Human Rights Violations during Military Rule of General Zia ul Haq

Noor Ullah Khan1

Abstract
This paper studied the human rights violations during the dictatorial regime of
Zia ul Haq in Pakistan. The paper examined the Zia government in historical
perspective in order to scrutinize his process of Islamization and to know how and
why he used the Islam as a political tool. He also used it for the introduction of laws
based on the gender-discrimination which seriously weakened women rights. The
paper also examined the Law of Evidence, Zina and Hudood ordinances and their
inflexible and archaic rules that govern morality and sexual behaviour under Pakistani
laws. It also brought to the lime lights the problems and difficulties faced by the
female rape victims, in getting justice. The paper also explored the women‟s and
feminist resistance in Pakistan against the gender discriminatory laws. The resistance
strategies and techniques were adopted by organizations for women‟s rights in
Pakistan.

Keywords: Pakistan legal system, human rights, hudood ordinances, qisas and
diyat ordinances, qanoon-e-shahadat, zina-bil-jabr,