Pakistan Expels New York Time’s Bureau Chief

Pakistan is facing daunting challenges, including a violent insurgency that threatens the state. Yet its Interior Ministry just prior to the May 11 election had nothing better to do than to expel Declan Walsh, the New York Times’s bureau chief in Pakistan.

The reasons for the expulsion was not explained. However, a section of the Urdu press has quoted intelligence sources as saying that he was a spy and working for the CIA. He has also been accused of being a close friend of Raymond Davis, another CIA agent who was sent to America after he killed two Pakistanis in Lahore.

The expulsion letter was a two-sentence ibe. The action was taken “in view of your undesirable activities,” the letter read.

Mr. Declan Walsh, 39, has been based in Pakistan since 2004, working first for The Guardian and since 2012 for the NYT.

Jill Abramson, the NYT‘s executive editor, strongly protested the expulsion in a letter to the interior minister, Malik Muhammad Habib Khan.

Mr. Walsh “has a strong track record as a reporter of integrity who has at all times offered balanced, nuanced and factual reporting on Pakistan,” she wrote. “Your charge of ‘undesirable activities’ is vague and unsupported, and Mr. Walsh has received no further explanation of any alleged wrongdoing. We stand by his reporting.”

Mr. Walsh was on a social visit May 9 evening when he received a phone call from a number he did not recognize advising him to “come home now.” He arrived at 12:30 a.m. to find police officers waiting outside, along with a plainclothes officer who handed him the expulsion letter. While the exact circumstances of his expulsion are unusual, his punishment is not. Even as private media have grown more vibrant, Pakistani officials continue to restrict critical reporting and, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the country remains one of the deadliest for journalists.

Without Mr. Walsh and journalists like him — both Pakistani and foreign — on the scene, Pakistanis and the international community would not know about the level of pre-election violence, including Taliban bombings and the abduction on May 9 of a candidate who is the son of a former prime minister.

Nor would they learn of the extent of Pakistan’s patronage networks, as Mr. Walsh reported on May 8. But maybe that is the point.

Padma Rao Sundarji Says Tamils Better-off Now in Sri Lanka Than Before

Across the Palk Strait, concern for Sri Lanka’s Tamils is being expressed through competitive aggression: there’s been a furore over the perceived weakness of a US-sponsored UNHRC resolution slamming Sri Lanka for rights violations and failure to rehabilitate its war-battered Tamils; Sri Lankan Buddhist monks visiting Tamil Nadu have been attacked; Lankan cricketers have been banned from IPL matches in Chennai; and last week, the Tamil Nadu assembly adopted a resolution (one sponsored by chief minister J. Jayalalitha) that India press the UN Security Council to seek a referendum in northern Sri Lanka over the creation of a Tamil Eelam. The vocal 9 lakh-strong Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora has been at work too: the US-sponsored resolution was backed by their wes­tern hosts who had granted them asylum with the vague notion of a faraway ‘freedom struggle’ and allowed money transfers that gave the LTTE claws and teeth.

Colombo, like India over Kashmir, has strongly objected to such external meddling. Sri Lanka’s foreign minister G.L. Peiris speaks of how much has been done in the Tamil-dominated northern and northeastern parts of the island, where over 2 lakh people had been killed in three decades of civil war. “Thousands of Tamils, including 595 LTTE child-soldiers, have been reintegrated. Demining is almost over,” he says. “In which country of former conflict have you seen something comparable within four years of the end of war?” In fact, a trip through the Tamil areas—where, during the conflict, highways lay mine-ridden, houses stood skeletal and palms crownless, and where dazed civilians would stumble about like tear-streaked wraiths, silently holding up pictures of missing children—throws up some surprises.

Yes, the Sri Lankan army is still an overwhelming presence, but, it must be conceded, without a dubious special law like India’s AFSPA. And anyone who has witnessed the conflict—one of Asia’s bloodiest—may well accept that the army cannot yet be withdrawn from an area liberated from terrorists who suicide-bombed with impunity and used child-soldiers as human shields for the leadership.

As visible and present as the army is change. Construction is on everywhere. Houses are being built in large numbers, the railway lines and highways could put the best in India to shame, the tin-roofed war-refugee shelters have almost vanished. Almost every second Tamil in gainful employment is a former Tiger. Killinochchi, once a dismal village of huge graveyards, is now a town bustling with hotels, supermarkets, small and big businesses. Internet connections are spe­­edy. Much of this owes to investment by Sinhalas, but also by well-meaning overseas Tamils. Last week, this former ‘capital’ of the LTTE saw an unusual parade: the graduation of 20 female ex-LTTE cadres who had voluntarily joined the Sri Lankan army. “The UNHRC has been highly selective,” says Peiris, “but we invited its chief, Navanethem Pillay, to see for herself. She promised to come. We are still waiting.”

