trial standards; and giving broad immunities to the police, armed forces or civil armed forces acting in aid of civil authority to shield them from any accountability.

29. According to media reports, hundreds of people have been detained under POPA, a large number of them in Karachi. Charges have been brought in a few dozen cases, but special courts constituted under the act have not concluded even a single trial. This is quite a failure for a law that was enacted for the purpose of “speedy trial” of terrorism suspects. Indeed, it completely undermines that primary objective.

30. There are reports that the extensive powers of search, arrest and detention given to law-enforcement agencies under POPA were misused by the authorities in the two years the law was in operation. POPA was used to keep people in custody for long periods of time, including in preventive detention. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has alleged POPA was used in Karachi to arbitrarily arrest dozens of MQM activists. The Pakistan People’s Party has also made similar claims, especially after the Federal Investigation Agency was given powers of detention and interrogation under POPA to “eradicate militancy” and “combat financial terrorism”.

31. For these reasons, the ICJ recommends that the following question be included in the List of Issues for the examination of Pakistan:

### Does the Government intend to renew the Protection of Pakistan Act for another two years?

Given that “special courts” constituted under POPA have not concluded a single trial in the two years POPA was in operation, on what grounds is the Government considering renewal of the law?

### What steps did the Government take to ensure the sweeping powers given to law enforcement agencies under POPA were not misused?

If the law in renewed, what steps will the Government take to ensure the broad powers given to law enforcement agencies under POPA will not be misused?

- C. ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES

32. The practice of enforced disappearance has persisted in Pakistan and has spread to areas where it had not been reported earlier. Previously restricted mainly to Balochistan and the northwestern region of the country, enforced disappearances now appear to have become a nation-wide phenomenon, especially in response to political opposition and movements.23 nationalist and separatist

33. There is a wide range in estimates of the overall number of cases. Defence of Human Rights, a non-governmental organization working towards the recovery of disappeared persons, has reported that more than 5,000 cases of disappearances had still not been accounted for. The Voice of Baloch Missing Persons alleges some 18,000 persons to have been forcibly disappeared. The officially constituted Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, on the other hand, reports nearly 1,400 unresolved cases of alleged enforced disappearance. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which documents human rights violations in 60 selected districts in the country, has reported 370 cases of enforced disappearance since 2014. Thus, even taking the most conservative estimates, a significant number of enforced disappearances remain unresolved in the country.

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