What Needs to be Done for Dr Afia Siddiqui’s Release

 

We need to be absolutely clear that the real issue here is the second set of allegations in which Aafia is victim, not accused. 

 

By remaining silent on that issue now, the whole world is allowing a victim tobecome accused. Since this has already become one of the most famous trials of the new century, a bad precedent in this matter is likely to affect the future of human rights for very long time and almost everywhere in the world. Time is of essence here, because it seems as if evidence is being destroyed very fast. 

 

The following steps may need to be taken without losing any further time: 

 

• Human rights groups in US should file petition in a US court to the effect that Aafia’s trial is unfair and should be dismissed. It needs to be dismissed immediately, and in any case latest by November 7, i.e., 40 days before the date which has been set for hearing whether or not Aafia is mentally fit to stand trial: there is reason to suspect that some foul play is going on which is likely to accomplish its ends by that date and evidence related to actual culprits will have been destroyed, possibly including memory of the victim herself.
•  
• Separately, a complaint should be lodged against culprits who victimized Aafia earlier, and a plea should be made for the recovery of her two missing children.
•  
• All peaceful and healthy means should be used for educating people in as many countries as possible about the AAFIA issue – especially the message that a victim should not be victimized and the meaning of justice should not be distorted.
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• Concerned citizens of the world need to explore whether there is a proper channel for taking up this issue beyond slogans, protests and demonstrations. If no such channel exists then it needs to be created.
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• If any rights group decides to make a separate committee for pursuing this case, then that committee should also look into the wider implications and related issues, and hence “AAFIA” might be a good acronym for ”Affirmative Action for the Freedom and Independence of All” (Aafia literally means comprehensive safety). Fresh grounds need tobe broken for safeguarding human rights in these new times. 

Terrorism is a serious threat which should not be trivialized the way it has been through the victimization of Aafia Siddiqui and her minor children. Genuine efforts being made against terrorism will also earn a bad name, if not fall flat on their face, if moral superiority is lost – and it will be lost if injustice in the case of Aafia Siddiqui completes its course. 

 

Protest for Release of Afia Siddiqui: Oct 29/ 2008

Wearing pink badges marked with No. 650, signifying the prisoner number of an unidentified woman in Bagram Jail, the relatives of missing persons on October 29/ 2008 gathered in front of Geo TV building in Islamabad for yet another peaceful effort to press for the release of their dear ones.

This time joined by a large number of civil society representatives, members of Jamaat-e-Islami and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, the speakers at the protest urged the government to halt all cooperation with the US till the release of all missing persons held in Pakistan and in other countries.

The protesters held placards demanding release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui and other missing persons and condemned former president Musharraf for selling Pakistani citizens to other countries. Representatives of Pakistan Professional Forum and common citizens were also part of the protest.

Describing her struggle to reach Prisoner No. 650, the British journalist, Ms Ridley said that prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and those who fled the notorious Bagram Jail confirmed the presence of a woman in Bagram who was brutally tortured and repeatedly raped. “The cries of a helpless woman used to echo in the jail that prompted prisoners to go on a hunger strike,” she said.

Marium, Ms Ridley’s Muslim name, said that “There are many Muslim women in the captivity of American forces and are in the same or even worse condition than that of Dr. Aafia,” she said adding that if public remained silent, they would lose their sisters forever. “I beg you to join in my struggle of finding prisoner 650.” She expressed disappointment over the insensitive attitude of the public towards the miserable condition of missing persons. She said that Taliban who were labelled barbaric and uncivilised gave her complete privacy in the prison. “No one used to enter my room without my permission,” she said.

Leading figure in the movement of missing persons, Amina Masood said that it was not difficult to imagine her misery, as she knew that her husband was alive but she was not allowed to even listen to his voice for the past three years. “If our relatives were sold to the American government then the present government should buy them back,” she said begging the leadership to end their ordeal.

She said that the government had promised to constitute a committee to look into the matter yet nothing practical had been done so far. “We do not want any committee, all we want is our dear ones,” she said adding that despite commitments made by the leaders in the government and opposition, the number of missing persons was continuously increasing.

Only a day before, Amina said that a mother of three daughters, Najma Bibi, was taken away by the agencies to an unknown place. She said that Pakistani government should make it clear to the American government that they could not be friends until all missing persons were released.

“The system of missing persons is causing great pain to the citizens of the country and is creating environment of distrust hence it should be completely eliminated,” she said with tears rolling down her eyes.

Crucial to Reform the ISI

http://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/jason-motlagh/contact

The fate of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and of stability in this neighboring country may depend to a great extent on efforts to reform Pakistan’s controversial spy agency, known in the past for “hunting with the hounds and running with the hares.”