In Visuwamadu and Mullaithivu, some sombre relics of a bloody conflict still remain: LTTE chief V. Prabhakaran’s air-conditioned bunker; arsenals of weapons; aircraft, submarines, suicide boats and vests. Evidence also stands of wilful destruction wreaked by fleeing LTTE cadres, leaving thousands of Tamils destitute.

Few Tamils in Sri Lanka care for the blood-brotherly breast-beating in Tamil Nadu. “Empty noise,” says former LTTE spokesman Daya Master, speaking from Jaffna. “We want harmony and reconciliation with Sinhalas. Elections are due in September, and we’ll find a solution wit­hin Sri Lanka. These bleeding hearts should leave us alone.” Construction workers, shopkeepers, former LTTE cadres—across class and background, they say Chennai’s politicians have done nothing for them. The cacophony is mere political play. Sri Lanka is on the mend: Tamil Nadu and the Tamil diaspora should help the process or leave them alone.

At a hotel in Mannar, Kamal (name changed), a 21-year-old bellhop, asks me fearfully if Prabhakaran is alive in Tamil Nadu. His father had died a Tiger, and he and his brother were forcibly recruited by the LTTE. Videos of “Prabhakaran alive”, supposedly shot in Chennai, have left many young Tamils like him, struggling to begin anew, frightened. He is happy working for a Sinhala proprietor, has “a good room and a good salary” and says “samadhanam (peace) is the best thing”. Over the week, he has made acquaintance with Malinga, a taxi driver who fought as a Sri Lankan soldier. Malinga is on his first trip to the north after the last days of the conflict, in which he saw many of his mates die. At parting, Kamal and Malinga shake hands, slap each other’s backs, and—just a trifle awkwardly—embrace.

 

Price for Surrendering in India

Claims, Counter-Claims

• Syed Liaqat Shah was arrested from the Sanauli checkpost on the India-Nepal border on March 20 by the Delhi police
• They say he was a Hizbul Mujahideen man, on his way to Delhi as part of a ‘Holi terror plot’
• The Jammu and Kashmir police refutes this. They say Liaqat was a former militant on his way to his Kashmir home from PoK. According to them, he was a beneficiary of the state’s rehabilitaion policy for former militants.
• The Centre has asked the National Investigation Agency to probe and resolve the dispute
• It has now been decided to deploy J&K police, along with the Sashastra Seema Bal, on the Indo-Nepal border to streamline the surrender of ex-militants

Withering words. “I won’t think twice if the government allows us to return to Pakistan,” says Akhtar-un-Nisa, the second wife of Syed Liaqat Shah who was arrested by the Delhi police as a “conspirator of a terror plot” to launch fidayeen attacks in the capital on Holi.

Akhtar, 47, is the best person to hear the story from: “We were among the 10 people returning from Pakistan to India via Nepal. Seven people were received by their relatives, no one came to receive us. They (special cell of the Delhi police) arrested us near the Indo-Nepal border and took us to Gorakhpur. They didn’t recover any objectionable item from us. We pleaded that we were going to Kash­mir under the rehabilitation policy ann­ounced by the Jammu and Kashmir government for militants who want to surrender, but they didn’t listen to us. I was later released in New Delhi.”

It’s become a full-blown controversy  that ref­uses to die down. Even in the face of criticism, the Delhi police is sticking to its claim that Liaqat is a Hizbul Muj­ah­ideen operative. The Jammu and Kash­mir police is firm in its position that he was a PoK-based ex-militant on his way to Kas­hmir for state-sponsored rehabilitation. At the very least, the affair exposes the lack of com­munication between the police of the two states, especially on the issue of sur­render and rehabilitation.

The J&K government has reason to be upset. It says its rehabilitation policy—which has the overt backing of the Union home ministry—has attracted over 1,000 applications, and has enabled 241 former militants to return to J&K from Pakistan in the past two years. One source of this  row is the route of return. Ex-militants are officially all­owed to return through four entry poi­nts—Poonch-Rawalakote, Uri-Muz­affarabad, Wagah (Punjab) and the igi airport, Delhi. However, none of the former militants, including Liaqat, chose to travel through these designated routes. They preferred the Nepal route—ostensibly because Pakistan (for obvious reasons) created hurdles in the policy’s implementation. The J&K government reluctantly allowed this for the sake of its pet policy. Of the men who have returned to start on a clean slate, including 113 who have brought their families along, several arrived in India via Kathmandu, after flying there on Pakistani passports.

Akhtar says she had travelled to Pak­istan on a valid passport in 2001 after her first husband died in an encounter with the army in 1995. Her physically chall­enged teenage daughter, Jabeena, who accompanied her to Pakistan and back, was from her first marriage. “In 2006, I married Liaqat, who ran a grocery shop at Muzaffarabad (capital of PoK)…he had abandoned militancy long back. We wanted to return to our roots to lead a happy life, but the Delhi police has played spoilsport. Now I won’t think again if they allow us to return,” a visibly shaken and disappointed Akhtar says.

