By: Inter News on June 26, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS Firstpost » World
By: Inter News on June 26, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home
The International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on June 26 commemorates the date when the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT) came into force in 1987. Pakistan became a signatory to the UNCAT in 2008 and ratified it in 2010. The latter was important for several reasons, one of which was to fulfil the requirement to obtain the GSP+ status — granting Pakistani products duty-free access to the European market.
As a signatory to the treaty, Pakistan is obligated to meet a set of regulatory standards outlined in the Convention to eliminate the use of torture by public officials, including enacting legislation that effectively defines and criminalises torture.
But what is torture?
The colloquial use of the term does not always align with the legal definition established in the UNCAT. Per Article 1 of the Convention, torture is defined as:
“any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”
Understanding the implications of this definition is essential for activists, victims, journalists, and citizens to know their rights.
Given the passage of Pakistan’s Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention and Punishment) Act, 2022, it is imperative that we answer the following question: to what extent does the Act meet the UNCAT standards? By comparing Pakistan’s legislation to similar laws passed by other South Asian convention signatories, this article hopes to shed light on how Pakistan can improve its anti-torture law to better adhere to UNCAT criteria.
For a law to be effective, it is imperative that the definition of the term that it tackles is accurate. Under Pakistan’s new law, ‘torture’ is defined as:
“an act committed by which severe physical pain or physical suffering, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”
While this definition of torture is comprehensive, it misses one important element — mental torture. According to a report on torture by UN Special Rapporteuer Pieter Kooijmans, the distinction between physical and mental torture “seems to have more relevance for the means by which torture is practiced than for its character”. That is to say, even in instances of brutal physical torture, the long-term effects could be primarily psychological and vice versa.
Under Article 4.2 of the UNCAT, state parties are required to instate penalties commensurate with the crime being committed. The anti-torture law in Pakistan, however, fails to stipulate any standalone punishment and relies on the provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). The main contention here is that torture is not an offence under the PPC, so there is confusion in terms of how punishment will be meted out under the Act. The PPC only penalises ‘hurt’, with punishment depending on the severity of hurt caused.
Furthermore, Article 14 of the UNCAT concerns compensation for victims of torture or their families. Here too, Pakistan’s law calls for the protection of victims, but fails to enact a fixed mechanism for financially compensating victims. There needs to be a mechanism that allows financial compensation, which can play an important part in the rehabilitative process of the victims.
For any law to be implemented in its true letter and spirit, the stakeholders involved must be sufficiently trained to carry out their relevant duties and responsibilities. Article 10 of the UNCAT talks about educating and informing law enforcement officials about the prohibition against torture. In Pakistan’s case, while Clause 18 of the anti-torture legislation talks about the government’s responsibility to dispense information regarding the Act at regular intervals through the media, it fails to obligate the government to sensitise law enforcement agencies, medical professionals and the judiciary.
Moreover, international best practices demand investigations be carried out under independent empowered bodies to ensure impartiality.
Under Pakistan’s Act, investigative jurisdiction has been granted to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), with oversight of the investigations given to the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR). The inclusion of the NCHR is a critical step in establishing impartiality, and it is of the utmost priority that they be capacitated and given adequate resources to play a more proactive role in the matter.
So how does Pakistan’s Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention and Punishment) Act, 2022, hold up in comparison to other South Asian countries that have ratified the UNCAT and enacted similar legislation criminalising torture?
This article cross-examines Pakistan’s Act with similar laws passed by Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. For the purpose of this article, South Asian countries were selected because of their cultural, political, and socio-economic similarities and, hence, serve as the best benchmarks to gauge Pakistan’s own progress. Despite being South Asian nations, Bhutan and India have been excluded from this study, given that Bhutan is not signatory to the UNCAT, and India has yet to ratify it despite being a signatory.
The degree of adherence to UNCAT standards was measured across six factors:
Although there are certainly more factors that could be considered, the six identified above capture areas of core controversy and disagreement.
Comparing Pakistan’s legislation to Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka yields significant insights in each area of analysis. While Pakistan’s Act is indeed progressive, and a step towards the right direction, there are several areas that can be improved. These improvements are feasible, given that other South Asian signatories included them within their own legislation.
Pakistan is the only country that does not include “mental torture” in its definition of torture. A wealth of medical research indicates that mental torture can often cause lifelong trauma in victims, leading to suicide or decline in mental function. Mental torture must be recognised as a severe form of torture in its own right, which will continue to be used unless explicitly outlawed.
