Shirkat Gah
New Garden Town
Lahore,
Pakistan


15 May 99

PRESS RELEASE:

Shirkat Gah strongly condemns Pir Bin Yamin's statement maligning some well-known human rights and women's rights NGOs in Lahore including Shirkat Gah. Unable to raise any concrete issues, the minister instead uses abusive and obscene language in his continuing malicious campaign to vilify the work of such organisations.

We believe the Punjab's Government intentions - as articulated by the minister's statements - are clearly malafide, and we reserve the right to take legal action. The campaign to malign NGOs serves the interests of anti-democratic elements who want to replace the rule of law and the checks and balances of a civilised society with a totalitarian regime. It is a move to forcibly silence all those who are doing no more than exercising their constitutional right to voice their opinions. This campaign is part of an ominous pattern that is becoming increasingly clear. The Supreme Court has been attacked, journalists have been abducted and arrested, and now the NGOs are being targeted.

We strongly object to the language being used by government representatives and to false and vicious allegations that such NGOs are working for "vested interests" and against Pakistan. Surely it is those who abuse, kill and maim women, who contravene the laws of this country with impunity and who incite people to violence, who are working for "vested interests" and against the interest of Pakistan.

While we certainly do not need this government to certify our nationalist credentials, just for the record, we would like to remind the government that successive governments of Pakistan have invited Shirkat Gah to help prepare policy documents. Shirkat Gah worked with the government of Pakistan to prepare the National Report for Beijing and the follow-up National Plan of Action for Women formally launched by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on August 14th 1998. Earlier Shirkat Gah helped prepare the National Conservation Strategy (adopted by the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government in 1992) and contributed to the 5 Year Plans besides other policy initiatives.

We demand that the government immediately put a stop to this criminal harassment and to statements that are designed to incite violence against human rights activists.

Khawar Mumtaz,

Coordinator,
SHIRKAT GAH


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