Discrimination Against Gay Refugees

Refugees and asylum seekers face a host of challenges when crossing borders, but the obstacles are particularly pronounced for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex (LGBTI) persons, say experts.

“LGBTI asylum seekers and refugees face a range of threats, risks and vulnerabilities throughout the displacement cycle,” director of international protection at the UNHCR said in Geneva.

“And while the world has come a long way since first recognizing asylum claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the 1980s, residual factors ranging from criminalization to disbelief result in LGBTI people suffering at the hands of a variety of actors as they flee oppression and seek safety,” he said.

A new edition of the Forced Migration Review (FMR) released on 29 April [ http://www.fmreview.org/sogi/ ] highlights many of the remaining challenges for LGBTI migrants and asylum seekers.

According to UNHCR, targeting people based on real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity for persecution, discrimination, and harassment can stem from the belief that they are encouraging unwanted or unnatural social change [ http://www.unhcr.org/505c18af9.html ].

LGBTI people leave home for the same reasons as everyone else: to flee war, persecution, and oppression; to seek stability, education, employment, and freedom. In situations of upheaval or conflict, sexual and gender minorities have become targets for scapegoating [ http://www.hias.org/uploaded/file/Invisible-in-the-City_full-report.pdf ] or “moral cleansing” campaigns [ http://www.hrw.org/news/2006/01/11/nepal-police-sexual-cleansing-drive ], compounding the inherent vulnerability created by unrest, activists say.

LGBTI persecution

LGBTI people experience torture, violence, discrimination, and persecution in countries around the world, sometimes deliberately carried out by the state and often conducted with impunity.

Homosexual acts are punishable with the death penalty in five countries (Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen), as well as some parts of Nigeria and Somalia, the International Lesbian and Gay Association [ http://old.ilga.org/Statehomophobia/ILGA_State_Sponsored_Homophobia_2012.pdf ], the oldest and only membership-based LGBTI organization in the world, reported in 2012.

According to research by Human Rights Watch [ http://www.hrw.org/reports/2010/12/15/we-are-buried-generation ], gay Iranians [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/25296/IRAN-IRAN-Activists-condemn-execution-of-gay-teens ] are fleeing, frequently to Turkey, due to the state-sponsored persecution they face at home, while thousands of LGBTI people have sought international protection in Europe in recent years on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity [ http://www.rechten.vu.nl/nl/Images/Fleeing%20Homophobia%20report%20EN_tcm22-232205.pdf ].

And while few countries keep LGBTI-specific data, Norway and Belgium [ http://www.rechten.vu.nl/nl/Images/Fleeing%20Homophobia%20report%20EN_tcm22-232205.pdf ], which both track asylum decisions based on sexual orientation and gender identity, have shown a steady uptick in recent years.

From 2008-2010, LGBTI asylum decisions in Belgium increased from 226-522. During the same period in Norway they increased from 3-26.

But information about abuses against LGBTI people – called “Country of Origin Information” (COI) in the asylum process – can be scant in hostile countries, argued Christian Pangilinan, a Tanzania-based refugee lawyer cited in the Forced Migration Review [ http://www.fmreview.org/sogi/pangilinan ].

For transgender people, COI can mislead agencies, such as in Iran where authorities “allow transsexual surgery as a forced method of preventing homosexuality rather than supporting trans identities,” according to a gender expert’s FMR chapter [ http://www.fmreview.org/sogi/bach ].

Crossing borders of geography and identity

The multiple document checks migrants might encounter can be particularly difficult for transgender or gender-variant people. While international standards for travel documents officially recognize three genders – marked M, F, or X – [ http://www.icao.int/Security/mrtd/Pages/default.aspx ] only a handful of countries have incorporated the third category [ http://www.law.emory.edu/fileadmin/journals/eilr/26/26.1/Bochenek_Knight.pdf ], meaning that high-security travel environments, such as airports or emergency residential camps, can threaten humiliation or exclusion to people whose gender identity or expression is different from what is indicated by their documents [ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1926681 ] [ http://www.worldwewant2015.org/node/283239 ].

Sexuality and gender are nuanced personal matters. According to research by psychologists [ http://www.fmreview.org/sogi/shidlo-ahola ], some individuals may have had limited experience expressing or experiencing his or her deeply-felt sexual orientation or gender identity, and may outwardly appear very different than how he or she feels – to the extent of even being in a heterosexual relationship.

With the asylum process taking increasingly extended periods of time [ http://www.unhcr.org/4381c5832.pdf ], some may start the migration or asylum process with one identity, and change over time, complicating the matter both personally and administratively and exposing the individual to further discrimination or ill-treatment [ http://www.rechten.vu.nl/nl/Images/Fleeing%20Homophobia%20report%20EN_tcm22-232205.pdf ].

UNHCR’s guidelines for claims to refugee status based on sexual orientation and gender identity take the progressive step of acknowledging that “sexual orientation and gender identity are broad concepts which create space for self-identification” which may”continue to evolve across a person’s lifetime” [ http://www.refworld.org/docid/50348afc2.html ]. Nonetheless, according to UN Office of Drugs and Crime guidelines, discriminatory attitudes regarding sexual orientation and gender identity can mean the credibility of LGBTI people is dismissed by authorities [ http://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Prisoners-with-special-needs.pdf ].

That no one should be compelled to hide, change or renounce his or her identity in order to avoid persecution is a central tenet of refugee law, and this applies to sexual orientation and gender identity on equal footing with other claims.

There is no space for decision-makers determining refugee status to expect them to conceal who they are.

Safety and security

“There is harassment in the camp against us, sometimes beatings,”said Yoman Rai, a 19-year-old Bhutanese refugee living in a camp in Nepal. “We have a protection unit and complaint mechanism, but we are still facing problems,” he said, adding that just last month a transgender woman was beaten by other people in the camp.

Security in refugee camps is complicated and contingent on numerous, unpredictable factors. For members of the LGBTI community, vulnerabilities are exacerbated. Sexual abuse is common, but often goes unreported because the right questions are not being asked, and because survivors of sexual violence are reluctant to report [ http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?docid=5006aa262 ] events that will “out” them to legal authorities.

Explained Rai: “Many Bhutanese are not `out’ to anyone except for the outreach workers because they still believe being LGBTI will put them in danger and negatively affect their resettlement process,” [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/91459/NEPAL-Resettlement-of-Bhutanese-refugees-gathers-momentum ] adding that the outreach educators’ network was operated by a Nepalese LGBTI rights NGO.

Emergency shelter settings -such as relief camps or refugee housing- pose specific challenges for transgender people. Access to male-female gender-segregated facilities, such as dormitories or bathrooms, can be perilous [ http://www.odihpn.org/humanitarian-exchange-magazine/issue-55/making-disaster-risk-reduction-and-relief-programmes-lgbtiinclusive-examples-from-nepal ]. New research is exploring how immigration detention centres can respect and protect LGBTI residents, a US-based prisons expert explained in FMR [ http://www.fmreview.org/sogi/fialho ].

