Asian HRs Commission Hongkong Says Army Supported Al Qaeda Candidates

Pakistan military intends to back Al-Qaida candidates for the next parliament

There have been some developments recently that reveal that in the 2013 elections elements of the Taliban and Al-Qaida had been offered seats in the parliament. Before these developments the security agencies with the help of right wing parties have also allowed 53 sectarian candidates to contest the elections without passing through the sword of the articles 62 and 63 of the constitution which debar any candidate known to be involved in cases of sectarian violence, hate campaigns or having been charged with murder and killings through sectarian violence.

The military officials were remained busy in the Bajur agency, FATA, close to Afghan border, to make a deal with the agents of Al-Qaida for the coming elections.

During the time of filing the nomination papers the Military Commander of the Bajur agency, Brigadier Ghulam Haider, held a meeting with the local leadership of Jamat-e-Islami (JI) who, in the past had direct links with the militants of Al-Qaida and master minds of 9/11 and had provided shelter to them. There are two national assembly seats from the Bajur agency and these two seats were assured to JI and in return the JI and other jihadist organization will provide:

(1) logistic support to those who want to join Jihad in Afghanistan from Pakistani side and extend ‘melmastia’, the traditional tribal hospitality, to Mujahideen coming back from Afghanistan;

(2) JI will not oppose any operation in Bajaur but rather support any military operation in Bajure in future;

(3) JI will not oppose but rather help in constructing the road that connects Afghanistan with Pakistan (The road connects Chakdara via Munda-Bajaur-Ghakhi Pass-Kunar and Chakdara-Munda-Samar Bagh-Shahi-bin-Shahi-Asmaar-Kunar) and (4)the arrangement will remain intact between the two parties until a favourable government in Afghanistan is installed.

The reasons for such developments are described as the USA and Allied Forces are leaving Afghanistan next year so the military has geared up its contacts with those political-cum-religious parties who could help in furthering the interests of Pakistan and the military to establish their major share as a stake holder.

When the US and Allied forces entered Afghanistan, the religious parties in Pakistan were brought into the power in 2002 elections by the then military dictator, General Musharraf. Now, when these forces are leaving Afghanistan, there are hectic efforts to bring fundamentalists again into the power particularly in the province of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KP).

The May 11 elections are the first ever party-based elections in FATA history after the political parties order was extended to the tribal belt as part of reforms to the Frontiers Crimes Regulations (FCR) in 2011.

Mr. Haroon Rasheed and Sardar Khan of JI are contesting elections from the constituency of National Assembly 43 and 44 respectively.

Haroon Rasheed was also elected in 2002 on the JI ticket when military needed religious parties to help military government. He was providing shelter to the Al-Qaida militants at his house who were wanted at international level. In 2009, during the military operation, 10 Al-Qaida militants from the Arab countries were recovered who were hiding there since many years. His brother and nephew were arrested but brother was released and nephew is still behind the bar to safe him. His house has also been destroyed with many other houses in the Loi Sim area of Bajur. All destroyed houses were not allowed to be reconstructed but Haroon Rasheed’s house has been renovated as a special case.

The JI and its leaders were involved in providing shelter to Al-Qaida militants. The mastermind of 9/11 incident, Mr. Khalid Shiekh Mohammad was arrested from the house of Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, a leader of JI from Rawalpindi, Punjab, in March 2003 but with the help of Musharraf government Qadoos was released and no action has been taken against him. The same was with former provincial mister of KP, Mr. Siraj ul Haq, the president of JI from the province. He handed over one Al-Qaida man to his friend’s house in Durgai, the Malakand Agency. After some years the Al-Qaida militant was arrested by the military but no action has been taken against Haq and his friend, it was in the era of Musharraf government when Haq was the senior minister of the province.

Last January in Karachi, two Al-Qaeda operatives were arrested after a shoot-out in the house of Sabiha Shahid, another leader of the Jamaat’s women’s wing. Dr. Khawaja Javed and his brother, who are facing trial on charges of harbouring senior Al-Qaeda operatives and their families, in their sprawling residential compound outside Lahore, are closely related to a senior Jamaat leader.

According to the newsline report of 2003, Similarly, in Karachi, Jamaat (JI) activists were involved in the shoot-out which helped a third Arab to escape. “We have strong evidence of the Jamaat’s involvement with Al-Qaeda,” said a senior government official.

The Jamaat boasts the most active women’s wing of any political party. They have been in the forefront of the protests against the arrest of Al-Qaeda leaders. Many political leaders accuse the Jamaat of using its women members as human shields. Security officials maintain that Jamaat activists, who actively participated in the Afghan war against Soviet occupation, developed close contacts with the Arab fighters and the links continued after the war was over. “Their association with the Al-Qaeda is not surprising,” said a senior official. Faisal Saleh Hayat, the federal interior minister, said it was a matter of great concern to the government that top Al-Qaeda operatives were found to be harboured by the Jamaat. “How can they claim that Al-Qaeda fugitives are their guests?” he asked. In a press briefing on March 10, an ISI official maintained that individuals from the Jamaat were associated with the Al-Qaeda.

This time the military has again contacted the JI and other religious groups to induct religious candidates in the parliament so that the liberal and secular political parties should not come in majority and can not change the Islamic colour of the country. In the recent days the chief of the Army staff, General Kiyani has come out with the announcement that the Islamic Ideology is the basis of the creation of Pakistan and it can not be separated from the country. This announcement has been termed by media circles as the ‘pre-poll rigging’.

A deal is under way with many Jihadi groups and they were assured that the military will make their way in to the parliament but in return they have to extend their help in furthering its interests in Afghanistan by providing safety and security to the Jihadi elements. This is the reason that JI have been taken as the best via media for the militant organisations and in return JI will be given good numbers of the seats in the parliament.

The three political parties, the PPP, MQM and ANP and other political parties from Balochistan province, who are liberal and secular have been threatened by the Taliban that they would not be allowed to have freedom of election campaign. Their public meetings are continuously under the bomb attacks and the Taliban claim the responsibility. Those political parties who are supposing to the ‘friends of Taliban’ have the full freedom for the election campaign. The security forces are also not providing any security to stop the attacks of the liberal parties. A great divide has been made by the military, the caretaker government and election commission between the centre right and liberal political parties and all arrangement have made that those political parties must win who have the inclination towards Al-Qaida and Taliban.

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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation that monitors human rights in Asia, documents violations and advocates for justice and institutional reform to ensure the protection and promotion of these rights. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

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Asian Human Rights Commission
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48 Hoi Yuen Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon,
Hongkong S.A.R.
Tel: +(852) 2698-6339
Fax: +(852) 2698-6367
Web: humanrights.asia
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Does Holy Jihad Entail Killing of All Non-Muslims?

This is a true story and the author, Rick Mathes, is a well-known leader in prison ministry 

The man who walks with God always gets to his destination. If you have a pulse you have a purpose.

The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion per capita in the United States , especially in the minority races!

Last month I attended my annual training session that’s required for maintaining my state prison security clearance.

During the training session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths , who each explained their beliefs.

I was particularly interested in what the Islamic had to say. The Muslim gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with a video. After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers then it was my turn. I directed my question to the Muslim and asked:

‘Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world and, that by killing an infidel, (which is a command to all Muslims) they are assured of a place in heaven. If that’s the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?’  

There was no disagreement with my statements and, without hesitation, he replied, ‘ Non-believers! ‘

I responded, ‘So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can have a place in heaven.

Is that correct?’

The expression on his face changed from one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He sheepishly replied, ‘Yes.’

I then stated, ‘Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine The Pope commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or Dr. Stanley ordering all Protestants to do the same in order to guarantee them a place in heaven!’

The Muslim was speechless! I continued,’I also have a problem with being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me!

Let me ask you a question:

Would you rather have your Allah, who tells you to kill me in order for you to go to heaven, or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to heaven and He wants you to be there with me?’

You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head in shame.

Needless to say, the organizers and/or promoters of the ‘Diversification’ training seminar were not happy with my way of dealing with the Islamic Imam, and exposing the truth about the Muslims’ beliefs.

