Pakistan - Politics - 2022
Pakistan is a federal parliamentary republic. On 11 April 2022, parliament elected Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister and head of government. This parliamentary election, conducted in accordance with procedures in the constitution, followed a successful no-confidence vote in the National Assembly called by opposition parties, which replaced the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf administration by bringing to power a coalition government led by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
In 2018, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won the most National Assembly seats in the general elections, and the party’s leader, Imran Khan, became prime minister. While independent observers noted technical improvements in the Election Commission of Pakistan’s management of the polling process itself, observers, civil society organizations, and political parties raised concerns regarding pre-election interference by military and intelligence agencies that created an uneven electoral playing field. Some political parties also alleged significant polling day irregularities.
Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by the government or its agents; forced disappearance by the government or its agents; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government or its agents; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary detention; political prisoners; transnational repression against individuals in another country; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on free expression and media, including violence against journalists, unjustified arrests and disappearances of journalists, censorship, and criminal defamation laws, and laws against blasphemy.
Further significant human rights issues included serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws for the operation of nongovernmental organizations and civil society organizations; severe restrictions of religious freedom; restrictions on freedom of movement; serious government corruption; lack of investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting members of racial and ethnic minorities; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons; the existence or use of laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults; restrictions on workers’ freedom of association; and existence of the worst forms of child labor.
Several domestic intelligence services monitored politicians, political activists, suspected terrorists, NGOs, employees of foreign entities, and media professionals. These services included the Inter-Services Intelligence, Police Special Branch, Intelligence Bureau, and Military Intelligence. The authorities routinely used wiretaps, monitored cell phone calls, intercepted electronic correspondence, and opened mail without court approval. There were credible reports the government used technology to arbitrarily or unlawfully surveil or interfere with the privacy of individuals. The government also used technologies and practices, including internet and social media controls, blocking or filtering of websites and social media platforms, censorship, and tracking methods. There was a lack of government accountability, and abuses, including corruption and misconduct by security services, often went unpunished, fostering a culture of impunity among perpetrators. Authorities seldom investigated or punished government officials for reported human rights abuses or acts of corruption. Violence, abuse, and social and religious intolerance by militant organizations and other nonstate actors, both local and foreign, contributed to a culture of lawlessness. Terrorist violence and human rights abuses by nonstate actors contributed to human rights problems, with terrorist violence exceeding that of the prior year. Terrorist and cross-border militant attacks against civilians, soldiers, and police caused hundreds of casualties. Military, police, and other law enforcement agencies continued to carry out significant campaigns against militant and terrorist groups.
There were numerous reports the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings. There were reports members of marginalized racial and ethnic communities were overrepresented among the victims of some abuses. Security forces reportedly committed extrajudicial killings in connection with conflicts throughout the country.
Physical abuse of criminal suspects in custody allegedly caused the injury or death of individuals. Lengthy trial delays at the start and conclusion of trails and failure to effectively investigate, discipline, and prosecute those responsible for killings contributed to a culture of impunity.
There were numerous reports of attacks against police and security forces. Terrorist groups and cross-border militants killed more than 100 soldiers or Frontier Corps members and injured hundreds more. Militants and terrorist groups killed and injured hundreds more with bombs, suicide attacks, and other violence. The number of casualties was higher in 2022 than the previous two years.
Kidnappings and enforced disappearances of persons took place across the country. Some officials from the intelligence agencies, police, and security forces reportedly held prisoners incommunicado and refused to disclose their location. On May 29, the Islamabad High Court directed the federal government to serve notices to former Army Chief and President General Pervez Musharraf and all successive “chief executives,” including Imran Khan and incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, for following an “undeclared tacit approval of enforced disappearances.” Torture was perpetrated by police, military, and intelligence agency members that frequently operated with impunity, and the government did not make serious efforts to curb the abuse. Police personnel employed cruel and degrading treatment and punishment.
Prison conditions often were extremely poor due to gross overcrowding and inadequate food, water, sanitation, heating, ventilation, lighting, and medical care. Overcrowding remained a serious problem, largely due to inadequate and ageing facilities and structural problems in the criminal justice system that led to a significant rate of pretrial detention. Many individuals accused of blasphemy remained in solitary confinement for extended periods, sometimes for more than a year. The government asserted this treatment was for the individual’s safety, in view of the likelihood that prisoners accused of blasphemy would face threats from the general prison population.
Judges sometimes denied bail until bribes were paid. Authorities sometimes denied bail in blasphemy cases because defendants who faced the death penalty if convicted were likely to flee or were at risk from public vigilantism. Lawyers representing individuals accused of blasphemy often asked that their clients remain in pretrial custody to protect them from vigilante violence. Judges were reluctant to exonerate individuals accused of blasphemy, fearing vigilante violence.
As of September 2022, an estimated 70 percent of prison detainees were either awaiting or on trial. Reports indicated some prison authorities did not differentiate between pretrial detainees and prisoners being tried when collecting prison data. Police sometimes held persons in investigative detention without seeking a magistrate’s approval and often held detainees without charge until a court challenged the detention. Some individuals remained in pretrial detention for periods longer than the maximum sentence for the crime of which they were charged. Authorities seldom informed detainees promptly of charges against them.
Security forces may restrict the activities of terrorism suspects, seize their assets for up to 48 hours, and detain them for as long as one year without charges. Human rights and international organizations reported security forces held an unknown number of individuals allegedly affiliated with terrorist organizations indefinitely in preventive detention, where they were often allegedly tortured and abused. In many cases authorities held prisoners incommunicado, denying them prompt access to a lawyer of their choice.