The J&K government and the state police have confirmed that Liaqat was slated for the rehabilitation policy meant for ex-militants in Pakistan who had ren­ounced violence and wanted to ret­urn home. Liaquat’s first wife, Ameena Bano, submitted the required documents on Feb­ruary 5, 2011, in the deputy commissioner’s office in Kupwara, the town nea­­rest to Liaqat’s village, Dardpora, in north Kashmir. As the Kupwara police had no criminal case against Liaqat, it approved the application and forwarded it to the CID and other departments. Lia­­qat’s family duly informed the police about his probable date of return after he left Pakistan with his family.

“When the state government announ­ced that militants who had crossed the LoC will be allowed to return, we urged him to return along with his second wife and step-daughter,” says Ameena, who lives with her two sons. “My brother never participated in any militant activity in Kashmir,” says Liaqat’s brother, Syed Kar­amat Shah. “He was coming here to sur­render, and we were jubilant that he was returning after 18 years.”

The J&K government fears that Liaqat’s arrest might be a “big setback” to its sho­wpiece rehabilitation policy. “Other Kashmiris who want to come back to their homes under it will be discouraged,” says chief minister Omar Abd­ullah. Already there are reports that 15 former militants, all of them from Dar­d­pora, have second thoughts about ret­urning to the Valley after seeing what  Lia­qat is going through. “This includes two of Liaqat’s relatives. They have decided to reconsider their decision,” says local MLA Abdul Haq Khan.

Meanwhile, the Delhi police has bec­ome a figure of ridicule in the milita­ncy-hardened Kashmir valley—its credibility barely there after taking Liaqat (who is in his early 50s) for a ‘dreaded fidayeen’. Among those who picked holes in the Delhi police story is CM Omar Abd­ullah himself. “I have yet to see a fidayeen who returned holding the hands of his wife and daughter. Had he been a fidayeen, he would have grenades and guns in his hands,” Omar told the assembly in one of his rare broadsides against New Delhi.

Expectedly, the media in the Valley too has been rather scathing in its censure. A Kashmir Times editorial titled Fiction of Holi-terror plot had this to say, “The incident again highlights the misuse of authority and abuse of power by men in uniform, an obvious bid to win promotions and gallantry awa­rds or for someone’s political convenience.” A journalist wrote on Facebook: “My 12-year-old cousin on Liaqat’s arr­est: ‘This old man can’t handle a pis­tol, how would he have carried out a fidayeen attack?’”  Alluding to the Delhi police linking Liaqat to the recovery of arms and ammunition from a city guest house, he added: “Certainly, when India wants to implicate Kash­miris, guns grow even on trees”.

Mehbooba Mufti, president of the PDP, agrees. “Liaqat Shah’s arrest in Delhi indicates that the old industry of falsely implicating Kashmiri youth for sake of rewards and medals is thriving. Kashmiri youth have become a fodder for Con­gress-BJP electoral politics.”

In the past, around twelve Kashmiris, all arrested by the Delhi police on terror charges, had been declared innocent by the courts. Tragically, for the accused the clean chit came late; they had had to spend the prime of their life in prison.

No wonder everyone’s hoping for caution, maturity and restraint from New Delhi. A storm of protests in Kashmir—on the street and in the assembly—has forced the Union home ministry to ask the National Inve­stigation Agency to get to the bottom of the Liaqat affair, and check the circumstances of his arrest and the veracity  of the Delhi and J&K police’s opposing claims. Greater crises have blown over Kashmir. But they often have their origins in smaller bunglings.

Narendra Modi Should be Behind Bars Rather Than Ruling a State

From Hermitude To Holography

This excerpt from a forthcoming ‘authorised-turned-unauthorised’ biography of the BJP’s man of the season, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi by Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay

If there is any phase of Narendra Modi’s life about which there are no definitive accounts, it is from teenage to adulthood.  Existing literature on Modi’s life that has been endorsed or authorised by him is full of glaring contradictions; personal accounts of childhood friends, teachers, immediate kin and acquaintances contain different stories. The years from 1967 to 1971 in  Modi’s life are somewhat “mysterious”, and despite my pointed questions, he chose not to shed any light on it—save one, a confirmation that the out point in his life had been 1967 and the return point was in 1971. Modi told me: “A lot of people ask me, but I do not want to say anything about that period because at some point in my life I would like to write about this period—what I did, where all did I go…. But it started in 1967 and there were variations about the periods when I was away (from home)—at times I was away for about 15 months, then I stayed away for six months and then even lesser—and I came back. I kept coming and going….”

