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Buddy i think you dnt know the reality of P O K well its not your fault mod not allowed thread about P O K
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Political Rights and Civil Liberties
The political rights of the residents of Pakistani-administered Kashmir remain severely limited. Neither the Northern Areas nor Azad Kashmir has representation in Pakistan's national Parliament. The Northern Areas are directly administered by the Pakistani government under the Legal Framework Order of 1994; the region is not included in the Pakistani constitution and has no constitution of its own, meaning there is no fundamental guarantee of civil rights, democratic representation, or the separation of powers. Executive authority is vested in the minister for Kashmir affairs, a civil servant appointed by Islamabad. A 36-seat Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) of which 24 seats are filled through direct elections and six each are reserved for women and technocrats from each district serves in an advisory capacity and has no authority to change laws or control revenue. Elections to the NALC were held in 2004, with independent candidates and representatives of national political parties winning seats. In October 2007, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf announced a package of reforms that would change the NALC into the Northern Areas Legislative Assembly, devolving fiscal and legislative powers to locally elected politicians. The package would also allow for the election of a chief executive accountable to the assembly, but it would maintain federal control over the judiciary and the top executive post of "chairman." The region would continue to be administered under the Legal Framework Order rather than a constitutional framework like in Azad Kashmir, thus still falling short of compliance with a 1999 Supreme Court ruling on the issue. At year's end, Pakistan's broader political crisis cast doubt on the future of the proposed reforms.
Azad Kashmir has an interim constitution, an elected unicameral assembly, a prime minister, and a president who is elected by the legislative assembly. Both the president and the assembly serve five-year terms. Of the 49 assembly seats, 41 are filled through direct elections and eight are reserved seats (five for women and one each for representatives of overseas Kashmiris, technocrats, and religious leaders). However, Pakistan exercises considerable control over the structures of government and electoral politics. Islamabad's approval is required to pass legislation, and the minister for Kashmir affairs handles the daily administration of the state and controls the budget. The Pakistani military retains a guiding role on issues of politics and governance.
As detailed by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a 2006 report on the region, individuals and political parties who do not support Kashmir's accession to Pakistan are barred from participating in the political process, standing for election, taking a job with any government institution, or accessing educational institutions. At least 60 proindependence candidates who belonged to the JKLF, the APNA, and smaller political parties were barred from participating in the July 2006 Azad Kashmir legislative assembly elections. Overall, HRW noted that the election process was flawed and "greeted with widespread charges of poll rigging by opposition political parties and independent analysts." However, unlike the 2001 elections, the polls featured few instances of physical violence and harassment aside from threats against candidates or their supporters, possibly because of the greater international presence in the wake of the earthquake. In general, antiaccession parties and individuals are subject to surveillance, harassment, and sometimes imprisonment by Pakistani intelligence and security services.
In 2007, the political crisis in Pakistan reverberated in Kashmir. Chaudhry Majeed, the PPP president for Azad Kashmir, and other party activists were briefly detained in November following Musharraf's declaration of a state of emergency, with some placed under house arrest for 30 days. In December, demonstrators clashed with police, burned tires, and blocked roads in antigovernment protests after the assassination of PPP leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, but there were no reported injuries.
Azad Kashmir receives a large amount of financial aid from the Pakistani government, especially following the 2005 earthquake, but successive administrations have been tainted by corruption and incompetence. A lack of official accountability has been identified as a key factor in the poor socioeconomic development of both Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas. Pakistani-controlled Kashmir was not rated separately in Transparency International's 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index.
The Pakistani government uses the constitution and other laws to curb freedom of speech on a variety of subjects, including the status of Kashmir and incidents of sectarian violence. In recent years, authorities have banned several local newspapers from publishing and have detained or otherwise harassed Kashmiri journalists. In March 2007, the government suspended its advertisements in publications by the Dawn English-language media group after it reported on a possible resurgence of official support for militants in Kashmir. In April 2007, Dawn reported that the editor and publisher of the banned monthly Kargil International magazine were indicted on sedition and defamation charges for publishing a proindependence article in 2004. In addition to pressure and threats from the authorities, journalists have been known to face harassment and attacks from nonstate actors, though no such incidents were reported in 2007. During the state of emergency imposed on the rest of Pakistan in November 2007, cable operators in Kashmir were instructed to suspend broadcasts of most national and international news channels.
Internet access is not usually restricted but remains confined to urban centers. Deliberately limited telephone and mobile phone access has been expanded in the wake of the 2005 earthquake. The presence of foreign media and aid organizations has also helped to partially open up a tightly controlled information environment. Books that do not adequately adhere to a proaccession stance are regularly banned, according to HRW.
Pakistan is an Islamic republic, and there are numerous restrictions on religious freedom. Religious minorities also face unofficial economic and societal discrimination and are occasionally subject to violent attack. Shia Muslims, who form the majority of the population in the Northern Areas, include a large number of Ismailis, a group that follows the Aga Khan. Sectarian strife between Shiites and the increasing number of Sunni Muslims (many of whom are migrants from elsewhere in Pakistan) first became a concern in 1988 and continues to be a problem. In 2005, several waves of sectarian violence killed almost 100 people and led to a month-long curfew. Sporadic attacks continued to take place during 2006, including the destruction by fire of an Ismaili place of worship, but no violent incidents were reported in 2007.
