Human Rights Watch ‘alarmed’ over Swat deal

Thursday, 16 Apr, 2009 | 12:14 PM PST |

Governor of Northwestern Frontier Province Owais Ghani signs a regulation to make Nizam-e-Adl, in Swat valley. —Reuters

ISLAMABAD: An international human rights group urged Pakistan to reverse its decision to enforce Sharia (Islamic law) in Swat in a peace pact with the Taliban, saying the deal threatens women and takes the region back to the ‘Dark Ages.’

Human Rights Watch said the government’s move amounted to granting the Taliban ‘de-facto administrative control of the Swat Valley’ and ‘presents a grave threat to the rights of women and other basic rights in the troubled region.’

The Taliban are ‘taking Swat back to the Dark Ages and the Pakistani government is now complicit in their horrific abuses,’ Ali Dayan Hasan, a senior South Asia researcher for the New York-based group, said on Wednesday.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari approved the agreement late Monday after lawmakers urged him to sign it.

There still remain many questions about the exact nature of the pact, including who will have final authority over the appointment of judges trained in Islamic law.

Defenders say the deal will drain public support for extremists who have hijacked long-standing calls in Swat for reform of Pakistan’s snail-paced justice system. But critics worry it rewards hard-liners who have beheaded political opponents and burned scores of schools for girls in the name of Islam.

The White House criticised the Pakistani move, saying it undermines democracy and human rights. Western officials also worry the valley will turn into a sanctuary for militants who may be involved in attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, a suicide car bomber attacked a police checkpoint in Charsadda, a town elsewhere in the northwest, killing nine police officers and seven civilians, said Riaz Khan, a senior police officer.

Bomb expert Hukam Khan estimated 330 pounds of explosives were used in the attack, leaving a huge crater.

The vehicle used in the attack came from Swat, said a senior intelligence official who requested anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media on the record.

‘We also found a video of a 14- or 15-year-old boy in a car not far away from the scene of the attack,’ the official said Thursday. ‘In that video, a boy was seen reading the Quran, and we are investigating whether he was the attacker.’

Critics of the Swat deal doubt that the militants’ ambitions end at the valley’s borders. In recent days, the Swat Taliban staged a foray into the neighbouring Buner district, clashing with residents there.

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