The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has slammed the Imran Khan-led government for continuing with the policy of subjugation of the Gilgit Baltistan (GB) region. In its latest report on human rights violations in Pakistan released on Thursday, the HRCP has said that Pakistan's objection to the abolition of special status for Indian Jammu and Kashmir "appears odd, because Pakistan itself has not granted special status to one of its components (GB)."

The HRCP said that there is a "confusion" regarding the status of the region within the state of Pakistan.

The report of 2019, a copy of which IANS has accessed, said that this year, for the first time, HRCP's annual report on the state of human rights in Pakistan reflects the realities of provincial autonomy and federalism as enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan.

In a searing commentary, the Commission recalled that the GB's province-like status granted in 2009 as per the Empowerment and Self-Governance Order was nullified by an order in 2018, withdrawing whatever "negligible powers" that had been delegated to the region in 2009.

The 2018 order annulled the GB Council which had local representation, and gave too many powers to the country's Prime Minister, the commission lamented. In 2019, under Prime Minister Imran Khan, this disenfranchisement of people in the region remained unchanged.

The report said that after the Modi government's August 5, 2019 decision to abrogate Article 370 which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Foreign Ministry's statement, which claimed GB to be a part of India, "has weakened the position of Pakistan as regards GB, because unlike India-held Jammu and Kashmir, GB enjoys neither special status, nor constitutional cover."

"To address this anomaly, Chairman of Kashmir Committee, Syed Fakhar Imam, had asked the Government of Pakistan on August 2, 2019 to consider restoring the State Subject Rule (SSR) in GB," the human rights commission recalled.

Recounting the history of the state, the commission said that the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir had introduced hereditary state subject order in 1927, defining and categorising state subjects and non-state subjects. The rule granted the right to government office, land use and ownership only to the state subjects in Jammu and Kashmir.

"Voices for the rights to land and resources, and protests against settlers, have been getting louder as political parties and civil society organisations demand restoration of SSR to protect the rights and interests of people from exogenous forces and settlers," the commission said.

Accusing the government and other institutions and private commercial entities of "usurping land" in the GB, the HRCP said the land grabbing has increased manifold since the inception of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

"The opposition of the people is evident from the protests held periodically across the region against land grabbing, usurpation and purchase through coercive and covert means. Protest and clashes over the issue of land have been reported in Ghanche, Skardu, Hunza, Nagar, Ghizer and Gilgit districts," the commission said.

In a scathing verdict against the Imran Khan government, Human Rights Commission said that Pakistan's record of human rights violations last year was "greatly worrisome" due to systematic curbing of political dissent which is likely to worsen further.

"The year 2019 will be remembered for the systematic curbing of political dissent by various means, constraints to the freedom of the mainstream media, digital surveillance, and the over-regulation of social media spaces," it said. 

Curbs on freedom of opinion and expression continued to escalate, the commission said pointing out that it had become "more difficult to speak or write openly -- if at all -- on 'sensitive' issues such as enforced disappearances, or to criticise state policy or security agencies in these areas" for journalists in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in particular.

"Strong-arm tactics employed allegedly by state agencies forced many journalists to resort to self-censorship or even resign from their posts," the report said.

Several thousand media persons lost their jobs and a number of newspapers and magazines shut down, largely due to the financial squeeze imposed when government advertisements were withdrawn and previous dues withheld, the commission said.

"Concerns over a concerted campaign against Dawn resurfaced when a mob besieged the newspaper's offices in Karachi and Islamabad, chanting slogans in favour of an intelligence agency." In October, Steve Butler of the Committee to Protect Journalists was denied entry to Pakistan to attend the Asma Jahangir Conference.

The government's proposals to establish one regulatory authority across the media and special tribunals to hear complaints against the media, were "a means to gag the media further". Pakistan's Internet freedom ranking declined even further in 2019, due to a "problematic cybercrime law, Internet shutdowns, and cyber-attacks against political dissenters, justified on the grounds of national security."

The right-to-information laws have remained underused, without yielding the larger public good they were aimed at, the commission said.