Modi told me that he continued with an annual ritual that he termed “meet myself programme”. When I asked him what he meant by this, he said that he spent time only with himself and went away to remote places without informing anyone about his whereabouts. “I used to go away during Diwali. When people celebrated, I would be somewhere away in a remote place, far away from any person—all by myself. I went alone, and only went to places where I would not find another human being—places like a jungle or some barren or abandoned place. I carried only a little to eat—some snacks to last for three to five days—I just chose a place where I could get water to drink. I carried only a little food—only the bare necessities—so that I did not feel that I had not eaten anything.” I asked Modi about the kind of places he used for his getaways: “Any kind—completely unknown places that I did not know. I never decided my address and did not tell anyone where I was going.” Naturally, I was curious because this was a potential headline-making story: ‘Modi disappears, aides clueless, but assure supporters of his safety’.  I asked him when was the last time he went to meet himself and where was the venue? “That was in 1995-96, I was still in Gujarat (meaning that he had not yet been shunted out from the state unit of the BJP.) I went to the Gir forest and stayed where there were no humans. I went around and found an old temple where I could sleep, where no one could disturb me. No one came.” Perplexing though, it was getting interesting and I could not resist myself. What did he do? “I did nothing. That is what I did—nothing. Just think.” And then came my final question—what about now? “Now it is not in my destiny (naseeb nahi raha.) I do not know why people debate loneliness so much­—I actually enjoy loneliness. People debate outside a lot—that Modi is a loner—I am not a loner in any way. But yes, I do not enjoy too much of a crowd.”

Halfway into my first interview with Modi, I gingerly approached the question which I feared may put an end to the writing of this book. I had played this scene in my mind’s eye several times and owed it to myself to ask the most forbidden question in the context of the man: there were two clear chapters in his political career—pre-Godhra and post-Godhra. Did he agree? He reacted predictably, by now set in his reactions whenever probed on such matters, and insulating himself deftly, cut me short and informed me with more than a hint of gruffness: “All this is available—you would be able to get the complete record. The SIT in its report has documented all this minute-to-minute—everything is available on the net…. And since it is authentic and has been done under the supervision of the Supreme Court, then you should go by that version only—why take my version? Then you may consult the Nanavati Commission report on Godhra.”

My hunch was right on both counts. First, in the way he skirted the issue, and second, in his referring to what was already part of judicial records. Not one to give up, I also asked around. Several sources corroborated my sense on this: Modi did not want to provide any fresh information which could be used against him in courts and also arm his detractors with more ammunition. The two voluminous reports that Modi mentioned have agreed with the claim of Modi and his political clan: that the attack on the Sabarmati Express on the morning of February 27, 2002, was not an accidental fire but a coordinated attack and that Modi was not guilty of any allegations levelled against him either by relatives of those who died in the post-Godhra violence or by groups of “concerned citizens”. One person I spoke to said Modi’s stonewalling tactics owed to the fact that he did not wish anyone a peep into his psyche at that time and also did not wish to add anything which may be used as evidence against him and his associates in any of the several pending legal cases.

For more than a decade since 2002, Modi’s public image has been shaped by two contrasting viewpoints. The first one is one based on belief, hearsay statements and oral assertions of people claiming to be eyewitnesses to events.The second is based on opinions and findings chiselled by inquiry committees and commissions that have reached their conclusions after relatively underplaying information and affirmations not backed by direct evidence. Both opinions have backers who have first taken an ideologically driven position and then gone on to use facts while buttressing their opinion. While the first opinion has led to extreme assessments of Modi being likened to a fascist or a mass murderer, the other school considers that painting Modi’s image in that hue is part of pseudo-secular propaganda and that he is actually a paragon of virtue and dedication.

***

I asked him about the boundaries of existence his political clan has enforced on non-Hindus and the need for them to accept Hindu ideas and ideals as their own. Modi replied: “Yes, that was the basic argument (in the course of the Ayodhya agitation, that Muslims also must accept Lord Ram as the symbol of national identity), the main philosophy—that he also was a mahapurush (great man) of this country. And that everyone in this country should believe in this—those who led this agitation campaigned for this.” At this point of the interview, it becomes evident that Modi strongly believes that if minorities wished to coexist and feel safe in the state governed by him, it was mandatory for them to abide by the beliefs and value systems of the majority community.

Meanwhile, I prodded on as Modi was opening up, and this was my best chance to get to the core of Modi’s understanding of Hindutva and I asked him: “India has a composite culture. There is tremendous social diversity. How do you look at inter-community relationships and the relationship of different social and religious groups with the State?”

