PAKISTAN: Peasant leader and lawyer disappeared from jail by the intelligence agency

Dear Friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received updated information regarding a unique type of disappearance of a peasant leader and lawyer who was disappeared from inside the jail after his bail was granted by the sessions court. When the peasants submitted surety bonds for Mr. Nabi’s release, the police and jail authorities informed them the lawyer is not in their custody. Only after a case was filed in court regarding his disappearance, did they learn that Mr. Nabi was taken by the intelligence agency, which subsequently lodged him in another jail after the court proceedings.

CASE NARRATIVE:

Mr. Noor Nabi, an elected Chairman of Okara Military Farms Union Council, an advocate by profession, was elected as general secretary Anjman Mozareen Punjab (Association of Peasants Punjab-AMP) after former secretary of AMP Mr. Mehar Abdul Sattar was arrested in April 2016. Nabi was following the legal process of the arrested peasant leaders of AMP. He was also arrested by the security agencies in June 2017, when he went to attend a meeting of the district council Okara, Punjab, of which he is a member.

He was arrested and implicated in seven different false cases for fighting the cases of peasants in the courts. The local courts were forced to provide a relief to the lawyer who was from peasants class. He was kept in Okara Jail, district Okara, Punjab but he was recovered from Sahiwal Jail, district Sahiwal after his disappearance.

A district sessions judge of Okara granted bail in all seven fabricated cases, and when his friends went to the jail to receive him, they were told that Nabi is not in their custody and he has been released many days ago. The AMP and Awami Workers Party (AWP) filed the case of his missing from the jail on December 22. During the proceeding, the judge asked the superintendent of Okara Jail and district police officer to produce the CCTV clipping showing that he was released from the prison. After failing to produce CCTV video, on December 30, the authorities informed the court that he is in another prison, the Sahiwal central jail, district Sahiwal, Punjab. It was told to the court that intelligence agency has taken him from the jail and kept him in their custody, and after the court intervention, he was lodged in Sahiwal jail.

After his enforced disappearance, the lawyers from district Sahiwal and other places agitated and took out protest rallies for his recovery.

When the activists contacted the local office of notorious intelligence agency of Pakistan, the ISI, about his whereabouts, they were told that “the ISI cannot hand over him so easily because he is in clutches of ISI, however, the court has found him so we are handing him to the court but the story does not end here”.

The same events happened to another peasant leader, Mr. Nadeem Ashraf, who was arrested and disappeared in the month of October 2017, and after his recovery from the court he was arrested in fabricated cases of robbery and others.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The peasants’ struggle in Okara is part of a larger movement of landless peasants spread over at least nine districts of central Punjab who live/work as tenants on state farms. They have been working on these lands since colonial times during the establishment of canal colonies in the 1900s.

The peasants claim that the land rights granted to them under the Punjab Tenancy Act 1887 at the time of their settlement are being denied by the military farms’ administration. The tenancy act gives the first right of purchase to those who have tilled the land for over 20 years.

The Okara Military Farms, comprising 17,013 acres, were first leased to the British Indian army by the Punjab Government in 1913 for 20 years, which was renewed in 1933 only for a period of 5 years. The lease lapsed in 1938. However, the defence ministry under British rule continued to pay rent for these lands till 1943.

Possession of these lands was automatically transferred to Pakistan’s defence ministry after Partition. Since 1943, however, no rent has been paid to the Punjab government by the military farms’ authorities.

In 2000, the military farms’ authorities began a process of shifting the peasants’ status from tenants to contract farmers and forcibly evicted them from the land, which gave rise to insecurity and resistance among them. As a result of which they formed AMP in an attempt to resist evictions and the change in their status from tenants to contract workers, and assert ownership rights over the lands they have been tilling for generations.

The military started a crackdown on the peasants in 2002, resulting in a protracted stand-off between the peasants and the military farms’ authorities for almost two years. Heavy contingents of Rangers and police besieged over 18 villages with a population of 100,000 peasants during which water, electricity, and telephone lines were suspended, movement in and out of the villages was stopped, many men and women were arrested, beaten up, and taken to undisclosed locations. At least 8 lives were lost during clashes with tenants.

The troops were withdrawn from the Okara military farms in August 2003, ending the stand-off. But no negotiations with the peasants were held.

The military farms’ authorities and the government have so far been unwilling to recognise the peasants’ rights and refuse to enter into any negotiations with the AMP.

The crackdown on the peasants has begun again, this time by framing “terrorism” cases against the AMP leaders and arresting them one by one over the last few years. The entire leadership of the AMP is now behind bars, along with numerous other peasants associated with the movement.

The Punjab police and security agencies have been conducting raids on villages in Okara military farms since 15 April 2016. Scores of AMP leaders have been arrested, hundreds booked under Section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) for holding peaceful Peasants’ Convention on 17 April 2016.

The AMP general secretary, Mehr Abdul Sattar, was arrested during the raid on April 15, tortured in custody and has now been kept in Sahiwal jail. Other AMP leaders and dozens of other peasants are behind bars, some of them since 2014, on trumped-up charges of “terrorism”.

The AWP Punjab leaders criticised the government and the security apparatus for misusing the National Action Plan and anti-terrorism laws to crush peaceful peasants’ movement rather than for the purpose of fighting terrorism or bringing peace to this war-ravaged country.

SUGGESTED ACTION:

Please write letters to the authorities calling on them to hold an inquiry in to the disappearance of a lawyer, human rights defender and peasant leader from the jail and threats from the notorious intelligence agency, the ISI, to the peasant leadership. Please urge them to immediately ensure the release of Mr. Noor Nabi and all other leaders of Anjuma Muzaireen Punjab (AMP) and withdraw the fabricated cases against them. The offices of ISI must be evicted from the Okara Farm lands, which are illegally occupied by the military. The local chief of ISI must be prosecuted for abducting and keeping the peasants in incommunicado.

The AHRC is writing separate letters to the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), and Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, calling for their intervention into this matter”.

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