There are many opportunities in Pakistan to improve perception of Pakistan in the world. Amongst such opportunities, the prisons in Pakistan is an opportunity lost to incompetence of the Ministry of Human Rights because it is SUPPOSED to be the custodian of rights of all Pakistanis, however, it has failed to do so due to lack of vision and leadership by those at the helm of affairs i.e. the Minister and the Federal Secretary.
Let’s look at the reasons why Pakistan is fast losing an opportunity to improve prisons in Pakistan, lets look at the core issues:
- Overcrowded prisons – As per World Prison Brief, approx. 80K prisoners against a capacity of prison system at approx. 60K.
- Pre-trial/ remand prisoners – An astronomical 62% of prison population consists of people that are not convicted and are in state of Pre-trial/ remand.
- Prison Radicalisation – As per ICSR report, there is no segregation between ordinary prisoners and prisoners under the charges of extremisms.
- Recidivism – There is no tracking of an important benchmark ‘Recidivism’.
- Incompetence – Lack of vision and leadership in the Ministry of HR.
The first three issues are interconnected, prisons are overcrowded because a large number of people for Pre-trial/ remand are put in jail. This leads to issue of Prison Radicalisation because extremists can easily connect with ordinary people and propagate extremism. Many youth and ordinary prisoners end up with terrorist organizations.
Imagine someone in jail for a minor crime, frustrated with their situation is offered emotional and financial help by a scout of a terror outfit. The result will be most likely be a new terrorist willing and ready to attack the state. This is enough to negate the sacrifices made by the people of Pakistan, both civilians and military.
Solution – Set of following actions need to be taken immediately:
- Form a HR committee per prison facility. The committee should include magistrates, HR activists, lawyers, citizens with good standings, police officials and Tiger force.
- The govt. of Pakistan must pass an ordinance instructing all relevant stakeholders to co-operate with the committee.
- This committee should send a bi-weekly report to the Minister of HR and concerned stakeholders. That detail must be shared at the website of Ministry of HR.
- The committee must collect data from allocated prison about Pre-trial/ remand reasons.
- Residents with Pre-trial/ remand for cases other than alleged heinous crimes must be released on bail without any delay.
- With help of digitized data and focus on Pre-trial/ remand issues, the over crowding in prisons can be resolved in a pre-approved timeframe.
If all works well then Pakistan can resolve the issues of Overcrowded prisons and Pre-trial/ remand prisoners in a period of six to eight months.
Prison Radicalisation can be reduced by separating the extremists and dangerous prisoners from the ordinary prisoners. Each prison must have a couple of scholars assigned for prayers and sermons. Rehabilitation of all prisoners must continue on a regular basis.
All cases of Juvenile and Women prisoners must be re-open and reviewed by the committee. Govt must release as many women and juvenile as possible because most women and juvenile were likely taken under pressure.
Recidivism means a person committing a crime after serving jail term for a previous crime (a repeat offender). The recidivism rate is an important benchmark to measure the effectiveness of a judicial system and a prison system. It also reflects on the ability of a society to assimilate a former prisoner in its social fabric and economic mainstream.
Recidivism rates are not tracked in Pakistan. The corruption involved in the entire judicial process allows many repeat offenders to escape the jail terms therefore there is no benchmark for recidivism rate in Pakistan.
The recidivism rates range from 20% Norway to 80% in the USA. If calculated, rate in Pakistan may be around 80%.
Solution – Recidivism must be calculated from the time of nomination of a repeat offender in a crime. For proper tracking it can be called Pre- Recidivism and once a repeat offender is convicted then it could be counted towards the Recidivism rate.
Combination of above solutions can help Pakistan to permanently close a source of extremism and terrorism. These are not difficult to implement solutions because there is a digitalization drive in the govt and with NADRA’s help, Pakistan can deal a severe blow to extremism emitting from its prisons.
Incompetence – Lack of vision and leadership in the Ministry of HR is the biggest challenge. Pakistan has a respected HR activist, Mrs. Shireen Mazari, as the Minister of HR, but she has failed to deliver on HR issues. There were a lot of expectations from the honorable minister, but she seems to be disconnected from the core issues.