Given that every other South Asian country has included mental torture within their respective definitions, there is no excuse for Pakistan to ignore such a crucial element. One reason for this omission could be the culture of dismissal of mental health in Pakistan.
Each Act contains a provision that gives priority or an overriding effect to torture legislation. This key addition prevents lawmakers and public officials from manipulating contradictory laws within their respective penal codes to justify torture and evade punishments.
That being said, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka all contain an additional provision that explicitly dismisses threats of war or public emergency as justifications for torture. Given the near-constant instability in Pakistan, and the fact that most acts of torture are justified under the auspices of protecting the public from foreign or domestic threats and maintaining order, Pakistan should include a similar provision within its Act.
While Pakistan vests sole investigative authority in the FIA, this is a tenuous decision for a variety of reasons. Most notably, the FIA is comprised of public officials, often former police officers themselves. As such, the potential for conflict of interest is high as the law makes public officials investigate one another, without any guard against foul play. It is thus of the utmost importance that the NCHR be strengthened, and its current resource constraints and bureaucratic hurdles be addressed so that it may have the capacity to play a more direct investigative role as opposed to an overseer one.
Although Bangladesh and Nepal also mandate that public officials remain in charge of investigations of torture, their legislation criminalising torture contain a variety of addendums that help to ensure impartiality as required by the UNCAT.
Under Article 5 of Bangladesh’s Act, individuals are vested with the authority to appeal for judicial investigation if they believe that the superintendent of the police is ill-suited to investigate the case. Nepal provides the court with the jurisdiction to decide if the investigation requires a superior officer to investigate the case under Article 3.13.
These additions ensure that even when public officials investigate one another, there is an option for the complainant to appeal for a new investigator and that there is a rank differential between the offender and the investigator. While such additions will not eliminate impartiality entirely, they are more in line with the UNCAT’s requirements.
By and large, all countries have similar standards for legal protection. The Sri Lankan law contains additional provisions for the protection of non-citizens who are victims of torture. However, it can be reasonably argued that this is not essential, given existing provisions on the rights of non-citizens within the PPC (Article 4 also extends the Code to “any person in the service of Pakistan in any place without and beyond Pakistan”).
Across the board, each country is lacking specific protections for gender minorities within their legislation. This is unsurprising, given that the UNCAT does not mandate the existence of provisions for gender minorities.
However, Bangladesh and Nepal use male and female gender pronouns within the wording of provisions. Given the embedded patriarchal culture in South Asia, similar language should be used in Pakistan’s legislation criminalising torture. The exclusive use of male gender pronouns could be taken advantage of to say that women and transgender individuals cannot legally qualify as victims of torture.
The Pakistani law does not enumerate specific punishments for torture based on the severity of the crime. Instead, Articles 8-10 defer to the PPC in order to determine punishments for offenders.
Given that the PPC does not mention torture, this decision risks rendering the Act inefficient. The explicit threat of a high sentence and fine present in other legislations is more likely to create a deterring effect on the use of torture, as the consequences are clear to potential offenders rather than hidden within archaic legislative provisions.
Moreover, Pakistan and Nepal both punish mala fide, or bad faith, complaints. The punishments established in Article 11 may silence vulnerable victims who lack the resources or knowledge to pursue a lengthy and expensive legal battle.
In view of the above, there is significant room and grounds for improving Pakistan’s anti-torture law. There are potential legislative loopholes in the Act that could be exploited to continue the use of torture without accountability in Pakistan. If we are to move towards equity within our political and legal system, it is imperative that we learn from our neighbours who share our struggles.
Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are certainly not paragons of excellence with regards to legislation criminalising torture. However, analysing their legislation will certainly help Pakistan’s own process of self-improvement. Recognising the importance of The International Day in Support of Victims of Torture means recognising the steps we need to take in order to ensure accountability and end the culture of impunity for perpetrators of torture in Pakistan.
This article has been published in collaboration with Justice Project Pakistan, a non-profit legal action firm based in Lahore that represents the most vulnerable Pakistani prisoners facing the harshest punishments, at home and abroad.
Header image: Shutterstock
By: Inter News on June 26, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS Firstpost » World
By: Inter News on June 26, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home
Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange soared on Monday with analysts attributing the rally to revisions made by the government in the budget 2023-24 to allay the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) concerns.
The benchmark KSE-100 gained nearly 1,034 points to reach 41,100.65 points, or 2.58 per cent around 10:42pm.
