Karachi, August 14: On the eve of Pakistan’s Independence Day, the country’s rights watchdog alleges that the army is dictating vital foreign policy decisions and continues to remain in power.
Asma Jahangir, the Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) raided the allegations on Thursday stressing that she was not ‘trying to be pessimistic’.
Even the worst democracy is better than an army regime and Pakistan cannot afford another spell of army rule politically and economically, she said during a lecture called ‘Democracy and Human Rights in Pakistan: A Dead End?’ at the Aga Khan University in Karachi.
“We can deal with it, but we should not only insist on the transition to democracy but democratic forces should deepen the process further,” she was quoted as saying by Pakistan’s The News daily on Thursday.
Jahangir, who is also a noted Pakistani lawyer and social activist, said, “Apart from ruthlessness of the army that we witnessed in former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) or were witnessing today in Balochistan, the military didn’t even have a clear perception of the major issues that confronts the country.”
Balochistan, home to 14 percent of the country’s population, is entitled only to 14 seats in the parliament, while the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) having 2.5 percent of the country’s total population maintains 12 seats, she said.
Jahangir said that a media cell was working to improve the image of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and advising young journalists “what to write and what not to write”.
—–Agencies