ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A major human rights report on Pakistan painted a dismal picture on Thursday of increasing state abuses, high crime levels, rising religious extremism and among the worst social conditions in the world.
"We don't see the direction of how we are going to come out of it," I.A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), told a news conference. "The situation is certainly deteriorating."
The annual report of the independent body was deeply critical of the military government's determination to stay in office for two more years, saying its plans to create a new political leadership to take over showed little likelihood of success.
"The vacuum created by the military regime's strategy of discrediting and sidelining political parties and their leaders was ideally suited to the orthodox (Muslim) clergy, and its militant formations took little time to move into the space left behind as political parties were pushed away," said the report.
It said members of the Ahmadi sect, an offshoot of Islam termed heretical by the authorities, and private organisations -- especially those helping women -- were targeted by radical Moslem religious leaders.
"The fact the authorities stood by as silent spectators indicated clearly that they were in fact colluding with the extremists against those peacefully, and lawfully, practising their beliefs or undertaking development work aimed at uplifting communities," the report said.
HRCP said it was ominous that even a military regime had failed to reduce crime, which included 109 known explosions and rising rates of violence against women. In just one of Pakistan's four provinces, there were 315 known "honour" killings of women accused of violating acceptable behaviour.
AWASH IN GUNS
"It is impossible for anyone to miss the two main factors directly contributing to crime -- the glut of illicit arms in the country and the progressive degeneration of the police system," said the report.
In Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province alone authorities had licensed two million weapons, it said. Many more are held without licences and copies of weapons manufactured by hand in the area sell for as little as $17 for a revolver or about $65 for an AK-47 automatic rifle.
"The public knew of the dangerous proliferation of arms from the nature of deadly weapons used by law-breakers, from modern automatic rifles to rockets and missiles, and from the facility with which sophisticated weapons could be delivered at one's door in any part of the country -- for purchase or hire," it said.
This situation comes against a backdrop of statistics showing a grim performance in most areas of human development and little investment to reverse the picture.
"Even the official figures make Pakistan one of the most illiterate countries in the world," said Kamila Hyat, joint director of HRCP. The government reports 47.1 percent literacy.
HRCP said only 27.5 percent of school-age children in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, were in school. In the Punjab, the most populous province, 45 percent of schools had no proper building and more than 20,000 teachers existed only on paper.
Figures in health were no better, with infant mortality at 91 of every 1,000 births, 80 percent of dentistry done by "quacks" and 4.5 million drug addicts among Pakistan's 140 million people.
"Pakistan's health care expenditure as a percentage of its gross domestic product, averaging 0.9 percent over the last decade, continues to lag behind almost every country in the world, including Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Haiti," the report said.