Senator (R) Sayed Iqbal Haider is a voluble man, as lawyers are wont to be. He is also a man with many feathers in his colorful cap. A Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court and High Courts, a human rights activist and founding member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), a senator, the first and last Federal Minister of Pakistan for Human Rights, as well as a stint as the Attorney General, he has led a vibrant life of political activism and lawyerly debate. Passionately against the rule of General (R) Pervez Musharraf, he is very outspoken in condemning his actions and insisting that he resign (a few days before the General actually did resign). When MAG meets him at his office for a chat over a cup of coffee, we soon realize that here is a man who does not like to be interrupted, so we keep our questions as brief as possible and let him have his say on various matters relating to human rights and government…
Do human rights have any value in Pakistan?
Our whole constitution is full of several guarantees. Pakistan is a signatory to some very important human rights UN conventions. Those laws are all applicable to us but who is going to apply when the head of state is hell-bent upon committing the most heinous crimes. There is a UN convention against enforced disappearances with respect to the missing persons. It is being violated with the connivance of America and neither the UN nor any other organization is taking notice.
The poor of Pakistan have no knowledge of what their rights are…
Awareness about the laws and remedies of the people for their own personal human right and protection thereof is not as much as it ought to be. That is one of the functions and missions of the HRCP – to promote awareness and to make them realize that you should not accept these inhuman norms and practices or so-called cultural values, for example, honour killings, wani, child labour, bonded labour, forcing adult women to marry a person not of their choice in this feudal society.
Feudal society is a society that is based not just on large land-holding, but a society where some people start believing that they are above the law and that no one can restrain them. They may be in the cities collecting bhatta, kidnapping for ransom, etc. Let me also assure you that no organized crime or terrorist organization can survive and succeed without the support of the local administration. There are innumerable examples which have come to our notice that a terrorist was arrested but Mr. X sitting in Islamabad, ordered that he should be released. These feudal societies use religion for exploiting the rights of the people.
I fought a case in which the Supreme Court had set aside a Lahore High Court judgment endorsing the view that adult men and women also need to marry with the consent of a wali. The final judgment of the Supreme Court was that this was an absurd idea. The concept of wali has been stretched far too unreasonably. The same is the case with honour killings. There are cases decided by your High Court in which they say: “So what is wrong with honour killing? We have to maintain order in our culture and society.” Obscurantists ki kami nahin hai. This is the height of barbarism being promoted in society.
Tell us of a few famous cases that you have worked on.
The Shaista Almani case, the Dr. Shazia case, although both had to go abroad. There was the Chandka medical college case. We got bonded labourers released. The kiln workers, too… their case was picked up by the HRCP first. We have succeeded in all the cases that we have picked up, if not at the trial stage then at the appellate stage. Our work is not to provide free legal aid, let me clarify, because we do not normally deal with individual cases. Physically it is not possible. We do not have that big an organization. Despite that, ours is perhaps the only NGO which has offices in all four provinces, and correspondents and coordinators in almost all districts of Pakistan.
The difference between family law and human rights.
There is no doubt that the 1961 Family Law ordinance was a progressive step and the extremists or orthodox mullahs are not in favour of that. They continue to attempt to dilute it. Like the issue of second marriage – obscurantists or the orthodox claim that it is fully permissible unconditionally but the Family Ordinance provides for the prior consent of the first wife. Even that consent is not ensured in practice.
On the point of inheritance also, some Muslim schools of thought believe that if the father of the girl dies, then she can’t inherit from the estate left behind by the dada (grandfather). These sorts of things and on many other issues, the Family Law ordinance is relatively progressive and the Hudood Ordinances, on the other hand, are very regressive, oppressive and discriminatory.
Marriages also ought to be registered under Family Law. It provides protection. Tomorrow the husband may say, I don’t know her, so what is the proof of marriage for the girl? The registration of marriages is not being followed in society, particularly in rural areas. The maulvi says that under Shariah, registration is not a must. But how can you violate the law? We are doing research, and the Aurat Foundation has been doing an exercise, which is to plug the loopholes and to ensure that the Family Law ordinance is implemented in letter and spirit. And all those people who are aiding and abetting the violation of human rights should be prosecuted and punished in a manner that they should feel the pinch.
