Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Cracking the door open on Pakistan's military courts

Sen. Farhatullah Babar
From Islamabad, a dissenting view on Pakistan's military courts:
A senior opposition leader on Tuesday called for human rights representatives to be allowed to oversee proceedings of secret military tribunals set up to try civilians accused of terrorism. 
Speaking to the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights here today, Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar said that no one gets to know about the convictions of military courts. 
He added that military courts were handing over death sentences only to civilians instead of terrorists. 
He urged that members of the National Commission for Human Rights be allowed to oversee the secret trials under the military courts.
"Oversee" in this context seems to mean "observe" rather than "supervise." Sen. Babar's suggestion is like giving an aspirin to a patient who is mortally ill--if that.

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