In 20 years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President!

I think everyone in the U.S. should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!

Taliban: Enemy of Our Enemy is Our Friend

Tribal elders pressurised to sign peace deals with Taliban

by Kahar Zalmay

Yet another policy change by the army indicates that the Taliban are now an asset in the new develop of the region

As the time of the withdrawal of the USA and the allied forces is coming closer the Pakistan army has suddenly changed its stance against the Taliban.

The army has developed its new policy from “Crush the terrorists” to “Our enemy’s enemy is our friend” and included the Taliban as its partner for the coming changes in the region. Since 2001 Pakistan has received huge amounts of foreign aid against Al-Qaida and the Taliban and internally a policy was adopted against terrorists which were generally bracketed as ‘Taliban’. The government and the army have divided the Taliban into the Pakistani and Afghanistan Taliban and showed a strong inclination towards declaring the Pakistani Taliban as enemies of the country. They are mainly operating from the tribal areas into the major cities of Pakistan.

In their latest policy statement the army has declared the terrorists as the major threat to the security of Pakistan. This is a policy shift as the main ‘threat’ to the country was previously India.

It is claimed by the Pakistani army that almost 40,000 armed forces personnel have been killed by terrorists, mainly by the Taliban. However, once again, a policy shift has been observed where the military is now forcing the tribal leaders of the FATA to make friends with the Taliban and sign peace deals with them. FATA is a semi-autonomous tribal region in north-western Pakistan, bordering Pakistan’s provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan to the east and south, and Afghanistan’s provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Paktika to the west and north. It comprises of seven tribal agencies (districts) and six frontier regions, and is directly governed by Pakistan’s federal government through a special set of laws called the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR).

Malaks are the tribal elders of different tribes and the Khan is the leader of the Malaks. The Malaks in Bajaur Agency are under tremendous pressure from the military to sign peace deals with the Taliban who fled to Kunar province in Afghanistan. Bajaur is one of the seven tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan. To the South of Bajaur is the Mohmand Agency while to the North it is connected with District Dir.

During the war with the Taliban the Pakistan army provided arms, ammunition and training to the tribal leaders and elders to fight against Terrorists. For that initiative the Aman Committees (Peace Committees) were formed and they fought valiantly, sacrificing their lives and property to save the country from attacks from the northern areas.

According to the details available from the scribe of this article in the interviews conducted with the Malaks, they were invited for a Jarga three months ago at the Political Agent’s office in the agency headquarter, Khaar. In that meeting the Malaks were asked to sign a peace deal with Taliban from Bajaur Agency and also to send a delegation to Kunar in order to bring them back.

The Jargas in the tribal areas are the official meetings conducted under the political agent of the FATA and grand Jargas are conducted by the provincial governor of Khyber Pakhtoonkha.

When the Malaks resisted this initiative, another Jarga was called on February 8, 2013 which was addressed by Brigadier Ghulam Haider who is the commander of the military in the agency. In this Jarga, Brigadier Haider pressed the elders to agree to a peace deal with the Taliban.

The ‘demand’ from the military was not merely limited to a peace deal with the Taliban. Each Malak was also asked to host 30 Talibani until the political agent built houses for them.

“We were shocked and could not believe what we were told by the Brigadier. We thought the military came to uproot  the terrorists from our area but now it is asking us to sign a deal with the murderers of our sons, brothers and children”, a shaken and incensed Malak shared with this scribe in Bajaur.

The resilience to this proposal-cum-dictate came from the elders of Salarzai tribe which was the first tribe to launch a tribal Lakhkar (a collective tribal force) under the leadership of its Khan, the Khan of Pashat, Shahabuddin Khan to fight Taliban in 2007-08. This was before the military entered Bajaur. Instead of appreciating the struggle of the Salarzai tribe and its elders, it has now become a casualty of the State policy.

“We are accused of taking money from the USA, Afghanistan, Europe and India for launching our Lakhkar. And when we refused to succumb to the pressure of the military to have peace with Taliban, a 1000-strong Taliban outfit attacked our area from the Baatwar side, a mountainous village on the Pak-Afghan border. Our valiant tribesmen deterred their attack and pushed them back to the Afghan side”, a Malak told me on the condition of anonymity. We were sitting in the shadow of those tall snowy mountains from where Taliban entered some four months back.

“We do not know what the military and the government want from us. We sacrificed so much in this war. There is not a single family that did not lose a member in this fight. But we are befuddled that why after so much sufferings, the military wants us to welcome those murderers. If this was going to be the conclusion of our fight, we would not have wanted the sacrifices of our children, fathers and brothers”, an elderly man belonging to the Salarzai tribe voiced, the sorrow and subjection was clearly printed on his wrinkled face.

“The military should tell us in clear terms what it wants from us? If it wants us to leave this place, so we shall. If it wants us to attack Afghanistan, we will do it. My kids are out of school for five years; they can’t go to school even in Peshawar or roam there unreservedly. They cannot go out of this compound and I myself cannot sit here”, (he was referring to his Hujra where the guests were sitting), another Malak told the scribe in Khaar, the headquarters of Bajaur Agency.

The scribe then asked, “But will you be able to handle Taliban if the military left Bajaur. He replied, “We want the military out as we are sick of its double game and we have arrived at this conclusion that military and Taliban are the same. And as far as the Taliban are concerned, we will slice them into small pieces and throw them to this dog”. He signalled to the dog lying near the kut (the traditional bed) enjoying a sound sleep and not the least concerned with the Malak’s anguish and my curiosity.

“The military is forcing Malaks to agree to a peace deal with the Taliban and for that it exploits different tactics”, divulged a local journalist on the condition of anonymity. “If you are a Malak and you resist negotiations with the Taliban, a stranger would use some IEDs in your area and stay there until the military sniping dogs spot him there. This gives the military an opportunity to confront the Malak and accuse him of harbouring the Taliban himself. He is left with no option but to accept peace deal”. He laughed, probably noticing the expression of surprise on the face of this scribe. “This is FATA my dear, away from human civilization”, he added.

The recent appointment of the governor of KPK, Shaukatullah Khan could be linked to this new strategy of the Pakistan army to bring back their assets from Afghanistan, rest them and get them ready for a new battle in Afghanistan after the US forces withdraw. Shaukatullah Khan was an elected member of the National Assembly from Bajaur Agency.

When the scribe contacted the Military Commander in Bajaur, Brigadier Ghulam Haider, to get his view on the allegations levelled against the military by the Malaks he said, “I might have been misquoted by some Malaks as the purpose of the military in Bajaur is to clear the area of all sorts of militants. We are strictly concentrating on our job and as for negotiations with the Taliban are concerned it’s a political decision that needs to be taken by the political forces in the country”.

The entire tribal area is now in a state of confusion, not knowing whether to side with the Taliban or the army. Regardless of which way to go, there is no doubt in their minds that they will be at the mercy of both the Taliban and the army. This is not the first time in recent history that there has been a policy change regarding the Taliban and it appears that this is more a matter of convenience rather than being in the interest of the security of the country.

If, in fact, the peace deals are signed with the Taliban this will be a licence for them to kill the innocent citizens in the name of their version of Islam.

Taliban Have Reached Karachi

Karachi is no stranger to gangland violence, driven for years by a motley collection of armed groups who battle over money, turf and votes.

But there is a new gang in town. Hundreds of miles from their homeland in the mountainous northwest, Pakistani Taliban fighters have started to flex their muscles more forcefully in parts of this vast city, and they are openly taking ground.

Taliban gunmen have mounted guerrilla assaults on police stations, killing scores of officers. They have stepped up extortion rackets that target rich businessmen and traders, and shot dead public health workers engaged in polio vaccination efforts. In some neighborhoods, Taliban clerics have started to mediate disputes through a parallel judicial system.

The grab for influence and power in Karachi shows that the Taliban have been able to extend their reach across Pakistan, even here in the country’s most populous city, with about 20 million inhabitants. No longer can they be written off as endemic only to the country’s frontier regions.

