Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and former human rights minister claimed on Tuesday that during the PTI government, she was summoned to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters over a bill they had drafted regarding missing persons in Pakistan.
Speaking to a press conference at the National Press Club in Islamabad, she said that she has always taken a stand against enforced disappearances, adding that former prime minister Imran Khan had also wanted to table the bill.
“That very evening, I got a phone call asking me to show up at the ISI headquarters. I went and I told them, we have signed international conventions pertaining to this,” said Mazari.
She further said that once tabled, ‘invisible shadows’ attempted to change the clauses of the bill when it reached the interior committee.
شیریں مزاری کی اسلام آباد میں پریس کانفرنس#امپورٹڈ__حکومت___نامنظور #PakistanUnderFascism pic.twitter.com/6vKf1rTd5l
— PTI (@PTIofficial) May 25, 2022
“I then got those changes amended, and got the bill with the new amendments passed in the National Assembly,” she said, adding that she regretted that it got ‘disappeared’ on its way to the Senate.
“My position is very clear regarding enforced disappearances,” she said, adding that Imran had also voiced his opposition against enforced disappearances from the beginning, citing his visits to human rights activist Amna Janjua’s protests.
She said that the PTI had taken a stance against enforced disappearances in their manifesto, and would continue to do so in the future, adding that there are ‘so many powers’ that prevent bills from getting passed.
During the press conference, she also talked about her recent arrest on Saturday, when she was taken into the custody of police in Islamabad’s Kohsar region, which she called a case of “kidnapping and disappearance”.
