Freedom in the World 2001 - Pakistan

2001 Scores

Status: Not Free
Freedom Rating: 5.5
Civil Liberties: 5
Political Rights: 6

Ratings Change

Pakistan's political rights rating changed from 7 to 6 after the government held limited local elections in December 2000.

Overview

A year after deposing a corrupt and autocratic elected government, General Pervez Musharraf's military regime carried out tentative economic reforms in 2000. Though pledging to return Pakistan to civilian rule in 2002 after cleaning up the country's finances and politics, the Musharraf regime also undermined the judiciary, cracked down on party activists, and backtracked on some social reforms in the face of pressure from Islamic fundamentalists.

Pakistan achieved independence in 1947 as a Muslim homeland with the partition of the former British India. Following a nine-month civil war, East Pakistan achieved independence in 1971 as the new state of Bangladesh. Deposing civilian governments at will, the army has ruled Pakistan for 26 of its 53 years of independence. As part of his efforts to consolidate power, the military dictator General Zia ul-Haq amended the constitution in 1985 to allow the president to dismiss elected governments. After Zia's death in 1988, successive presidents cited corruption and abuse of power in sacking elected governments headed by Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in 1990, Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) in 1993, and Bhutto again in 1996.

With Bhutto having been discredited by corruption scandals during her last term, the PML and its allies won more than 160 seats in the February 1997 elections, although only 35 percent of eligible voters bothered to vote. Over the next 30 months Sharif largely ignored Pakistan's pressing economic and social problems while undermining every institution capable of challenging him. This included repealing the president's constitutional power to dismiss governments, forcing the resignations of the chief justice of the supreme court and of an army chief, and cracking down on the press and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Sharif's downfall began in May and June 1999, when Indian troops bested Pakistani forces in skirmishes in Kashmir after Pakistani-backed Islamic militants seized strategic heights on the Indian side of the Line of Control. The fighting raised international concern because both countries had carried out underground nuclear tests in May 1998. Sharif ended the Kashmir crisis in July by ordering the militants to withdraw, but was blamed by the army for the debacle. On October 12, 1999, the army deposed Sharif in a bloodless coup after the prime minister tried to dismiss Musharraf, then army chief. Musharraf appointed himself "chief executive," declared a state of emergency, and issued the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) suspending parliament, provincial assemblies, and the constitution and prohibiting superior courts from making any decision against the chief executive or his subordinates.

Having justified his coup in part as a response to Pakistan's dire economic situation, Musharraf tried in 2000 to increase government revenues, which the World Banks says amount to only 15-16 percent of GDP. Musharraf had authorities begin documenting the black market economy and imposed a 15 percent retail tax in a country where less than one percent of the population pays taxes. The government also secured a standby loan from the International Monetary Fund in November. However, the Fund demanded further tax and other microeconomic liberalization measures in return for a long-term loan. The credibility provided by a long-term arrangement would help Islamabad to reschedule $38 billion in mostly government-held debt or to renew an existing debt moratorium that expired at year's end.

While making some progress on the economy, pressure from Islamic fundamentalist groups forced Musharraf to backtrack on pledges to crack down on public displays of weapons, to curb abuses of the blasphemy laws, and to bring under state control the madrassahs (religious schools) run by Islamists. The general also revived Islamic provisions in the now-suspended constitution in July, meaning that courts could potentially declare unconstitutional any secular laws thought to conflict with Sharia (Islamic law).

While many of Pakistan's political parties joined a coalition calling for the early restoration of democracy, Musharraf faced little real threat from these mostly secular groups. He also made it difficult for the PML to use Sharif as a rallying point by pardoning and then exiling the former prime minister to Saudi Arabia, for 10 years, in December. Courts had sentenced Sharif during the year to up to 25 years in prison for corruption, terrorism, and hijacking. The latter two charges were for ordering Karachi airport authorities to deny landing rights to a plane carrying Musharraf on the day of the coup.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Pakistan continued to be ruled by a military government, headed by General Pervez Musharraf, that operated with limited transparency or accountability. Most of the government's key decision makers were reportedly officers, both serving and retired, of the hawkish Inter-Services Intelligence agency. While civilians still ran many agencies, the army set up monitoring teams to supervise civilian bureaucrats.

Musharraf pledged to honor a supreme court ruling in May calling for parliamentary elections by October 2002. The May decision also validated the 1999 coup and empowered the government to amend the constitution unilaterally. While he has vowed to foster a new class of ostensibly less corrupt politicians, Musharraf so far has made little use of his extensive powers to reform an electoral system that concentrated political power in perhaps 5,000 landowning families, which dominated both main parties and discouraged land and social reforms.