US officials have long criticized Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for a dual policy of cracking down on Islamist militancy while supporting militant groups in Afghanistan and Kashmir and allowing al Qaeda and the Taliban to maintain sanctuaries in tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Some US intelligence officials have charged that the ISI was behind the July bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, which killed 58 people and wounded 141. A failed attempt by Pakistan’s new civilian government to bring the agency under the authority of the Interior Ministry later that month is cited as another sign of the agency’s intransigence.

However, some analysts say the ISI’s reputation as a rogue operation has been exaggerated. They also point to a recent shakeup of the military command aimed at bringing greater central control and transparency to institutions pivotal to the stability of Pakistan and its neighbors.

“The military leadership has come to realize that it needs to revive its public image, which has been severely damaged by its hand in politics and policies in the tribal areas,” said Khalid Rahman, director general of the Institute of Policy Studies in Islamabad. “They are looking to the government for guidance.”

The new head of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, replaces Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, a close ally of Pakistan’s former president, Pervez Musharraf, and a man whom U.S. officials claim was “double-dealing” with Taliban militants.

According to analyst and retired Gen. Mahmood Shah, of 21 generals in the military command, 14 have been denied promotion or “superseded.” Most were Musharraf appointees. The seven who were promoted are “known for their professional capabilities, not any political alignment,” Gen. Shah said. Ironically, the shift was in a sense initiated by Mr. Musharraf, who last fall appointed Gen. Ashfaq Kayani chief of army staff, long considered the most powerful office in the nuclear-armed country.

Gen. Kayani, who headed the ISI from 2004 until 2007, is the first ISI director to assume the top military post. Gen. Kayani has pledged to stay out of politics and is seen as cool, diligent and decisive. In December 2001, when Pakistan and India were poised for conflict, he kept a standoff from erupting into full-scale war. His choice to head up the ISI is also well-regarded. “Both men are very professional, experienced and thoughtful, with a good worldview,” said Shuja Nawaz, a leading analyst on Pakistani military affairs and author of the book “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within.”

The fundamental challenge that faces the Pakistani military today is to evolve from conventional warfare to a counterinsurgency approach that puts “brain ahead of brawn,” Mr Nawaz said. In a private meeting earlier this year, Gen. Kayani told Mr. Nawaz of the need for a “three-pronged strategy” combining military action, political incentives and economic development to tame areas beyond the state’s writ.

This made Gen. Pasha, a seasoned infantry commander who previously oversaw ground operations in the tribal areas, a logical choice to head the ISI. From 2001 to 2002, he took part in a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone, giving him post-conflict experience working with international partners that analysts say will prove useful in his new job.

Gen. Pasha must report regularly to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, to whom he affirmed his loyalty this week. Gen. Pasha will also deal directly with U.S. intelligence to curb cross-border militant attacks into Afghanistan and destroy safe havens on the Pakistani side, hostile terrain he knows well.

In many meetings with American officials, including six with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, the two top Pakistani generals reportedly have expressed a commitment to reform the military’s counterinsurgency strategy with help from elected leaders.

However, doubts persist among U.S. analysts over whether the ISI has actually kicked its habit of working at odds with the government to maintain assets within militant groups that have served Pakistan’s interests against India. “ISI continues, notwithstanding the efforts of many within the ISI to do the right thing,” to pose challenges, said a U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of his work. “Those challenges include associations between the ISI and bad actors in the region,” including the Taliban and other terrorist organizations, the official said.

Daniel Markey, a regional analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations and former State Department official, said the ISI must be seen as a vast bureaucracy in which there may be a “disconnect between what Gen. Kayani says and what people beneath him want.”

Bruce Riedel, a veteran South Asia analyst for the CIA and author of a new book, “The Search for al Qaeda,” says Pakistan “is the country most crucial to al Qaeda´s success” but has been “both a patron and victim of terrorism.” The ISI’s role is particularly troublesome, he says, noting that more al Qaeda terrorists have been killed or captured in Pakistan, which suggests that the ISI is playing a double game regarding Islamic militancy.

Mr. Riedel paraphrased Lawrence Wright, author of “The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,” as saying that “the ISI is in the business of hunting al Qaeda – a business that it never wants to come to an end.”

The agency first gained prominence for channeling CIA arms and funds to Islamic mujahedeen fighting to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1980s. It later supported the Taliban’s rise to power, and many insist it has continued to back the Taliban as a proxy against Indian interests in Afghanistan as well as Kashmir.

Prying the ISI from such links will require a broader regional approach, argue Barnett R. Rubin of New York University and Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. They recommend forming a contact group, authorized by the U.N. Security Council, to resolve disputes over Kashmir and over the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A Pakistani official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the U.S. has made serious mistakes in Pakistan’s tribal areas because of a “lack of good intelligence and too few operatives in the region.”

The official stated that rival tribal groups feed false information to U.S. forces, who then bomb innocent people instead of militants.

