Protesting against enforced disappearances is not a crime: HRCP.

LAHORE -- The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said Friday that the recent sit-in by the Shia Missing Persons Relatives Committee in hopes of finding out what has happened to their family members has not produced a satisfactory response on the part of the state.

HRCP has also expressed its support for the families of missing persons from Karachi's Shia community, and said that foremost is the right to due process. While the police have claimed that five of the missing people were arrested on suspicion of 'anti-state activities, the Committee's rejoinder that the people in question are innocent of these charges, must be investigated fairly and transparently.

HRCP is alarmed by the crackdown against relatives of missing persons, in which at least 36 people were arrested on a wide range of charges from rioting to waging war against Pakistan. Although many...