Pakistan remains beneficiary of EU’s GSP+ scheme despite crackdown on protesters in PoK: Report

Islamabad, Aug 2 (SocialNews.XYZ) Pakistan has remained a beneficiary of the European Union's (EU) GSP+ scheme despite its security forces allegedly firing on peaceful protesters, imposing communication blackouts, conducting mass arrests and denying entry to journalists in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), a report has detailed.

While Pakistan was taking all these actions in PoK, the European Union was congratulating itself on the renewal of a trade system supposedly based on human rights, democratic governance, and the rule of law, according to a report in Stringer Asia.

According to a Joint Awami Action Committee member, more than 50 people have been killed and hundreds injured in PoK in recent days after Pakistani forces opened fire on protesters demanding political rights and electoral reform.

The exact number of casualties that occurred in PoK is difficult to verify as the Pakistani authorities imposed an internet and mobile communications blackout, restricted media access, and reportedly took away bodies from hospitals. Despite all this, Pakistan continues to remain a beneficiary of the EU's GSP+ scheme, the article said.

"This is not an incidental trade concession. GSP+ is formally described by the European Commission as a 'special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance'. In return for zero tariffs on a wide range of exports to the European market, beneficiary countries are required to implement international conventions covering human rights, labour rights, environmental protection, and good governance," it noted.

Approved in 2026, the revised plan is believed to have increased monitoring. However, Pakistan remaining a beneficiary of GSP+ demonstrates the difference between what the EU's policy instruments claim to be and what they actually are in reality, according to the report.

For years, Pakistan has portrayed itself as the protector of Kashmiri rights. However, when people in PoK raised demands for representative government, economic rights or an end to electoral manipulation, Pakistan, instead of engaging in dialogue, responds with arrests, information blackouts, anti-terrorism laws, accusations of foreign policy and firing on protesters.

"For the European Union, the importance of this reversal should be obvious. It is not encountering an isolated violation or a temporary emergency. It is confronting a system," the report said.

In a post on social media platform X on Saturday, JAAC member Sardar Umar Nazir Kashmiri said, “In the past 4 days, the forces have killed more than 50 of our people through brutal terrorism, and hundreds are injured…”

In a separate post, the JAAC said that late-night protests continued across the Muzaffarabad region in PoK, with people remaining on the streets, while demanding the protection of their fundamental rights and the implementation of commitments made by the local authorities.

The same structure is also seen in Pakistan's Balochistan, where incidents of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, secret proceedings and collective punishment have become a part of governance. On June 8, several human rights organisations and activists marked the 'Baloch Missing Persons Day', remembering victims of enforced disappearances in Balochistan while slamming the Pakistani security forces for arbitrary detentions, torture, and extrajudicial killings.

The decision to declare June 8 as Missing Persons Day in Balochistan was taken during a central committee meeting of the Baloch Students Organisation(BSO)-Azad in 2017 to raise awareness regarding the Pakistani authorities' brutal policy of enforced disappearances.

Source: IANS