‘US weapons should not be used against protesters’

By Our Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Nov 6: The Amnesty International has asked the United States to ensure that weapons provided to Pakistan are not used to commit human rights violations against peaceful demonstrators protesting emergency rule.

“We are putting the onus on President Bush to ensure that no weapons, even small weapons such as revolvers, supplied by the United States are used against peaceful demonstrators,” said T. Kumar, Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific advocacy director in Washington.

“The United States also needs to publicly demand the immediate and unconditional release of all peaceful demonstrators being detained in Pakistan,” he said.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan said the military crackdown represented a direct assault on international law and human rights standards enshrined in the Constitution. “Measures that have been portrayed as necessary to protect Pakistan are in fact a wholesale abrogation of fundamental human rights protections and dismantle the very institutions and checks and balances that underpin the country’s stability,” Ms Khan said.

Amnesty International called for immediate return to constitutional rule and the release of many hundreds of people detained under the current measures.

The International Bar Association, one of the world’s largest groups representing lawyers, said that the imposition of emergency rule represents a serious negation of the rule of law and has thrown the country into a greater turmoil.



Dawn 7/Nov/07