The 1973 constitution provides for a lower national assembly that is directly elected for a five-year term, and an 87-seat senate, whose members are appointed by the four provincial assemblies for six-year terms. The constitution also vests executive power in a prime minister, who must be Muslim, and authorizes an electoral college to choose the largely ceremonial president, who also must be Muslim, for a five-year term.

Pakistan has not formally annexed its Northern Areas – Hunza, Gilgit, and Baltistan – which form part of the disputed territory of Kashmir. Consequently, the roughly one million residents of the Northern Areas are not covered under the constitution and had no representation in the now-suspended federal parliament. Voting laws prevented several million bonded laborers throughout the country from voting because they lacked a fixed address, and forced Christians and other minorities to vote on separate electoral rolls for at-large candidates. In the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), tribal leaders prevented many women from voting in the 1997 elections.

In what it billed as the first step toward returning the country to democracy, the government held local elections in 18 out of Pakistan's 106 administrative districts on December 31. Capping a year in which it tried to weaken political parties, the government did not allow parties to compete in the local elections. The administration earlier had used laws governing sedition, public order, and terrorism to raid party offices and detain scores of party activists and leaders in Punjab and Sindh for criticizing the army in party meetings or attempting to hold demonstrations, according to an October report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Moreover, the regime amended the Political Parties Act in August to bar anyone with a court conviction from holding party office, and introduced a National Accountability Ordinance in 1999 that automatically prohibits persons convicted of corruption under the law from holding public office for 21 years. If applied, these laws could end the political careers of Bhutto and Sharif. Although Sharif may be able to sidestep the laws because he received a pardon, Bhutto remained in self-imposed exile after a court convicted her in absentia in 1999 on corruption charges and sentenced her to a five-year prison term.

The Musharraf regime undermined the supreme court's reputation for independence in January 2000, when it ordered all supreme and high court judges to swear under oath to uphold the state of emergency and the PCO. Authorities removed the chief justice of the supreme court and 14 other judges for refusing to take the oath. Sharif faced two trials in 2000, both of which were marred by procedural irregularities. Like Musharraf, Sharif and Bhutto had also tried while in office to manipulate the judiciary, which consists of civil and criminal courts and a special Shariat court for certain offenses under Islamic law. Lower courts remained plagued by corruption; intimidation by local officials, powerful individuals, and Islamic extremists; and heavy backlogs that led to lengthy pretrial detention.

The criminal courts include antiterrorism courts that operate with limited due process rights and must conclude trials within seven days. The November 1999 National Accountability Ordinance vested broad powers of arrest and prosecution in a new National Accountability Bureau and established special courts to try corruption cases that operate with limited procedural safeguards. In late 1999 and 2000, authorities arrested dozens of politicians and businessmen on charges of corruption and of defaulting on their share of an estimated $2.75 billion in bad bank loans, although officials released some defaulters after they settled their accounts.

The Shariat court enforces the 1979 Hadood Ordinances, which criminalized nonmarital rape, extramarital sex, and several alcohol, gambling, and property offenses. The ordinances provided for both Koranic punishments, including death by stoning for adultery, as well as jail terms and fines. In part because of strict evidentiary standards, authorities have never carried out the Koranic punishments.

The FATA are under a separate legal system, the Frontier Crimes Regulation, which authorizes tribal elders and leaders to administer justice according to Sharia and tribal custom in proceedings that lack due process rights. Feudal landlords and tribal elders in rural Sindh province continued to adjudicate some disputes and impose punishment in unsanctioned courts called jirgas.

Anecdotal evidence suggested that police continued to routinely engage in crime; use excessive force in ordinary situations; arbitrarily arrest and detain citizens; extort money from prisoners and their families; accept money to register cases on false charges; rape female detainees and prisoners; commit extrajudicial killings; and torture detainees, often to extract confessions. However, some accounts suggested that in 1999 and 2000, incidences of torture may have declined somewhat from previous years. Prison conditions continued to be extremely poor. Some landlords in rural Sindh province and factions of the Karachi-based Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) continued to operate private jails.

Violence among rival factions of the MQM, which represents Urdu-speaking migrants from India, and between the police and the MQM, killed several thousand people in Karachi in the 1990s, but appeared to abate somewhat in 2000. Sunni- and Shiite-based fundamentalist groups continued to engage in tit-for-tat killings, mainly in Punjab and Karachi. Shelling between Indian and Pakistani forces around the Line of Control in Kashmir continued to kill and displace numerous civilians.