For LGBTI migrants who end up in urban areas, research has shown that cities can be unwelcoming and unfamiliar and access to basic social services limited by scant local resources, exclusion of foreigners, or limitations to access including finances, language, and cultural barriers. [ http://www.hias.org/uploaded/file/Invisible-in-the-City_full-report.pdf ]

“The single most threatening factor for these migrants is isolation,”said Neil Grungras, executive director of the Organization for Refugee Asylum and Migration (ORAM) [ http://www.oraminternational.org/ ], a leading advocacy group for refugees fleeing persecution due to sexual orientation or gender identity.

With UNHCR data showing the average major refugee situation lasting 17 years, these circumstances can impinge on a significant portion of an individual’s life [ http://www.unhcr.org/4444afcb0.pdf ].

Migrant populations are generally more at-risk for HIV due to disruption and displacement [ http://www.unhcr.org/4ef3056d9.html ], and according to UNAIDS are often overlooked in host-country HIV policies [ http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/dataimport/pub/briefingnote/2007/policy_brief_refugees.pdf ].

“It is critical that refugee organizations identify what the best ways of offering protection are, such as providing access to safe shelter, requesting expedited resettlement, and, if possible, working with the police and refugee communities to address specific threats of violence,” said Duncan Breen, a senior associate in the refugee protection programme at Human Rights First.

Evolving frameworks

Recent UN reports [ http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40743#.UX8oC7Xkvzw ] and statements [ http://www.iglhrc.org/content/un-ban-ki-moon-condemns-homophobic-laws ] demonstrate increased international attention to the human rights of LGBTI people.

On the programme level, agencies have begun to adjust to include considerations of sexual orientation and gender identity.

For example, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is implementing a “safe space” project for refugees at its four US Refugee Admissions Program Resettlement Support Centers.

Jennifer Rumbach, IOM resettlement support centre manager for South Asia, told IRIN the programme is designed to help LGBTI refugees at “every step along the way – whether during counselling, interviews, orientations, travel, or post-arrival.

“Disclosing sexual orientation and gender identity overseas works to the refugees’ benefit because it ensures we can provide appropriate and respectful services, ask questions that are critical to their resettlement experience, and try to get them any special help they need while they wait to be resettled,” she explained.

But ORAM’s Grungras warned:”We have to be extra careful to talk with refugees and migrants on their own terms – to understand them as they understand themselves, and not label them as”LGBTI” just because it fits our programmes.”

In spite of challenges such as a dearth of respectful terms used in some languages referring to sexual and gender minorities, IOM’s programmes also attempt to engage with local terminology.

“While it’s important for staff to understand sexual orientation and gender identity terms used by the international community, we make special efforts to use relevant and respectful local terminology in our signs, handouts and interview and counselling scripts,” said Rumbach.

Supporting and protecting LGBTI people as they migrate requires nuance, sensitivity, and an appreciation of evolving identities, legal frameworks, and programmatic potential.

Profession: Mom

A woman, renewing her driver’s license at the County Clerk ‘s office,
Was asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation.

She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.

“What I mean is, ” explained the recorder,
“do you have a job or are you just a …?”

“Of course I have a job,” snapped the woman.

“I’m a Mom.”

“We don’t list ‘Mom’ as an occupation,
‘housewife’ covers it,”
Said the recorder emphatically.

I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself
In the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall.
The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised,
Efficient, and possessed of a high sounding title like,
“Official Interrogator” or “Town Registrar.”

“What is your occupation?” she probed.

What made me say it? I do not know.
The words simply popped out.
“I’m a Research Associate in the field of
Child Development and Human Relations.”

The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in midair and
Looked up as though she had not heard right.

I repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words.
Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written,
In bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.

“Might I ask,” said the clerk with new interest,
“just what you do in your field?”

Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice,
I heard myself reply,
“I have a continuing program of research,
(what mother doesn’t)
In the laboratory and in the field,
(normally I would have said indoors and out).
I’m working for my Masters, (first the Lord and then the whole family)
And already have several credits (all sons).
Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities,
(any mother care to disagree?)
And I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it).
But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers
And the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money.”

There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk’s voice as she
completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.

As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career,
in the child development program,
testing out a new vocal pattern.
I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy!
And I had gone on the official records as someone more
distinguished and indispensable to mankind than “just another Mom.”
Motherhood!

What a glorious career!
Especially when there’s a title on the door.

Does this make grandmothers
“Senior Research associates in the field of Child Development and Human Relations”
And great grandmothers
“Executive Senior Research Associates?”
I think so!!!
I also think it makes Aunts
” Associate Research Assistants.”

Blowing Off Penis & Testicles of Rapists

The Rambo Granny of Melbourne, Australia

Gun-toting granny Ava Estelle, 81, was so ticked-off when two thugs raped her 18-year-old granddaughter that she tracked the unsuspecting ex-cons down… And shot off their testicles.

“The old lady spent a week hunting those men down and, when she found them, she took revenge on them in her own special way,” said Melbourne police investigator Evan Delp.

Then she took a taxi to the nearest police station, laid the gun on the sergeant’s desk and told him as calm as could be: “Those bastards will never rape anybody again, by God.”

Cops say convicted rapist and robber Davis Furth, 33, lost both his penis and his testicles when outraged Ava opened fire with a 9-mm pistol in the hotel room where he and former prison cell mate Stanley Thomas, 29, were holed up.

The wrinkled avenger also blew Thomas’ testicles to kingdom come, but doctors managed to save his mangled penis, police said. “The one guy, Thomas, didn’t lose his manhood, but the doctor I talked to said he won’t be using it the way he used to,” Detective Delp told reporters.

“Both men are still in pretty bad shape, but I think they’re just happy to be alive after what they’ve been through.”

The Rambo Granny swung into action on August 21 after her granddaughter Debbie was car jacked and raped in broad daylight by two knife-wielding creeps in a section of town bordering on skid row.

“When I saw the look on my Debbie’s face that night in the hospital, I decided I was going to go out and get those bastards myself  ’cause I figured the Law would go easy on them,’ recalled the retired library worker.

“And I wasn’t scared of them, either – because I’ve got me a gun and I’ve been shootin’ all my life. And I wasn’t dumb enough to turn it in when the law changed about owning one.”

So, using a police artist’s sketch of the suspects and Debbie’s description of the sickos, tough-as-nails Ava spent seven days prowling the wino-infested neighbourhood where the crime took placetill she spotted the ill-fated rapists entering their flop house hotel.