Modi did not answer my question explicitly but said: “People can have different forms of puja and rituals can also be different—but that does not mean that the country, the traditions of the land can become different. Look at it this way—who is a Hindu? Those who believe in God are called Hindus and even those who do not believe in God. People also consider those who believe in idol worship as Hindus and even those who campaign against idol worship. Those who deify nature are termed Hindus and those who do not do so are also called Hindus. The truth is that Hindus do not have any real concern with the manner and processes of paying obeisance to God. Hindus have no problems if someone performs the namaz or goes to a church and reads the Bible to reach God. Hindus have no problem with this. We have no problems with the religious practices of people. We have no problems if anyone wants to retain religious identity—but the country, the traditions.”

Modi’s first hurdle after he became chief minister in 2001 was to find a safe seat and become member of the state assembly within the mandatory six-month period. But this was not easy for two reasons: Modi had never contested any election in his political career, and secondly, with the BJP traversing a rough terrain, finding a safe seat was difficult. As we have seen, Modi did not have a political home. He had been mostly Ahmedabad-based since joining the RSS in the early 1970s and ideally wanted to contest from a city seat—where he would personally know party workers—vacated by a party colleague. But an easy entry to the state assembly proved difficult for Modi because Haren Pandya, whose seat Modi wanted, did not oblige.

If such provocation was not enough, Pandya courted further trouble in the aftermath of the 2002 riots when he appeared before the Concerned Citizens Tribunal headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Krishna Iyer in May 2002. The deposition was made on an understanding that he would not be named. However, Modi’s intelligence wing, which an unnamed source says was fine-tuned after he became chief minister because Modi had been inspired by “Shivaji’s spy network” and wanted to develop an intelligence web like that, kept track of Pandya’s movements. Even his mobile phone was tapped—media reports claimed—as a result of which Modi got to know about Pandya’s deposition in almost real-time in May 2002.

Modi, however, was not satisfied at easing Pandya out of his government. In assembly elections, held in November-December 2002, the friend-turned-foe was not nominated by the party even after the intervention of stalwarts such as Advani and Vajpayee. The media reported gleefully that in order to avoid being pressurised into nominating Pandya, Modi checked into a hospital and stopped taking phone calls from New Delhi. After this, Pandya receded from the limelight and lived a quiet life till March 26,  2003, when everything was over for him. On that dreadful morning, an unknown assassin’s gun silenced Pandya when he was returning from a morning walk in the sprawling Law Garden, a public park in Ahmedabad.

The Haren Pandya murder case became the first of the several high-profile non-2002-riots court cases in Gujarat that cast a shadow over Modi’s regime. In police parlance, the Pandya murder case was termed a cut-out murder,  where the chain from the conspirator or instigator to the eventual victim is impossible to establish. A police contact explained it like this: “A wants to murder Z and instructs B to execute the order. B tells C who does not know that A is the instigator. Instructions are passed in this manner from C to D and then to E and it goes down all the way. The final contract killer does not know where the order originated from. If investigations turns nasty, then all A has to do is to make any of the people in the chain a cut-out—take him out by beginning another chain.”

Comparison Between American Consumption & Romantic Greediness of Middle Aged American Men

I have long held as gospel truth one belief: in matters of the heart, never trust a male over 50.

Men raised before second-wave feminism — that is, men born before 1960 — were deformed by a culture that regarded romantic indiscretions as natural expressions of manliness, an alternative to hunting. My antipathy spilled the banks of the personal into the ideological; I felt that the problem with these men was the problem with America. Like our carbon-greedy nation, ruining the global climate for everybody, they suffered from a belief that they deserved what they wanted, no matter the collateral damage.

I was not the first person to draw a comparison between American consumption habits and the romantic greediness of middle-aged American men. There’s a scene in John Updike’s novel “Rabbit at Rest” in which a Japanese businessman complains to Rabbit Angstrom, a veteran adulterer with designs on his daughter-in-law, that Americans believe “freedom” includes the right to let their dogs defecate on the sidewalk and not clean it up. In Jonathan Franzen’s novel “Freedom,” Walter Berglund, an environmentalist born late enough to grow up with the women’s movement, reflects that his lust for his young assistant threatens to turn him into yet another “overconsuming” white male.

My great goals for myself in my 20s included not becoming an Updike protagonist and not becoming one of the middle-aged men I grew up around. I used the older generations of American men as an extensive negative example.

My religion, I decided, was mindful self-loathing. If you’re born Caucasian, male and middle class in the United States, your job is to check the manifestations of the entitlement bred into you by your native culture. These manifestations pop up continuously. Whenever I was tempted to flirt with somebody I wasn’t supposed to flirt with, or indulge in some other depravity, like driving when I could take a train, I would think, “Don’t be a disgusting white guy like Stepfather Figure X.”

This ethos brought with it the thrill of hatred — and danger. When you despise a class of people, the notion that you might become that which you hate in a moment of moral frailty is frightening in proportion to the intensity of your contempt. And the anxiety worked; I never cheated on anybody. My reward was a feeling of moral superiority that emerged when I wasn’t busy nursing my self-loathing. Smugness and self-suspicion circled like a moon and sun, one climbing in the sky as the other fell.

