The annual report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) lays out just how low we have descended as a nation. The annual report regarding state of human rights in Pakistan during 2018 expressing concerns over lack of freedom in Balochistan during General Elections.

The report in Urdu version has been launched by HRCP here in Quetta Press Club saying political activities prior general elections in 2018 was suppressed which raises question on impartiality of general elections held in July 2018. The report expressed severe concerns over killing of 180 people in Quetta and Mastung during elections activities.

The HRCP’s report claims that the State of Pakistan and Government of Balochistan didn’t take any serious action on human rights abuses against Hazara Community. “Hazara Community was forced to live in ghettoized situation where they have been facing issues of freedom of movement apart from witnessing terrorists’ attack on the ethnic Shia community.” The HRCP’s report says.

The independent Human Rights Watchdog has criticized State and Law Enforcement Agencies regarding alarming situation of missing persons in Balochistan called Missing Persons’ issue in Balochistan as vital. AS Pakistan struggles to free itself from the scourges of militancy, terrorism and extremism that have characterised the past decade and a half, a reckoning of the cost is beginning to take shape.

The HRCP records 300 coal miners have been killed in Balochistan during last eight years while 57 labors lost their lives due to lack of facilities in mining fields. HRCP also highlighted other issues included the enforced disappearances of people; the alleged extrajudicial killings by law enforcement.

It is worth remembering that most of these violations concerning the rights and dignity of individuals and marginalised groups precede this government, and indeed previous governments, as they are deeply embedded malaises in our society. While noting the gains made by parliamentarians in pushing progressive legislation, the fact is that mindsets do not change easily and implementation of the law is poor.

Balochistan has been treated as conflict-zone by State of Pakistan which kept deprive the province from development. “The actual situation and truth in the province should be reported properly because without knowing the real situation people of other province would remain blind on Balochistan’s issues. Given the traumatic experience of recent years, this country needs to think long and hard about where it wants to take itself from here.

The choice lies in either taking the easy way out — carrying out extra-judicial killings, implementing the death penalty and allowing closed-door military courts to try persons, including civilians and juveniles, in terrorism-related offences — or having the steel to think of the long term and urgently strengthen the judicial and police prosecution systems. Without the moral authority of due process, the country is likely to find itself in the midst of a blowback that might prove even harder to counter than the current travails.

Much commitment has been professed by those in positions of political authority to plug the loopholes in Pakistan’s notoriously sluggish justice system, but evidence on the ground is largely noticeable by its absence. Contrast this with the reality that unless justice is done, and seen to be done in a fair, transparent and accountable manner, the ranks of those who are disillusioned by the state, and who may be tempted to take up arms against it, can only swell.

The HRCP report is necessary reading for those who are in denial about the state of the country today. In the endless debate over whether Pakistan is a failed state, there is one point that is never made. We may or may not be a failed state but this is a state that has failed its citizens.  Pakistan is on a grim human rights trajectory and is ignoring this dangerous reality at its own peril.