“I knew it was them the minute I saw ‘em, but I shot a picture of  ‘em anyway and took it back to Debbie and she said sure as hell, it was them,” the oldster recalled…

“So I went back to that hotel and found their room and knocked on the door, and the minute the big one opened the door, I shot ‘em right square between the legs, right where it would really hurt ‘em most, you know. Then I went in and shot the other one as he backed up pleading to me to spare him.

Then I went down to the police station and turned myself in.”

Now, baffled lawmen are trying to figure out exactly how to deal with the vigilante granny.
“What she did was wrong, and she broke the law, but it is difficult to throw an 81-year-old woman in prison,” Det. Delp said, “especially when 3 million people in the city want to nominate her for Mayor.”

Eyptian Women in Reverse Gear

One angry woman with a bleeding mouth and eyes streaming from the tear gas pulled off her headscarf and stood yelling at the other side, the supporters of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood: “You are not Islam! You are not Egypt! Where is my freedom?”

So go most Fridays in Cairo over the past few weeks as liberal Egyptians have shown their virulent opposition to the president, Mohamed Morsi, as he has awarded himself new powers and pushed through a deeply contentious new constitution. Several buildings of the Muslim Brotherhood, the group behind Morsi, have been burned.

In post-Arab spring Egypt the revolution continues. But it’s women of all classes who have found themselves most alienated – written out of the jostling for power and subjected to a skyrocketing number of sex assaults, rapes and harassment.

Women who stood shoulder to shoulder with men during the 2011 Tahrir Square protests that brought down Hosni Mubarak found their position in society undermined almost immediately.

The parliamentary quota for women was removed without debate and a promised female vice-president failed to materialise, amid what political commentator Moushira Khattab called “a radical anti-feminist sentiment”.

Morsi threatened but stopped short of decriminalising Egypt’s practice of female genital mutilation, carried out on almost three-quarters of Egyptian girls, making it clear he would not tackle an issue he called “a family matter”.

The new constitution has swept away recognition of women’s rights and left the door open to the legalisation of perhaps Egypt’s most crippling social issue – underage marriage. Draft legislation that would allow the legal age of marriage to be lowered from 18 to 13 has been drawn up while clerics within the Muslim Brotherhood have indicated that marriage at the age of nine for girls is acceptable.

“They see women as, number one, objects of sex and, number two, to clean their floors. This is what the Egyptian ‘brotherhood’ is all about,” said Fatma, 24, an engineering graduate marching with her friends, some in burqas, some in headscarves. The women keep close together, arms linked and eyes alert for the men flying down the side of the demonstration on motorcycles grabbing and screaming at females. “They want to marry us at nine years old. Are these really the kind of men we want to run our country? Paedophiles?”

Political progress has been slow, with parliamentary elections scheduled for April now postponed with no new date. Frustrations have built.

“They are like a pack of dogs, tearing out the weakest first, raping and harassing the women and the girls, getting rid of them, and then fighting among themselves to be pack leader,” said Aya Kadry, 62.

Around Cairo hundreds of tower blocks are being built, extending the Arab world’s largest city leg by leg into the desert. This is where the vast majority of Egypt’s women are already living the constrained lives that the educated and middle-classes fear will be imposed by a radical government. Child marriage is common, the norm among the poor. Doctors are bribed to sign documents asserting a 14-year-old is 18 but most people don’t have the money so marriages go ahead without registration. Underage girls then have children who, essentially illegal, cannot have their births registered. Without papers those children cannot attend school, encasing a whole new generation in poverty.

In the poor district of Ezbet Khairallah 10 women are sitting around a metal cash box, holding the weekly meeting of their savings and loans group.

“We do not really have time to talk to our neighbours, there is a great burden of things to do in the home and for some of us our husbands do not like us to go out of doors, although we have convinced them we should meet for this social fund because it will help all the family,” said Seham Ahmed, 38, who is taking the opportunity to show the group how to make a basic liquid soap.

“I was married at 14,” she said, thumping a stick round a battered bucket and most of the women around her nod. “Pulled out of school one day and married that night. I hope my daughters can wait a little while but it’s quite difficult for girls who are not married at an early age to find a good man later and there is a lot of pressure. And fathers want girls gone because it is one mouth less to feed.”

Asmaa Mohamed Fawzy is 21. She was engaged but her family allowed her to break it off when her best friend died in childbirth aged 16. “I liked having the ring but I was only 15 and didn’t know any better. When Aya died it was a miserable tragedy and I’m lucky that my mum agreed with me I should not get married. I get teased and bullied. They shout I am not pretty enough, why am I the ugly one, but I do not want to die or to have children who cannot go to school. It is probably too late for me now and I’m sad I won’t have children.”

Her mother, Naghzaky Abdalla, 47, also endures being shunned by her neighbours. “When her friend died I too made up my mind. We only have one so we can afford to protect her. A neighbour had died at 15 of bleeding: the doctors wouldn’t treat her because she was married illegally and they don’t want to get involved. The girls’ bodies are not ready for childbirth and they are not ready for sexual relations which make their husbands impatient with them.

“Three girls in our street stay indoors now for ever because their husbands divorced them. If they cannot prove they were married and they are not virgins then they cannot get married again so they are shunned. Many are divorced because of course these girls are too young to understand what marriage means, she is still a child. In our community, though, a girl should be married before she is 16, maximum.”

Mrs Gihan, 45, a community activist with strong views, is fervently for the lowering the age of marriage to 13 in law. “We must do this,” she said. “Because all the unregistered children who cannot go to school need to be helped. These girls are denied healthcare, their children are denied a future. They have already decreased the legal age of work from 14 to 12 and I think this age too should be lowered. When Mubarak listened to international pressure and raised the age to 18 it changed nothing here. If you decree a legal age then you simply criminalise and marginalise. Men leave their wives before they turn 18 and their children are seen as being born into prostitution. We will raise awareness and stop child marriage this way.”

The stench of human waste coming from the river in another poor Cairo district, Manial Sheiha, is overpowering. The streets of packed earth are quiet with only children to be seen.

Nawal Rashid opens her door but remains on one side of the deep concrete threshold that she cannot cross – or allow visitors to cross – without her 70-year-old husband’s permission. He is at work. Her three-year-old son plays behind her and she insists she married at 18 – which makes her 21 now – but her neighbours all say she was 14. “I accepted the older man to help my family as there were four other children and my parents are very poor. I am quite content and happy to have sacrificed myself for my family.”

Next door is Etab, 19. She has two children and has returned to stay with her despairing mother Nearnat, 42, her ageing father and her three siblings.

“We thought by marrying her we would get her a better life,” said Nearnat. “Now she is divorced because he was a bad man. She refuses to get married again because then her ex-husband would take the children and now her younger sister is begging me not to go ahead with her marriage. I regret that my daughter was married young because now if she leaves the house her reputation will be ruined. The community all tease me.”