A U.S. defense official said that many times, sharing information with Pakistani intelligence can lead to information leaks within the tribal areas, “protecting the extremists and giving them time to escape any U.S. counterinsurgency strategy.” Mr. Nawaz argued that the ISI’s reputation as a state within the state is wrong.

Unlike the days of the anti-Soviet jihad, when the ISI operated “outside the orbit of the professional army” thanks to its income from the United States and Saudi Arabia, the agency has become totally dependent on the army for its budget, Mr. Nawaz said, meaning “there is nothing the ISI does that the government doesn’t want it to do.”

He conceded, however, that “weak spots” may remain in the form of ISI contractors and field operatives who over the years have dealt with Afghan Taliban without the agency monitoring their activities closely enough. These relationships will not be overturned overnight, he said while stressing the distinction between the Afghan Taliban – which to date has not been viewed here as a domestic threat – and the Pakistan-based Tehrik-e-Taliban, which has sown violence across the country.

Mr. Markey agreed that “clearing out the insides” of the ISI is bound to take time, even assuming the new leadership has the best intentions. “It’s more like turning a battleship around than turning a dime,” he said.

• Sara A. Carter contributed to this report from Washington

We Need Such Simplicity in Pakistan

Sharada Prasadji, do you need a ride?” The offer came through the window of a white Ambassador car. Place: the road leading from Rashtrapati Bhavan to Vijay Chowk in New Delhi. He was walking home. The occupant of the car: a lady who had just been sworn in prime minister of India. “Get in. I’ll get dropped at home and then have you dropped at yours.”

There was a driver and a security guard in the front. Indira Gandhi and her information advisor sat in the back. No cavalcade, no fuss. They reached the prime minister’s home on Safdarjang Road. The security guard got down to open the gate.

The car drove into the portico. But as it turned out, there was no one home to receive a newly sworn in prime minister. Sharada Prasad went around the house to call a servant. Mrs Gandhi stood in front of the door and kept clapping, “Arrey, koi hai?”

And so began Sharada Prasad’s memorable tenure at the Prime Minister’s
Office (PMO), as Indira Gandhi’s spokesperson and speech-writer. This was one of the innumerable such anecdotes Sharada Prasad would regale you with if he was in the mood. Those days were different, he would often say, with a tinge of sadness.

Azamgarh in India: It was primed to Tip-Over

Nearly 90 kilometres north of Varanasi lies Azamgarh, sitting on the same axis as Gorakhpur, Jaunpur and Mirzapur, a town founded by a Gautam Rajput prince who embraced Islam and took the name Azam Shah in 1665. Centuries later, Azamgarh once again faces a crisis of faith, in conflict with its past as well as the many identities that have sprung up over time. A town of poets, intellectuals, famed handloom weavers and merchants, it has now been branded by the “terror” tag—something reinforced with every shrill headline and soundbite.

In 1883, when the town’s greatest intellectual and a noted poet, Allahmah Shibli Nomani, founded an educational institution here, he appended the title ‘National’ in defiance of the British, two years before the Indian National Congress was formed. Today, at the Shibli National College, which serves as an intellectual fountainhead for the region, professors and students express anguish over the terror tag. “How long will we have to produce the proof of loyalty before people accept us for what we are?” wonders Dr Shababuddin, head of the Urdu department.

Nearly 30 kilometres away, in Saraimir block, lies the village of Beenapara which shot to infamy when a Gujarat police team drove in on August 14 in a Maruti van and picked up Abu Bashar. They took him back to Gujarat and produced him as the “mastermind” behind the Ahmedabad and Surat bombs. Bashar, like his father Abu Bakr, had studied at the famous Madrassa-tul-Islahi and the Deoband School before shifting to Hyderabad to work under his father’s teacher, the radical Maulana Abdul Alim Islahi. Maulana Abdul Alim had once authored a book with some rabid content, The Problems of the Defence Muslims, for which he was expelled from the Jamaat-e-Islami.

The Maulana’s influence, though, left a lasting footprint in Azamgarh and has helped fan some radical thinking. The maulana, who now lives in Hyderabad, lost his son Mujahid in an encounter with the Gujarat police and has since been a cause of concern for the more liberal yet devout in the community. While Bashar was in Hyderabad, teaching at a madrassa there, he travelled to several Indian cities giving lectures on Islam.

In Beenapara, Bashar’s partially paralysed father vehemently protests against the idea of his son being involved in any terror activity. His mother also speaks in his defence. Crippled after an accident in 1982, Shakira Bano laments that her dream of seeing her son become “a good Muslim” now lies shattered. “All our life we waited for him to grow up and earn a living and look after us… but look what we’ve got,” she says.

