* Who’s responsible for our failure to punish terrorists? Everyone from fearful‚ under-protected judges to weak-willed legislators to an undertrained police force‚ it seems. But the judiciary cannot be blamed for setting what it considers reasonable requirements for conviction. The responsibility to meet such standards lies with those investigating cases and pursuing them in court‚ and those who formulate the country’s legal instruments against terror.
* In the midst of these issues‚ security agencies allegedly bump off suspects in extrajudicial executions. The Army is currently investigating allegations of such killings in Swat after a video surfaced on YouTube in September showing what appeared to be Pakistani soldiers gunning down six shackled‚ blindfolded men (Watch video).
By Ahmer Bilal Soofi
American officials and the Pakistani military are both concerned. In a Feb. 22 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad for FBI director Robert S. Mueller‚ there is skepticism about the Pakistani government’s ability to deliver on convicting suspects accused of involvement in the Mumbai attacks two years ago. Convictions will be overturned in appeal, because the prosecution will be unable to meet the “extremely high evidentiary bar‚” states the cable.
A senior military officer‚ speaking on condition of anonymity to newsweek pakistan‚ also complained that there are currently “no antiterrorism laws in the country.” This is technically incorrect‚ but the officer has a point. “We don’t have the capacity to interrogate‚ prosecute‚ or hold terrorists‚” said the officer. In Swat‚ where the Army conducted an operation against militants last year‚ a hotel building serves as jail. “The current law allows for three months of detention‚ but that is not enough time to make a case. We have weak prosecution and weak laws‚ so these people are released and they go to their villages and start things up again. This is the message we’re sending out.”
The concerns are justified. Individuals arrested in connection with some of the worst attacks in Pakistan India Karachi
Who’s responsible for our failure to punish terrorists? Everyone from fearful‚ under-protected judges to weak-willed legislators to an undertrained police force‚ it seems. But the judiciary cannot be blamed for setting what it considers reasonable requirements for conviction. The responsibility to meet such standards lies with those investigating cases and pursuing them in court‚ and those who formulate the country’s legal instruments against terror.
The Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997‚ promulgated by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif to counter violence in Karachi‚ has been amended regularly through ordinances. With the 2009 amendment ordinance having lapsed on Oct. 1 and the 18th Amendment disallowing the president from decreeing it into effect again‚ the operational law in the country is the 1997 Act. Legal and political compulsions have left this law confusing‚ untidy‚ and inadequate. The special antiterrorism courts the law created were supposed to decide cases in a week. Like other courts‚ these are also clogged because of an overextended mandate. The law’s definition of “terrorism” is also dangerously vague. In the Punjab‚ from January through November, antiterrorism courts dealt with cases of kidnapping for ransom‚ murder‚ preparation and deployment of explosive substances‚ and violence against “public servants” and women.
The lack of capacity and coordination between investigation agencies is also worrying the security establishment‚ which has in its assessments indicated that the laws against terrorism need to be reworked to bring them in line with what can be done on the ground‚ with realistic timeframes for detention and interrogation of suspects. But the amendment bill to the 1997 Act‚ pending in Parliament‚ may face legal obstacles if it is challenged in the Supreme Court‚ much like it was in the late 1990s.
In the midst of these issues‚ security agencies allegedly bump off suspects in extrajudicial executions. The Army is currently investigating allegations of such killings in Swat after a video surfaced on YouTube in September showing what appeared to be Pakistani soldiers gunning down six shackled‚ blindfolded men. ( Watch video)
Due process has to be followed‚ and the law needs to reflect present-day dilemmas. Pakistan
SOOFI is president of the Research Society for International Law and an advocate at the Supreme Court.
RECEIVING LIFER RIGHTS ACTIVIST SPARKS PROTEST ACROSS INDIA
[Sen, who was arrested in 2007 and was not granted bail for two years, says he was targeted solely because he was a vocal critic of the government's use of armed groups to push villagers out of mineral-rich forest areas. His sentencing comes as major economies, including the United States and China, are seeking access to India's growing markets - a sign of the country's emergence as an economic superpower.]
By Emily Wax
NEW DELHI - Street protests spread across India this week after a court handed down a life sentence to a prominent activist and physician who has long drawn attention to the country's growing economic inequalities.
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| A protester shouts slogans during a rally in Chandigarh calling for the release of physician Binayak Sen, who was convicted of aiding Maoist rebels. (Ajay Verma/reuters) |
In a case that has prompted denunciations by international human rights groups and scholars, prosecutors said Binayak Sen, 60, had aided Maoist rebels in rural India, visiting Maoist leaders in jail and opening a bank account for a Maoist, charges that Sen denies. Human rights activists allege that police planted evidence and manufactured testimonies, and Indian judges have criticized the Dec. 24 judgment.
Soli Sorabjee, a former attorney general, called the ruling "shocking."
"Binayak Sen has a fine record," he said. "The evidence against him seems flimsy. The judge has misapplied the section. And in any case, the sentence is atrocious, savage."
Sen, a pediatrician, has worked for decades to help people displaced by violence and government land seizures in India's mineral-rich regions. Despite the country's booming economy, hundreds of millions of Indians remain mired in poverty - a stubborn inequality that has helped fuel a deadly Maoist insurgency in as many as 20 of India's 28 states.
The ragtag Maoist rebels, called Naxalites after Naxalbari, a village in West Bengal state where the movement was born in 1967, seek to gain power through armed struggle. They claim to fight for the poor and India's marginalized tribal groups but have also been accused of widespread atrocities. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the Naxal movement the "biggest single threat to India's internal security."
Sen, who was arrested in 2007 and was not granted bail for two years, says he was targeted solely because he was a vocal critic of the government's use of armed groups to push villagers out of mineral-rich forest areas. His sentencing comes as major economies, including the United States and China, are seeking access to India's growing markets - a sign of the country's emergence as an economic superpower.
"Anyone in India who dissents or questions the superpower script is ostracized," said Kavita Srivastava, national secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties, of which Sen is a vice president. "Sen's arrest is happening because this government is extremely anti-poor. Our much-praised 9 percent growth is coming at the cost of displacing millions of people with land that is being given away for mining and corporate development."
Sen's difficulties with Indian authorities have drawn global attention before. In 2008, an effort led by 22 Nobel laureates failed to secure Sen's release on bail so he could travel to Washington to receive the prestigious Jonathan Mann Award for his efforts to reduce the infant mortality rate and deaths from diarrhea.
This time, protests erupted after a court in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh convicted Sen on two counts of sedition and conspiracy, sentencing him to life imprisonment. He was found not guilty of a third charge of waging war against the state, a crime punishable by death.
A growing number of Indian intellectuals and human rights activists have spoken out on his behalf this week.
"Binayak Sen has never fired a gun. He probably does not know how to hold one," historian Ramachandra Guha wrote in the Hindustan Times. "He has explicitly condemned Maoist violence, and even said of the armed revolutionaries that theirs is an invalid and unsustainable movement. His conviction will and should be challenged."
Sen's wife, also a doctor, said in an interview that she is launching an international campaign to do just that.
"He is a person who has worked for the poor of the country for 30 years," Ilina Sen said. "If that person is found guilty of sedition activities when gangsters and scamsters are walking free, well, that's a disgrace to our democracy."