In joining Karachi’s street wars, the Taliban are upending a long-established network of competing criminal, ethnic and political armed groups in this combustible city. The difference is that the Taliban’s agenda is more expansive — it seeks to overthrow the Pakistani state — and their operations are run by remote control from the tribal belt along the Afghan border.

Already, the militants have reshaped the city’s political balance by squeezing one of the most prominent political machines, the Pashtun-dominated Awami National Party, off its home turf. They have scared Awami operatives out of town and destroyed offices, gravely undercutting the party’s chances in national elections scheduled for May.

“We are the Taliban’s first enemy,” said Shahi Syed, the party’s provincial head, at his newly fortified office. “They burn my offices, they tear down my flags and they kill our people.”

The Taliban drift into Karachi actually began years ago, though much more quietly. Many fled here after a concerted Pakistani military operation in the Swat Valley in 2009. The influx has gradually continued, officials here say, with Taliban fighters able to easily melt into the city’s population of fellow ethnic Pashtuns, estimated to number at least five million people.

Until recently, the militants saw Karachi as a kind of rear base, using the city to lie low or seek medical treatment, and limiting their armed activities to criminal fund-raising, like kidnapping and bank robberies.

But for at least six months now, there have been signs that their timidity is disappearing. The Taliban have become a force on the street, aggressively exerting their influence in the ethnic Pashtun quarters of the city.

Taliban tactics are most evident in Manghopir, an impoverished neighborhood of rough, cinder-block houses clustered around marble quarries on the northern edge of the city, where illegal housing settlements spill into the surrounding desert.

In recent months, Taliban militants have attacked the Manghopir police station three times, killing eight officers, said Muhammad Aadil Khan, a local member of Parliament.

In interviews, residents describe Taliban militants who roam on motorbikes or in jeeps with tinted windows, delivering extortion demands in the shape of two bullets wrapped in a piece of paper.

A factory owner in Manghopir, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety, said that several Pashtun businessmen had received demands for $10,000 to $50,000. The figure was negotiable, he said, but payment was not: resistance could result in an assault on the victim’s house or, in the worst case, a bullet to the head.

Mr. Khan said he had not dared to visit his constituency in months. “There is a personal threat against me,” he said, speaking at the headquarters of his party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which represents ethnic Mohajirs, in the city center.

The militant drive has even distressed Manghopir’s most revered residents: the dozens of crocodiles who inhabit a pool near a Sufi shrine here.

The Muslim pilgrims who come here to pay homage to the shrine’s saint have long also brought scraps of meat for his reptile charges.

But lately, as visitor numbers have dwindled from hundreds per day to barely a few dozen, the roughly 120 crocodiles here have grown hungry, according to the animals’ elderly caretaker.

Police officials, militant sources and Pashtun residents say that three major Taliban factions operate in Karachi — the most powerful one, which is rooted in South Waziristan and dominated by the Mehsud tribe, and two others from the Swat and Mohmand areas.

A senior city police officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that militant commanders with those factions send operational orders to Karachi from the tribal belt; while some captured militants have tried to justify their activities by citing the authorization of religious clerics in the northwest.

In cases, he added, regular criminal groups have posed as Taliban fighters in a bid to increase their power of intimidation.

Just why the Taliban are adopting such an aggressive profile in Karachi right now is unclear. Some cite the greater number of militants fleeing Pakistani military operations in the northwest; others say it may be the product of dwindling funds, as jihadi donors in the Persian Gulf states turn to the Middle East.

In any event, it has shaken the city’s bloody ethnic politics.

Since the 1980s, armed supporters of the Mohajir-dominated Muttahida Qaumi Movement have engaged in tit-for-tat violence with those of the Pashtun-dominated Awami National Party. In the worst periods, dozens of people have died in a day. Now, faced with a common enemy, figures in both parties say they have declared an uneasy, unofficial truce.

As well as the attack on the Awami party — which have seen it close 44 of its district offices across the city — the Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for two attacks on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement — first, a bombing that killed four people, then the assassination of a party parliamentarian.

In a recent interview with The New York Times in North Waziristan, the Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said the group was targeting both parties — as well as President Zardari’s PPP — for their “liberal” policies.

The security forces, shaken out of complacency, have begun a number of major anti-Taliban operations. The latest of those occurred on March 23 when hundreds of paramilitary Rangers raided a residential area in Manghopir, near the crocodile shrine, confiscating a cache of more than 50 weapons and rounding up 200 people, 16 of whom were later identified as militants and detained.

“I don’t think the Taliban would like to set Karachi aflame, because they fear the reaction against them,” said Ikram Seghal, a security consultant in Karachi. “The police and intelligence agencies have very good information about them.”

Other factors limit the Pakistani Taliban’s ingress into Karachi. One of the more provocative ones is that allied militants — particularly the Afghan Taliban — might not like the added publicity. The Afghan wing has long used the city as place to rest and resupply. There are longstanding rumors that the movement’s leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, is taking shelter here, and that his leadership council, known as the Quetta Shura, has met in Karachi.

In such a vast and turbulent city, the Taliban may become just another turf-driven gang. But without a determined response from the security forces, experts say, they could also seek to become much more.

Drone Attacks Started with the Army’s Consent

On a hot day in June 2004, the Pashtun tribesman was lounging inside a mud compound in South Waziristan, speaking by satellite phone to one of the many reporters who regularly interviewed him on how he had fought and humbled Pakistan’s army in the country’s western mountains. He asked one of his followers about the strange, metallic bird hovering above him.

Less than 24 hours later, a missile tore through the compound, severing Mr. Muhammad’s left leg and killing him and several others, including two boys, ages 10 and 16. A Pakistani military spokesman was quick to claim responsibility for the attack, saying that Pakistani forces had fired at the compound.

That was a lie.

Mr. Muhammad and his followers had been killed by the CIA, the first time it had deployed a Predator drone in Pakistan to carry out a “targeted killing.” The target was not a top operative of Al Qaeda, but a Pakistani ally of the Taliban who led a tribal rebellion and was marked by Pakistan as an enemy of the state.

In a secret deal, the CIA had agreed to kill him in exchange for access to airspace it had long sought so it could use drones to hunt down its own enemies.

That back-room bargain is critical to understanding the origins of a covert drone war that began under the Bush administration, was embraced and expanded by President Obama, and is now the subject of fierce debate. The deal, a month after a blistering internal report about abuses in the CIA’s network of secret prisons, paved the way for the CIA to change its focus from capturing terrorists to killing them, and helped transform an agency that began as a cold war espionage service into a paramilitary organization.

The CIA has since conducted hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan that have killed thousands of people, Pakistanis and Arabs, militants and civilians alike. While it was not the first country where the United States used drones, it became the laboratory for the targeted killing operations that have come to define a new American way of fighting, blurring the line between soldiers and spies and short-circuiting the normal mechanisms by which the United States as a nation goes to war.

Neither American nor Pakistani officials have ever publicly acknowledged what really happened to Mr. Muhammad — details of the strike that killed him, along with those of other secret strikes, are still hidden in classified government databases.

CIA Chief Mr. Brennan, who began his career at the CIA and over the past four years oversaw an escalation of drone strikes from his office at the White House, has signaled that he hopes to return the agency to its traditional role of intelligence collection and analysis. But with a generation of CIA officers now fully engaged in a new mission, it is an effort that could take years.

Today, even some of the people who were present at the creation of the drone program think the agency should have long given up targeted killings.

Ross Newland, who was a senior official at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia., when the agency was given the authority to kill Qaeda operatives, says he thinks that the agency had grown too comfortable with remote-control killing, and that drones have turned the CIA into the villain in countries like Pakistan, where it should be nurturing relationships in order to gather intelligence.

From Car Thief to Militant

By 2004, Mr. Muhammad had become the undisputed star of the tribal areas, the fierce mountain lands populated by the Wazirs, Mehsuds and other Pashtun tribes who for decades had lived independent of the writ of the central government in Islamabad. A brash member of the Wazir tribe, Mr. Muhammad had raised an army to fight government troops and had forced the government into negotiations. He saw no cause for loyalty to the ISI that had given an earlier generation of Pashtuns support during the war against the Soviets.