Outside in the street a group of young men explain why they want to marry young brides. “Children need to have their rights but also you want to marry a girl who is much younger so she will stay young and beautiful when you are old. Also you can control her better and make sure she is not one of these girls who goes around wanting to be harassed,” said Abdel Rahman, 17. His friend Youssef, 20, agrees. “There are many girls who just want to be harassed, walking around in the streets with their eyes uncovered.”

Mona Hussein Wasef, 26, says that we were in Tahrir Square, side by side, men and women, educated and uneducated, rich and poor. Never have I felt so much solidarity. I was Egypt, we were all Egypt, fighting for freedom, shoulder to shoulder,” she said. She is too fearful to attend any political demonstrations these days.

“Now we have never been so far apart, men and women. In such a short time, such a gulf. Now we are fighting just for the right to walk down the street without being assaulted. It is so hard, so shocking. To see the rights we had being ripped away and lost in the power struggle. To see us go backwards.”

Rasmia Ahmed Emam was 17 when she was married to a 50-year-old stranger.

“My family is a big one so I had to sacrifice to support them. My dad went to a marriage broker to find a rich husband for me and she told us she had a Saudi man. He came and seemed to like me and gave my parents the money to build a roof on our house.”

But the desperation of poor families combined with the acceptance of child marriage has created opportunities for unscrupulous marriage brokers trading young girls to sex tourists. Rasmia thought she was getting married but in fact she was kept in a hotel room for two weeks before “her husband” went home.

“I felt insulted, scared. I had a nervous breakdown. My father went to the broker but we had no proof of the marriage. She offered to marry me again. I refused. All my neighbours knew I was a prostitute, all my friends abandoned me. My future is destroyed. Now three girls in my street have been Saudi wives. All men are liars.”

The phenomenon is becoming increasingly common in Cairo.The taxi drivers bring men from the airport to the brokers. These girls are being traded and trafficked and dumped back home, their lives ruined.

It is becoming clearer and clearer to Saudi men and other tourists that Egypt is the place for child marriage, for ignoring girls’ and women’s rights. It has got worse since the revolution and keeps getting worse every day.

Discrimination Against the Non-White Students in the UK

Students from ethnic minorities, including Asians, find it tougher to secure places at top British universities than their white peers with similar grades, according to a new study.

Research by Durham University, to be published in the ‘British Journal of Sociology’ in June, found that white pupils and those at private schools were more likely to be successful in their applications than black, Asian and state school pupils with the same A-level grades.

“The headline conclusion of the analysis is that access to Russell Group universities is far from ‘fair’,” says Dr Vikki Boliver, the author of the report.

The Russell Group represents 24 of the UK’s most prestigious universities including the likes of Oxford and Cambridge. Researchers looked at application data of these universities for 49,000 students from 1996 to 2006. Using data from the UCAS admissions service, they found that some pupils were less likely to get places than others and also discovered different patterns of under-representation for different groups of applicants. For black and Asian applicants, the study says the barrier appeared to be in the admissions process.

They were confident enough to apply to these top universities, but were less likely to be offered places than similarly qualified white students.

Dr Boliver said that there was a need to look “more deeply” into what was happening as their analysis of UCAS data cannot show why there should be a different pattern of acceptances for different groups. “This is something that cannot be ignored. We just know there is a problem, we need to know the causes,” she said, adding that it might reflect that the applications process uses predicted grades rather than actual A-level results.

The Russell Group suggests there could be other factors influencing the different outcomes. Although A-level grades between two applicants might appear to be the same, this does not show the range of subjects they have taken.

Another factor could be that applications from ethnic minority pupils are disproportionately focused on some of the most over-subscribed and competitive courses, such as medicine which require the highest grades.

“Sadly many good students are simply not getting the right advice and guidance on which advanced-level subjects will qualify them for their chosen course,” said Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group. “Many good students simply haven’t done the subjects needed for entry universities need students not only to have good grades, but grades in the right subjects for the course they want to apply for,” she said

Christians Unlikely to Vote For PML-N

The small incident of a quarrel between three Christian and Muslim friends during a drinking session (of alcohol) turned into the ransacking, looting and burning of 180 Christian houses in Lahore. The fighting between the friends happened on March 5, 2013 but after three days some people in high places used the incident to grab the land and property owned by the Christians. The planners used and pressured a Muslim, a friend of a Christian alleged to be a blasphemer, to lodge a First Information Report (FIR) with the police station on Friday, March 8.

Shahid Imran, a Muslim and barber by profession, was a close friend of the Christian, Sawan Masih. Apart from his barber shop Imran was also doing illegal business of buying and selling liquor along with another Muslim friend. On March 5 when they were having drinks in the late hours they scuffled on some business issue and the Christian proved himself more powerful than his Muslim friend. Shahid Imran was deeply insulted that a Christian had beaten him and he threatened Masih that he would face dire consequences. Imran discussed the incident with activists from banned religious organizations who later had discussions with land grabbers who, for a period of two years, had been pressurising the Christian community of Joseph Colony, Badami Bagh, to vacate so that they could turn it into a huge commercial area.

On March 8, during the Friday prayers, it was announced through the mosque loud speaker that Masih committed blasphemy by passing remarks against the last prophet of Islam. The police who were already prepared arrested Masih when a crowed attacked the community under the leadership of Imran.

In the ensuing incident they beat Masih’s father seriously. The police asked the community to vacate the area as there were chances of further attacks, totally ignoring their responsibility to protect members of the religious community.

The police left the area thereby providing a perfect opportunity for the attackers to return the next day, March 9. It is unconscionable that among the attackers were members of the assembly and even one from the national assembly, Mr. Riaz Malik. There was also one member of the Punjab provincial assembly, Asad Ashraf. Both of these men are from the ruling party of the province, the PML-N.

It is also unworthy of the press and media houses that no reporting or comments were made about the real cause behind the attack. In this instance, the person who made the accusation of blasphemy is himself a blasphemer as he is selling alcohol which is forbidden by Islam.

The attackers were from the Madressas (Muslim seminaries) and most of the persons were from nearby provinces and were not familiar with the area and the PML-N workers who were guiding them.

On March 11morning, a police party opened fire with their service weapons at St. Francis Church, Kot Lakhpat, Lahore damaging the Church and the Cross. They also fired at the gate of the Church. The people were scared and left the place immediately. The police told them to close the church and warned them that if they did not then they would face problems. The police were obviously following the wishes of the land grabbers who are interested in the area as it is a large industrial place and the property is highly sought after.

This is not the first incident of attacks on religious minority groups in the province by the PML-N goons. During the last five years of the government of PML-N more than 200 persons from minority groups were killed in attacks on Christians, Ahmadis and Shias.

Todate more than ten churches have been attacked and burned by government protected henchmen.