And then, at 30, a month after I wrote the bitter e-mail to my mother’s partner, I ran into an ex in front of my gym. We stood there blinking at each other. She said something to the effect of, hello, favorite ex-boyfriend. I found this remark endlessly beautiful. But I was in a committed relationship. Don’t be a piggish middle-aged white guy, I thought.

“I’m wearing one of your old gym shirts and you’re wearing one of my old gym shirts,” I said, feeling that this was a proper, truthful, chaste and unavoidable observation. Two seconds later, we were holding hands and walking toward a bench. Twenty seconds later we were kissing on that bench. The next evening, we met for coffee, to process, I told myself, the fact that we had kissed on a bench. We ended up making out in my car.

There followed an epoch of self-disgust. My transgression would probably hurt my girlfriend worse than my mother’s partner’s had hurt anyone. And the excuses he made to himself were probably as persuasive and self-infantilizing (“It happened so fast!”) as the excuses I made to myself. What was worse than the repulsion I felt at my behavior was the sense of exhilaration that lurked beneath. I realized that I liked having it both ways; it was fun to be a cheater who moralized.

So what do you do when you discover you belong to a class of men you hate? Suicide, like cheating, inflicts suffering on anyone unfortunate enough to love you. And self-loathing, my reliable spiritual practice, had failed me in front of the gym.

The problem with self-loathing, I realized, is that you can’t maintain it forever. If you fool yourself into thinking that you despise yourself thoroughly and uninterruptedly, your selfishness, which is to say your self-love, sneaks up on you. As long as you’re committed to staying alive, you should try to be a friend to yourself, albeit a skeptical friend, in order to do less harm. Hating yourself is a kind of stimulant, anxiety-producing but also energizing. It can be nearly pleasurable. I found I had to kick that stimulant in order to act morally.

I broke up with my girlfriend, although I never told her about the bench or the car. I wrote a novel about two teenagers, a boy and a girl, who catch the boy’s father and the girl’s mother necking in a supermarket. Furious, they sign a vow never to cheat on anybody, and have no trouble keeping it until they meet again at 28, both engaged to other people. In the process of falling for each other, they fall, at first, in their own estimation. But they come to like their cheating parents better than they did before. Put simply, they learn mercy.

Mercy: that might be the singular benefit of repeating the sins of the previous generation. You might learn how quickly desire can rout ideology. You might acknowledge that you are not wholly unlike the dream-home-building, car-loving Rabbits you define yourself against, in that your major life decisions are guided by wants and not beliefs. Once you stop hating yourself, you might hate other people less.

---

Benjamin Nugent is the author, most recently, of the novel “Good Kids” and the director of creative writing at Southern New Hampshire University.

 

How is Democracy Supposed to Work?

The Right to Democracy

The word “Democracy” comes from the Greek word demokratia, from demos ‘the people’, and -kratia which means ‘power, rule.’

“Democracy” therefore means “power of the people.”

How is democracy supposed to work?  

People have simple wishes. They want a leader who will make these wishes come true. Through the voting process, the people elect individuals to the government’s top positions. Those who get the majority vote are given the power to run the country.

What should those elected to power in government do?

They should serve and keep their promises to the public, who voted for them and gave them power.

What are the people’s wishes?

They want peace on the streets, a good job that is earned on merit, no torture, no slavery, no corruption, freedom to express themselves, religious freedom and no discrimination. Simply stated, they want the 30 Human Rights.

These 30 Rights are the values of democracy.

These values should be practised in our daily lives, in our own homes and at our work places. This is how we set the foundation of the values of democracy in our society.

How do we judge those in power?

Did they do a good or bad job while they ruled? You can evaluate a government to be successful to the degree it ensures the Rights of People, without discrimination.

Gaining power through the method of democracy and then ruling as a dictator, does not in any way undermine the concept of democracy. It just reflects badly on those in power, who showed themselves to be self-indulgent, corrupt, motivated by greed and who therefore failed to serve the public.

The public want a government that will grant and protect the rights of individuals. They expect those elected to serve the people, by giving people their basic rights. The doors of democracy in Pakistan will be opened provided the public makes those in power accountable.

The people of Pakistan deserve the best.

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.

Why are the Jews So Powerful?

By Farrukh Saleem

The writer is the Pakistani Executive Director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, a think tank established in 2007, and son in law of Khalilur Rehman of the Jang Group.

There are only 14 million Jews in the world:

seven million in the Americas

five million in Asia

two million in Europe

100,000 in Africa .

For every single Jew in the world there are 100 Muslims.

Yet, Jews are more than a hundred times more powerful than all the Muslims put together.

Ever wondered why?

Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish.

Albert Einstein, the most influential scientist of all time and TIME magazine’s ’Person of the Century’, was a Jew.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis was a Jew.

