We are living in a world in which very few thing could have been universally accepted to be legal and human right norms. Among these few is forceful disappearance of individuals for which the principles of international criminal law could be invoked for this is one of the crimes against humanity. People hailing from both the right and left wing in Pakistan firmly hold -or at least they rhetorically reiterate- that forceful disappearance of individuals is a worse kind of violation of one's fundamental rights which put the individual and his family under a severe kind of physical and psychological torture. Torture is another crime against humanity recognized by international criminal law. The culprits of forceful disappearence and torture –if could not be tried in the domestic legal system – can be prosecuted in international criminal tribunals.
 |
| Muavia Azam Tariq, a Sunni Activist |
Having firm believe in this notion of human right, our society -or at least a large portion of it - acts in a shamelessly hypocritical way. Our society has divided the victims of human rights violation as 'your victim' and 'ours one'. Some 17 month back, Muavia Azam Tariq, a well known religious activist having affiliation with the Sunni Organization Ahl al-Sunnah Wa 'l-JamÄ'ah (ASWJ)–which is known for anti Shia sentiments –, gone missing from Punjab, Pakistan. People from the right wing, in general, and believing in –or having sympathy with – the ideology of ASWJ started chanting against this forceful disappearance of Muavia Azam who happened to be the son of Maulana Azam Tariq the former head of Millat-E-Islamiyya, the predecessor of ASWJ, who was shot dead in October 6, 2003 in Islamabad while his way to the Pakistani capital to attend the session of the National Assembly of Pakistan as he was the member of National Assembly from Jhang, Punjab. Enthusiastic youth from the ASWJ put the photograph of Muavia Azam as their facebook DP which made that one of the well known facebook DPs in Pakistan. The people having ability to write missed no chance to wrote blogs, facebook posts and tweeted about the violation of human rights again and again. The timelines of facebook walls of the people from left wing –with almost no exception – remain silent about the misery of Muavia Azam; rather some might justified this disappearance as well.
 |
| Professor Salman Hyder, a progressive activist |
The table tuned around in airlier January this year when Salman Hyder –a poet, blogger and social media activist– and four other progressive social activists went missing from different parts of the country being Salman missing from Islamabad. This was the time when a series of blasphemous content started breaking social media and people made to believe that Salman and other were behind the pages which spread the blasphemous content as well as stuff which criticized the Pakistani Military Establishment. Now, this was the time when left wing started recalling the glorious lessens of human rights and freedom of expression. The right wing was on the taunting mode now. Some of the right wing activists started leveling accusation of blasphemy against the missing bloggers while others taunted left wing for not voicing for Muavia Azam and other right wing victims of forceful disappearance. This was very hard time for the people who admired Professor Salman Hyder as they, on the one hand, had to defend him against the accusation of blasphemy and, on the other hand, raise their voices to recover the blogger. International agencies for the protection of human rights and media outlets also joined hand to build a pressure on Pakistani Authorities to recover Salman Hyder and within a span of about a month Hyder and other progressive bloggers were back with their families. Later, all of them fled Pakistan to be safe from such abduction in future.
 |
| Muavia Azam with Ahmad Ludhianvi |
The hard time for Salman ended but Muavia Azam had to suffer a bit more. His father's followers, however, never lost hope and kept voicing for his recovery. Finally Muavia Azam too came back to his home. Social media in Pakistan, once again is full of greetings and mutual congratulations by the persons having affiliation with ASWJ and Deobandi School in the happy recovery of the son of Azam Tariq. Like Salman Hyders recovery was celebrated only by the left wing groups, this time joy and happiness belongs to right wing only.
These two examples show the dark face of our society in which the victim must belong to a certain group in order to be recognized as victim and thus get help and voice from the certain portion of the society. Victim should be victim per se. He should be voiced for irrespective of his race, ethnicity, religious views and political ideology. Unless that goal is achieved and this behavior becomes common, we cannot be safe from atrocities and human right violations.
Comments
Post a Comment