On July 31, 2009, in the Gojra city incident more than 100 houses belonging to Christians were attacked by members from banned religious organizations under the leadership of a member of the provincial assembly, Abdul Qadir Awan, from the PML-N. In this incident eight persons were burned alive, including five women and children. The attackers were arrested but soon released one by one by the courts that are inclined towards the PML-N.

The government in Punjab is running a hate drive against the minority groups so Punjab has become a safe haven of the Taliban, Al-Qaida and other banned organizations including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The Chief Minister of Punjab province has offered the terrorist groups a place to live so they do not conduct any terrorist activities against his government. Previously the Governor of Punjab was assassinated by a policeman from the Punjab Elite Force and the former federal minister, who was Christian, was also assassinated. The policeman is now considered a hero.

The attacks and incidents of killings of Christians are due to the sheer negligence and biased attitude of the Punjab provincial government and police. The Punjab government is notorious for appeasing banned Muslim militant organisations.

The Punjab provincial government, during the bye elections in 2009, released a number of extremist leaders from the jails who were involved in sectarian violence and killings, which helped them to win the elections.

The continuous use of the blasphemy laws to attack anyone who might not share the same views as the government or whose land is valuable has become the best tool for the hate movement against the religious minority groups.

The recent incident at Joseph Colony has set a precedent that any religious group can hire people and start attacking on the excuse of blasphemy and as has happened constantly in the past the police and the government has failed to provide protection to the minorities. Not only are they failing to provide protection but in view of the fact that members of the assemblies are involved in the incident it is blatantly clear that the government approves of the attacks.

 

What is Next?: Legalizing Marriages with Animals?

With stunning speed, a concept dismissed even by most gay-rights leaders just 20 years ago is now embraced by half or more of all Americans, with support among young voters running as high as 4 to 1. Beginning with the Netherlands in 2001, countries from Argentina to Belgium to Canada — along with nine states and the District of Columbia — have extended marriage rights to lesbian and gay couples.

True, most of the remaining states have passed laws or constitutional amendments reserving marriage for opposite-sex partners. And Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, declares that the fight to defend the traditional definition is only beginning. “Our opponents know this, which is why they are hoping the Supreme Court will cut short a debate they know they will ultimately lose if the political process and democracy are allowed to run their course,” he said.

But that confidence is rare even among the traditionalists. Exit polls in November showed that 83% of voters believe that same-sex marriage will be legal nationwide in the next five to 10 years. Like a dam that springs a little leak that turns into a trickle and then bursts into a flood, the wall of public opinion is crumbling. That’s not to say we’ve reached the end of shunning, homophobia or anti-gay violence.

It does, however, suggest that Americans who are allowed by law to fall in love, share their lives and raise children together will, in the not too distant future, be allowed to get married.

Through 2008, no major presidential nominee favored same-sex marriage.

But in 2012, the newly converted supporter Barack Obama sailed to an easy victory over Mitt Romney, himself an avowed fan of Modern Family — a hit TV show in which a devoted gay couple negotiates the perils of parenthood with deadpan hilarity. When even a conservative Mormon Republican can delight in a sympathetic portrayal of same-sex parenthood, a working consensus is likely at hand.

Down the ballot, elected leaders who once faithfully pledged to protect tradition have lined up to announce their conversions. Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said he changed his mind after learning that his son is gay. They joined Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former President who signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law during his 1996 re-election bid but is now calling on the Supreme Court to undo his mistake.

Such switchers have plenty of company among their fellow citizens.

According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, 1 in 7 American adults say their initial opposition to same-sex marriage has turned to support. The picture of a nation of immovable factions dug into ideological trenches is belied by this increasingly uncontroversial controversy.

Yesterday’s impossible now looks like tomorrow’s inevitable.

The marriage license is the last defensible distinction between the rights of gay and straight couples. But most generals will tell you that when you’re down to your last trench, you are likely to lose the battle.

The rise of same-sex marriage from joke to commonplace is a story of converging strands of history.

The Beginning
You could start the story as far back as Adam and Eve, tracing the twists and turns of society’s struggle to order and regulate the natural imperatives of sex.

For some social conservatives, it would be a tale as simple as the old line that God didn’t make Adam and Steve. But subtler Bible scholars — the sort who wonder why Saul was so miffed at David for “choosing” Jonathan for a love “more wonderful than the love of women” — would say these matters have always been complicated.

Instead, start on May 18, 1970, when a young Air Force veteran named Jack Baker visited the Hennepin County clerk’s office in Minneapolis with his boyfriend of three years, librarian Michael McConnell. Neatly dressed in coats and ties — “neither is a limp-wristed sissy,” Lookmagazine noted — they filed an application for a marriage license, which was promptly denied. The episode was generally dismissed as a stunt, another strange happening in those days of hippies, riots and Woodstock. Homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association, and even University of Minnesota professor Allan Spear, a gay-rights pioneer, called Baker and McConnell “the lunatic fringe.” The publicity cost McConnell his job, while Baker, a law student, filed suit.

In an opinion that cited the Book of Genesis, among other authorities, the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected his claim, and his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was turned down “for want of a substantial federal question.” But Baker was onto something. His suit, for the first time, linked the idea of same-sex marriage to an emerging line of high-court precedents establishing a right to privacy in matters of sexual intimacy.

These precedents were both product and fuel of the sexual revolution and gunpowder for the resulting culture wars.

In 1965 the court held that married couples have a right to use contraception. The Justices extended the principle in 1967 as part of a decision to strike down state laws against interracial marriage. By the time Baker was making his appeal, the zone of privacy had been extended to unmarried couples using contraception, and a year later, in 1973, Roe v. Wade invoked the right to privacy in legalizing abortion.

By the mid-1980s, the American Civil Liberties Union believed the concept had advanced far enough to shield the intimate behavior of gay men and lesbians. The group offered to help a Georgia man named Michael Hardwick challenge his conviction on sodomy charges. But the gamble failed. By a vote of 5-4, the high court held in 1986 that states were allowed to enforce age-old sexual taboos.

Writing in dissent, Justice Harry Blackmun, author of Roe v. Wade, argued that traditional moral condemnation of sexual behavior between consenting adults is not sufficient reason to infringe on privacy. True, some “religious groups condemn the behavior” of homosexuals, he wrote. But that “gives the State no license to impose their judgments on the entire citizenry. The legitimacy of secular legislation depends, instead, on whether the State can advance some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine.”

Although few recognized it at the time, this concept — that something more than traditional morals is needed to justify laws governing intimate relationships — was a lever awaiting the right moment to pry open the door for same-sex marriage. Yet at the time, marriage seemed impossibly remote to most gay-rights leaders. They had no appetite for such a pie-in-the-sky project when same-sex intimacy could still be prosecuted as a crime.