Talking to Dawn.com, Intermarket Securities’ Head of Equity Raza Jafri said the pending ninth IMF review, which seemed to have been written off by markets, was now seeing “fresh hope” after the government made changes to the budget and removed import restrictions.
He said cyclicals such as cements and import-dependant sectors such as autos were leading the rebound.
Similarly, Salman Naqvi, the head of research at Aba Ali Habib Securities, attributed the surge to one primary reason —the government’s proximity to striking an IMF deal.
According to Naqvi, “The government has nearly fulfilled the IMF’s requirements and made changes to the budget as desired by the IMF.”
He said it was now anticipated that the IMF loan will be approved.
Naqvi noted that the market had been in an “oversold zone,” experiencing a downward trend for several days, and it required a “breaking news” to trigger improvement, which was witnessed today.
While Naqvi acknowledged that the market volume was still not significantly high, he emphasised that if the IMF loan was approved, it could lead to a substantial market rally.
The National Assembly on Sunday approved the next fiscal year’s budget, which was revised a day earlier to meet IMF conditions in a last-ditch attempt by the government to secure much-needed bailout funds.
“Almost all the irritants between the IMF staff and the Ministry of Finance were addressed hours before the finance minister’s wind-up speech on Saturday,” Dawn quoted an official as saying, adding that the announcement about the successful completion of the ninth review was an IMF’s privilege and just a formality now.
A few days ago, the IMF had raised several issues with Pakistan’s budget for fiscal year 2024, saying that some of the proposed measures went against the EFF programme’s conditionality.
Esther Perez Ruiz, IMF representative for Pakistan, had earlier said Pakistan needed to satisfy the IMF on three counts, including the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, before its board will review whether to release the pending tranche.
For its part, the government had responded to the IMF’s concerns, saying that it was “flexible” on the budget and remained engaged with the international lender to reach an “amicable solution”.
With reserves at critical levels for the past several months, Pakistan is in dire need of an IMF bailout, without which it may default.
The country was expected to get around $1.2 billion from the lender in October last year as part of the EFF’s ninth review. But almost 8 months later, that tranche has not materialised as the IMF says Pakistan has been unable to meet important prerequisites.
By: Inter News on June 26, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu appeared for the first time since a deal was struck on Saturday to end what the authorities had called an armed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group aimed at ousting him.
In a video released on Monday morning by the Russian Defence Ministry, Shoigu was shown flying in a plane with a colleague and hearing reports at a command post run by Russia’s Zapad (West) military grouping.
There was no sound on the video and it was not immediately clear where or when the visit had taken place.
Russia’s Zvezda Defence Ministry TV Channel said Shoigu, who looked physically unharmed and calm, had listened to a report by Colonel General Yevgeny Nikiforov, the group’s commander, about the current situation on the frontlines in Ukraine.
In his mutiny during which he seized control of Russia’s military headquarters in southern Russia, renegade Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had demanded that Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, be handed over to him so that he could “restore justice”.
Prigozhin accused both men of gross incompetence and corruption and had long been agitating for their removal.
Gerasimov has not been seen since in public, and there was no word from the Kremlin about any new personnel changes when it described the deal which had ended the mutiny.
The Kremlin said the question of personnel changes was the sole prerogative of Russian President Vladimir Putin and could hardly have been part of any deal.
Zvezda said Shoigu on his visit had heard about the formation of new reserve forces for the “Zapad” military grouping and had noted what it called the Russian army’s “high efficiency” at “detecting and destroying enemy military equipment and accumulations of personnel in tactical areas”.
He had tasked them with continuing active reconnaissance in order to reveal the enemy’s plans to thwart Ukrainian forces’ movements far behind the frontlines, it said.
Zvezda said Shoigu had also paid particular attention to what it called “the organisation of all-round support for the troops involved in the Special Military Operation and the creation of conditions for the safe housing of personnel.”
Mutineers led by Prigozhin on Saturday advanced towards Moscow to remove what they called Russia’s corrupt and incompetent military leadership, before suddenly heading back to a Russia-held area of eastern Ukraine after a deal with the Kremlin brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.
The deal, as publicly described by the Kremlin, saw criminal charges against the mutineers dropped in exchange for their return to camps. Prigozhin will relocate to Belarus under the agreement.
By: Inter News on June 25, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS Firstpost » World
By: Inter News on June 25, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home
Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman on Sunday urged authorities and citizens to be cautious as she warned of possible flooding and landslides due to forecasted pre-monsoon rains across the country from today till June 30.
