On July 2, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) released a statement unlike any in its history.
“In the past few months, HRCP has faced a series of arbitrary, illegal and unjustified actions that have impeded the organisation’s ability to carry out its mandate,” it read.
The statement detailed how individuals identifying themselves as members of security agencies had been harassing and intimidating HRCP staff.
“We urge the authorities to respect the fundamental freedoms of association… and to ensure that human rights defenders can operate without fear of reprisal,” the statement continued.
Established in 1987, the HRCP was cofounded by the late lawyer and activist Asma Jahangir and IA Rehman, a journalist and human rights defender.
It is Pakistan’s foremost rights body and has long served as an independent and credible voice on civil liberties, both nationally and internationally.
Over the years, its reports and public advocacy have often drawn criticism from politicians and state officials. In 2014, Imran Khan, then a leading opposition figure, accused HRCP of promoting “foreign agendas” — an allegation that was never substantiated.
Still, HRCP members say that the intensification of pressures in the last two and a half years has surpassed anything it has experienced in its decades-long history.
“In the past, we were pressurised, but it was never like this,” said Harris Khalique, the organisation’s secretary general, in an interview at HRCP’s Lahore office.
Since late 2023, HRCP has faced a sustained campaign of interference.
The organisation’s Lahore headquarters was sealed, its electricity meters removed, bank accounts frozen, and its chairperson detained. While events planned in multiple cities were blocked and threatening phone calls warned staff not to hold discussions on topics deemed sensitive.
Initially, HRCP refrained from making its challenges public. But by May this year, the situation had become untenable, prompting the release of the July 2 statement.
“We realised that if we keep taking this pressure, the pressure will keep increasing,” Khalique said.
The clampdown on HRCP intensified after an October 2023 consultation in Islamabad, where HRCP urged the government to reverse its decision to expel Afghan refugees.
The statement noted that such action would “invariably affect poor and vulnerable Afghan refugees and asylum seekers, including women, children, the elderly, persons with disabilities and Afghans at risk of because of their professions”.
The backlash was swift. Men claiming to represent security agencies, along with others identifying themselves as officials from the interior ministry, visited HRCP’s office.
“They asked us to give them a recording of our event,” Khalique said, along with a list of attendees. The request was refused.
This year, HRCP planned to hold consultations on local communities’ right to natural resources in Gilgit Baltistan, as well as a roundtable in Islamabad on the human rights situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Neither event took place.
In both Gilgit and Islamabad, the hotels where the events were scheduled demanded a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the local administration.
“This has not happened to us in the last 38 years, that we are being asked to get an NOC to hold a consultation,” said Farah Zia, HRCP’s director. HRCP was eventually forced to hold a smaller session at its Gilgit office, with government representatives present.
Then, there are other actions which also appear aimed at disrupting HRCP’s core operations.
On November 5, 2024, the Lahore Development Authority sealed HRCP’s office, citing unauthorised commercial activity in a residential zone. It took hours and several phone calls to reopen the premises.
Later, the Lahore Electricity Supply Company removed the group’s electricity meter and issued a fine of Rs3.8 million. While a private bank froze HRCP’s accounts, reportedly on instructions from the State Bank of Pakistan.
But in April, the State Bank submitted a written response to the Lahore High Court denying that it had issued any such directive.
However, the most serious incident occurred in July 2024. Asad Iqbal Butt, HRCP’s chairperson, was taken from his home in Karachi and held by police for four hours.
He was questioned about his work in Balochistan and possible links to the Baloch Yekjehti Committee (BYC), a women-led rights group in the province.
The 78-year-old said he was also shown photographs of his children.
“They said we know where your son works and we can make sure he does not find work anywhere,” Butt said. He was released only after lawyers and activists gathered outside the station, and media, including Geo and BBC Urdu, began reporting on his arrest.
Harris Khalique believes the state has drawn red lines around certain topics, such as, enforced disappearances, the deportation of Afghan refugees, and legislative moves over land and minerals in the provinces.
In particular, enforced disappearances in Pakistan’s most marginalised province, Balochistan, remains an especially sensitive topic.
“We are the only organisation still documenting these cases across the country,” Khalique said.
According to the government’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, at least 10,565 people have gone missing in the country since 2011, when the Commission was formed, up until May. Activists place the numbers much higher.
In its 2024 annual report, HRCP called on the state “to eliminate the heinous practice of enforced disappearances, acknowledging that it constitutes a crime against humanity under international law.”
Despite the ongoing campaign against it, the HRCP says it will continue its work.
“The space for [dissent and free speech] is constantly shrinking,” Farah Zia said. “But we have to work regardless.”
In March, Pakistan’s army chief called for stronger governance and the transformation of the country into a “hard state”.
“I think the state is moving towards this goal of a hard state,” Butt said. “They do not want other narratives apart from theirs to be visible.”
The federal minister for law and justice and human rights, Azam Nazeer Tarar, and Punjab’s information minister, Azma Bokhari, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
