusation. Ministry of Religious Affairs has also said that while substantive amendment is not permissible, procedural amendments be made to prevent misuse of the law.
The chairman NCHR proposed that no officer below the rank of a superintendent of police shall investigate the offence under section 295 C of PPC. The amendment in the National Commission on the Status of Women Act 2012 passed by the National Assembly was, however, not passed by the committee which sought more time to deliberate on the issue.
Senator Farhatullah Babar said that a legislation to force the government to appoint a new chairperson after the incumbent had ceased to perform her functions is of no use as Article 254 of the Constitution clearly states if anything required to be done in specific time is not done during that time, it shall not be invalid for the reason only that it is not done within that period. He proposed to adopt the model of Wafaqi Mohtasib which provides for the incumbent Mohtasib to continue till the appointment of a new one. The committee, however, deferred the issue.
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