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Pakistan Destroying Legality Pakistan’s Crackdown on Lawyers and Judges
HRW Index No.: C1919 December 19, 2007 Download PDF, 1770 KB, 86 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Ghost Prisoner Two Years in Secret CIA Detention This 50-page report contains a detailed description of a secret CIA prison from a Palestinian former detainee who was released from custody. The report provides the most comprehensive account to date of life in a secret CIA prison, as well as information regarding 38 possible detainees. The report explains that these prisoners’ treatment by the CIA constitutes enforced disappearance, a practice that is absolutely prohibited under international law. HRW Index No.: G1901 February 27, 2007 Also available in 
Download PDF, 224 KB, 50 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book “With Friends Like These…” Human Rights Violations in Azad Kashmir This 71-page report, based on research in Azad Kashmir, uncovers abuses by the Pakistani military, intelligence services and militant organizations. In Azad Kashmir, a region largely closed to international scrutiny until a devastating earthquake hit in 2005, the Pakistani government represses democratic freedoms, muzzles the press and practices routine torture. HRW Index No.: C1812 September 21, 2006 Download PDF, 720 KB, 73 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book "Everyone Lives in Fear" Patterns of Impunity in Jammu and Kashmir This 156-page report documents recent abuses by the Indian army and paramilitaries, as well as by militants, many of whom are backed by Pakistan. Indian security forces have committed torture, “disappearances” and arbitrary detentions, and they continue to execute Kashmiris in faked “encounter killings,” claiming that these killings take place during armed clashes with militants. Militants have carried out bombings and grenade attacks against civilians, targeted killings, torture and attacks upon religious and ethnic minorities. HRW Index No.: C1811 September 12, 2006 Download PDF, 1600 KB, 156 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Soiled Hands: The Pakistan Army’s Repression of the Punjab Farmers’ Movement In the Pakistani military’s traditional stronghold of Punjab, paramilitary forces working with the army are killing and torturing farmers who refuse to sign contracts that would cede their land rights to the army. HRW Index No.: C1610 July 21, 2004 Download PDF, 559 KB, 57 pgs Purchase online Closed Door Policy: Afghan Refugees in Pakistan and Iran The Human Rights Watch report, "Closed Door Policy: Afghan Refugees in Pakistan and Iran," cautions against a hasty repatriation of Afghan refugees while conditions in Afghanistan remain unstable. Human Rights Watch interviewed many refugees, including members of various ethnic groups, and women and girls, who fear continuing human rights abuses inside Afghanistan. The decades long Afghan refugee emergency did not end with the fall of the Taliban. There remain three and a half million refugees in Pakistan and Iran, the vast majority of whom arrived before the current armed conflict. Although one hundred forty thousand Afghans went home from Pakistan and Iran in the past six weeks, fifty thousand new refugees fled Afghanistan to Pakistan during the same time period. Refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Pakistan described the human toll caused by that government's treatment of the refugee population: With borders closed, most refugees had to resort to dangerous and unofficial routes into Pakistan. Refugees were beaten at unofficial checkpoints when they could not afford to pay extortionate bribes. At official crossing points, families were beaten back, or languished in squalor without food, water or latrines-hoping to be let in. Once inside Pakistan, refugees were harassed and imprisoned because they lacked identity documents. They also endured beatings by Pakistani police when queuing for food in camps. 45 pp. 7.00 HRW Index No.: (G1402) February 27, 2002 Download PDF Purchase online Crisis of Impunity: The Role of Pakistan, Russia, and Iran in Fueling the Civil War in Afghanistan The United Nations Security Council should impose a comprehensive embargo on all military assistance against all warring factions in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch urged today. In this report, Human Rights Watch accused Pakistan, Iran, and Russia of providing military support to Afghan factions with a long record of committing gross abuses of human rights. Other states in the region have also contributed to the ongoing war. The 55-page report details the nature of military support provided to the warring parties; the major transit routes used to move arms and other equipment; the suppliers; the role of state and nonstate actors; and the response of the international community. Human Rights Watch conducted research on military assistance to the Taliban and the United Front over a two-year period, traveling to both Kabul and areas of Afghanistan under United Front control, as well as Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan, and interviewing government officials, members of the diplomatic community, military officers, civil servants, journalists, academics, and others. HRW Index No.: C1303 July 1, 2001 Download PDF Purchase online Pakistan: Child Soldiers Global Report 2001 From the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers There are indications of under-18s in government armed forces as the minimum age for voluntary recruitment is 16, but there is no evidence of their deployment. There is evidence that children, some under 14, have been recruited by armed groups fighting in neighbouring Afghanistan and Jammu and Kashmir. Some internal armed groups are also known to have children in their ranks. June 12, 2001 Reform or Repression?: Post-Coup Abuses in Pakistan Human Rights Watch today accused Pakistan's military rulers of committing widespread abuses in the name of political "reform," and called on General Pervez Musharraf to