The family’s story is reflective of the two sides of Azamgarh that have uneasily coexisted for decades—one supportive of the Muslim hardline and the other the Hindutva agenda. The Saraimir block has seen the best and worst of it. From the late ’70s, the block saw an exodus of people to the Gulf in search of work. The place was transformed into a “mini Dubai” with imported electronic goods sharing space with other foreign goods unavailable in pre-liberalisation India, remembers Praveen Singh, once Azamgarh superintendent of police.

“How long will you cut our throats to test the sharpness of your blade?” — Iqbal Suhail, a popular Azamgarh poet

Predictably, the exodus facilitated easy transfer of money from the Gulf to Saraimir. As money transfers increased, so did the funding of small madrassas that managed to resist state intervention thanks to “friendly” politicians.

Soon, Saraimir block figured prominently on the ISI radar. “Spotters hung around looking for willing youth who could be coopted…they in turn would draw others into the terror network,” a senior intelligence official told Outlook. He points out that the agencies had specifics about terror funds coming in as either remittances from the Gulf or through hawala operatives.

Policing in Azamgarh has always been dismal. Since Independence, it has seen 63 SPs, most averaging less than a year in the district. This has led to the force being in constant disarray, which in turn has helped the cause of the underworld and terrorists. Praveen Singh has now returned to the region as IG, Varanasi range, which includes Azamgarh. He points out that the first person arrested under the lapsed anti-terror law tada, Abu Hashim, hailed from the area. But he hastens to add: “It’s wrong to say Azamgarh is a den of terror…but yes, there are links with the Bombay underworld.” And they are old links. To stress the point, Dawood Ibrahim’s in-laws continue to stay in Saraimir, and Abu Salem left town when he was 18 years old.

If the security agencies are to be believed, out of the 54 terror strikes in recent times (across the country), at least 44 are directly linked to Saraimir. Significantly, 17 of these took place in UP itself. According to additional DGP Brij Lal, who also heads the state’s Special Task Force (STF), Azamgarh’s baneful condition is “largely because of the poverty, illiteracy and ignorance…it’s easier to indoctrinate the illiterate, ignorant, impoverished man”.

But in a ripple effect, concerns now go beyond economic ones. Professor Nishat is one of the few women who teach in Shibli College. She’s worried about her two children and their education once they grow up. “The terror tag hurts us. It hurts our children more, who have no access to technical education here. For that, they’ll have to go to Bombay, Bangalore, Pune or Delhi. But when you label our children terrorists and kill them, how will we send them?” she asks.

Maldives National Elections Spring a Surprise

Under the regime of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the small island nation of the Maldives has suffered 30 years of repression through the use of patronage and subservience, coercive institutions of the State and systematic abuse of religion.

Human rights defenders, in particular, have been targeted and face brutality, torture and a muzzle on their freedom of expression.

As such, 8 October 2008 marked a significant day for the country as it went to the polls for their first ever multi-party elections.

The movement for reform began on 30 September 2003, when thousands of people took to the streets of the capital to demand a restoration of constitutional rights and freedoms.

The subsequent arrest of 200 protestors led to a number of human rights defenders having to leave the country and campaign for reform while in exile.

Since then, the issue of impunity in the Maldives has been well publicised and international attention has been placed on the reform initiatives.

Through pressure both within the country and external stakeholders such as the United Nations and European Union, Gayoom introduced his “Roadmap for the Reform Agenda” in 2006 which outlines a timetable of commitment to democratic reformed.

Unfortunately, it was not honoured and the slow pace of reform that often backslided has frustrated the nation.

Independent civil society in the Maldives did not exist in any real form until 2003, and even now it needs urgent strengthening and organising.

Prior to the reform movement, there was not a single rights-based NGO in the country.

Building independent civil society and strengthening human rights groups and institutions in the Maldives is of key importance if a meaningful democracy is to be put in place.

For this to occur, Maldives not only needs a progressive government in office, but also international cooperation and solidarity from human rights groups and intergovernmental organisations in order to play a monitoring role as well as to facilitate transfer of expertise and resources.

The stark reality of these elections was that traditional means of vote rigging and the deep-rooted patronage system could have led to the re-election of President Gayoom, who may not stick to his reform commitments. However, fortunately, it did not happen.

On October 29/ 2008, a former political prisoner swept to victory in the Maldives’ first democratic presidential election, vowing there would be no witch hunt after unseating Asia’s longest-serving leader. Supporters of Mohamed “Anni” Nasheed celebrated in the capital of the Indian Ocean atoll nation after he collected 54.21 per cent of the poll to 45.79 per cent for incumbent leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

“I don’t think we should go for a witch hunt,” Nasheed said at a joint press conference with Gayoom, whom he has accused of repeatedly torturing him in custody. “That will not happen because it will not help democracy.”

Nasheed, 41, said he wanted to move quickly to assure the international community that he would introduce more reforms, including media freedom, in the run-up to parliamentary elections due by February. Conceding defeat after the elections, Gayoom said he would give his “full support and cooperation” to Nasheed taking power. “I don’t like being beaten in sports. I don’t like being beaten in politics. But it is a fact of life that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. In that spirit, I accept this verdict of the people,” he said.