So were Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman.

Here are a few other Jews whose intellectual output has enriched the whole humanity:

Benjamin Rubin gave humanity the vaccinating needle.

Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine.

Albert Sabin developed the improved live polio vaccine.

Gertrude Elion gave us a leukemia fighting drug.

Baruch Blumberg developed the vaccination for Hepatitis B.

Paul Ehrlich discovered a treatment for syphilis.

Elie Metchnikoff won a Nobel Prize in infectious diseases.

Bernard Katz won a Nobel Prize in neuromuscular transmission.

Andrew Schally won a Nobel in endocrinology.

Aaron Beck founded Cognitive Therapy.

Gregory Pincus developed the first oral contraceptive pill.

George Wald won a Nobel for our understanding of the human eye.

Stanley Cohen won a Nobel in embryology.

Willem Kolff came up with the kidney dialysis machine.

Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel Prizes while only three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion
Muslims (other than Peace Prizes).

Stanley Mezor invented the first micro-processing chip.

Leo Szilard developed the first nuclear chain reactor;

Peter Schultz, optical fibre cable;

Charles Adler, traffic lights;

Benno Strauss, Stainless steel;

Isador Kisee, sound movies;

Emile Berliner, telephone microphone;

Charles Ginsburg, videotape recorder.

Famous financiers in the business world who belong to Jewish faith include:

Ralph Lauren (Polo),

Levis Strauss (Levi’s Jeans),

Howard Schultz (Starbuck’s) ,

Sergey Brin (Google),

Michael Dell (Dell Computers),

Larry Ellison (Oracle),

Donna Karan (DKNY),

Irv Robbins (Baskins & Robbins) and

Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Donuts).

Richard Levin, President of Yale University, is a Jew. So are Henry Kissinger (American secretary of state), Alan Greenspan (Fed chairman under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush), Joseph Lieberman (US Senator), Madeleine Albright (American secretary of state), Casper Weinberger (American secretary of defense), Maxim Litvinov ( USSR foreign Minister), David Marshal ( Singapore ‘s first chief minister), Issac Isaacs (governor-general of Australia ), Benjamin
Disraeli (British statesman and author), Yevgeny Primakov (Russian PM), Barry Goldwater (US Senator), Jorge Sampaio (president of Portugal ), John Deutsch (CIA director), Herb Gray (Canadian deputy PM), Pierre Mendes (French PM), Michael Howard (British home
secretary), Bruno Kreisky (chancellor of Austria ) and Robert Rubin (American secretary of treasury).

In the media, famous Jews include:

Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Barbara Walters (ABC News), Eugene Meyer (Washington Post), Henry Grunwald (editor-in-chief Time), Katherine Graham (publisher of The Washington Post), Joseph Lelyveld (Executive editor, The New York Times), and Max Frankel (New York Times).

The most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world is George Soros, a Jew, who has so far donated a colossal $4 billion most of which has gone as aid to scientists and universities around the world.

Second to George Soros is Walter Annenberg, another Jew, who has built a hundred libraries by donating an estimated $2 billion.

At the Olympics, Mark Spitz set a record of sorts by winning seven gold medals; Lenny Krayzelburg is a three-time Olympic gold medalist.

Spitz, Krayzelburg and Boris Becker (Tennis) are all Jewish.

Did you know that Harrison Ford, George Burns, Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Sandra Bullock, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen, Paul Newman,
Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley, Kirk Douglas, Goldie Hawn, Cary Grant, William Shatner, Jerry Lewis and
Peter Falk are all Jews.

As a matter of fact, Hollywood itself was founded by a Jew.

Among directors and producers, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Oliver Stone, Aaron Spelling ( Beverly Hills 90210), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple), Andrew Vaina (Rambo 1/2/3), Michael Man (Starsky andHutch), Milos Forman (One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Douglas Fairbanks (The Thief of Baghdad ) and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) are all Jewish.

So, why are Jews so powerful?
Answer : EDUCATION

Why are Muslims so powerless?
There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas . Every fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are two Muslims, for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there are 100 Muslims.

Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?
Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around
500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims.

The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407.

In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an ‘Academic Ranking of World Universities’ , and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.

As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

Some 98 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same.

Around 40 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same.

Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million.

In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs. (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million).

The Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of its GDP.

Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge!

Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society.

In Pakistan , there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK , the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge. 

Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application. Pakistan ‘s export of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent. The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent; Kuwait , Morocco , and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent, while Singapore is at 58 per cent.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge. 

Why are Muslims powerless?

…..Because we aren’t producing knowledge,
…..Because we aren’t diffusing knowledge.,
…..Because we aren’t applying knowledge.

And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.

Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion.

America , just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion; China $8 trillion, Japan $3.8 trillion and Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).