immediately return the country to constitutional rule. In the twenty-page report, "Reform or Repression? Post-Coup Abuses in Pakistan," Human Rights Watch said the Musharraf government had detained opponents and former officials without charge, removed indepedent judges from the higher courts, banned public rallies and demonstrations, and rendered political parties all but powerless. October 10, 2000 Pakistan: Landmine Monitor Report 2000 Pakistan-backed militants, and allegedly Pakistan Army troops, made extensive use of antipersonnel mines in the conflict in the Kargil area of Kashmir in mid-1999. It appears the militants in Kashmir obtained and used antipersonnel mines manufactured by the state-owned Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF). POF also offered antipersonnel mines for sale to a journalist posing as a representative of a private company in Sudan. August 1, 2000 Prison Bound: The Denial of Juvenile Justice in Pakistan Children accused of committing criminal offenses in Pakistan are routinely tortured by police, Human Rights Watch said today. Many of these children go on to spend months or even years in overcrowded detention facilities awaiting the conclusion of their trials. The treatment of children in detention violates Pakistani law, as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly ten years ago this Saturday and ratified by Pakistan a year later. Despite a law that requires police to bring criminal suspects before a judge within twenty-four hours of arrest, children may spend as long as three months in detention before seeing a judge. Children share their cells with adults while in police custody, and like adult detainees, are routinely subjected to various forms of torture or ill-treatment, including being beaten, hung upside down, or whipped with a rubber strap or specially-designed leather slipper. Human Rights Watch calls on the Pakistani authorities to establish independent bodies to hear and investigate complaints of abuse by police and prison personnel, and to ensure the strict separation of adults and children deprived of their liberty. Authorities should also provide sufficient teaching staff and modern vocational training in each facility housing juveniles, and prohibit imposition of the death penalty on children under the age of eighteen. HRW Index No.: ISBN 1-56432-242-2 November 1, 1999 Purchase online Prison Bound The Denial of Juvenile Justice in Pakistan Though nine years have passed since Pakistan ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, Pakistani children in conflict with the law continue to be denied the juvenile justice protections of the convention. Juvenile justice, as conceptualized in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international instruments, is predicated on the adjudication of children's cases with a view to their rehabilitation and early reintegration into their communities. It entails separate custodial arrangements for children, a right to counsel, the timely processing of their cases, and the liberal use of alternative sentencing measures, such as release on probation or education and vocational training. The convention prohibits the imposition of capital punishment as well as torture and any other form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Of the 2,700 juvenile prisoners in Punjab province during February 1998, 91 percent were awaiting the conclusion of their trials, a process that can take months or even years. While their trials are pending, children languish in overcrowded, often harsh detention facilities that offer few educational or recreational opportunities. November 1, 1999 Download PDF, 817 KB, 209 pgs Printer friendly version Crime or Custom? Violence Against Women in Pakistan In the wake of the military takeover in Pakistan, Human Rights Watch released this major report on the state of women's rights in the country. The 100-page report, Crime or Custom? Violence Against Women in Pakistan, documents a virtual epidemic of crimes of violence against women, including domestic violence rates as high as 90 percent, at least eight reported rapes every 24 hours nationwide, and an alarming rise in so-called honor killings.Violence against women has risen to staggering levels. Women's low social status and a long established pattern of active suppression of women's rights by successive governments has contributed to the escalation in violence. No government has acknowledged the scale and severity of the problem much less taken action to end the violence against women. When a Commission of Inquiry for women convened by the Pakistan Senate described domestic violence as one of the country's most pervasive violations of human rights, its findings were brushed aside by the Sharif government. As a result of such dismissive official attitudes, crimes of violence against women continue to be perpetrated with near total impunity. HRW Index No.: ISBN 1-56432-241-6 October 1, 1999 Purchase online Behind the Kashmir Conflict: Abuses by Indian Security Forces and Militant Groups Continue In this report, Human Rights Watch charges that human rights violations by all parties in Kashmir have been a critical factor behind the current conflict. The report says that if those violations had been seriously addressed at any time over thelast ten years, the risk of amilitary confrontation between India and Pakistan might have been reduced. The escalation in fighting has made it urgent that the international community put pressure on India to end widespread human rights violations by its security forces in Kashmir, and on Pakistan to end its support for abusive militant groups. The 44-page report, Behind the Conflict in Kashmir, focuses on the border areas in southern Kashmir where militant forces have been crossing over from Pakistan. The report documents several of the massacres of Hindu civilians carried out by these groups and their local counterparts, in which more than 300 civilians were killed between 1997 and mid-1999. July 1, 1999 Purchase online Contemporary Forms of Slavery in Pakistan Throughout Pakistan