The warning comes as pre-monsoon rains are expected to begin across the country today, according to an advisory issued by the Pakistan Meteorological Department on June 22.
In a tweet, citing the said advisory, Rehman said: “Pre-monsoon rains are forecast across the country from today to June 30, due to which the current heatwave is likely to subside.
“Between June 25-30, strong winds, thunder and heavy rain are expected in various cities of Punjab — including Islamabad and Rawalpindi — Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” she said.
The minister went on to add, “Under the influence of this system, windstorms, thunder and heavy rain are likely to occur in various cities of Balochistan, south Punjab and Sindh between June 26-29.”
Rehman warned the public that in the case of heavy rains, “there is a fear of urban flooding in urban areas” while floods and landslides can occur in mountainous areas.
She asserted that all institutions concerned have been instructed to be alert while tourists have also been directed to be cautious.
“Citizens are requested to stay away from vulnerable infrastructure, electricity poles, streams and nullahs during strong winds and rains to avoid any untoward incident,” the minister said.
Meanwhile, the PMD, in its divisional weather forecast issued today, said, “Hot/very hot weather is likely to prevail in districts of central and upper Sindh.”
It added that an “isolated dust-storm/light rain” was expected in Dadu, Kambar Shahdadkot and Jacobabad districts in the evening and that a “few falls of light rain/drizzle” may also occur in the Tharparker district, Karachi and along the coast during the night/early morning.
Detailing its three-day weather forecast for Karachi, the PMD predicted “partly cloudy/hot and humid” weather with “chances of drizzle/light rain during night/early morning” from June 25-27.
The maximum temperatures are expected to reach between 34-37 degrees Celsius during the same period while the minimum temperatures are expected to remain between 29-31 degrees Celsius.
As per the prior PMD advisory, the areas forecast to receive rain with occasional breaks include Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Murree, Galliyat, Attock, Chakwal, Jhelum, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, Chitral, Swat, Mansehra, Kohistan, Abbottabad, Haripur, Peshawar, Mardan, Swabi, Nowshera, Kurram, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Kohat, Mianwali, Sargodha, Hafizabad, Mandi Bahauddin, Sialkot, Narowal, Lahore, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Sheikhupura, Faisalabad, Jhang and Toba Tek Singh.
“Rain/wind-thundershower with isolated heavy falls are also expected in Barkhan, Loralai, Sibbi, Naseerabad, Kalat, Khuzdar, Zhob, Ziarat, Musakhel, Dera Ismail Khan, Karak, Waziristan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Multan, Bhakkar, Layyah, Kot Addu, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Sahiwal, Pakpattan and Okara from June 26-29,” the PMD had said.
It had forecast the same in Sukkur, Jacobabad and Larkana on June 27-28.
“Heavy rainfall may cause urban flooding in low-lying areas of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Gujranwala, Lahore on June 26-27, and may trigger landslides in the vulnerable areas of Murree, Galliyat, Kashmir, Gilgit Baltistan and hilly areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the PMD warned.
“Heavy rain may cause flash flooding in hill torrents of Dera Ghazi Khan and adjoining areas of north-east Balochistan on June 27,” it said.
The Met Department also advised farmers to “manage their agricultural activities keeping view the weather forecast”.
Meanwhile, the National Disaster Management Authority had also shared precautions to be taken by citizens keeping in view the risk of a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) in mountainous regions due to the melting of glaciers because of the ongoing heatwave.
The warning had directed the areas concerned to remain alert and advised tourists to not travel to or stay in areas where a GLOF was possible.
Meanwhile, monsoon rains hit India, which recently faced the brunt of Cyclone Biparjoy earlier this month, overnight in a schedule rarely seen.
“Heavy rain lashed Delhi and Mumbai overnight as the monsoon reached both cities together in a rare event,” NDTV reported.
Citing the India Meteorological Department (IMD), it added that while the monsoon hit Delhi “two days earlier than schedule, its entry into Mumbai is two weeks late”.
The “last time when monsoon covered both Mumbai and Delhi around the same time was on June 21, 1961”, NDTV stated.
It quoted the IMD as saying that “Mumbai and its suburbs received heavy rain in the last 24 hours, resulting in waterlogging and traffic snarls at various places”. The city is expected to receive more showers during the day, the IMD added.
The weather office has issued an “orange alert” for Raigad and Ratnagiri as heavy rainfall lashed parts of Maharashtra while it has issued a “yellow alert” for Palghar, Mumbai, Thane, and Sindhudurg, NDTV said.