Police reportedly detained individuals to extort bribes for their release or detained relatives of wanted individuals to compel suspects to surrender. Ethnic minorities, stateless persons, Afghans, and refugees in the country who lacked official identification documents reported arbitrary arrests, requests for bribes, and harassment by police authorities. There were also reports police, including officers from the Federal Investigation Agency (a border control, criminal investigation, counterintelligence, and security agency), made arrests to extract bribes. In 2021 the Supreme Court criticized the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for “randomly” arresting individuals and waiting more than one year to file charges against them.
Large landholders and other community leaders in Sindh and Punjab and tribal leaders in Pashtun and Baloch areas sometimes held local council meetings (panchayats or jirgas) outside the established legal system, at times with the support of local police officials. Such councils settled feuds and imposed tribal penalties, including fines, imprisonment, and sometimes the death penalty. These councils often sentenced women to violent punishment or death for so-called honor-related crimes. These councils, meant to provide “speedier justice” than traditional courts, in some instances also issued decisions that significantly harmed women and girls. For example, women, especially young girls, were affected by the practice of swara, in which girls are forced into marriage to compensate for a crime committed by their male relatives. The Federal Shariat Court declared swara to be against the teachings of Islam in 2021.
Militants and terrorist groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Islamic State Khorasan Province, targeted civilians, journalists, community leaders, security forces, law enforcement officers, foreigners, and schools, killing and injuring hundreds with bombs, suicide attacks, and other forms of violence. There were reports government security forces engaged in extrajudicial killings during operations against suspected militants throughout the country. There were numerous media reports of police and security forces killing terrorist suspects in “police encounters.”
Security forces, political parties, militants, influential landlords, and other groups subjected media outlets, journalists, and their families to threats and harassment. Women journalists in particular faced threats of sexual violence and harassment, including via social media, where they had a particularly strong presence. Security forces allegedly abducted journalists. Media outlets that reported on topics authorities viewed as sensitive were often the targets of retribution. Additionally, journalists working in remote and conflict-ridden areas lacked basic digital and traditional security skills, which increased pressure to self-censor or simply not publish a story.
Journalists experienced physical threats, economic coercion, harassment, and violence when reporting on sensitive topics critical of the government, ruling political party, and military establishment. Media personnel reported cases of journalists being drawn into legal proceedings and forced out of jobs, strangling them economically. Journalists reported an increase in abductions and torture.
On 13 April 2022, Imran Khan, the PTI chairman, held a massive gathering at Peshawar’s Ring Road marking the start of the PTI's rallies aimed at holding early elections. Over 100 lawmakers from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party resigned from the National Assembly before the scheduled voting for the new PM. "Imran Khan is a very strong leader, popular and can ignite agitation," says Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais, professor of political science at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore. "He called for a protest [last] Sunday evening on Twitter and we saw really big demonstrations in every city of Pakistan. He and his party members have resigned from the National Assembly and that means he will be doing politics in the streets."
On 10 April 2022, large demonstrations were held in Karachi, Peshawar, Malakand, Multan, Khanewal, Khyber, Jhang, Quetta, Okara, Islamabad, Lahore and Abbottabad, according to Dawn. The newspaper adds that protests also took place in Bajaur, Lower Dir, Shangla, Kohistan, Mansehra, Swat, Gujrat, Faisalabad, Nowshera, Dera Ghazi Khan and Mandi Bahauddin. "We will continue to hold rallies and protests across Pakistan until the new elections are announced," stated Khan, as quoted by Pakistan's Samaa TV broadcaster. "Today, our nation is at a decisive point and we have to decide whether we want slavery or freedom from it."
Imran Khan has dubbed the cabinet of new Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif an "imported government," insisting that his ouster from power through a no-confidence vote was orchestrated by the US. The former prime minister has repeatedly cited a "foreign threat letter" allegedly blackmailing Islamabad into removing Khan from power. According to the PTI chairman, the US and its NATO allies were up in arms about his independent foreign policy and unwillingness to join anti-Russian sanctions over Moscow's special operation in Ukraine.
Khan and his party have shown their strength through nation-wide rallies, according to Zafar Iqbal Yousafzai, author of The Troubled Triangle: US-Pakistan Relations under the Taliban’s Shadow. According to him, Khan and his fellow party members' resignations were largely aimed at forcing the new authorities to hold early general elections. "Indeed Imran Khan is a strong political figure who enjoys popular support," Yousafzai stresses.
Former information minister and key leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Fawad Chaudhary believes that general elections will be held in eight weeks' time. He made the remarks in an exclusive conversation with WION’s Anas Mallick in Islamabad 15 April 2022. “Imran Khan is a charismatic leader; people are behind him. We are heading towards a soft revolution; we are asking for elections. And we assure is that elections will happen, the only thing that Shehbaz Sharif's government has to decide is whether they want elections with lesser harm, or this will be harmful the path we are on. I think elections will be held in 8 weeks, the government will not be able to survive and that’s how big the momentum is going to be on the streets”, said Fawad Chaudhary.
Fawad emphasised that his government led by Imran Khan had an independent foreign policy and it was a first in over 40 years, since the rule of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, praising how Imran Khan handled the Afghan crisis, maintained the balance and made sure the issue of Islamophobia was registered and highlighted.
Shahbaz Gill, chief of staff to former Prime Minister Imran Khan, stated police assaulted and “tortured” him after he was arrested on 09 August 2022 for allegedly making “false, hateful, and seditious” comments regarding the military on a television talk show. Gill was transferred to a medical facility for examination and subsequently released on bail. A case was pending with the courts. In October 2022, political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Senator Azam Swati was stripped and beaten by authorities after his arrest for antimilitary comments he made on Twitter. On 27 November 2022, he was rearrested and remained in police custody at year’s end facing several charges for his public and online comments.
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