Source: Asiatimes:
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar carefully crafted an opening speech boasting about the achievements of the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government since 2008. The speech made repeated mention of the catch-words “democracy” and “women’s rights”. Even drone strikes – or their purported illegality rather – surprisingly received a paragraph of attention. The freedom of the media is mentioned along with welfare programs such as the Benazir Income Support Fund.
This is progress no doubt, at least from one perspective, but the average Pakistani, had he attended the session, might have felt at least a bit confused and disillusioned. Many would have wondered whether the references to improvements in the situation of human rights made in her speech were about the same lawless country, where, according to Human Rights Watch, the “human rights situation deteriorated significantly in 2011”.