The Maldives, a liberal Sunni Muslim nation of 1,192 coral islands and some 300,000 people, has never held multi-party elections before.

Gayoom, 71, ruled the tourist paradise islands unchallenged since 1978 and over a period of six years repeatedly jailed Nasheed, a former Amnesty International “prisoner of conscience”.

Until a few years ago, anyone declaring an intention to seek high office would be banished to an uninhabited island. Thousands of Nasheed supporters drove around Male and embraced each other at a beachfront promenade where young people had camped for days to drum up support for his campaign. “This is spontaneous joy,” said one, Aishath Aniya.

Fathimath Niusha, a 27-year-old school teacher, said she was thrilled with the change of leadership. “I want to see how it will be under a new president,” Niusha said. “All my life, it had been under Gayoom.” Gayoom had failed to win an outright victory in the first round of voting three weeks ago, prompting a run-off against charismatic Nasheed.

On Nov 11, 2008,  Mohamed “Anni” Nasheed, 41, took his oath of office at a ceremony televised live from a convention centre in the capital island Male where he began his pro-democracy campaign in 1990 as a journalist for an underground magazine. He was in and out of jail for a period of six years under former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had led the nation for 30 years before he allowed democratic reforms and was beaten in an Oct 28 run-off election.

Nasheed has already hit the headlines with his idea to take out insurance in case the Indian Ocean atoll nation, a top luxury tourism getaway, is swamped by rising sea levels. A one-metre (3.3-foot) rise would almost totally submerge the country’s 1,192 coral islands scattered off the southern tip of India. Experts predict a rise of at least 18 centimetres is likely by the end of the century. “I don’t want Maldivians to end up as environmental refugees in some camp,” Nasheed told reporters at his first press conference after winning the election.

“We are talking about taking insurance — if the islands are sinking we must find highland some place close by. We should do that before we sink.” Nasheed told Britain’s Guardian newspaper that he had already broached the subject of finding a new homeland for Maldivians with several countries and found them to be “receptive.” India and Sri Lanka are targets because they had similar cultures and climates, while vast Australia was also an option.

Aside from global warming, Nasheed faces a host of other challenges as he begins his five-year term. There is a danger of civil unrest after decades of one-party rule under ousted president Gayoom, a need to release political prisoners and push through a series of promised reforms in the new democracy. “There should be no political prisoners in the Maldives,” Nasheed said. “That is clear and we will very quickly look into the cases of those who are being held.”

Indian Caste Politics

The deliberations of senior Indian politicians during the National Integration Council Meeting held in New Delhi on 13 October contradict India’s positions in international forums like the UN. The council of ministers who met in New Delhi this week resolved that the country will protect, at all costs, the foundations of secularism, equality, social, economic and political justice and fraternity among all communities. The meeting was held in the context of increasing violent incidents of religious and caste intolerance in India.

The above cited statement contradicts the view expressed by the Indian Government’s delegation at the UN. In a recent meeting held at the UN, India opposed the participation of national and international NGOs working against racial and other contemporary forms of discrimination. This includes caste-based discrimination in the forthcoming Durban Review Conference.

During the PrepCom meetings for the Durban Review Conference held in Geneva between 6-17 October, the Indian delegation vehemently opposed the accreditation of national human rights organisations like the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), Swadikar and the international advocacy group the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN).

India’s opposition was on the grounds that caste-based discrimination does not fall under the scope of the International Convention against Racial Discrimination (CERD.) The activities of the organisations, therefore, do not fall under the objectives of the Durban Review Conference as such. India ratified the CERD on 3 December 1968. This means that India is bound by the treaty obligation to prevent all forms of racial discrimination, both domestically and internationally. Ratification of the treaty also means that India is bound to promote the scope of the operation of the treaty and the further development of the jurisprudence associated with the treaty.

One such document that affirms that caste discrimination falls under the scope of the term ‘descent’ mentioned in Article 1(1) of the CERD is General Recommendation 29 issued by the CERD Committee in 2002. The General Recommendation categorically states “that discrimination based on ‘descent’ includes discrimination against members of communities based on forms of social stratification such as caste [emphasis added] and analogous systems of inherited status which nullify or impair their equal enjoyment of human rights….” The full text of the General Recommendation is available here. This position has been reaffirmed several times by the Committee, the latest being an examination of India in 2007, and report by the Special Rapporteur on racism.

The opposition to accrediting NGOs working on caste-based discrimination contravenes the voluntary pledge made by the country promising the promotion, protection and fulfilment of human rights and human values. The pledge was made during India’s contest to the UN Human Rights Council. Of specific relevance in this context is the part where India reiterates that it “will continue to encourage efforts by civil society seeking to protect and promote human rights.” A complete text of the pledge is available here.

