PAKISTAN: Nowshera police order transgender to vacate

PAKISTAN: Nowshera police order transgender to vacate the district

The district police of Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkha (KP) province has ordered the externment of the transgender community for an indefinite period. The order will affect more than 1100 transgenders who are scattered throughout the district.

Nowshera’s District Police Officer (DPO), a fundamentalist and extremist, issued the order of kicking out the transgender community from the district on July 16, two days after police officials of the city police station sexually abused seven transgender individuals in illegal detention. http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-092-2016

The DPO, Mr. Qari Wahid, was educated at the infamous Islamic Madressa (seminary), Haqqania, which is known for providing training to the Taliban militants and their leadership. The seminary teaches holy war for the establishment of an Islamic state in Pakistan. Leaflets were widely distributed in Nowshera, suggesting the local population to boycott all interactions with the transgender community, to not rent houses to them, and to immediately evict them from their homes. The leaflets further note that these directives have been issued on the orders of the DPO, and the police will support any such evictions and actions.

The reason for the police’s anger against the transgender community emerged after Blue Veins, an organisation working on transgender rights, complained to the Human Rights Directorate about the illegal detention and sexual abuse by the police of July 14. The Human Rights Directorate was established under the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights Act 2014, wherein any person can complain about rights violations by public officials. The Director of the Directorate has power equivalent to a high court judge.

When the Director summoned the Station House Officer (SHO) of City police station, Nowshera city, and enquired about the abuses of transgender on July 25, SHO Inspector Khalid revealed that a campaign against the transgender is strongly run by Jamat-e-Islami, a political party in the provincial coalition government. Khalid angrily noted that since the provincial government is behind the move against the transgender, why are the police being questioned about the illegal detention.

The next date of the Directorate hearing is August 7, when the police will file their reply to the complaint.

The police’s act of forcibly evacuating the transgender community and asking the local populace not to rent property to them is a direct violation of Articles 23 and 24 of Pakistan’s Constitution. The state’s discrimination against the transgender is a contravention of Article 25, which enunciates the state’s duty to ensure equality of citizens, regardless of their gender identity, faith and ethnicity. The state has no right to arbitrarily arrest any citizen, and harassing the transgender is both constitutionally and morally unwarranted.

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