A/HRC/10/9
page 62
intelligence agencies were detaining terror suspects and other opponents. The retroactive
application of the Army Act will allegedly allow substantial impunity of those tried for having
terror suspects disappear.
302. In a separate allegation, it was reported that the Government of Pakistan has created two
committees in the Balochistan province, one for missing persons and one for internally displaced
persons. However, the names of the committee members to investigate cases of missing persons
have yet to be announced.
303. It was also reported that disappearances are still occurring in Balochistan, even after the
Prime Minister’s announcement that military operations in the province would cease. It has been
alleged that 39 persons, mostly young people, still remain missing after being arrested in the first
quarter of 2008.
304. According to the reports received, military personnel attacked and raided different houses
and hostels of Khuzdar Degree College in Khuzdar and arrested more than 200 persons. Ten
persons are still missing. In another incident, army officials raided the house of the district
president of a nationalist group. His whereabouts remain unknown.
305. In a separate incident, three persons were reportedly arrested by military personnel in
May 2008. Their charred bodies were later found in the centre of a market place in Dera Bugti.
306. No responses were received from the Government regarding both general allegations.
Total cases transmitted, clarified and outstanding
307. Since its establishment, the Working Group transmitted 118 cases to the Government. It
clarified 24 cases: 18 on the basis of information provided by the Government and 6 on the basis
of information provided by the source; 94 remain outstanding.
Observations
308. The Working Group reminds the Government of its obligations under the Declaration, to
prevent and eradicate enforced disappearances (art. 2), to “take effective legislative,
administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent and terminate acts of enforced
disappearance” (art. 3), that “no circumstances whatsoever, whether a threat of war, a state of
war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked to justify
enforced disappearances” (art. 7), to investigate all cases of enforced disappearances (art. 13.1),
and that persons who are alleged to have committed an enforced disappearance “shall not benefit
from any special amnesty or similar measures that might have the effect of exempting them from
any criminal proceedings or sanction” (art. 18.1).
309. The Working Group also reminds the Government that, according to its general comment
on the definition of enforced disappearance, a detention, followed by an extrajudicial execution
is an enforced disappearance proper, as long as such detention or deprivation of liberty was
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