The opposition however did not succeed. The NCDHR, Swadikar and the IDSN were accredited in the PrepCom session with support from the EU spearheaded by the French delegation. France, on behalf of the EU, argued that this form of discrimination does fall under the objectives of the Durban Review Conference. NGOs working on these issues should not be excluded on these grounds. One delegation even mentioned that this would be “discriminatory” and “against the spirit of the Durban Review Conference”. Several other states called for broad civil society participation. The discussion was broadcast live by the UN, of which a summarised text of the discussion is available here.

During the discussions in this meeting, India claimed that it is willing to engage in discussions with members of the civil society at home concerning issues that must be discussed during the Durban Review Conference. However, according to information at the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), no such consultations to date have not been formally organised by the Indian government. There has been no invitation to mainstream NGOs, working on caste-based and other contemporary forms of discrimination, to present their views in preparation for the Durban Review Conference.

India’s lack of interest in fostering international human rights mechanisms is further exposed by it’s refraining from promoting universally accepted norms at the domestic level. India has thus far not extended an open invitation to any of the mandate holders under the UN special procedure mechanisms. They have not responded to the questions put forward by the CERD Committee following the examination of India’s report in 2007, as otherwise required. This fact adds more credibility to the argument that India, like some other poorly performing member states in the UN uses international human rights mechanisms only for short-term political gains and discreditation of opposing states.
India desperately tries to portray an image of a state that promotes pluralism, equality and fraternity. In comparison to its immediate neighbours, like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, China and Afghanistan, India might be ahead on many fronts. However, the perpetual curse of India, from which most of its inequalities and double standards emanate, is the practice of caste.

A society that has its roots embedded in a caste system cannot easily move forward in ensuring democratic values. The meaning of democracy does not begin or end with an election – the concept of democracy implies much more. A caste system, on the other hand, is not only an impediment to democratic values but is also the legitimisation of inequality shrouded with religion. The mere signing of a human rights document or the making of pledges promising the protection and promotion of human values are of no use in ending discriminatory practices.

What India requires is a strong political will to neutralise this 3000 year-old inhuman practice. But this is what India clearly lacks. Opposing participation by the civil society in discussion forums is most certainly not the way to go forward.

India has thus far ”not extended an open invitation to any of the mandate holders under the UN special procedure mechanisms. They have not responded to the questions put forward by the CERD Committee following the examination of India’s report in 2007…”’
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UN CERD) in its recommendations critisised India for the ”de facto segration of Dalits” and the widespread impunity on violence against Dalits and Dalit women. See for all the relevant documents:

http://www.indianet.nl/india_and_un.html

The present situation regarding the orchestrated and polically motivated violence by Hindu extremist organizations against christians (who often are Dalits), also illustrate the utmost importance of international scrutiny and action regarding the human rights situation in India.

Two recent statements, pasted below, from the All India Christian Council, are only a few of the many voices in India from a broad range of civil society organizations that make clear that the present situation is quite alarming.

One of the most shocking elements of this orchestrated violence – in my view – is that a national party, including its supremo Advani, as the both at the national and state level (where they are in power) do not even formally condemn the violence but only point their finger at so-called forced conversions for which no proof is given. And of course: even if there were isolated ‘forced conversions’ it is never a reason for intimidation of and violence against a whole community. It is also far from reassuring that the response from the Central Government is quite weak.

The newspaper reports in the India about this week’s National Integration Council in Delhi (easily to find by googling) – were most political and many civil society leaders were present – also make abundantly clear how e.g. BJP Chief Minister’s just ignore the violence by only harping on the alleged conversions and the need to curb them.

For more background information also see: http://www.indianet.nl/antichristianviolenceorissa.html

Being Muslim in India Today

Not far from L18, in the posh part of Jamia Nagar, is a house on a tree-lined avenue that will always be home to me. But my life, with all its easy privileges, could not be more different from Atif and Sajid’s, the two young men shot as alleged terrorists at L18. I contain multitudes, Whitman so eloquently said. But we live in a time when even multitudes are forced to lay claim to a singular label. And so by writing this, perhaps, I will forever be labelled the voice of the liberal secular Muslim. A voice that is accused of not speaking up. Ironically, it is this very tyranny of labels that grants me this space in a mainstream national magazine.

As someone with a Muslim first name and a Hindu surname, I suppose I have always swung between labels – a poster girl for communal harmony or a confused, rootless individual, depending on who was doing the labelling. I went to a public school and have never worn a burkha. I might escape being thrown in the big cauldron with “Islamic Terrorists” but I will certainly be added to the one for “misguided intellectuals”. While there is no mistaking that it is zealous nationalists who seek to light the fire under the first cauldron, the other is a bone of contention between those who seek to define for me how to be Indian and those who seek to define for me how to be Muslim. My condemnation of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Imrana’s rape or the media circus around Gudiya will always be seen in the context of my privileged background, my gender, my religious identity. Perhaps, it can be no other way.