Many Pakistanis in the tribal areas viewed with disdain the alliance that President Musharraf had forged with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They regarded the Pakistani military that had entered the tribal areas as no different from the Americans — who they believed had begun a war of aggression in Afghanistan, just as the Soviets had years earlier.

Born near Wana, the bustling market hub of South Waziristan, Mr. Muhammad spent his adolescent years as a petty car thief and shopkeeper in the city’s bazaar. He found his calling in 1993, around the age of 18, when he was recruited to fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and rose quickly through the group’s military hierarchy. He cut a striking figure on the battlefield with his long face and flowing jet black hair.

When the Americans invaded Afghanistan in 2001, he seized an opportunity to host the Arab and Chechen fighters from Al Qaeda who crossed into Pakistan to escape the American bombing.

For Mr. Muhammad, it was partly a way to make money, but he also saw another use for the arriving fighters. With their help, over the next two years he launched a string of attacks on Pakistani military installations and on American firebases in Afghanistan.

CIA officers in Islamabad urged Pakistani spies to lean on the Waziri tribesman to hand over the foreign fighters, but under Pashtun tribal customs that would be treachery. Reluctantly, Mr. Musharraf ordered his troops into the forbidding mountains to deliver rough justice to Mr. Muhammad and his fighters, hoping the operation might put a stop to the attacks on Pakistani soil, including two attempts on his life in December 2003.

But it was only the beginning. In March 2004, Pakistani helicopter gunships and artillery pounded Wana and its surrounding villages. Government troops shelled pickup trucks that were carrying civilians away from the fighting and destroyed the compounds of tribesmen suspected of harboring foreign fighters. The Pakistani commander declared the operation an unqualified success, but for Islamabad, it had not been worth the cost in casualties.

A cease-fire was negotiated in April during a hastily arranged meeting in South Waziristan, during which a senior Pakistani commander hung a garland of bright flowers around Mr. Muhammad’s neck. The two men sat together and sipped tea as photographers and television cameras recorded the event.

Both sides spoke of peace, but there was little doubt who was negotiating from strength. Mr. Muhammad would later brag that the government had agreed to meet inside a religious madrasa rather than in a public location where tribal meetings are traditionally held. “I did not go to them; they came to my place,” he said. “That should make it clear who surrendered to whom.”

The peace arrangement propelled Mr. Muhammad to new fame, and the truce was soon exposed as a sham. He resumed attacks against Pakistani troops, and Mr. Musharraf ordered his army back on the offensive in South Waziristan.

Pakistani officials had, for several years, balked at the idea of allowing armed CIA Predators to roam their skies. They considered drone flights a violation of sovereignty, and worried that they would invite further criticism of Mr. Musharraf as being Washington’s lackey. But Mr. Muhammad’s rise to power forced them to reconsider.

The CIA had been monitoring the rise of Mr. Muhammad, but officials considered him to be more Pakistan’s problem than America’s. In Washington, officials were watching with growing alarm the gathering of Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas, and George J. Tenet, the CIA director, authorized officers in the agency’s Islamabad station to push Pakistani officials to allow armed drones. Negotiations were handled primarily by the Islamabad station.

As the battles raged in South Waziristan, the station chief in Islamabad paid a visit to Gen. Ehsan ul Haq, the ISI chief, and made an offer: If the CIA killed Mr. Muhammad, would the ISI allow regular armed drone flights over the tribal areas?

In secret negotiations, the terms of the bargain were set. Pakistani intelligence officials insisted that they be allowed to approve each drone strike, giving them tight control over the list of targets. And they insisted that drones fly only in narrow parts of the tribal areas — ensuring that they would not venture where Islamabad did not want the Americans going: Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, and the mountain camps where Kashmiri militants were trained for attacks in India.

The ISI and the CIA agreed that all drone flights in Pakistan would operate under the CIA’s covert action authority — meaning that the United States would never acknowledge the missile strikes and that Pakistan would either take credit for the individual killings or remain silent.

A New Direction

As the negotiations were taking place, the CIA’s inspector general, John L. Helgerson, had just finished a searing report about the abuse of detainees in the CIA’s secret prisons. The report kicked out the foundation upon which the CIA detention and interrogation program had rested. It was perhaps the single most important reason for the CIA’s shift from capturing to killing terrorism suspects.

The greatest impact of Mr. Helgerson’s report was felt at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, or CTC, which was at the vanguard of the agency’s global antiterrorism operation. The center had focused on capturing Qaeda operatives; questioning them in CIA jails or outsourcing interrogations to the spy services of Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt and other nations; and then using the information to hunt more terrorism suspects.

Mr. Helgerson raised questions about whether CIA officers might face criminal prosecution for the interrogations carried out in the secret prisons, and he suggested that interrogation methods like water boarding, sleep deprivation and the exploiting of the phobias of prisoners — like confining them in a small box with live bugs — violated the UN Convention Against Torture.

The ground had shifted, and counterterrorism officials began to rethink the strategy for the secret war. Armed drones, and targeted killings in general, offered a new direction. Killing by remote control was the antithesis of the dirty, intimate work of interrogation. Targeted killings were cheered by Republicans and Democrats alike, and using drones flown by pilots who were stationed thousands of miles away made the whole strategy seem risk-free.

The Predator had been considered a blunt and unsophisticated killing tool, and many at the CIA were glad that the agency had gotten out of the assassination business long ago. Three years before Mr. Muhammad’s death, and one year before the CIA carried out its first targeted killing outside a war zone — in Yemen in 2002 — a debate raged over the legality and morality of using drones to kill suspected terrorists.

A new generation of CIA officers had ascended to leadership positions, having joined the agency after the 1975 Congressional committee led by Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho, which revealed extensive CIA plots to kill foreign leaders, and President Gerald Ford’s subsequent ban on assassinations. The rise to power of this post-Church generation had a direct impact on the type of clandestine operations the CIA chose to conduct.

After Mr. Muhammad was killed, his dirt grave in South Waziristan became a site of pilgrimage.

A Pakistani journalist, Zahid Hussain, visited it days after the drone strike and saw a makeshift sign displayed on the grave: “He lived and died like a true Pashtun.”

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan’s top military spokesman, told reporters at the time that “Al Qaeda facilitator” Nek Muhammad and four other “militants” had been killed in a rocket attack by Pakistani troops.

Any suggestion that Mr. Muhammad was killed by the Americans, or with American assistance, he said, was “absolutely absurd.”

Insecure Aid Workers in Pakistan

By Naseer Memon

The Aid Worker Security Report 2012 has grouped Pakistan among the five countries where aid workers face the most attacks.

The other four include Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.

The report was released only a few days before the country witnessed the brutal killings of several anti-polio campaign workers in Karachi and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa within two days.

The reaction of aid agencies like Unicef and the WHO was the immediate suspension of the immunisation campaign.

Pakistan already has an unenviable public image and the country’s security credentials hit rock bottom after the attacks, with such incidents placing more strictures on aid workers.

Between 2006 and 2010, Pakistan was fifth in the ranking on the number of incidents and sixth in the ranking on murder rates.

Since 2005 Pakistan has faced disasters of various types, both natural and man-made.

The international and local humanitarian community has been relentlessly scrambling to provide aid to people in all corners of the country. Despite the absence of exact numbers, it would not be unrealistic to estimate that humanitarian workers in Pakistan are in the thousands, and include countless unpaid community volunteers.

Political instability, a fragile law and order situation, frail institutions and sociopolitical polarisation make the country a breeding ground for violent elements. These elements find humanitarian workers ‘soft targets’ because of their ubiquitous presence, especially in far-flung areas. A number of high-profile cases of kidnapping and killing of aid workers occurred in Pakistan in recent years, jeopardising the outreach of humanitarian organisations.

A septuagenarian Swedish female social worker was shot in Lahore and passed away in her home country only a few days ago. A British Red Cross worker, Khalil Rasjed Dale, was killed after being kidnapped in Quetta in April. This constrained the Red Cross to scale down its work in the country. In August, the bodies of three Christian aid workers were recovered. They had been working in Mingora. In 2011, Warren Weinstein, chief of a consulting firm, was abducted by unidentified armed men in Lahore.