For that matter, many gay activists weren’t interested in getting married.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the reigning model of liberated gay culture was found in meccas like San Francisco’s Castro Street and New York City’s Greenwich Village, where people scoffed at the idea of coming out of the closet only to enter the confines of wedlock.

But then another seemingly separate strand of history was woven in: the AIDS epidemic.

Burning outward from the bathhouses, this deadly scourge offered a painful education in the advantages of marriage. AIDS patients and their partners discovered that they weren’t covered by each other’s medical insurance, weren’t entitled to enter the doctors’ offices and hospital rooms of their loved ones, weren’t authorized to claim remains or plan funerals or inherit estates. Grieving survivors were barred from collecting Social Security and pension benefits. Marriage began to be seen as the portal to a wide array of privileges and protections. The bourgeois ideal of stable monogamy could be a lifesaver.

Meanwhile, in other hospital rooms, another thread was emerging as doctors tinkered with the mechanics of procreation. With the arrival of the first so-called test-tube baby in 1978, the age-old business of one mom and one dad making and raising babies the old-fashioned way was quickly joined by a dizzying array of reproductive strategies. With donor sperm, donor eggs, surrogate wombs and so on, lesbian couples created their own baby boomlet, which spread quietly among gay men. Add adoptions and stepkids from earlier opposite-sex relationships, and today there are enough children of lesbian and gay couples in America to fill a couple of football stadiums. Of the roughly 600,000 U.S. households headed by same-sex pairs in 2010, the Census Bureau reports that some 115,000 are raising children.

And so the law was primed for a change, and the value of marriage was made clear by the tragedies and joys of life. What was needed next was for someone to get a serious discussion going — to advance the idea of same-sex marriage as something more than a joke or curiosity. That’s another thread of the story.

The Battle of Ideas
John Boswell was a dashing young member of Yale’s all-star history faculty in 1980 when he published Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, which went on to win the National Book Award. Copiously documented and densely argued, the book was no one’s idea of casual reading. In it, Boswell employed his knowledge of classical and medieval languages to investigate the history of Christian attitudes toward same-sex couples. He concluded that it was not all hellfire and brimstone. In fact, Boswell found scant evidence that the early church condemned homosexuality before the Middle Ages. Most provocatively, Boswell ventured that some Christian churches actually blessed same-sex unions during the first millennium of Catholicism.

Boswell’s ideas transformed a Harvard Law School student named Evan Wolfson. “That book changed my life,” Wolfson has said, because it convinced him that discrimination against homosexuals was “not part of the natural order.” It was the arbitrary invention of a particular time and place — the factious and violent medieval church. Wolfson decided to make a study of marriage laws with an eye to challenging them in court. His 1983 law-school thesis became a road map for the lawsuits to come.

But it was a journalist, Andrew Sullivan, who shoved the issue out of academia and onto the liberal agenda with a 1989 essay for the New Republic framed, arrestingly, as “A (Conservative) Case for Gay Marriage.” Noting that cities and states across the country were crafting elaborate “domestic partnership” laws to answer the problems laid bare by the AIDS crisis, Sullivan argued that this parallel system of almost marriage would do more harm than good. “The concept of domestic partnership could open a Pandora’s box of litigation and subjective judicial decision-making about who qualifies,” Sullivan ventured. Were fraternity brothers domestic partners? What about an elderly woman and her live-in nurse?

Domestic-partner laws would further weaken the ideal of marriage in a world already rife with divorce, cohabitation and single parents. Marriage, by contrast, is crystal clear: “You either are or are not married; it’s not a complex question,” he wrote. If conservatives truly care about traditional relationships, Sullivan argued, they should welcome same-sex couples seeking to honor an ancient tradition. What could be more traditional, more conservative, than wanting to be married?

Fits and Starts
Still, gay-rights organizations remained leery of the marriage issue, preferring to attack less formidable barriers like the ban on homosexuals in the military. When Wolfson graduated from Harvard and later went to work for Lambda Legal, the leading gay-rights legal organization, he says his bosses advised him to pursue his marriage strategy on his own time.

So he did — with what seemed at first to be disastrous consequences for his cause. With Wolfson’s quiet assistance, an attorney in Hawaii filed suit on behalf of three same-sex couples, arguing that it was a violation of the state constitution to limit marriage to opposite-sex partners. When, in 1993, the court found potential merit in the complaint and ordered a hearing, the backlash long feared by gay leaders erupted.

Traditionalists worried that Hawaii would set off a chain reaction. Under the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, other states would be expected to honor Hawaii’s same-sex marriages. And the federal government made a practice of relying on state decisions in determining who is married. To head off the possibility that same-sex marriage in one state might quickly lead to married gay and lesbian couples everywhere, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was introduced. Passed by large bipartisan margins, DOMA relieved states of the obligation to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and adopted the traditional definition of marriage for federal purposes.

This setback, coming on the heels of the Pentagon’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, demoralized Elizabeth Birch, then executive director of the leading gay advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign. Sullivan tells of crossing paths with Birch at congressional hearings on DOMA. “She called the hearings hell week,” Sullivan recalled. “I said, ‘No, it isn’t. This is our chance to put this in the middle of the public debate.’”

The more she thought about it, however, the more Birch began to see the long-run value of the marriage movement. Maybe it was a mistake to build a protected enclave of antidiscrimination laws apart from straight society. Maybe the more potent message was simply to ask society to recognize the loves and families of same-sex couples.

It was at this moment of setback and soul-searching that the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in again with its first major gay-rights decision in a decade. Romer v. Evans, in 1996, struck down a ballot measure in Colorado that would have barred cities and towns from including homosexuals in their antidiscrimination statutes. Writing for himself and five of his colleagues, Kennedy held that the measure was “a denial of equal protection of the laws in the most literal sense.”

Education: Another Brick in the Wall

Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something decisive to meet the increasing complexity of their society. They held a meeting and finally decided to organize a school.

The curriculum consisted of running, climbing, swimming and flying. Since these were the basic behaviours of most animals, they decided that all the students should take all the subjects.

The duck proved to be excellent at swimming, better in fact, than his teacher. He also did well in flying. But he proved to be very poor in running. Since he was poor in this subject, he was made to stay after school to practice it and even had to drop swimming in order to get more time in
which to practice running. He was kept at this poorest subject until his webbed feet were so badly damaged that he became only average at swimming. But average was acceptable in the school, so nobody worried about that – except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of her class in running, but finally had a nervous breakdown because of so much make-up time in swimming – a subject she hated.

The squirrel was excellent at climbing until he developed a psychological block in flying class, when the teacher insisted he start from the ground instead of from the tops of trees. He was kept at attempting to fly until he became muscle-bound – and received a C in climbing and a D in running.

The eagle was the school’s worst discipline problem; in climbing class, she beat all of the others to the top of the tree used for examination purposes in this subject, but she insisted on using her own method of getting there.

