story.news.yahoo.com
Pakistan Group Says Terror Structures Still Exist
Wed Mar 27,10:06 AM ET
By Nasir Malick
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Pakistan human rights watchdog accused the military government Wednesday of failing to demolish the structures that promote militancy and terrorism despite backing the U.S war on terror.
"They are not dismantling structures created by (former military president) General Zia ul-Haq and the generals for promoting extremism," Afrasiab Khattak, chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) told a news conference.
That appeared to be a reference to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), widely accused of links to Islamic militant groups, especially those fighting Indian rule in Kashmir (news - web sites).
Some commentators have suggested these links have not been cut entirely despite a crackdown by President Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a coup in October 1999, on Muslim extremists.
Saturday, Musharraf vowed to overhaul Pakistan's vast intelligence network following a grenade attack on a church in Islamabad in which five people, including two Americans, were killed.
Khattak, who also released the independent commission's annual report on the state of human rights in Pakistan, accused the government of "lacking the political will" to take on militancy.
"Musharraf had been talking about misguided clerics but he has failed to talk about misguided generals," he said. "I think those generals are part of the problem and not its solution."
Musharraf has banned seven extremist militant and sectarian organizations since a government crackdown on extremist groups in August last year and detained more than 2,000 activists.
In a televised speech in January, he urged clerics to modernize the madrassas, Islamic schools which produced the Taliban. But Khattak said the government had failed to chalk out a comprehensive plan to root out extremism.
"Militancy and extremism are political problems which administrative measures alone cannot solve," he said. "When the democratic liberal process is suppressed, how can you combat extremism?"
CUSTODIAL DEATHS
The report said 44 people died in custodial killings in Pakistan last year, but no police official was charged.
The HRCP report supported the State Department's annual review of human rights around the world released earlier this month which said Pakistan's "human rights record remained poor."
The report cited 1,600 cases of so-called honor killings in Pakistan last year -- in which male relatives kill women they accuse of sinful behavior.
"They (government) say the rights of women have been protected, but they don't seem to be protected," said former chairwoman Asma Jehangir.
The report was also critical of Musharraf's handling of political parties ahead of general elections he has promised to hold by October.
It said thousands of political workers were arrested, freedom of assembly denied and extraordinary restrictions barred political leaders from traveling within the country. |
