'Limited' Pakistan progress on rights: US report
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Pakistan has made only limited progress in improving human rights with reports of thousands of disappearances despite US pressure on its wartime partner, the state department says.
In a report mandated by Congress, the state department assured lawmakers that the United States was vetting forces' human rights as it extends billions of dollars to the frontline nation in the battle against extremism.
In October, President Barack Obama's administration said for the first time that it had cut off training to several units after a graphic video emerged that appeared to show summary executions.
The state department, in the report completed in late November, said that Pakistan "has made limited progress in advancing human rights and continues to face human rights challenges."
"The state department continues to press military and civilian authorities in Pakistan, at the highest levels, to take serious and sustained action to eliminate extrajudicial killings, provide humanitarian access and investigate all cases of disappearances," it said.
The assessment, which was first reported yesterday by The New York Times, voiced particular alarm about Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan where a long-running insurgency — separate from the US-backed campaign against Islamic extremists — has grown more violent in 2010.
Non-governmental organisations "have reported thousands of disappearances, mostly in Baluchistan. Hundreds of cases are pending in the courts and remain unresolved," the state department said.
The state department also pointed to some progress, such as hearings by the Supreme Court of Pakistan into the missing in Baluchistan.
Amnesty International, in a report in October, called on Pakistan to investigate the alleged torture and killing of more than 40 political leaders and activists in Baluchistan.
Earlier in December, human rights Watch said that at least 22 teachers and other education professionals were killed by suspected militants in Baluchistan between January 2008 and October 2010.
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