ISLAMABAD: The PTI-led federal government has presented a bill in the National Assembly (NA), which amends the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) to declare enforced disappearance a criminal offence with 10-year imprisonment.
Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari introduced the bill – the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021. The bill states that a new section 52-B (enforced disappearance) should be inserted into PPC after section 52-A.
According to the proposed section, there should be three requisite elements that define enforced disappearance. These elements include an unlawful or illegal deprivation of liberty or a deprivation of liberty that was legal but no longer is; an act allegedly carried out by agents of the state or by person or group of persons acting with the support, authorization or acquiescence of the state; and refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person.
The bill also seeks to insert new sections 512 and 513 in the PPC Penal Code, after section 511. It states that “whoever commits, orders, solicits or induces the commission of attempts to commit, is an accomplice to or participation in the forcible or involuntary disappearances of a person or group of persons is said to cause forcible or involuntary disappearances of that person” and falls within 512 (forcible or involuntary disappearances).
Section 513 – punishment for forcible or involuntary disappearances – states that “whoever causes forcible or involuntary disappearance of any person from Pakistan or within Pakistan shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to a fine.”
It adds that the “practice of enforced disappearances is a particularly heinous crime not only because it removes human rights from the protection of the law but also due to the inherent cruelty inflicted upon families as a consequence of denial of information concerning the disappeared person.”
Additionally, it continues, the United Nations General Assembly, in its resolutions 477/133 of 18th December, 1992, has emphasised that enforced disappearances undermine the “deepest values of any society committed to respect for the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