The local staff of humanitarian organisations has not been spared either. Several incidents of kidnapping and killing of local aid workers have also been reported. Such incidents have confined foreign staff of aid agencies to hotels and heavily guarded offices. It has also increased the security cost of aid projects, eating into net resources trickling down to the people.

As a result, many international aid agencies have curtailed their foreign staff and at times ceased to operate in certain areas, leaving communities at the mercy of an ineffective government system of rescue and relief.

The political situation is another reason behind restrictions on the international aid community. From visa issues to restricted movement, a number of impediments make it difficult for aid workers to perform their duties. Considering the vulnerability of the country to natural disasters and its geo-strategic location, Pakistan can ill afford the brazen targeting of aid workers.

In terms of human development, the crevasse of unmet targets is further widening.

The country is ranked at 145 on the Human Development Index. Most of the Millennium Development Goals are far from being met. In the current year Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan jointly shared 97 per cent of the world’s polio cases. The state of human development in Pakistan demands sustained humanitarian support to extricate the country from the quagmire of illiteracy and disease.

Aid agencies avoid accepting escorts as it enhances their visibility, making them further vulnerable. It is a complex situation where conventional solutions cannot deliver.

Political stability, enforcement of law and better governance are the key ingredients of the solution. Pakistan needs to urgently address the issue of security for aid workers before it is too late.

nmemon@spopk.org

 

Dear All

 

Till last week, Gwadar town had been facing severe drought and an ensuing crisis of drinking water. The following article was written in the wake of the situation. However over the past few days the area received heavy shower and the situation has improved considerably. Nevertheless long term solution of the problem is still much needed to avert similar situation in future, that could have resulted in serious conflict in a politically volatile and restive district. The article appeared in The News, Political Economy section on 23rd Dec 2012. Regards. NM
Tale of a thirsty town
Despite growing problem of drinking water in Gwadar, the administration is still not geared to manage the drought situation
By Naseer Memon

(The News-23rd Dec 2012)

While Eastern parts of Balochistan are inundated under flood water, Southern belt of Makran coast of the same province is enduring a severe drought and people are desperately jostling for drinking water in long queues. Gwadar and adjoining areas with striking natural beauty of virgin beaches are without drinking water for several months.

A population of over 350,000 in the restive south of Balochistan is left at the mercy of nature by the callous decision makers in Quetta. Confounded district administration of Gwadar is facing the wrath of thirsty and disgruntled mobs every day. Ankara Kaur dam is the key source of drinking water supply. The dam was constructed in 90s at a cost of $24 million to supply water to Gwadar and adjoining villages. It is a rain-fed dam that was last filled in June 2010. Since then the area has not received significant rain and the empty dam body could not be replenished leading to the persistent dry spell.

Gwadar, Jiwani, Pishukan, Surbandar, Nigwara Sharif, Pallery, Panwan, Nalaint and other villages in the Gwadar sub-division are victim of the vagaries of capricious climate.

As the crisis surfaced, local administration swung into entropic response through various sources. There are ample evidences to believe that the administration was not geared to manage drought situation. Water level in the dam would not have depleted overnight. It did not require any rocket science to predict such crisis well ahead of its manifestation.

Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) in its monsoon contingency plan for 2012 did not identify drought as potential risk for the district. The hazard ranking of Gwadar district shows flood, earthquake, cyclone and tsunami among the risks posed to the district but the drought was placed in the category of “none” in the hazard ranking for Gwadar. This sufficiently indicates that the decision makers were either oblivious of the fact or were sanguine for nature’s blessing.

Similarly, Multiple Indicator Survey-2010 of Balochistan narrates an uncanny data that overall 74 per cent of the population was using an improved source of drinking water in the province (page: 67). Stakeholders term such reports hoodwinking and far from realities on ground. Another high profile document “Balochistan Millennium Development Goals-2011” issued by the government of Balochistan and UNDP makes similar hilarious claims. Under the goal of environmental sustainability, table No. 4.26 identifies Gwadar having 73.4 per cent households with improved source of drinking water. Local communities believe that such documents are full of distorted facts and provide misleading information.

Not having a point source as substitute to the Ankara dam, local administration resorted to several short term measures. Public Health Dept mobilised tankers to supply water and they claim to have been supplying more than 3.5 million gallons per day to Gwadar, Jiwani and surrounding villages.

The alternate sources used include Belar dam, Suntsar tube wells and ships of Pakistan Navy. Communities, however, express their reservations on transparency and efficiency of the process. Equitable distribution, frequency of supply, quality of water and expenditure were questioned by stakeholders. A typical tanker costs Rs15,000 per trip and so far district administration faces a liability of 254 million rupees. Due to non-payment, tanker owners have also brought supplies to screeching halt. To sustain the supply, district administration needs 17 million rupees every week. District officials have been beseeching provincial government for timely releases of funds but bureaucratic red tape refuses to soften.

In a politically-charged environment; the district has turned into a powder keg and a single incendiary incident can trigger a conflict of unmanageable proportions. Insensitivity towards political repercussions of such issues can result into turmoil.

Considering the situation on ground, there as an urgent need to sustain drinking water supply through tankers and restoration of rotten pipeline from Suntsar tube wells. It is, however, very important to ensure equitable and transparent system of water supply to avoid any sordid practices by unscrupulous elements.

Apart from this stopgap arrangement, there is a dire need of considering medium term and long term solutions. With its burgeoning population and sprawling neighborhoods, Gwadar merits a sustainable and reliable source of drinking water for its residents.

Supplying drinking water through Mirani dam is being considered as a long term viable solution of the problem. Located some 150 kms in the north of Gwadar, the controversial dam was constructed during the Musharraf’s era. It not only failed to meet the promised irrigation supply but also caused devastation in 2007 in the wake of a malevolent flood. Fed by Nahang and Kech rivers, the dam has deprived several downstream villages from their historical right on the natural stream. The downstream communities raised serious objections to the dam as the dam stored and diverted the stream flows and no provision was made to meet their agriculture and drinking water needs.

Gwadar can be supplied drinking water through the dam, however downstream communities have legitimate right to demand supply of water through the same conduit. These small villages would not divert significant quantum of water and the scheme can proffer long term solution of the perpetuating problem in the area. The provincial government has announced this scheme with an estimated budget of 4.5 billion rupees. The federal government has also committed fifty per cent share.

This is high time to consult with the downstream communities to ensure provision for their drinking water needs at the design stage rather than struggling with subsequent problems that may jeopardize the project. Security issue would be another challenge for the government to execute the scheme.

In addition to that, some other schemes can be considered to augment the supplies to Gwadar. Local stakeholders identify desalination plants to purify and supply water from sea, timely completion of Sawar and Shadi Kaur dams, up-gradation of Suntsar tube wells and desilting & raising Ankara dam.

It would be pertinent to mention here that the Drinking Water Policy 2009 of the government of Pakistan has recognised clean drinking water as basic human right of citizens. Preamble of the policy document in its very first paragraph reads “the Government of Pakistan, while recognizing that access to safe drinking water is the basic human right of every citizen and that it is the responsibility of the state to ensure its provision to all citizens, is committed to provision of adequate quantity of safe drinking water to the entire population at an affordable cost and in an equitable, efficient and sustainable manner”. The government has to fulfill this obligation towards the citizens of Gwadar district.

nmemon@spopk.org

 

 

Soldiers Are Often Reluctant To Fight Their Own Countrymen

The shooting [ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19882799 ] on 9 October of Malala Yusufzai, a 14-year-old girls’ education campaigner from Swat Valley in northern Pakistan, is a reminder that militancy is still a significant threat in the north.

A large-scale operation by the Pakistan army against militants in 2009 [ http://www.criticalthreats.org/pakistan/paradise-regained-swat-one-year-may-25-2010 ], later hailed as largely successful, has not driven away the hardliners.

