US lambasts Pak lack of accountability in addressing human rights violation

NEW DELHI: USA has pulled up Pakistan for serious human rights violation including lack of government accountability and abuses that often went unpunished, fostering a culture of impunity among perpetrators, whether official or unofficial.

The US State Department in its 2019 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices has alleged that Pakistan authorities seldom punished government officials for human rights abuses.

“Significant human rights issues included: unlawful or arbitrary killings by the government or its agents, including extrajudicial killings; forced disappearance; torture; arbitrary detention; arbitrary or unlawful government interference with privacy; the worst forms of restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet, including violence against journalists, censorship, and site blocking; substantial government interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, such as overly restrictive nongovernmental organization (NGO) laws; severe restrictions of religious freedom; significant restrictions on freedom of movement,” according to summary of State Department Report.


The other abuses included in the report are acts of corruption within the bureaucracy; unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers by nonstate militant groups; trafficking in persons; crimes involving violence targeting members of racial and ethnic minorities; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex persons by nonstate actors; the existence or use of laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults; and the use of forced or compulsory child labor.

“There was a lack of government accountability, and abuses often went unpunished, fostering a culture of impunity among perpetrators, whether official or unofficial. Authorities seldom punished government officials for human rights abuses,” claimed the State Department.

Terrorist violence and human rights abuses by nonstate actors contributed to human rights problems, according to the State Department. “…violence, abuse, and social and religious intolerance by militant organizations and other non-state actors, both local and foreign, contributed to a culture of lawlessness.”