The writer is a business and economy journalist.
WE are now approaching the outer limits of the hybrid experiment that was launched back in 2018. You don’t have to look far to see what is driving this. Start with the election results to see what the electorate is trying to say. Of the last 16 by-elections for national and provincial assembly seats since 2019, the PTI has been able to win in four, and one of those was not their own win but that of their allies (GDA in Larkana in October 2019).
More recent results show them losing margins in areas that they comfortably captured in 2018, and this despite the fact that they enjoy strong establishment backing and the benefits of being the ruling party (incumbency bestows considerable advantages, especially in Punjab, because voters traditionally feel a candidate from the ruling party is more likely to fetch them the benefits they seek). In some constituencies, like those from Karachi and one in Balochistan, they have not even been abl
THE human rights situation in Pakistan, almost predictably bleak every year, was deeply impacted in 2020 by an unprecedented factor the Covid-19 pandemic. While the contagion has affected all segments of society, it has exacerbated existing socioeconomic inequalities. No ‘great equaliser’, this global crisis has dealt a cruel blow to already disadvantaged sections of society. The recently launched annual report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan takes into account the ways in which the pandemic led to many of the gains in health and education of the previous decades being rolled back as the economy tanked and people especially factory workers and private employees lost their jobs. People suffering from health conditions other than Covid-19 found it difficult to access medical help; and tens of millions of children missed both polio and routine immunisations last year.
THE human rights situation in Pakistan, almost predictably bleak every year, was deeply impacted in 2020 by an unprecedented factor the Covid-19 pandemic. While the contagion has affected all segments of society, it has exacerbated existing socioeconomic inequalities. No ‘great equaliser’, this global crisis has dealt a cruel blow to already disadvantaged sections of society. The recently launched annual report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan takes into account the ways in which the pandemic led to many of the gains in health and education of the previous decades being rolled back as the economy tanked and people especially factory workers and private employees lost their jobs. People suffering from health conditions other than Covid-19 found it difficult to access medical help; and tens of millions of children missed both polio and routine immunisations last year.
Curbs on dissent marred 2020 in Pakistan
ANI
05 May 2021, 18:18 GMT+10
Lahore [Pakistan], May 5 (ANI): The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) s annual report has asked the Imran Khan government to deliver to the public the rights and freedoms to which they are legally and constitutionally entitled. An HRCP release said that the pandemic aggravated existing inequalities, leaving millions of vulnerable workers at risk of losing their livelihoods. The Benazir Income Support and Ehsaas Programmes, which the government sensibly made part of its approach to the pandemic, likely saved thousands of households from sinking deeper into poverty, but these programmes are only a small facet of what a robust, pro-poor strategy should look like, HRCP said.
State of human rights
May 5, 2021
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s report, ‘State of Human Rights in 2020’, is a damning indictment of both the government and state institutions which, according to the report, have yet again failed to protect the fundamental human rights of the people in the country. The report highlights complacency on the part of the government and state, rather than what is expected of them: delivering to Pakistan’s people the rights and freedoms to which they are constitutionally entitled. One of the main features of 2020 was the economic hardships that the citizens of Pakistan have faced over the past year under a two-fold scourge of the Covid-19 pandemic and the rising inflation that had already hit the poor even before the pandemic arrived in Pakistan. The increasing curbs on dissent in the country are also featured prominently in the report.