2023-05-17 08:42:02
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A leading international human rights group and a local body have called on Pakistan not to try civilians involved in recent anti-government protests in military courts.
Amnesty International and the Pakistan Human Rights Commission issued separate statements on Tuesday night expressing their alarm at the government’s plan to subject supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan who clashed with police and rioted in Pakistan to military trials. the whole country.
In Pakistan, military trials are often held behind closed doors, depriving civilians of some of their basic rights such as the hiring of a lawyer of their choice.
A wave of violence rocked the capital, Islamabad, and other urban areas following the dramatic arrest of Khan, who now leads the opposition, while in court on Tuesday last week.
Angry Khan supporters set buildings and vehicles on fire and attacked police and militiamen, as well as his facilities. In the clashes, 10 people were killed and authorities arrested another 4,000. The Supreme Court later ordered the politician’s release and criticized the way in which he had been detained.
The army and government later announced that they would try “arsonists” involved in the violent protests under military law.
Amnesty said it was “alarming to note” that the authorities declared their “intent to try civilians under military law, possibly in military courts.”
This is once morest international law, said Dinushika Dissanayake, deputy director of the group in the South Asia region.
The Pakistan Human Rights Commission, for its part, indicated that detained civilians should be tried in civilian courts and not in military courts, reserved for soldiers suspected of working once morest national interests and violating military regulations.
Dissanayake accused the Pakistani government of using the military laws as “a scare tactic, designed to stifle dissent by fearing an institution that has never held accountable for its excesses.”
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