The gophers, of course, stayed out of school and fought the tax levied for education because digging was not included in the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to the badger and later joined the groundhogs and eventually started a private school offering alternative education.

Freedom of Expression is a Myth in Pakistan

by Baseer Naveed

Freedom of expression is today at its lowest in the history of the country.

The people of the country have, in fact, never enjoyed freedom of expression. However, during the last decade or so the governments have claimed that they have given freedom of expression to the media.

A point of confusion is how the people compare the freedom of expression with the freedom of the media houses. The two are completely difference and far distant from each other.

In fact, much of the self-censorship comes from the media houses themselves as they do not wish to draw the ire of the government, judiciary, the armed forces and more so, that of the Muslim fundamentalists. Sadly the voices that really need to be heard, those of the peasant farmers and labourers in the industrial areas are ignored and therefore silenced by the media whose sole purpose is to gain advertising revenue. It is no longer a secret that the media houses are ‘driven’ by the armed forces through their Inter Services Public Relations office.

The judiciary, which has always been a poodle of the armed forces, neither of which has never really served the nation in its history, have both been given the status of a sacred cow.

One point of proof that freedom of expression is absent in the country is the fact that the media houses seldom allow any real criticism of the military, Muslim militants or religious extremists.

One example is as to how the state institutions and media houses have curbed free speech.

The restriction on the freedom of expression may be dated back to the very creation of the country.

Pakistan was created on the 14th August 1947 and the father of the nation gave his inaugural speech three days earlier on the 11th August. It is interesting to note that the speech of the Governor General-to-be, Mr. Jinnah, was itself censored. The interesting point was that only those portions were censored which were purely secular in their nature where Mr. Jinnah said that “you are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State”. He further said “now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State”.

Two years after the creation of Pakistan the so-called legislators passed a resolution entitled the ‘Objective Resolution of Pakistan’. In this resolution it was declared that sovereignty lay with Allah. This later became part of the constitution and denied the people the right to democracy, thereby creating the guidelines on the restrictions for the freedom of expression and the freedom to practice the religion of your choice. The country was declared a theocratic society where only Islam can prevail and no one else had any rights, the citizens were divided into Muslims and non Muslims. A clear demarcation was made between the majority and the minority, so all rights were recognized for Muslims and those who were not Muslim had no rights. The concept of equality for various sections of the society was supposed to be determined on this basis.

Again through the 1973 constitution, which was the first time anything was passed unanimously, the state took the responsibility to decide who is Muslim and who is not by making the fourth amendment in the constitution where the Ahmadis were declared as non-Muslim. Through this amendment state has the power to declare who is Muslim, strengthened the pressure groups, the Muslim fundamentalists, to take the responsibility of declaring Muslims and non Muslims.

The objective resolution was made part of the pre-amble of the constitution. But during the military regime of General Zia ul Haq the Objective Resolution was made as the part of the constitution. Those rights of minorities which were given in the original Objective Resolution were also deleted. General Zia has made three famous laws, the Blasphemy laws by inserting clause B and C, Qisas and Diyat, through which the evidence from women denied and the Had ordinance. So the rights of women and religious minority groups were denied.

This has resulted in self censorship of the media as the rules and regulations concerning the blasphemy laws are not being adhered to. These are that the arresting and investigating officer must be of the rank of Superintendent of Police. However, people are being arrested by the mob and if they are lucky, handed over alive to any police officer who happens to be present.

The media is extremely careful about what they say regarding the religious extremists as they can expect no protection or support from the authorities or judiciary. This was evident in the cases of the assassinations of the governor of Punjab, Taseer and the Federal Minister on Religious Minorities, Mr. Bhatti where the perpetrators of the violence have either gone unpunished or are being treated as heroes. The lawyers themselves, who are supposed to be protectors of the law, came out in support of the assassins, blaming the victims as blasphemers.

Although the blasphemy law is not the subject of this particular article I mention it because it has a direct affect on the freedom of expression in that, while the constitution of Pakistan guarantees freedom of religion the actual situation in the country is very much different and any media person or company speaking out in support of the minorities soon faces attacks ranging from hate speeches to physical violence and even death.

The Blasphemy law in any way has been made a killer. If any person is accused of Blasphemy particularly on the charges of defiling the name of last prophet (PBUH) he or she has to face the death penalty from the law or state and if not then fundamentalist will murder him/she. In a case of two Christians who were sentenced on section 295 B they were released by high court Mr. Justice Arif Bhatti, as they were scavengers and cannot read any word. After their release they left Pakistan but the Justice was murdered for releasing the blasphemers.

One judge of Session court has to leave the country when he gave the death sentenced to the killer of former Governor of Punjab. He was announced by the fundamentalists as liable to be killed because he has given punishment to the hero of Islam. The Governor of Punjab was murdered because he used his right of freedom of expression in support of one, Asia Bibi, who was sentenced on the charges of blasphemy.

In fact, freedom of expression is limited by the same constitution. In the constitution Ahmadis were declared non-Muslim. This is in effect a contradiction as the constitution on the one hand declares the freedom to practice the religion of your choice but on the other places the Ahmadis in a position that leaves them open to attack by the fundamentalists. Any media house coming out in their support or criticising the fundamentalists are liable to the same degree of violence as the Ahmadis themselves.

The media is also suppressed by the military when they attempt to report on the nexus between the armed forces and the militant jihadists. One report noted that during 2006 about ten journalists were kidnapped by security forces apparently belonging to military secret services, while performing their professional duties. The report also revealed that the very few journalists based in the tribal areas in Baluchistan are caught in the crossfire between security forces, jihadist militants and tribal chiefs fighting each other to control the area.

Another area which is strictly forbidden to journalists is reporting on the corruption of the politicians, the military and the judiciary. These institutions have become sacred cows, untouchable by anyone other than their own hierarchy. Any journalists brave enough to highlight this corruption is liable to face the same fate as those mentioned earlier.

Often the freedom of expression is restricted in the names of vulgarity, morality and obscenity; three items that have never been clearly defined in the law or by any court. However, this does not deter the authorities, those with vested interests and the media houses that are quick to make use of these accusations to enforce self censorship.

In an attempt to define these issues the Pakistan Electronic Media Authority called for a consultative conference to discuss them. However, no one turned up so they have arranged another conference for later this month. It is hoped that by mutual consent they will be able to put forward proposals to the apex court of the land.

Through the constitution and laws there are many restrictions on the freedom of expression and freedom of media. The “Official Secret Act of 1923” is still operative. Anything which state thinks is prejudicial to the interest of the state or against the state should be tried under this act. Those matters which are made as classified cannot be published or even be spoken of.

Safety act and Telegraph act are also used for curbing the right of freedom of expression. No material can be published or spoken of which is against the interest of the state.

