The President

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As immigration attorneys representing refugees fleeing political persecution by the government of Pakistan we endorse the proposals contained in the January 8th letter sent to you by Congressmen Solarz Aspen Fascell and McCurdy. As these leading members of Congress pointed out there continue to be “almost daily reports of arrests torture murder rape and abuse directed against opposition leaders and supporters in Pakistan.

Our practice as immigration attorneys confirms in vivid detail the human rights concerns expressed in the January 8th Congressional letter. In the past two weeks we presented extensive documentation and testimony in the San Francisco immigration court by members and supporters of ousted Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (CPPP”) who were arrested and tortured at the hands of the president of the Pakistani government. Pakistani refuges who we represent testified in court to being stripped hung upside down from. the ceiling of interrogation cells beaten on the soles of their feet with wooden rods and whipped with leather straps until unconscious One refugee who we represent was threatened with death by a high-ranking member of the current government if he refused to renounce his affiliation with the PPP Another is under a current threat of death by a government official. (The San Francisco immigration court has granted political asylum status to these three refugees.)

In our extensive interviews with experts and with Pakistani refugees we have heard gruesome: stories of beatings confessions extracted through torture arrests on fabricated charges and murder. While our clients have been lucky enough to reach the shores of this country and to present their claims for political asylum before an immigration judge thousands are in hiding in Pakistan or remain in Pakistani jails facing the most brutal conditions.

International attention recently was focused on the Pakistani government because of the politically motivated gang-rape of Farhana “Veena” Hayat a well-known associate of Benazir Bhutto (The incident was reported on January 15-1992 in the well-respected India Today newspaper) According to India Today “Ms. Hayat described being repeatedly gang raped on November 27 by five masked men who admitted to her their Links with the current Pakistani coalition government. “The finger was further pointed at Irfanullah Marwat son-in-law of Pakistan President Ghulam Isaq Khan Coincidentally the rape came as the government of Sindh (a state in Pakistan) cracked down on PPP activists arresting more than 1200 According to the India Today report Hyats case is not an isolated one. At least two other PPP women activists have been raped in police lock-ups.

Both the continuing press reports and our experience as immigration attorneys prompt us to raise to you our concerns about human rights abuses in Pakistan. While U.S government officials recently raised human rights concerns to he government of Pakistan we believe stronger measures are urgently required. Earlier this month U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Teresita Schaffer leveled charges of human rights abuses in the government’s year-end review of the South Asian situation. Predictably the response of the Pakistani Foreign Ministry was to eject the charges a8 without foundation. India West January 17-1992.)

In the face of the horrifying and continuing human rights abuses committed by the government of Pakistan we support the proposal by Congressmen Solarz Aspen McCurdy and Fascell that United States” economic and military assistance to Pakistan be suspended because of our government’s in ability to issue Pressler amendment certification. While Pressler amendment certification expressly addresses the question of nuclear proliferation in South Asia it is appropriate at this time for “our government to address the pressing issues relating to human rights and democratic development in Pakistan that serve as additional obstacles to position relations between our two nations” January 8 Congressional letter.)

We applaud the efforts of Congress to bring these human rights concerto your attention and urge you to act with these fundamental issues in mind in establishing post-Cold War relations with the government of Pakistan

Jonathan DMelrod

Robert J. Jobe

San Francisco CA

Article extracted from this publication >> February 7, 1992