Islamabad, Mar 13: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has said that Pakistan has suffered the worst violation of human rights, and therefore, it would adopt a zero tolerance policy on all unconstitutional acts.

According to the US State Department’s annual report, Pakistan went through acute political, economic and judicial turmoil last year, as the country grappled with terrorism, political instability largely resulting from a spate of unconstitutional acts of the last regime, collapse of important state institutions, food and energy shortages and judicial crisis.

“The atrocities in 2007 pale in comparison to what the country had to experience in the last eight years,” the Daily Times quoted the PPP Information Secretary, Sherry Rehman, as saying.

She said that a regime that had been formed through unconstitutional means could only be expected to commit further violations of human rights to perpetuate its rule.

“The regime imposed martial law in November and fundamental human rights remained suspended for a major part of last year. The media came under fire for its independent stand. It faced frequent clampdowns in the form of vague ordinances, suspension of transmission and confiscation of equipment,” the US State Department report said.

Rehman added that the 160 million people of Pakistan are suffering everyday due to terrorism, unconstitutional measures, and suspension of human rights laws for the last eight years in the country.

“We had a lame Parliament, a legislative system that rested on the shoulders of presidential ordinances, an over-empowered local Government, an intelligence agency that is answerable to none and an unaccountable head of the State that continued providing impunity to an inefficient and corrupt Prime Minister and administration,” she said.

Rehman said a non-representative and undemocratic political system could never be trusted to deliver on human rights. She observed that the State Department Report made a special mention of corruption that was rampant within the Government.

“The incoming PPP Government is strongly committed to the core fundamentals of human rights entitlements,” she said.

“We realise that we will have to start the process of humanising governance from scratch, it is our manifesto commitment to the nation,” she said.