Freedoms of association and assembly are restricted. The constitution of Azad Kashmir forbids individuals and political parties from taking part in activities that are prejudicial to the ideology of the state's accession to Pakistan. As such, police in recent years have regularly suppressed antigovernment demonstrations, sometimes violently. In 2005, at least 10 people were killed when police opened fire on Shia student protesters, and lengthy curfews were imposed to prevent demonstrators from assembling. In 2007, police clashed with demonstrators on several occasions, but there were no reports of deaths or lengthy detentions. In October, police baton-charged dozens of people demonstrating against a proposal to move the capital of Azad Kashmir from Muzafarrabad. Three people were arrested but released the same day. In November, police blocked activists of the proindependence APNA who were protesting in favor of truck service across the LOC from entering a town near the ceasefire line as planned.
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are generally able to operate freely. However, the Aga Khan Rural Support Program run by the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), an international development organization that focuses on Ismaili communities worldwide has been subjected to harassment and violence. According to the U.S. State Department's 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom, Sunni extremist groups have in recent years vandalized AKF-funded schools and health clinics and have attacked AKF personnel, although no such attacks were reported in 2007. The situation for labor rights in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir is similar to that in Pakistan.
The judiciary of the Northern Areas consists of district courts, a chief court, and since 2005, a separate court of appeals. With appointments based on three-year contracts subject to discretionary renewal, the judiciary is largely subservient to the executive. Azad Kashmir has its own system of local magistrates and high courts, whose heads are appointed by the president of Azad Kashmir. Appeals are adjudicated by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. There are also Islamic judges who handle criminal cases concerning Islamic law. In April 2007, local lawyers protested the appointment to the Azad Kashmir Supreme Court of Justice Mohammad Reaz Akhtar Chaudhry over the court's most senior judge, Justice Manzoor Hussain Gilani, arguing that it violated constitutional conventions and rules of seniority. The newspaper Dawn reported that the Azad Kashmir Supreme Court rejected a petition by the lawyers challenging the appointment and ordered that future petitions of a similar nature not be entertained by the courts.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) operates throughout Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas and engages in extensive surveillance (particularly of proindependence groups and the press), as well as arbitrary arrests and detentions. In some instances, those detained by the ISI, the police, or the security forces are tortured, and several cases of death in custody have been reported. Impunity for acts of torture and other mistreatment of civilians by the military and intelligence services remains the norm. The territory also continues to be governed by the colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulations, under which residents are required to report to local police stations once a month.
A number of Islamist militant groups, including al-Qaeda, operate from bases in Pakistani-administered Kashmir with the tacit permission of Pakistani intelligence. Tension between Islamist, pro-Pakistan groups and the proindependence Kashmiri groups as well as some local residents has reportedly intensified in recent years. In June 2007, a land dispute broke out between villagers in Azad Kashmir and the Islamist organization Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), identified by the United States as a terrorist organization. Following the alleged torture of two men and the killing of a 17-year-old boy by JUD members, a mob burned down a temporary hospital the group had established following the 2005 earthquake.
Several hundred families displaced by shelling between Indian and Pakistani forces around the LOC prior to the 2003 ceasefire remain unable to return to their homes and have largely been excluded from earthquake-related assistance schemes. In addition, the Azad Kashmir government manages relief camps for refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir, the bulk of whom arrived after the situation on the Indian side worsened in 1989. Many more of the refugees (roughly 1.5 million) live elsewhere in Azad Kashmir and throughout Pakistan.
The status of women in Pakistani-administered Kashmir is similar to that of women in Pakistan. While the HRCP reports that honor killings and **** occur less frequently than in other areas of Pakistan, domestic violence, forced marriage, and other forms of abuse continue to be issues of concern. Women are not granted equal rights under the law, and their educational opportunities and choice of marriage partner remain circumscribed. In May 2007, the United Nations and other aid agencies temporarily suspended their work after suspected Islamists mounted an arson attack on the home of two aid workers; the organizations had received warnings against hiring women.
Topics: Kashmiris, Security forces, Religious persecution, Ethnic persecution, Extrajudicial executions, Political parties, Disappeared persons, Death in custody, Arbitrary arrest and detention, Abduction, Womens rights, Violence against women, Peace talks, Conflict situation, Corruption, Gender discrimination, Impunity, Protection of civilian persons in time of war, Violence against women, Militias, Freedom of religion, Freedom of expression, Freedom of association, Freedom of assembly, Independence of judiciary, SGBV, Armed forces/military,
Read full you know the reality
from a nutral source
UNHCR | Refworld | Freedom in the World 2008 - Kashmir [Pakistan]
... where as Your Dearest of Dearest Stone pelters Killed a 13 days old Baby mercylessly
