Pakistan human rights situation has not improved, according to a US assessment

According to a US human rights study, Pakistan “rarely” took genuine action to find and prosecute officials who may have violated human rights. The report also noted that these concerns included extrajudicial murders, enforced disappearances, and torture, as The News reported on Wednesday.

The US State Department’s “2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” indicates that there haven’t been any notable improvements to Pakistan’s human rights landscape in the previous year.

These major human rights issues, according to the report, included credible reports of extrajudicial or unlawful killings, cases of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government or its agents, harsh and potentially fatal prison conditions, arbitrary detention, and political prisoners.

The report also covered serious issues like forced disappearances, severe restrictions on media freedom and freedom of expression, including violence against journalists, blasphemous arrests and disappearances, censorship, criminal defamation laws, and severe restrictions on internet freedom, significant interference with the right to peaceful assembly and association, including unduly burdensome regulations on the operations of civil society and non-governmental organizations, restrictions on religious freedom, and restrictions on freedom of movement.

In addition, the report emphasized certain other problems facing the nation, including “serious government corruption, serious government restrictions on domestic and international human rights organizations, extensive gender-based violence, crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting members of religious, racial, and ethnic minorities.”

It claimed that a culture of lawlessness was fueled by the use of violence, abuse, and intolerance towards social and religious groups by militant organizations and other non-state actors, both domestic and international.

“Hundreds of people were killed in terrorist and cross-border militant attacks on police, military, and civilians. The executive summary found that “military, police, and other law enforcement agencies continued to carry out significant campaigns against militant and terrorist groups.”