Baseer Naveed

Pakistan policemen brutalize civilians (Photo: flickr.com) ;

The imposition of a state of emergency by Pakistan's military government on Nov. 3 is nothing less than the thinly disguised imposition of martial law; it is the fifth time that martial law has been imposed in the country's 60-year history.

Through the Provisional Constitutional Order, which has replaced the Constitution of Pakistan, several fundamental rights were suspended; among them Article 9, which relates to security of persons. Following the suspension of Article 10, the government can arrest any persons without charges and hold them in custody for an indefinite period. Articles pertaining to freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and equality of citizens have also been suspended.

The press has been put under severe censorship and received instructions about the publication of photographs, cartoons and news about the workings of judges who have taken a new oath under the PCO. It is interesting that the Islamic clauses in the constitution have been kept intact, as one of the major reasons for declaring the emergency was violence perpetrated by Islamic extremists.

Since the declaration of a state of emergency, the government has launched a massive operation to detain virtually anyone deemed a threat to military authority, making plain its real plans for the immediate future. The scale and scope of the detentions are unprecedented in the history of Pakistan, even with its atrocious record of dictators and intolerance of dissent.

So far, after some three days of protests and efforts to resist the latest takeover, about 3,500 lawyers, 500 human rights defenders, 100 political workers, 46 judges—including the chief justice—and 12 journalists are among those known to have been held. Some have been taken under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, but most were taken from the streets and their houses without being served a notice of arrest or given any reference to law whatsoever.

The judges of superior courts have been literally locked inside their residences and told that they will be kept there until they agree to cooperate. They have had their phone lines cut and are being isolated from the outside world to force compliance. Padlocks have been placed on their houses by security forces. They have been denied access to medicines and medical attention. Some judges have had their water supplies cut off.

Family members of the judges are also coming under attack. The son of Justice Sabih Uddin Ahmed of Sindh province was beaten and arrested when he refused to take an oath under the Provisional Constitution Order. The siblings of judges, particular those who are lawyers, have also been arrested to pressure the judges into taking the oath.

Asma Jehangir, who is head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and also the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief, has been placed under house arrest. Her arrest has effectively ceased the functioning of the Human Rights Commission, denying any remedies to victims of human rights violations and assuring impunity to security forces in the coming days for whatever atrocities they may commit under the emergency rule.

More than 15 journalists have been arrested for covering news events, three of whom were brutally beaten and injured by security forces. The arrest of journalists is obviously aimed at suppressing the flow of information. It has become difficult to get information reflecting the real state of the Pakistani people in the country in recent days, as only government media is permitted to publish or broadcast news reports.

A boy being attacked by a policeman

Under the normal course of law if anybody is taken into custody by the police, be it on the street, at home or elsewhere, it is considered "arrest" because a procedure exists by which the case is documented and the person informed of the reasons for which they have been held. Within 24 hours they must be brought before a court of law where the arrestee has the right to challenge the detention and if it is upheld, to seek bail.

But today in Pakistan the courts have been stopped from functioning by the state of emergency, the suspension of the Constitution and the fact that dozens of judges and hundreds of lawyers are among those in custody. Thus no means exist to enforce criminal procedure or uphold fundamental rights by way of a legal challenge to arrest.

Under these circumstances, the "arrest" of these thousands of persons in Pakistan cannot be considered anything of the sort. Like the pretext for the state of emergency itself, the arrests are a fraud.