The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) Monday condemned the continuing arrest and detention of lawyers in Pakistan.
“It was claimed that the deposed Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, had been released from house arrest,” said Dr Phillip Tahmindjis, IBA Programme Lawyer. “However, when lawyers went to see him at his home last Tuesday they were prevented by the police from doing so and one of them, Athar Minallah, was later arrested without charge.”
The he IBAHRI is monitoring the situation to ascertain whether lawyers who supported the Chief Justice in their professional capacity are being particularly targeted.
IBAHRI had earlier sent a fact finding mission to Pakistan to investigate the first attempt of the Musharraf regime to oust Lord Chief Justice, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
The findings of the mission have since been published as an IBAHRI report titled “The struggle to maintain an independent judiciary: a report on the attempt to remove the Chief Justice of Pakistan”.
The complete report and its executive summary are available for download from the International Bar Association website.
Established in 1947, the London-based International Bar Association (IBA) is the world’s leading organisation of international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. t has a membership of 30,000 individual lawyers and more than 195 bar associations and law societies spanning all continents.
The IBA’s Human Rights Institute (HRI) works across the Association, to promote, protect and enforce human rights under a just rule of law, and to preserve the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession worldwide.
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