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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – An international human rights group has issued a global call to action to its supporters to urge the Pakistan government to take action over what it describes as hazardous smog engulfing the country’s second largest city, Lahore.

The move by Amnesty International, which has more than seven million members worldwide, is unprecedented.

“The air in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, is so toxic that people’s health and lives are in grave danger. Schools have been forced to shut down, respiratory illnesses are on the rise and people are having trouble breathing,” the call to action stated.

“On 13 November, the Air Quality Index in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, reached 556, far exceeding the threshold for ‘hazardous’ levels, which begins at 300. The government of Pakistan is assessing the air quality using measures not in line with international standards and so, people are not adequately warned or equipped as to how to protect themselves from the smog.”

“The government of Pakistan must act on its human rights obligations and take urgent action to protect people from the adverse consequences of poor air quality,” the notification stressed.

The “Urgent Action” call raises serious concerns about how the poor air quality poses a risk to the health of every person in the Pakistani city which has a population of more than ten million people.

“The government’s inadequate response to the smog in Lahore raises significant human rights concerns. The hazardous air is putting everyone’s right to health at risk,” Rimmel Mohydin, South Asia Campaigner at Amnesty International said Friday.

“The issue is so serious that we are calling on our members around the world to write to the Pakistani authorities to tell them to stop downplaying the crisis and take urgent action to protect people’s health and lives.”

For one in every two days this month, the air quality in the city has been classified as “hazardous” by air quality monitors installed by the United States Consulate in Lahore and the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative.

The Pakistan government have shut schools down on at least 3 days this month so far.

Urgent Actions are a campaigning tool that Amnesty International says it has used for decades to mobilise support internationally for victims of human rights violations and for prisoners of conscience. Previous subjects of Urgent Actions have included issues involving former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the last Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel, members of the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot, Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman falsely accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death for it.

(Photo credit: GNN Pakistan).