The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received a report issued by a Christian organization, CLAAS (Center for Legal Aid, Assistance & Settlement), negating the stripping and parading of Christian women in what appears to be an attempt to exonerate those that violated the rights of the women. Throughout the report, the organizations that joined the so-called fact finding mission of CLAAS, have not in any way condemned the incident itself, where women were attacked in late hours and dragged onto the streets. Please find here the link of report of fact finding mission; http://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/headlinenewsd.php?hnewsid=4385
The report also makes it appear that the fact-finders have not gone through the police First Information Report (FIR), wherein it is mentioned that women were dragged to the chowk [a principal intersection of roads], placed under street lights, where their clothes were torn off, and that they thus became nude. The FIR goes on to note that the women were screaming and crying so loud that people came out from their houses and wrapped them with bed sheets. The ‘fact-finders’ – comprising members from CLAAS, from the statutory body National Commission on the Status of Woman (NCSW), and from the Women’s Desk of the Church of Pakistan, Lahore Diocese – have totally ignored the FIR. This is noteworthy given that the FIR is treated as a complaint from the victim’s standpoint. Police begin investigation on the basis of the FIR.
The incident that violated the rights of the Christian women occurred on June 3, 2013. LEADS, another Christian rights organization, issued the news on June 6. The AHRC issued its urgent appeal on June 19, which may be accessed here: www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-085-2013. The fact finding mission arrived at the place of incident only on June 28. And, the report of the ‘fact-finders’ was issued on July 12, 14 days after the fact finding visit. The reason for the 2 week delay in issuing the report known well by the fact-finding missionaries. The reason for the delay and in issuing it on this particular date was that the High Court had started a probe into the incident and CLAAS and its allied organizations wised to influence the court inquiry so that the perpetrators avail impunity.
The fact-finding mission could not have been unaware that with the passage of 24 days since the incident, when the ‘fact-finders’ arrived to conduct their fact finding, how much pressure had been applied by the police and by the perpetrators who happen to be from the ruling political party, PML-N. Local people had already complained to the police that Mr. Rana Ishaq, member of the parliament from ruling party, had been using his local henchmen to pressurize them to withdraw the charges of parading the women naked. Since the efforts of a member of parliament proved unsuccessful, the ruling party seized upon the idea of a fact finding mission led by a Christian NGO and represented by a government organization.
There are many flaws in the report, and it has only emphasized the point that there was nobody was paraded nude, not even mentioning the typical attitude of hatred displayed by the local police against women and Christians or its refusal to file an FIR against the perpetrators. Filing the FIR only became possible when the chief of another Christian organization LEAD (Legal Evangelical Association Development) met with Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Patoki.
The inquiry of the mission was only focused on finding supporting information to show that the women were not paraded naked. The report states:
“they tried very hard to open the door,’ Allah Rakhi added, ‘All of us women attempted to push them out of our doors. They began to break our things. Amidst this fight, they dragged us out into the street and tore our clothes.’ At this point the mission inquired if they had truly been paraded naked in the streets, and upon being asked twice or thrice the women kept changing their statements and finally said that the clothes were made of voile and were ripped during the scuffle”.
This statement of the report makes it likely that two or three times the ‘fact-finders’ forced the victim women to change their statement about being paraded nakedly.
The reaction by the women, who apparently kept changing their statement makes sense, because the victims could not have been certain on whose behalf the mission had come to probe them. The questions asked by members of the mission were no more different from those usually asked by police investigators. The attitude of fact-finders towards both the perpetrators and the police can be gleaned from the report, which was that with regards to them the mission was conducted in a very congenial atmosphere, as if providing space to prove innocence.
The report concludes with 12 points, according to which the Christian women were themselves responsible for their clothes having been torn. It attempts to create an impression that the case of attack on Christian women and them being dragged to a market place in the late hours are not of serious concern for the team members, and thereby should not be so for the readers. Point number 8 of the report is very interesting; the burden of being naked and being shorn been devised so that the perpetrators get impunity, in saying that the women’s clothes were torn open during the scuffle between “themselves” and the attackers. What a lousy argument to provide impunity to the powerful people.
The report seems to make a case against the AHRC. The Punjab government has always threatened to take action against the AHRC for its interventions with regard to human rights violations conducted by government officials, particularly against religious minority groups. On one occasion, the Law Minister of the province even stated before the media that his ministry would file a case of damages against the AHRC. After many months of this threat having been issued, the AHRC still awaits the law suit.
The problem faced by the ruling political party is that it is well known for its support of the Muslim fundamentalist and the sectarian groups that conduct brutal killings, verging on the genocidal, of members of other religious sects. The ruling party has given 53 tickets to candidates from such religious groups in the last general elections and most of them are now elected to power.
The so-called fact finding mission on the behest of the ruling party was no more than an effort to provide shield to the perpetrators so that the heinous crime of parading Christian women naked could be covered up and a message sent to religious minorities that their fate under the government of Muslim league is no different: a naked parade of humiliation, where, by commission or mission, there will be no recourse even to facts, forget justice.