In this rhetoric of binaries of “us and them”, it is difficult to find the space to create a new paradigm of discussion. And so, in conversations that throw up Islamic terrorists, rigid religious beliefs, Pakistan and madrasas, the response is inevitably another set of questions – why is the Bajrang Dal not labelled a terrorist outfit, why is the growing public display of Hindu festivals like Navratras and Karva Chauth not considered rigid religious beliefs, why should Muslims in India be answerable for what goes on in Pakistan, what spaces other than madrasas are available for thousands of believing Muslims who choose to get educated and still retain their Muslim-ness. As a Muslim in India today, not only are you fighting to shrug off the label of fundamentalist- if not terrorist – but you are also succumbing to a paradigm of dialogue which has been set for homogenous communities with clear markers of identities.

But how does one fight that when shared cultural spaces, other than those created by the market, shrink? How does one speak of the diversity of being Indian when Diwali is celebrated in schools and Eid just in Muslim homes? How does one avoid a singular label for experiences that are diverse and yet have a common thread running through them – the experience of a tailor in Ahmedabad whose Hindu patrons have stopped giving work to, the butcher in Batla House who couldn’t get a bank loan, the software professional who will now have to watch every single byte that leaves his computer.

Being Muslim in India today means many things to many people. But how easy it is to forget that one fundamental reality. How easy it is to say, as someone said to me after the Delhi blasts – “These are all educated Muslims. Don’t they know that their bombs can also kill their own?” As if everyone with a Muslim name is a terrorist’s very “own”.

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saminamishra@gmail.com

13 Year Old Trained as a Suicidal Bomber

KHOST, Afghanistan October 20/ 2008 – Rohullah, 13, ran away from home in Gardez Province in southeastern Afghanistan to Miramshah in neighbouring Pakistan. Unwittingly he was drawn into a suicide-bombers’ cell, and trained to use explosive vests to kill Afghan and US forces. Arrested soon after re-entering Afghanistan, he is now in prison in Khost Province. From his cell Rohullah told his story:

“I had serious disputes with my parents on many issues and as time went by I felt I could not tolerate that, so I escaped and went to Miramshah. I bumped into an old man there whom I had seen in our village. He took me to his home and I stayed there for two nights.

“After that the old man introduced me to a middle-aged man [Shawkat] and asked him to take me to a Madrasah [an Islamic school with free board and lodging].

“Shawkat took me to a house where about 26 other boys – some younger and some older than me – were housed. Shawkat and other men were teaching us about Jihad, Islam and holy wars, and at night they were showing us films about the cruelty of foreign infidels to Muslims, the bombing of women and children, and the struggle by the Taliban.

“For six days I did not know why they were showing and telling us all those things. Then one afternoon Shawkat congratulated me and said that I had been selected for martyrdom. He also told me that after the martyrdom I would enter Heaven and would be remembered as a hero.

“Shawkat and two other men trained me how to use explosive vests. They also told me that I would earn more blessings from God if I detonated my vest in a crowded area and killed as many infidels as possible.

“The arrangement was: I should go to Khost [province] and do the suicide attack. Three weeks later I travelled to Khost and met an intermediary who was supposed to give me a suicide vest. I could not carry a vest with me because of the security checkpoints.

“But on my first night in Khost I was arrested [by Afghan intelligence forces]. I know I did wrong and I regret it. I miss my parents and my brothers and sisters. I wish I had never escaped from home.”

Abu Nidal was a CIA Spy

By Robert Fisk
Iraqi secret police believed that the notorious Palestinian assassin Abu Nidal was working for the Americans as well as Egypt and Kuwait when they interrogated him in Baghdad only months before the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Hitherto secret documents which are now in the hands of The Independent – written by Saddam Hussein’s brutal security services for Saddam’s eyes only – state that he had been “colluding” with the Americans and, with the help of the Egyptians and Kuwaitis, was trying to find evidence linking Saddam and Al Qaeda.

President George Bush was to use claims of a relationship with Al Qaeda as one of the reasons for his 2003 invasion, along with Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. Western reports were to dismiss Iraq’s claim that Abu Nidal committed suicide in August 2002, suggesting that Saddam’s own security services murdered him when his presence became an embarrassment for them. The secret papers from Iraq suggest that he did indeed kill himself after confessing to the “treacherous crime of spying against this righteous country”.