The constitution and a series of colonial and postcolonial laws authorize the government to curb freedom of speech on subjects including the constitution, the armed forces, the judiciary, and religion. Governments have rarely used these provisions against the mainly private print media. However, under Sharif and Bhutto, authorities frequently detained, threatened, and assaulted journalists; attacked newspaper offices; and interfered with newspaper distribution. The Musharraf regime generally did not harass the press. However, Islamic fundamentalists and thugs hired by feudal landlords continued to harass journalists and occasionally attack newspaper offices. While journalists practiced some self-censorship, Pakistan continued to have some of the most outspoken newspapers in South Asia. Nearly all electronic media are state-owned, and coverage favors the government.

After initially permitting some demonstrations, the military government banned in March all public political meetings, strikes, and rallies. Following the ban, authorities forcibly dispersed some protests and arrested activists to prevent other demonstrations. The military regime generally tolerated the work of NGOs. However, NGOs in Punjab province faced restrictions on registration following the provincial government's shutdown of nearly 2000 groups in 1999, according to a report in the Karachi-based Dawn newspaper. In recent years, Islamic fundamentalists have issued death threats against prominent human rights defenders.

While Pakistan is a secular country, there are numerous restrictions on religious freedom. Section 295-C of the penal code mandates the death sentence for defiling the name of the prophet Muhammad. Human rights groups say that Muslims occasionally bribe low-ranking police officials to file false blasphemy charges against Ahmadis, Christians, and Hindus. To date, appeals courts have overturned all blasphemy convictions, although suspects are forced to spend lengthy periods in prison and religious extremists have killed some persons accused of blasphemy. According to the United States State Department, authorities have charged nearly 200 Ahmadis under the law since its inception. Ahmadis consider themselves to be Muslims, but the constitution classifies them as a non-Muslim minority and the penal code prohibits Ahmadi religious practice. Ahmadis, Christians, and Hindus also face unofficial economic and societal discrimination and are occasionally subjected to violence and harassment.

A combination of traditional norms and weak law enforcement continued to contribute to rape, domestic violence, and other forms of abuse against women. Women faced difficulty in obtaining justice in rape cases because police and judges are reluctant to charge and punish offenders. Although less frequently than in the past, women are still charged under the Hudood Ordinances with adultery or other sexual misconduct arising from rape cases or alleged extramarital affairs. The threat of being charged with adultery may prevent some women from reporting rape. A parliamentary commission found that courts acquit 95 percent of women charged with adultery under the Hudood Ordinances, although those acquitted still face the stigma of having been accused of adultery and are often subjected to sexual abuse while detained. The nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said in a March report that more than 1,000 women died in Pakistan in 1999 as victims in honor killings. Generally committed by the husbands or brothers of the victims, honor killings punish women who supposedly brought dishonor to the family, often because of alleged adultery. The military government announced in April that honor killings would be treated as murder, although it is unclear to what extent this decision has been implemented. Authorities generally do not severely punish these killings either because they simply fail to enforce the law, or because they can excuse offenders or impose minor sentences under laws reducing punishment for actions supposedly caused by "grave and sudden provocation." In yet another problem, Pakistani women face unofficial discrimination in education and employment opportunities.

In recent years, criminal gangs have reportedly trafficked tens of thousands of Bangladeshi women to Pakistan for purposes of forced prostitution in Karachi or domestic labor, often with the complicity of corrupt local officials. Authorities detain annually some 2,000 trafficking victims on criminal charges under the Hudood Ordinances or for illegal entry. As a result of neighboring Afghanistan's continued civil conflict, Pakistan hosts more than 2 million Afghans in camps and cities throughout the country. However, it closed its borders in November, arguing that it lacks the resources to deal with more arrivals.

Pakistan's underfunded and corruption-plagued primary school system continued to offer limited educational opportunities for children, particularly girls. Despite some initiatives, enforcement of child labor laws continued to be inadequate. Children also continued to be subjected to prostitution, custodial abuse, and trafficking.

Despite 1992 legislation outlawing bonded labor and canceling enslaving debts, illegal bonded labor continued to be widespread. Trade unions are independent. The law restricts the right to strike, and workers in certain "essential" industries face restrictions on bargaining collectively and generally cannot hold strikes. Enforcement of labor laws continued to be limited.