Enforced disappearances
The Supreme Court was granted
unprecedented access to some victims of enforced disappearances,
including seven surviving members of the “Adiala 11” in February, and
several others from Balochistan throughout the year. The Chief Justice
threatened to order the arrest of law enforcement personnel for failing
to provide a legal basis for arrests and detentions in Balochistan, and
the Peshawar High Court continued to pressure the authorities to provide
details of all individuals held in security detention in the northwest
tribal areas. However, reports of enforced disappearances continued
across the country, especially in Balochistan province and the
north-west tribal areas; no serving or retired security personnel were
brought to justice for their alleged involvement in these or other
violations. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearances made its first ever visit to the country in September,
but key officials refused to meet them, including the head of the
Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, Chief Justices of the
Supreme Court and most High Courts, and senior security and military
representatives.
- The body of Baloch
Republican Party leader Sangat Sana was found dumped on the outskirts of
Turbat, Balochistan, on 13 February. More than two years earlier, he
was seen being taken by several men in plain clothes at a police
roadblock at the Bolan Pass on the Quetta-Sindh highway.
Abuses by armed groups
The Pakistani Taliban,
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Balochistan Liberation Army and other armed
groups targeted security forces and civilians, including members of
religious minorities, aid workers, activists and journalists. They
carried out indiscriminate attacks using improvised explosive devices
and suicide bombs.
- The Pakistani Taliban
announced a ban on health workers in the tribal areas until the USA
ceased its programme of “targeted killing” there. An ICRC nurse was
killed in April. Nine mostly women health workers administering polio
vaccinations were killed in co-ordinated attacks in Peshawar, Nowshera
and Charsadda in the north-west, and the southern city of Karachi over
three days in December.
- Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
claimed responsibility for the execution-style killing of at least 14
people during an attack on a bus carrying Shi’a Muslim pilgrims from
Quetta to Iran on 28 June. The group was responsible for at least eight
attacks across Pakistan, which claimed 49 lives.
- Senior
Awami National Party politician Bashir Ahmed Bilour and eight others
were killed in a Pakistani Taliban suicide bombing in Peshawar on
- 22 December as they left a political rally.
Freedom of expression
Journalists remained under serious
threat from state security forces, armed opposition and other groups,
particularly in Balochistan and Sindh provinces, and the north-west
tribal areas. At least eight journalists were killed during the year.
Several journalists claimed to have been threatened for reporting on the
military, political parties or armed groups.
- Journalist
Mukarram Aatif was shot dead during evening prayers in a mosque in
Charsadda city on 17 January. He had earlier resettled there from his
native Mohmand Tribal Agency following death threats over his reporting
from the Pakistani Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the
killing.
- On 19 May, the bullet-riddled body of
Express News television correspondent Razzaq Gul was found dumped on
the outskirts of Turbat, Balochistan. He had been kidnapped the previous
day. The authorities failed to bring the perpetrators to justice.
- Senior
broadcaster Hamid Mir escaped an assassination attempt in November when
a bomb under his car failed to detonate. The Pakistani Taliban claimed
responsibility for the attempt.
The government occasionally
blocked websites, including YouTube and Facebook, without explanation or
for content deemed offensive to religious sentiments. The courts
threatened to bring criminal proceedings against journalists under
contempt of court laws for reports criticizing the judiciary.
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