WASHINGTON: United States has started to raise concerns over the internalpolitics and internal matters of the state of Pakistan.
The recent concerns shown in the US House over the disappearance of some ofthe anti state activists is a testimony to the fact.
The alleged disappearances of political activists in Pakistan surfaced in aUS Congress subcommittee on Wednesday afternoon, as lawmakers urged theTrump administration to raise this issue with Islamabad.
At this special hearing of the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific,lawmakers also accused Pakistan of continuing to allow Afghan extremists todestabilise the government in Kabul, a charge raised at a Senate hearing onTuesday as well. The lawmakers also backed President Donald Trump’s Jan 4decision to suspend security assistance to Pakistan.
As relations between the two countries strained, US lawmakers, think-tanksand media too have started taking a keen interest in Pakistan’s domesticpolitics, highlighting the grievances of smaller political, religious andethnic groups.
Such groups have also become active in the US capital and other cities,holding protest meetings and marches. Although such meetings are alwaystiny, the dissidents are often invited to air their views at largercongressional meetings and media platforms. But congressional hearings likethe one held on Wednesday afternoon are rare.
Aqil Shah, one of the two witnesses who spoke about disappearances in Sindhand Balochistan, said that although “disappearing” political opponents ofthe government in Pakistan was an old practice it has increased in recentyears.
In recent years, the agencies responsible for these disappearances “havebroadened their crackdown to include social media and other politicalactivists, rights defenders, and reporters”, said Mr Shah, who teachesSouth Asian politics at University of Oklahoma.
He also quoted from a report by Pakistan’s official Commission of Inquiryon Enforced Disappearances, which received nearly 300 cases of enforceddisappearances from August to October 2017, the highest since its creationin 2011.
“The US should work with its allies to urge Pakistan to strengthen theCommission on Enforced Disappearances, and the National Human RightsCommission, and to urgently ratify the International Convention for theProtection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances,” Mr Shah said.