employers forcibly extract labor from adults and children, restrict their freedom of movement, and deny them the right to negotiate the terms of their employment. Employers coerce such workers into servitude through physical abuse, forced confinement, and debt-bondage. The government of Pakistan is complicit in these abuses, both by the direct involvement of the police and through the state's failure to protect the rights of bonded laborers. It rarely prosecutes or punishes employers who hold workers in servitude, and workers who contest their exploitation are often imprisoned under false charges. We call on the government of Pakistan to comply with its own national laws as well as with international human rights and labor laws outlawing bonded labor, to ensure that all workers are allowed to organize and be represented by unions, and to prosecute to the full extent of the law employers who have held workers in bonded labor and those who have physically or sexually abused bonded laborers. HRW Index No.: ISBN 1-56432-154-1 July 1, 1995 Contemporary Forms of Slavery in Pakistan Millions of workers in Pakistan are held in contemporary forms of slavery. Throughout the country employers forcibly extract labor from adults and children, restrict their freedom of movement, and deny them the right to negotiate the terms of their employment. Employers coerce such workers into servitude through physical abuse, forced confinement, and debt-bondage. The state offers these workers no effective protection from this exploitation. Although slavery is unconstitutional in Pakistan and violates various national and international laws, state practices support its existence. The state rarely prosecutes or punishes employers who hold workers in servitude. Moreover, workers who contest their exploitation are invariably confronted with police harassment, often leading to imprisonment under false charges. Contemporary forms of slavery, which are set forth and defined in international law, include debt-bondage, serfdom, the trafficking of women, and child servitude.2 All of these forms of slavery exist in Pakistan. This report focuses primarily upon debt-bondage. Debt-bondage in Pakistan is endemic and widespread. July 1, 1995 Download PDF, 504 KB, 124 pgs Printer friendly version Arms and Abuses in Indian Punjab and Kashmir The massive proliferation of small arms and light weapons in South Asia is directly linked to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and the subsequent creation by the United States of a system, commonly known as the Afghan pipeline, to funnel weapons covertly to the Afghan resistance. The Afghan pipeline, set up by the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI, enabled the transfer of tens of thousands of tons of weaponry to the mujahidin, and then later, to the Sikh and Kashmiri militants. The human rights situations in Punjab and Kashmir have been acutely affected by the militants’ acquisition of weapons of all types, leading to numerous types of abuses against civilians. September 1, 1994 Persecuted Minorities and Writers in Pakistan Government efforts to Islamicize Pakistan's civil and criminal law, which began in earnest in the early 1980s, have dangerously undermined fundamental rights of freedom of religion and expression, and have led to serious abuses against the country's religious minorities. Several hundred people have been arrested under these laws since 1984, and two men, a Christian and a Muslim, have been sentenced to death for blasphemy. September 1, 1993 Purchase online Double Jeopardy: Police Abuse of Women in Pakistan Over 70 percent of women in jail in Pakistan report sexual abuse by police officials. Despite the high incidence of rape and sexual torture of female detainees, no police official has been subjected to criminal punishment for these abuses. Moreover even basic protections -- including requirements that female detainees be interrogated only in the presence of a female officer are routinely violated. Over 60 percent of women prisoners in Pakistan are detained under the Hudood Ordinance, penal laws prohibiting sex outside of marriage, which have had a devastating impact on women's rights. In some cases women have been imprisoned because they were unable to prove a rape charge and were thus charged with impermissible sex and imprisoned pending trial. Double Jeopardy, co-authored by the Women's Rights Project and Asia Watch, documents many cases of women who have been victims of Pakistan's discriminatory legal system and of police abuses and also makes recommendations to the government of Pakistan to end these abuses. HRW Index No.: ISBN 1-56432-063-4 May 1, 1992 Kashmir Under Siege Since the partition of India in 1947, Kashmir, with a predominantly Muslim population, has been the site of militant unrest and a cause for war with Pakistan. Despite numerous UN proclamations calling for a plebiscite, the Kashmiri people have never been given a direct opportunity to voice their preference on the question of accession, and many within the state claim the central government of India has retreated from its original support for autonomy and democracy. The only up-to-date human rights reporting available on this conflicted region, Human Rights in India examines the past year of civil war and abuses committed by both sides. Government security forces have massacred large numbers of unarmed civilians, conducted warrantless house-to-house searches, seized youths, beat protestors, and destroyed whole neighborhoods. The militants have flagrantly violated international rules of war by summarily executing numerous civil servants and suspected government informers, throwing explosive devices at buses and government buildings, sowing terror through death threats and assassinating members of the minority Hindu community and Muslims thought to be insufficiently supportive of the insurgency. HRW Index No.: ISBN 1-56432-010-3 May 1, 1991
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South Asia Earthquake: Updates and Information  
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