After the European Union and the United Kingdom, the United States has also raised concerns over the recent sentencing of 25 civilians by military courts for their involvement in the nationwide May 9 riots last year.<\/p>\n
The series of concerns come after a military court last week sentenced 25 PTI activists to imprisonment ranging from two to 10 years for their involvement in the May 9, 2023 riots, which broke out following the arrest of PTI founder Imran Khan.<\/p>\n
While the PTI \u201crejected\u201d the sentences, lawyers had also questioned the proceedings and the \u201cdisproportionately high conviction rate\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a post on X today, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: \u201cThe United States is concerned by the sentencing of Pakistani civilians in a military tribunal and calls upon Pakistani authorities to respect the right to a fair trial and due process.\u201d<\/p>\n
His post echoed a State Department statement released yesterday, which expressed \u201cdeep concern\u201d over the military court verdicts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese military courts lack judicial independence, transparency, and due process guarantees,\u201d the State Department asserted.<\/p>\n
Highlighting the right to a fair trial and due process \u201censhrined in Pakistan\u2019s Constitution\u201d, it called on the government to respect those rights.<\/p>\n
The statement came just hours after the UK\u2019s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) had echoed the same reservations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the UK respects Pakistan\u2019s sovereignty over its own legal proceedings, trying civilians in military courts lacks transparency, independent scrutiny and undermines the right to a fair trial. We call on the Government of Pakistan to uphold its obligations under the [ICCPR],\u201d the FCDO statement said.<\/p>\n
A day after the sentences were announced, an EU spokesperson had also described the verdicts as \u201cbeing inconsistent with the obligations that Pakistan has undertaken under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)\u201d.<\/p>\n
The EU spokesperson recalled that under the EU\u2019s Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+), beneficiary countries, including Pakistan, have voluntarily agreed to implement effectively 27 international core conventions, including the ICCPR, in order to continue benefitting from GSP+ status.<\/p>\n
The EU is Pakistan\u2019s second-largest trading partner, with the GSP+ arrangement contributing significantly to the growth of bilateral trade with Europe.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate reaction from Pakistan\u2019s Foreign Office to either of the statements from Western capitals.<\/p>\n
PTI\u2019s reaction
\nMeanwhile, the PTI \u2014 whose activists were among the men sentenced by military courts last week \u2014 backed the international community\u2019s apprehensions, calling them \u201cwell-founded and justified\u201d and expressing the fear that the move could further isolate Pakistan on the global stage.<\/p>\n
In a statement, PTI Central Information Secretary Sheikh Waqqas Akram said that the EU\u2019s concerns about the military courts\u2019 decisions were valid, warning that they could affect Pakistan\u2019s GSP-Plus status.<\/p>\n
He stressed that Pakistan\u2019s compliance with the ICCPR, which guaranteed due process and fair trials, was integral to its continued participation in the GSP+ scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After the European Union and the United Kingdom, the United States has also raised concerns over the recent sentencing of 25 civilians by military courts for their involvement in the nationwide May 9 riots last year. The series of concerns come after a military court last week sentenced 25 PTI activists to imprisonment ranging from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4115,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4113\/revisions\/4115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}