Nawaz government ignores human rights

Islamabad: The Institute for Social Justice (ISJ) congratulated Nawaz Sharif for becoming the third time Prime Minister of Pakistan and pleased with historic democratic transition from one civilian government to another, however, the ISJ showed its concerns for ignoring human rights.

The ISJ press statement said that human rights is not priority agenda of Nawaz Sharif’s government, therefore, the Ministry of Human Rights has been merged with the Ministry of Law and Justice. This current government should give serious and more importance to the challenges Pakistan is facing in the arena of human rights which ranges from missing persons, extra-judicial killings, honor killings, hunger, extreme poverty, unemployment, child sexual abuse, murders of child domestic workers, bonded and forced labour, illiteracy and so on.  With the merger, human rights will receive little attention in the current government’s administration and business. 

It is time for the current government to grab the opportunity to address human rights violations by giving it separate and independent status amongst all other matters. The Ministry of Human Right should be restored with its independent status so that it should continue to monitor human rights violations and equally implement the minimum human rights standards across the country and develop a positive image of Pakistan amongst the nation states 

The press statement also lamented and condemned brutal torture and murder of Siraj Ahmed at police station Shahdra Lahore. The ISJ demanded immediate action against the police officials involved and overhaul of the police culture along with human rights as mandatory part of their pre-and-on service trainings.