The final hours of Abu Nidal, the mercenary whose assassinations and murderous attacks in 20 countries over more than a quarter of a century killed or wounded more than 900 civilians, are revealed in the set of intelligence reports drawn up for Saddam’s “presidency intelligence office” in September of 2002. The documents state that Egyptian and Kuwaiti intelligence officers had asked Abu Nidal, whose real name was Khalil al-Banna, to spy for them “with the knowledge of their American counterparts”. Five days after his death, Iraq’s head of intelligence, Taher Jalil Habbush, told a press conference in Baghdad that Abu Nidal had committed suicide after Iraqi agents arrived at the apartment where he was hiding in the city, but the secret reports make it clear that the notorious Palestinian had undergone a long series of interrogations prior to his violent demise. The records of these sessions were never intended to be made public and were written by Iraqi “Special Intelligence Unit M4” for Saddam. While Abu Nidal may have lied to his interrogators – torture is not mentioned in the reports – the documents appear to be a frank internal account of what the Iraqis believed his mission in Iraq to be. The papers name a Kuwaiti major, a member of the ruling Kuwaiti al-Sabbah family, as his “handler” and state that he was also tasked to “perform terrorist acts inside and outside Iraq”. His presence in the country “would provide the Americans with the pretext that Iraq was harbouring terrorist organisations,” the reports say.

”Coded messages indicate that the Kuwaitis asked him indirectly to find out whether Al Qaeda elements were present in Iraq. Our conclusions were confirmed when he [Abu Nidal] started to mitigate his actions with irrational answers when asked about the data against him. He attempted to sidetrack his answers by not being specific and referring to historical matters. It was noted by the investigators that he went from short, ambiguous and unclear replies to generalities … he seemed perturbed … But once he became convinced of the weight of the evidence against him concerning his collusion with both the American and Kuwaiti intelligence apparatuses in co-ordination with Egyptian intelligence, he realised that his treacherous crime of spying against this righteous country had been exposed …”

Abu Nidal was no stranger to Iraq. He had operated from Baghdad, Damascus and the Libyan capital of Tripoli when the regimes wanted to use him as a “gun for hire”. It was Iraq which paid him to organise the attack on the Israeli ambassador to London, Shlomo Argov, in 1982, an attempted assassination which prompted Israel to accuse Yasser Arafat of responsibility and to begin its disastrous invasion of Lebanon, and Colonel Muammur Qaddafi later established a close relationship with Abu Nidal. In 1985, his crazed gunmen attacked Israeli-bound passengers at Rome and Vienna airports, killing a total of 18 people. His biographer Patrick Seale, who suggests that for some time Abu Nidal even worked for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, has written of how, when he feared treachery in his own ranks, a suspected spy would be buried alive, fed through a tube for days and then – if Abu Nidal’s “court” deemed death appropriate – a bullet would be fired down the tube.

His own interrogation at the hands of Saddam’s secret police, will therefore appear equally appropriate punishment for so cruel a man. Among the other crimes of which he was accused in the Iraqi intelligence report was the preparation of 14 booby-trapped suitcase bombs to be used on foreigners – Swiss and Austrian, according to the intelligence file – in the northern Kurdish area of Iraq, at the time a US-supported “safe haven”, and an attempt to recruit new members for his so-called Fatah Revolutionary Council among Palestinians wounded by the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza who were recovering in Baghdad hospitals.

There are some oddities in the report and some unanswered questions. It says, for example, that Abu Nidal originally infiltrated Iraq from Iran on a false Yemeni passport years earlier, but that this was facilitated by his own representative in Kuwait, named as Nabil Uthman. Abu Nidal was said to have communicated to Kuwait via coded messages sent through Lebanon and Dubai. The papers give his date of birth as 1939 – he is believed to have been born in Jaffa in what was then Palestine in 1937 – and state that he resided in Libya in 1984 but “had no links with the Libyan authorities”. He is also stated to have been imprisoned by the Egyptian security services for two months. The man who is said to have provided Abu Nidal with a “safe house” in Baghdad was interrogated in 2002 alongside the Palestinian and is named as Abdulkareem Mohammed Mustapha.

Could Abu Nidal really have entered Iraq from Iran, whose own intelligence services, would surely have questioned him? Could Abu Nidal have lived in secret in the Baathist state of Iraq without Saddam’s own mukhabarat finding him? And for how long was he interrogated? The documents give us no answers to these questions.

His end is, however, recorded bleakly. “Upon being asked to accompany those charged with guarding him to a more secure location to continue the interrogation procedures, he requested that he be allowed to change his clothes. On entering his bedroom, he committed suicide. Unsuccessful attempts were made to resuscitate him …” Nothing is known of the fate of Abdulkareem Mustapha, only that he was “submitted to court”. But we do know where Abu Nidal now lies.

”The corpse of Sabri al-Banna”, the final report concludes, “was buried on 29/8/2002 in al-Karakh’s Islamic cemetery [in Baghdad]. Until a final resting place is found, a marker designates the place of burial and it was documented on video as well as on still photographs as ‘M7’.” No “final resting place” for this savage man appears ever to have been found.—Dawn/The Independent News Service