The Newspapers Periodical and News agencies Ordinance 2002 is still in force through which until and unless it gives the declaration for publication, no periodical or newspaper can be printed. This is a clear cut violation of Article 19 of the ICCPR, constitution of Pakistan.

PEMRA is a regulatory body which gives out licenses for the production of any type of electronic channel. Permission has to be taken from government. It is not like Europe or USA that any person or organization can make their own channel—the FM radio and TV.

After 1985, which was the period of military rule, the pressure groups and fundamentalists have taken the role of state and tactics of coercion and intimidation for implementation of their own rules. The role of the government or state has been reduced to the minimum.

The contempt of court is also another method of restricting the freedom of expression. The government says there is no law against the contempt of court but the Supreme Court relies on the contempt of court ordinance of 2004 to use it as minimizing the freedom of expression particularly on the decisions of the court.

There is a draft for legislation on access to information before the government and the media houses but it can be termed as just lip service to try and show that something is being done. It does not define who will decide what is secret and what is not. Contrary to global practices, the government has kept everything secret until it is declared to be made public. The data collection and maintenance mechanisms are very poor in our country.

The draft freedom of information law allows the government and its agencies to classify anything they want to be exempt from being made public, without explanation as to why they are doing so. The procedure to declare something secret has not been revealed. And the big question is who exactly is authorised to declare anything secret?

The constitution declares quite clearly that Pakistan is an Islamic country. Therefore, quite simply there is no freedom of expression as the country is run purely on a religious basis.

 

Pakhtun Bureaucracy Hinders Humanitarian Work

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the poorest province of Pakistan and the common folks not indulging in corruption or smuggling have a hard time surviving. In the midst of all this misery, the Pakhtun bureaucracy is making things worst for the people.

Delivering humanitarian aid in northwestern Pakistan has recently been hampered by attacks on schools], aid workers [ http://tribune.com.pk/story/487834/swabi-bloodletting-in-grisly-attack-gunmen-kill-seven-aid-workers/ ] and polio vaccination teams [ http://tribune.com.pk/story/481267/targeting-polio-workers/ ], and bureaucratic procedures for aid projects are making matters worse.

International and national humanitarian agencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KP) and the FATA often face long delays waiting for local officials to grant the relevant permits.

Since 2005, procedures to obtain No Objection Certificates (NOCs) for projects and travel have made it more difficult to deliver vital aid, and in at least one case, led directly to the cancellation of projects.

Relief and recovery projects in FATA and KP require project NOCs, while international staff, including UN workers, also require travel NOCs to move around.

“We had applied for a project implementation NOC to begin a project in livestock in the Kurram Agency to the FATA Disaster Management Authority in February, and had planned the project in December last year, but have still had no response,” said CEO of the Peshawar-based national NGO Shid, which works in livestock, livelihood and education. “Now the local livestock authorities in Kurram say it is too late to start – so everyone suffers.”

Hearing reports of delays, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) set about getting a more comprehensive picture by gathering data from agencies operating in the area.

The problem is not a new one. It has been there for some time.

Of the 18 humanitarian agencies who submitted data [ http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Humanitarian%20Bulletin%20Pakistan%20Issue%2013.pdf ] on NOC project requests in January and February, related to 27 projects, 21 were still being processed; only five had been approved and one had been rejected without explanation, as of early March.

Average processing time for project NOCs in KP as of the end of February was found to be 53 days and 66 days for FATA instead of the six weeks indicated by government authorities.  One NGO had to wait 118 days for an NOC.

The OCHA bulletin published 4 April 2013 says the delays are “hampering the provision of critical services” and calls on local authorities to speed up the paperwork “to enable timely assistance to people in need in KP and FATA.”

The bulletin says one emergency project had to be cancelled because of delays, while another had to be reduced in scope.

The paper trail

Humanitarian projects in KP need an NOC from the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) [ http://www.pdma.gov.pk/PaRRSA/Humanitarian_Coordination.php ], and must be requested at least six weeks in advance.

Expatriate staff also need an NOC for travel; and in February the Home Department in KP said applications should be made “at least 6-8 weeks prior to the visit”, something one international humanitarian worker, who asked not to be named, told IRIN that if implemented, “means regular visits to projects are nearly impossible.”

Donors have been expressing concern to the government about the delays these moves could create if implemented, and there are some indications the authorities may be prepared to revoke the policy.

Applications go to the home department of the provincial government in Peshawar, and then can often follow a trail of authorizations and approvals from various military units, as well as the ISI.

“A key reason for the new procedures is security concerns. The government is worried a foreign worker or local NGO worker may be harmed, and this brings it a bad name. I think recent events like attacks on polio workers are a factor in the decisions taken,” said a PDMA official in KP.

The delays witnessed by agencies in the last few months are also affecting relations with donors, some of whom do not transfer funds until project NOCs have been issued.

“The Project NOC is valid for six months. Then the same game starts again. At this time I have been waiting now more than six weeks for the extension of an NOC,” said the aid worker, adding that donors usually extend a project’s lifespan, though without increasing budgets, which means they are almost inevitably reduced in size, something donors do not always understand. “Right now one of our donors is very unhappy,” he said.

Permit mission creep

The project implementation permits date back to the 2005 earthquake which killed 73,000 people in the north: The procedure was put in place by the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority [ http://www.erra.pk/ ] set up by the government after that disaster, and was really intended to coordinate the many agencies working in the quake zone and prevent duplication. The process worked smoothly then.

All organizations working on relief and early recovery activities in KP/FATA are required to either apply for Project NOCs [ http://www.pdma.gov.pk ] for projects lasting up to six months, or apply for a Memorandum of Understanding for projects [ http://www.pdma.gov.pk/PaRRSA/Humanitarian_Coordination.php ] lasting more than six months.

Since 2005, there have been a series of additions to the list of documents and information needed when making NOC requests.

The latest came in February this year with the government’s announcement of a 6-8 week requirement for travel NOCs, against the normal 5-7 working days.

The Home and Tribal Affairs Department issued new directives for travel NOCs for 10 (out of 25) KP districts – Malakand, Swat, Upper and Lower Dir, Buner, Shangla, Chitral, DI Khan, Tank and Hangu. The Law and Order Department issued a similar directive covering FATA.

Humanitarian agencies are hoping the new time-scale will be officially reduced to the previous 5-7 working days, and as yet it does not seem the 6-8 week policy is being applied on the ground.

Since 2008, the humanitarian community has raised US$1.38 billion in funding for people affected by violence in northwestern Pakistan. In order to ensure that the assistance is delivered to the people in need, we depend on the government to facilitate humanitarian operations and ease bureaucratic hurdles.

Aid workers say the delays are making it more difficult to deliver aid to KP and FATA. “People suffer when there are delays.