Human rights are not confined to family law although human rights laws are more in harmony with family laws than many of the concepts being propagated by the orthodox school of thought about family laws relating mostly to marriage, divorce and inheritance. Now that concept is being reviewed by various NGOs to ensure that the scope of statutory family laws is extended. Like the concept of maintenance. We are trying to propagate that a divorcee who is neither working nor has remarried should be entitled to maintenance from the husband. Similarly is the share in the house where she was living at the time of divorce. Many Muslim countries have already acknowledged and accepted this right of the wife at the time of divorce.
Should capital punishment be allowed?
We are against capital punishment. In Pakistan, when you impose extreme punishment, you have to be extremely cautious that you are punishing someone who is really guilty of that crime. We have the most extreme kind of punishments which are continuing to increase since the day of our independence. Has the rate of crime reduced or increased? Please check your own facts. The rate of crime is dependent upon the administration of the law and order machinery. If the law and order machinery is ruthlessly negligent, incompetent, corrupt and under the influence of so many forces in the ruling elite of Pakistan then, of course, it will increase.
Loopholes such as members of society endorsing honour killing exist… people know that they will not be prosecuted.
Our complaint is that no punishment of any kind is given to them. They are not even arrested by the police. The law and order situation and the rate of crime are dependent on the competence and the efficiency of the administration, not by the sentence of law.
In Pakistan, our agencies have started employing thieves to catch thieves and it is resulting in the proliferation and multiplication of thieves.
No witnesses come forward in ethnic murders. In fact, people who have admitted to their crimes have even been let off due to lack of evidence or other biases… do you not think that these people should be given capital punishment?
The end of capital punishment does not mean that no punishment should be awarded. Our complaint is that either they are not arrested, and if at all they are arrested, despite evidence, they are released by the courts on the basis of corruption or due to the sectarian or religious biases of the judges.
The issue is not the death sentence. The issue is the most biased, sectarian, feudal, ethnic administration. Do you know that in one jail of Karachi, there are 28 mosques? In one prison! Robots are being created in various jails. There are religious organizations, belonging to one particular sect mostly, who are maintaining barracks in the prison and providing special food and a more comfortable, clean environment for those prisoners who agree to follow their sect and school of thought. These things are being done very covertly and are a matter of concern, which we have been highlighting in our reports.
The Afia Siddiqui case and the government’s role in it.
The kidnapping of Dr. Afia Siddiqui and 500 other Pakistani citizens is only one of the many heinous sins perpetrated under Pervez Musharraf’s regime. This has never happened before. General Zia ul Haq also had thousands of people arrested but it was never that they were sold to foreign countries. I was arrested many times during Gen. Zia’s rule myself but it was never the case that my family did not know of my whereabouts or which jail I was in. This new scenario, however, is the most unfortunate aspect of the missing people. It is the family’s right to know. Article 9 of the constitution declares the most important job of the government is security of the people. Safety of the life and property of citizens is one of the main obligations.
Afia Siddiqui was abducted by the intelligence agencies in March 2003 from Karachi with her children and the entire government came forward to say that we don’t know her whereabouts.
This case came into the limelight now because one foreign journalist held a press conference early in July and said that she believed Afia Siddiqui was in Bagram air base. We were also informed about this. We immediately issued a statement of grave concern and called upon the governments of Pakistan and the United States to disclose her whereabouts as well as those of her children and to ensure that they are provided for and not persecuted, and released if there are no charges. If there are charges, then let us know what they are.
There was a book written by a person released from Guantanamo Bay, who mentions, but with doubt, that there was a lady in the next cell. He used to hear her hue and cry and he suspected that perhaps she was being raped. He also suspected that maybe she was Dr. Afia. So these disclosures came one after another till the FBI suddenly revealed that Afia Siddiqui was in their custody and that they had arrested her on July 17 from Afghanistan. Then she was produced in a New York court where she was semi-conscious and bleeding from her wounds.
<Continue to next page>