The military spokesman for Swat, Col Arif Mehmood, told the media [ http://tribune.com.pk/story/246049/return-of-militancy-army-launches-operation-in-swat--again/ ] this month that a “search operation” had been on for the past five days against “suspected militants”.

The militants’ targets include campaigners for women’s rights, such as Fareeda Afridi [ http://tribune.com.pk/story/404673/farida-afridi/ ], who was shot dead in Peshawar while on her way to the Khyber Agency, where she worked for the women’s empowerment NGO Sawera.

Meanwhile, schools continue to be bombed [ http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012\104\story_4-10-2012_pg7_10 ] in various incidents [ http://tribune.com.pk/story/436899/terrorism-girls-school-damaged-cd-shop-blown-up-in-two-explosions/ ]. Syed Nauman Ali Shah, the political administration officer in Orakzai Agency, said, “93 schools have been blown up here since 2009, and the trend continues.”

“When the various operations by the military took place in northern areas, the militants in many cases just fled to neighbouring territories where they found safe havens, as these were still under the control of other militant forces – or else they took refuge in neighbouring Afghanistan, where it was impossible for troops to follow,” Shaukat Salim, an analyst and activist based in Swat, said. He said this made a possible resurgence “quite easy”.

“The militant problem has changed shape. Things are not as they were till 2009, when the Taliban controlled all aspects of life,” Sher Muhammad Khan, the vice-chair of the HRCP said. “Targeted actions by militants continue, as in the shooting of Malala or the bombing of schools,” he said, adding that there could be no guarantee militants would not regroup. “Defeating them is all a matter of the will and commitment of the forces engaged against them. A lack of commitment naturally helps them.”

A former military officer said: “Soldiers are often reluctant to fight their own countrymen.”

Getting convictions has also proved problematic. “The fact is the police, due to poor training and resources, can often not produce evidence good enough for the courts to convict people,” said a recently retired police officer in Peshawar.

Current strategy “not working”

Some believe elements within the military may even be collaborating with certain militants. “A liaison between militants and the military was established in the 1980s, after they jointly fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. There are many reasons to believe this alliance continues, at least with specific groups of militants – for strategic reasons sometimes linked to a desire by both parties to regain a hold over Afghanistan,” said a lawyer in Peshawar.

“Oh yes, the militants are definitely still around. They threaten and harass; we have encountered problems with them in Dir District, which borders Swat, and elsewhere, and they clearly haven’t been vanquished,” Gul Lalay, director of programmes for the Peshawar-based women’s empowerment NGO Khwendo Kor (House of Sisters), said.

She said the government needed to work out a “different strategy against them as the current one is not working”. Lalay also said trying to strike a deal with militants or hold talks with them, “as the government had attempted in the past” was “pointless”.

“We are doing our best, but yes incidents like the attack on Malala Yusufzai are shocking,” the information minister in Khyber Paktoonkhwa Province, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, said.

People in northern areas say they still live in fear of militants. “The militant forces like Lashkar-e-Islam [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/90760/PAKISTAN-A-guide-to-main-militant-groups ] operating here in Bara [a town and district in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas near the Afghan border] still control our lives. I am terrified my son, 15, will be forced to join them through coercive pressure,” Amina Bibi, 50, said in Bara town.

No jobs

Furthermore, the lack of development in Swat and the tribal agencies “definitely nurture militancy”, according to HRCP’s Khan. He said government promises [ http://pakistantimes.net/pt/detail.php?newsId=7496 ] to create employment and bring development to Swat have “not been met”. Huge floods in 2010 [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/91192/PAKISTAN-Flood-survivors-determined-to-help-themselves ] added to the problems, he said, with rebuilding and rehabilitation work affected.

“Whether it is Swat or somewhere else, what will people do if they have no jobs, no opportunity and they can see no government presence? They will turn to the militant forces who can recruit such desperate people for any purpose – as suicide bombers, as fighters and for other things. Naturally militancy grows in such conditions,” he said. “People need choices in life. If they have none, it is easy for militant groups to lure them in.”

And the problem may be spreading beyond Swat Valley: “I have passed my matriculation exam. Now there is no college in my village, and no jobs on offer. My friends who have aligned themselves with the militants ask me to join almost each day. So far I have resisted, but one day I may give in and at least get a gun,” said Muhammad Murad, 17, from neighbouring Salarzai Valley in Bajaur Agency.

In the meantime, the Pakistan Ex-servicemen Association (PESA) has strongly opposed launching of a military operation in North Waziristan.

The people of North Waziristan are patriotic Pakistanis and have nothing to do with Malala shooting, it said.

These observations were made in a meeting chaired by President PESA Lt. Gen (Retd) Ali Kuli Khan. Vice Admiral Ahmad Tasnim. Air Marshal Masood Akhtar, former ambassador Salim Nawaz Gandapur, Brig Riaz Ahmed, Brig Masud ul Hassan, Major Farouk Hameed and others were also present on the occasion.

The PESA members said that attack on Malala has already been condemned by a jirga attended by leading Maliks who have called it as anti-Islamic and against Pakhtun values and traditions.

A military operation against them would be a cruel injustice as they are already suffering irreparable losses from the Drone attacks, they added.

The warning issued by tribal notables that they will move over to Afghanistan if operation is launched cannot be taken lightly as it could have serious implications for Pakistan, the former military strategists warned.

The meeting observed that the actual culprit is group led by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, an affiliate of Tehrike Taliban Pakistan (TTP). He is enjoying Afghan government’s hospitality and is carrying out frequent raids in Dir, Bajaur, Swat and other areas of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province, from his bases setup inside Afghanistan.

PESA members said that government should immediately demand and ensure extradition of Fazlullah. US Government is in a position to exert pressure in this regard, they added.

Efforts should also be made for earliest repatriation of over three million Afghan refugees. Their camps could also be used as launching terrorist attacks in Pakistan, they demanded.

The Interior Minister’s announcement regarding head money of Rs 100 million for Central Spokesman of TTP Ihsanullah Ihsan is illegal. It is not known under what capacity or law, the interior minister has made this announcement. Apparently there are no cases in court nor has he been declared an absconder.

It is also doubtful if any government notification has been issued for this award.  In the absence of any legal support, the person bringing Ihsan’s head would himself become liable for charges of murder.

General Secretary: Brig. Syed Masud ul Hassan, 29, Khurshid Alam Road, West Ridge, Rawalpindi. Phone: 0321-5176050http://www.pesapk.com

Patron in Chief: Air Marshal Asghar Khan, Patron:  Air Chief Marshal Kaleem Saadat,

President: Lt. Gen Ali Kuli Khan, SVP:  Admiral Ahmad Tasnim.

Pakistan, Can It Get Worse? Yes!

February 07, 2011

Straws in the Wind

by Tariq Ali

Mumtaz Hussain Qadri smiled as he surrendered to his colleagues after shooting Salman Taseer, the governor of the Punjab, dead. Many in Pakistan seemed to support his actions; others wondered how he’d managed to get a job as a state bodyguard in the carefully screened Elite Force. Geo TV, the country’s most popular channel, reported, and the report has since been confirmed, that ‘Qadri had been kicked out of Special Branch after being declared a security risk,’ that he ‘had requested that he not be fired on but arrested alive if he managed to kill Taseer’ and that ‘many in Elite Force knew of his plans to kill Salman Taseer.’

Qadri is on his way to becoming a national hero. On his first appearance in court, he was showered with flowers by admiring Islamabad lawyers who have offered to defend him free of charge. On his way back to prison, the police allowed him to address his supporters and wave to the TV cameras. The funeral of his victim was sparsely attended: a couple of thousand mourners at most. A frightened President Zardari and numerous other politicians didn’t show up. A group of mullahs had declared that anyone attending the funeral would be regarded as guilty of blasphemy. No mullah (that includes those on the state payroll) was prepared to lead the funeral prayers. The federal minister for the interior, Rehman Malik, a creature of Zardari’s, has declared that anyone trying to tamper with or amend the blasphemy laws will be dealt with severely. In the New York Times version he said he would shoot any blasphemer himself.