Her focus is not the marginalized population and the masses, rather, most of her time is dedicated to defending the elite class on trivial issues. The rest of her time is spent on defending illogical statements on social media made by her relative(s).
Pakistan’s Minister of HR has drawn an ire from party activists and officials alike. Recently, on fake news issues, some spoilt elements and their cronies from the elite class were confronted in the SM domain, instead of staying clear of this issue, madam minister jumped into the fray and sided with people that, allegedly, were spreading fake news. This time could have been used to resolve many of the HR related issues in Pakistan, instead this non-HR issue was changed into a rights issue.
On top of that, the minister has failed to provide an adequate response in the HR Committee of the Parliament. As a result, these elements have maligned Pakistan in front of a trigger-happy Indian media.
The ambitions of Mrs. Mazari are not hidden from anyone. She wanted to be the FM of Pakistan and the ministry of HR was her second choice. She is vocal about it, but the most worrying fact is that she has openly claimed that her struggle to get the FM is still going on. Below is a video link from January 2020 of her speech at a gathering in Vancouver (watch at 1:25)
This is not acceptable behavior from a senior minister because this so-called struggle has led to public criticism of Pakistan’s foreign policy during the Pak-Saudi slowdown of relations. This doesn’t make her a traitor but definitely a person that has put personal interests above the interests of her country.
This recklessness doesn’t stop at the minister; the Federal Secretary of the Ministry of Human Rights, Mrs. Rabiya Javeri Agha is probably even more reckless. In most cases, if bureaucrats don’t agree with the policies of the govt then they share their reservations on policy matters with relevant stakeholders privately and in rare cases, a bureaucrat may resign. In case of Mrs. Agha, there is public criticism and humiliation of the govt of Pakistan.
Here is a Federal Secretary criticizing the decisions of PM Imran Khan:
Tragic and pointless.@mohrpakistan has been advocating the release of undertrial prisoners since day 1.
The entire world has praised the COVID-19 related strategy of the govt, but the Federal Secretary is criticizing the govt on SM.
Her article ‘The Human Cost’ in the Dawn is an example of unprofessional behavior. In this article she is highlighting the shortfalls of Pakistan on HR instead of highlighting the achievements of govt and Pakistan as a nation. The article seems to imply that Pakistan doesn’t honor its Constitution and international obligations. Public servants around the world support and put forth the best picture of their govt but Mrs. Agha has missed the point.
What is the reason of such public outburst? May be her long professional connection with the PPP. Mrs. Agha and her husband have been advisors to the govt of Sindh under PPP. Her appointments and most of the professional growth have been under the PPP and PMLN regimes.
Solution – PM Khan has emphasized on uplift of the marginalized and has championed the cause of poor. In addition, the jail reforms are a must to avoid spread of extremism and terrorism. The HR ministry is part of the spear that will bring change in Pakistan and needs new leadership both from political and bureaucratic perspectives. It is about time that HR minister and the Federal Secretary must provide goals and objectives for their ministry along with acceptable timelines to achieve these goals. There are many choices available within PTI and bureaucracy that can deliver on jail reforms and over all uplift of people in Pakistan.
Let’s hope that the Ministry of HR will take jail reforms seriously and actual reforms will start taking shape.
Imran Siddiqui is an experienced analyst in the field of geo-politics, defence projects and economy. He holds a degree in Finance from University of Houston.
Imran has helped former President Gen. Musharraf to set-up his political party in North America. He regularly contributes to geopolitics and defense analysis and firmly believes in economic stability as the key to defeat global extremism.
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Imran Siddiquihttps://www.commandeleven.com/author/imransiddiqui/
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Imran Siddiquihttps://www.commandeleven.com/author/imransiddiqui/
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Imran Siddiquihttps://www.commandeleven.com/author/imransiddiqui/
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Imran Siddiquihttps://www.commandeleven.com/author/imransiddiqui/
