New Delhi, Aug 17: Alleging "unabashed rigging" in last year's presidential referendum and "patently illegal" Constitution amendments to empower an "unelected" President in Pakistan, two major international bodies have chastised the Pervez Musharraf regime for "blatant colonisation" of Pak-occupied Kashmir, "erosion" of democratic governance and "breakdown" of law and order. "An inevitable fallout of the erosion of democratic governance has been the unleashing of unprecedented violence against minorities and other vulnerable groups," the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO) and European Union of Public Relations (EUPR) said at the recently-concluded 55th session of UN Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.
The two bodies, in their intervention in the session on administration of justice and rule of law and democracy, also blamed the Musharraf regime for "absence of democracy, rule of law and justice in Pakistan" as well as its "blatant colonisation of PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan".
"While a sham legislature has been set up in PoK to create a facade of self-rule, even this fig-leaf has been denied to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan which remains in a constitutional limbo having been annexed to the territory of Pakistan in complete disregard of the hopes and aspirations of its people,” Mohd Mumtaz Khan of AAPSO and Mir Mohammad of EUPR, told the session which ended in Geneva on Friday. Bureau Report