Taseer’s spirited defense of Asiya Bibi, a 45-year-old Punjabi Christian peasant, falsely charged with blasphemy after an argument with two women who accused her of polluting their water by drinking out of the same receptacle, provoked an angry response from religious groups. Many in his own party felt that Taseer’s initiative was mistimed, but in Pakistan the time is never right for such campaigns. Bibi had already spent 18 months in jail. Her plight had been highlighted by the media, women had taken to the streets to defend her and Taseer and another senior politician from the PPP, Sherry Rehman, had demanded amendments to the blasphemy laws. Thirty-eight other women have been imprisoned under the same law in recent years and soon after a friendly meeting between Yousaf Gillani, the prime minister, and the leader of the supposedly moderate Jamaat-e-Islami, a member of the latter offered a reward of ten thousand dollars to whoever manages to kill Bibi.

Taseer’s decision to take up Bibi’s case was not made on a whim. He had cleared the campaign with Zardari, much to the annoyance of the law minister, Babar Awan, a televangelist and former militant of the Jamaat-e-Islami. He told journalists he didn’t want the socio-cultural agenda to be hijacked by ‘lunatic mullahs’, raged against governments that had refused to take on fanaticism, and brushed aside threats to his life with disdain. He visited the prison where Bibi was detained – the first time in the history of the Punjab that a governor has gone inside a district jail – and at a press conference declared his solidarity with her. ‘She is a woman who has been incarcerated for a year and a half on a charge trumped up against her five days after an incident where people who gave evidence against her were not even present,’ he told an interviewer. He wanted, he said, ‘to take a mercy petition to the president, and he agreed, saying he would pardon Asiya Bibi if there had indeed been a miscarriage of justice’.

Two weeks after this visit Taseer was dead. I never much cared for his business practices or his political affiliations and had not spoken to him for 20 years, but he was one of my closest friends at school and university and the two of us and the late Shahid Rehman – a gifted and witty lawyer who drank himself to death many moons ago – were inseparable. Some joyful memories came back when I saw his face on TV.

It’s 1960. The country is under a pro-US military dictatorship. All opposition is banned. My parents are away. The three of us – we are 17 years old – are at my place and we decide that something has to be done. We buy some red paint and at about 2 a.m. drive to the Cantonment bridge and carefully paint ‘Yankee Go Home’ on the beautiful whitewashed wall. The next morning we scrub the car clean of all traces of paint. For the next few weeks the city is agog. The story doesn’t appear in the press but everyone is talking about it. In Karachi and Dhaka, where they regard Lahore as politically dead, our city’s stock rises. At college our fellow students discuss nothing else. The police are busy searching for the culprits. We smile and enjoy the fun. Finally they track us down, but as Taseer notes with an edge of bitterness, Shahid’s father is a Supreme Court judge and one of my aunts is married to a general who’s also the minister of the interior, so naturally we all get off with a warning. At the time I almost felt that physical torture might be preferable to being greeted regularly by the general with ‘Hello, Mr Yankee Go Home.’

Two years previously (before the dictatorship) the three of us had organized a demonstration at the US Consulate after reading that an African-American called Jimmy Wilson had been sentenced to death for stealing a dollar. On that occasion Salman, seeing that not many people had turned up, found some street urchins to swell our ranks. We had to stop and explain to them why their chant of ‘Death to Jimmy Wilson’ was wrong. Money changed hands before they were brought into line. Years later, on a London to Lahore flight, I met Taseer by chance and we discussed both these events. He reminded me that the stern US consul had told us he would have us expelled, but his ultra-Lutheranism offended the Catholic Brothers who ran our school and again we escaped punishment. On that flight, more than 20 years ago, I asked him why he had decided to go into politics. Wasn’t being a businessman bad enough? ‘You’ll never understand,’ he said. ‘If I’m a politician as well I can save money because I don’t have to pay myself bribes.’ He was cynical in the extreme, but he could laugh at himself. He died tragically, but for a good cause. His party and colleagues, instead of indulging in manufactured grief, would be better off taking the opportunity to amend the blasphemy laws while there is still some anger at what has taken place. But of course they are doing the exact opposite.

Even before this killing, Pakistan had been on the verge of yet another military takeover. It would make things so much easier if only they could give it another name: military democracy perhaps? General Kayani, whose term as chief of staff was extended last year with strong Pentagon approval, is said to be receiving petitions every day asking him to intervene and ‘save the country’. The petitioners are obviously aware that removing Zardari and replacing him with a nominee of the Sharif brothers’ Muslim League, the PPP’s long-term rivals, is unlikely to improve matters. Petitioning, combined with a complete breakdown of law and order in one or several spheres (suicide terrorism in Peshawar, violent ethnic clashes in Karachi, state violence in Quetta and now Taseer’s assassination), is usually followed by the news that a reluctant general has no longer been able to resist ‘popular’ pressure and with the reluctant agreement of the US Embassy a uniformed president has taken power. We’ve been here before, on four separate occasions. The military has never succeeded in taking the country forward. All that happens is that, instead of politicians, the officers take the cut. The government obviously thinks the threat is serious: some of Zardari’s cronies now speak openly at dinner parties of ‘evidence’ that proves military involvement in his wife Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. If the evidence exists, let’s have a look.

Another straw in the wind: the political parties close to the ISI, Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, have withdrawn from the central government, accusing it of callousness and financial malfeasance. True, but hardly novel.

Another necessary prerequisite for a coup is popular disgust with a corrupt, inept and failing civilian government. This has now reached fever pitch. As well as the natural catastrophes that have afflicted the country there are local wars, disappearances, torture, crime, huge price rises in essential goods, unemployment, a breakdown of basic services – all the major cities go without electricity for hours at a stretch and oil lamps are much in demand in smaller towns, which are often without gas and electricity for up to 12 hours. Thanks to the loan conditions recently imposed by the IMF – part of a gear change in the ‘war on terror’ – there have been riots against the rise in fuel prices in several cities. Add to this Zardari’s uncontrollable greed and the irrepressible desire of his minions to mimic their master. Pakistan today is a kleptocracy.

There is much talk in Islamabad of the despised PM’s neglected wife going on a shopping spree in London last month and finding solace in diamonds, picking up, on her way back home, a VAT rebate in the region of £100,000.

Can it get worse? Yes. And on every front. Take the Af-Pak war. Few now would dispute that its escalation has further destabilised Pakistan, increasing the flow of recruits to suicide bomber command. The CIA’s New Year message to Pakistan consisted of three drone attacks in North Waziristan, killing 19 people. There were 116 drone strikes in 2010, double the number ordered in the first year of the Obama presidency. Serious Pakistani newspapers, Dawn and the News, claim that 98 per cent of those killed in the strikes over the last five years – the number of deaths is estimated to be between two and three thousand – were civilians, a percentage endorsed by David Kilcullen, a former senior adviser to General Petraeus. The Brookings Institution gives a grim ratio of one militant killed for every ten civilians. The drones are operated by the CIA, which isn’t subject to military rules of engagement, with the result that drones are often used for revenge attacks, notably after the sensational Khost bombing of a CIA post in December 2009.

What stops the military from taking power immediately is that it would then be responsible for stopping the drone attacks and containing the insurgency that has resulted from the extension of the war into Pakistan. This is simply beyond it, which is why the generals would rather just blame the civilian government for everything. But if the situation worsens and growing public anger and economic desperation lead to wider street protests and an urban insurgency the military will be forced to intervene. It will also be forced to act if the Obama administration does as it threatens and sends troops across the Pakistan border on protect-and-destroy missions. Were this to happen a military takeover of the country might be the only way for the army to counter dissent within its ranks by redirecting the flow of black money and bribes (currently a monopoly of politicians) into military coffers. Pakistani officers who complain to Western intelligence operatives and journalists that a new violation of sovereignty might split the army do so largely as a way to exert pressure. There has been no serious breach in the military high command since the dismal failure of the 1951 Rawalpindi Conspiracy, the first and last radical nationalist attempt (backed by Communist intellectuals) to seize power within the army and take the country in an anti-imperialist direction. Since then, malcontents in the armed forces have always been rapidly identified and removed. Military perks and privileges – bonuses, land allocations, a presence in finance and industry – play an increasingly important part in keeping the army under control.

