The Parliament and the electoral parties of Pakistan have axed themselves by undertaking legislation for establishing military courts across the country. And the Pakistan Army started establishing military courts in Sindh, despite the fact that the religious terrorism is almost non-existent in the province.

Leading lights of Pakistani politics and civil society have started offering lame excuses, and even regrets for facilitating the emergence of military courts.  Co-Chairman of Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), the largest opposition party in Parliament, Asif Ali Zardari, said that PPP voted in the favor of the bill “in a bid to save the coming generations”.  His son, Bilawal Bhutto, who is the chairman of the party, however issued a hard hitting statement against his own party’s law makers for supporting the controversial law. “Parliament has lost its honor by passing such an anti-democratic bill”, he said. Senior PPP leader and a legal eagle Aitizaz Ahsan, said he is ashamed for voting in favor of the bill. PPP’s Senator Reza Rabani said he had voted against his conscience.

Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) said it is scrutinizing the bill for challenging it in the Supreme Court.  It has since become silent. So are the   Sindhi, Baloch and Pashtun nationalists, who had opposed the new law. It has proved that it is not only the civilian bureaucracy and the core civil society in Pakistan that is either highly militarized or under unchallengeable military pressure, but also the political parties and the Parliament are militarized now. One can also say that the Pakistani Parliament has bowed in front of military establishment. 

Fifty years of military courts trials of civilians… 

This is not the first time for a military court to try a civilian. Military courts have been doing so for the past fifty years; most of these victims are political dissenters — the secessionists and the civil democrats. First such well know trial was of Hassan Nasir of the Communist Party of Pakistan during 1960s. The second such well known trial was of Ashok Kumar, which was held in early 1970s. Ashok was a student activist from Sindh University. He was not a secessionist at all. 

The Military courts not only tried thousands of civilians but also awarded capital punishment during the military rule of General Zia ul Haq (1980s); the regimes of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif (1990s), General Musharraf’s reign (2000s); and the Zardari regime and present term of PML-N. 

All those who were (are) enforcedly disappeared especially from Sindh and Baluchistan or are killed in the military torture cells are basically being trialed in the military courts. The prominent among them in Sindh include Muzaffar Bhutto, Asif Baladi, and Akash Mallah. Even those Sindhi nationalists who were burnt alive in 2011 were put on trial in absentia.

It is a practice in Pakistan that the military usually puts on trial popular civil and political leaders from Sindh and Baluchistan without letting the under trial persons know about their court martial. Thus, a large number of the political assassinations in Sindh and Baluchistan are result of the court martial of the civilians carried in absentia.

Militarily courted the bill…

The latest bill gives Pakistan Army an edge to try those who are religious terrorists and also those who are believed to be anti-Pakistan. Going by the statement of objects and reasons the bill will seek to serve three purposes. One protect Pakistan Army’s heinous crimes of abducting, trialing and killing the dissenters, two give a legal and / or Parliamentary clean chit to the ethnic cleansing carried by the Pakistan Army; three further strengthen the military interference in the civilian domain.  The legislation has proved that the long sit-ins staged by Imran Khan’s PTI and Cleric Qadiri’s PTA have helped military in winning the battle against the civilians. A question that props up now: Did the Pakistan army commit an offence with its earlier trial of civilians since the trials were carried without the nod of Parliament?

Some questions….

Pakistan Army has claimed in front of international community that it has successfully undertaken a military operation in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) against the Taliban and other religious terrorists. The need for passing this bill proves that either these claims were false or this bill is aimed against the political dissenters in Sindh and Baluchistan. 

Most armies around the world usually do not need such legislations while fighting armed insurgencies. In that perspective, this bill seems to target political dissenters more than terrorists. 

There is gain saying that the new military courts law contradicts the fundamental guarantees to the citizens guaranteed under the Constitution of Pakistan. Who will hold Pakistani Parliament answerable against this anti-constitutional act? 

The bill contradicts Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; some clause of Vienna Convention; various resolutions hitherto adopted by United Nations General Assembly (UNGA); United Nations Security Council (UNSC); and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).   

Yes, one can say that civilians in Pakistan have lost their battle against military’s hegemony. 

– By Zulfiqar Shah, A Pakistani Sindhi activist living in exile