Human Rights in Pakistan: A System in the Making

In its fifty-three years of existence, Pakistan has been governed more by military dictatorships than by elected governments. Today is no exception, as the country’s fourth military coup took place on October 12, 1999, ending the deeply corrupt and autocratic reign of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif had been groomed by the army to lead Pakistan, but his former military patrons fell out with him and stepped in to purge Pakistan of its ills, many of which are in fact the legacy of past military rule. While previous coup leaders bypassed any reference to human rights and openly undermined the value of democracy, this group of generals characterized their “reluctant” intervention as one intended to save democracy and human rights. Their rhetoric reveals the power of international and national constraints and pressures to uphold the rights of the people, although recent events, described in the conclusion, reveal troubling gaps between rhetoric and reality. Only in the last decade or so has the language of human rights entered the parlance of political debate in Pakistan. The fight for democracy in Pakistan has, however, consistently centered around human rights issues: the right to freedom of speech and expression; the right to freedom from fear, arbitrary arrests, and police excesses; and the right to housing, education, health, and employment.