Oil rich Saudi Arabia , UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion; Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion, Catholic Poland $489 billion and Buddhist Thailand $545 billion.

….. (Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining).

All we do is shout to Allah the whole day and blame everyone else for our multiple failures!

Muslims are not happy

They’re not happy in Gaza

They’re not happy in Egypt

They’re not happy in Libya

They’re not happy in Morocco

They’re not happy in Iran

They’re not happy in Iraq

They’re not happy in Yemen

They’re not happy in Afghanistan

They’re not happy in Pakistan

They’re not happy in Syria

They’re not happy in Lebanon

So, where are they happy?

They’re happy in Australia

They’re happy in England

They’re happy in France

They’re happy in Italy

They’re happy in Germany

They’re happy in Sweden

They’re happy in the USA & Canada

They’re happy in Norway

They’re happy in almost every country that is not Islamic!

And who do they blame?

Not Islam…

Not their leadership…

Not themselves…

THEY BLAME THE COUNTRIES THEY ARE HAPPY IN

And they want to change the countries they’re happy in, to be like the countries they came from, where they were unhappy.

Try to find logic in that!

Jeff Foxworthy on Muslims:

1. If You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to liquor. You are a Muslim

2. If You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can’t afford shoes. You are a Muslim

3. If You have more wives than teeth. You are a Muslim

4. If You wipe your butt with your bare hand, but consider bacon unclean. You are a Muslim.

5. If You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide. You are a Muslim

6. If You can’t think of anyone you haven’t declared Jihad against.
You are a Muslim

7. If You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing. You are a Muslim

8. If You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs. You are a Muslim

9. If You have nothing against women and think every man should own at least four. You are a Muslim

 

Only in America: 4 Prison Guards Get Pregnant From an Inmate

A major scandal in the Baltimore city corrections system netted an indictment of 25 people — including 13 prison guards — on charges of drug conspiracy, money laundering and racketeering, all run through a prison gang operation in which inmates virtually controlled the jail in which they were incarcerated.

Federal law enforcement officials say the defendants conspired with or took bribes from members of the Black Guerilla Family to smuggle drugs, cellphones, and other contraband in and out of the Baltimore City Detention Center and several facilities connected to it.

Four female corrections officers named in the indictment even became pregnant (one of them twice) by the gang’s accused ringleader, inmate Tavon White.

The scheme ran from 2009 through at least February, when it was discovered through a series of inspections by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

But before it was busted, the gang operated with near complete impunity.”In this case, the inmates literally took over the asylum and the detention centers became safe havens for the BGF,” said FBI Special Agent Stephen E. Vogt in a statement. “Law enforcement should not have to concern itself with criminal subjects who have already been arrested and relegated to detention centers.”

At the center of the allegations is White, 36, who was accused of a 2009 attempted murder and was being held at BCDC awaiting trial. In a transcript of an intercepted cellphone call included in the indictment, he appears to implicate himself as the leader of the gang by asserting that nothing happens within the jail without his approval:

This is my jail. You understand that? I’m dead serious….I make every final call in this jail…and nothing go past me, everything come to me….Any of my brothers that deal with anybody, it’s gonna come to me. You see what I am saying? Everything come to me. Everything. Before a mother-f—— hit a n—— in the mouth, guess what they do, they gotta run it through me. I tell them whether it’s a go ahead, and they can do it or whether they hold back. Before a mother-f—— stab somebody, they gotta run it through me….Anything that get done must go through me. ”

The Black Guerilla Family is one of many prison gangs that operate throughout the country. Its origins date back to the radical movements of the 1960s, and it operates  within various prison systems and also on the streets; a member was convicted in the 1989 shooting death of Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton. The BGF has been the dominant gang at the Baltimore facility since 2006.

The indictment says inmates paid their co-conspirators through Green Dot Money Pak prepaid cards, and even purchased luxury items for guards who were working with the gang. For example, officials say White gave corrections officer Jennifer Owens a diamond ring and bought Mercedes Benz, BMW and Acura automobiles for Owens, Katera Stevenson, Chania Brooks and Tiffany Lender — all guards that he allegedly had sexual relationships with. These relationships, the indictment says, were used to influence the women who in turn helped the smuggling operation.

But these five were not the only ones involved, according to the indictment.

Eight other prison officers performed duties ranging from smuggling contraband into the prison to tipping off BGF members about law enforcement “shakedowns” to standing lookout while the guards had sex with inmates.

All of the 13 corrections officers accused in the indictment are female.

The scheme was busted when 30 Maryland corrections officers from outside BCDC, along with federal agents, carried out surprise searches of inmate cells, unearthing caches of drugs including oxycodone, benzodiazepines, hydrocodone and marijuana.

Each of the 25 accused are charged with racketeering, drug trafficking, extortion, bribery and money laundering. The defendants face a maximum 20 years imprisonment if convicted.

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.”