Meanwhile, on a visit to Kabul earlier this month, the US homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, announced that 52 ‘security agents’ were being dispatched to the Af-Pak border to give on the spot training to Afghan police and security units. The insurgents will be delighted, especially since some of them serve in these units, just as they do in Pakistan.

TARIQ ALI’s latest book “The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad’ is published by Verso.

Malala Assassination Attempt Shows Talibans’ Intolerance

The life story of a 15-year Pakistani girl Malala who was shot by the Taliban will be published later in 2013, in a deal reported to be worth around £2m.

“I am Malala” will be published in the autumn and will tell the story ofMalala Yousafzai, who was shot by Taliban gunmen after she became an advocate for woman’s education in the Swat Valley. She now attends a school in Birmingham.

Yousafzai said: “I hope this book will reach people around the world, so they realise how difficult it is for some children to get access to education.

“I want to tell my story, but it will also be the story of 61m children who can’t get education. I want it to be part of the campaign to give every boy and girl the right to go to school. It is their basic right.”

The book, which will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson in the UK and Commonwealth and by Little, Brown in the rest of the world, is the latest stage of Yousafzai’s public life which almost ended in tragedy.

Yousafzai began writing a blog on the BBC Urdu service under a pseudonym about life in the Swat Valley in 2009. The Taliban were expanding their influence and at times banned girls from going to school and the Pakistani army fought to re-establish control.

Her real identity became known and she frequently appeared in Pakistani and international media advocating for the right of girls to go to school. In October 2011, Archbishop Desmond Tutu nominated her for the International Children’s Peace Prize and in December 2011 she was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize.

In the book, Yousafzai writes: “I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday. It was Tuesday, October 9, 2012, not the best of days as it was the middle of school exams, though as a bookish girl I don’t mind them as much as my friends do.

“We’d finished for the day and I was squashed between my friends and teachers on the benches of the open-back truck we use as a school bus. There were no windows, just thick plastic sheeting that flapped at the sides and was too yellowed and dusty to see out of, and a postage stamp.”

Since the shooting, Yousafzai has been awarded several peace prizes and is the youngest person to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, announced that the UN will celebrate Malala Day on 10 November.

A spokeswoman for Weidenfeld and Nicolson could not confirm reports about the value of the publishing deal.

Arzu Tahsin, the deputy publishing director of Weidenfeld & Nicolsonsaid: “This book will be a document to bravery, courage and vision. Malala is so young to have experienced so much and I have no doubt that her story will be an inspiration to readers from all generations who believe in the right to education and the freedom to pursue it.”

Malala Yusufzai was shot in Mingora, Swat, a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was shot while returning home from her school. She is only 14.

What was her crime? She wrote a weekly blog for the BBC Urdu website in 2009 while the Taliban were occupying Swat and bombing schools and preventing girls from attending educational institutions.

She came into limelight after the ouster of Taliban from Swat. She started attending NGO meetings and making speeches for the right of girls to attain education. She was nominated for an international award and given one by the Pakistan Government.

The Islamic fundamentalists did not like it. On October 9,2012, two masked gunmen, apparently sent by the Taliban leadership to silence Malala forever, stopped her school van, identified her and shot her in the head. She is now fighting for her life and the doctors as of October 12 are saying that the next 36 hours are crucial for her as she fights for her life in a military hospital in Rawalpindi.

Why did the Taliban shoot this 14-year old girl?

“We had no intentions to kill her but were forced when she would not stop (speaking against us),” said spokesman Sirajuddin Ahmad, now based in Afghanistan’s Kunar province while talking to Reuters news agency.

Ahmed said the Taliban held a meeting a few months ago at which they unanimously agreed to kill her. The task was then given to military commanders to carry out.

Did they kill her because she was propagating against Islam? She was only talking about the right of girls to go to schools. Is this unIslamic?

The bottomline is that Taliban cannot stand criticism. They are not democrats and do not believe in any reasoning or freedom of expression or speech. They simply believe in silencing the critic by physically eliminating her or him for ever.

This threat of gun has made the whole nation hostage to these religious bigots.

Resultantly, religious intolerance, bigotry and terrorism have become  the wages of State’s policy of appeasement towards forces of obscurantism.

We know how the State is and we cannot and should not expect any miracles from it. The people will have to stop playing on the Islamic fundamentalists’ wicket. It is time that the secular and liberal forces come out in the open and let the nation know their numbers and worth. Otherwise, it may be too late for all of us.

We all hope that Malala will live to see the love and the respect the nation and even the world has given her. However, the war is not over. The Swat Taliban spokesman has now threatened to kill 14-year-old schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai’s father after a failed attempt to assassinate his daughter, as reported by Reuters.

The spokesman for “Radio Mullah” Maulana Fazlullah’s Swat Taliban which previously had control over the Swat region, told Reuters that two killers from Fazlullah’s special hit squad had been sent to target the young schoolgirl. The Swat Taliban militia, known to work under the Tehriki Taliban Pakistan (TTP) umbrella, has a force of around 100 men specialised in targeted killing, fighters said. They chose two men, aged between 20 to 30, who were locals from Swat Valley, Reuters quoted the fighters as saying.

A military offensive had pushed Fazlullah out of Swat in 2009, but his men had melted away across the border to Afghanistan.

Earlier this year, Fazlullah’s men kidnapped and beheaded 17 Pakistani soldiers in one of several cross border raids.

“Before the attack, the two fighters personally collected information about Malala’s route to school, timing, the vehicle she used and her security,” Reuters quoted the spokesman as saying.

They decided to shoot her near a military checkpoint to make the point they could strike anywhere, he said.

Ziauddin Yousufzai, the headmaster of a girls’ school, is on their hit list for speaking against them, his activities to promote peace in the region and for encouraging his daughter.

“We have a clear-cut stance. Anyone who takes side with the government against us will have to die at our hands,” spokesman warned. “You will see. Other important people will soon become victims.”

In the meantime, the propaganda by the conservative forces against Malala and her family is increasing. Why did the authorities not take Malala and her father into custody for taking part in a propaganda film, they ask?

How did he keep an Israeli in his home for six months to record a documentary? It is unlikely that any Israeli ever visited them or could even be granted visa to come to Pakistan and why would anyone live with the family for six months. However, the propaganda continues unabated.

This family is all drama, the Taliban claim. According to the religious forces, Malala just repeated the words her father taught her and that she is not brave.

The Americans gave her an award of bravery in return for her role and Zardari had to give one too, they say.

Lastly, they question the justification for attacking Waziristan by asking as to what the people of Waziristan have to do with Malala or her attackers?

Malala — Not The Broker, But The Breaker Of Silence

By Baseer Naweed

When a young girl led the way in the fight against extremism it is the duty of all to come out and show solidarity with her. This was the right time to come out against religious extremism and if they kill us then so be it. Hopefully, thousands of  other Malalas would continue the battle. This battle is also for my own children.

This determination is noteworthy as people generally have become dejected by the silence of Pakistani society. One can only hope that perhaps the new generation is taking the lead in what we, the present generation, and those before us, failed to do.

Malala at the age of 11 was nominated among five children from all over the world for the ‘Children’s Nobel Prize’ and came second. Malala was quick to praise the winner, a disabled child to whom Malala gave full credit. When asked what her reaction was when learning that she had come second she said, “I am happy for Michaela for winning the prize as she is a special child and is already working for the disabled children,” adding, in fact, “I couldn’t even stop my tears while seeing Michaela receiving the prize as it was hard for her to hold the prize due to her being a disabled child”.

Even at the tender age of 11 she adamantly stated, “To me education is the only tool that makes a man civilized, a good citizen and helps to develop the Pashtun society.”

The International Children’s Peace Prize is presented annually to a child who’s courageous or otherwise remarkable acts have made a difference in countering problems which affect children around the world.

Malala was one of the five nominees chosen out of 98 children that were put forward by organizations and individuals from 42 different countries. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel Peace Laureate, announced the five nominees for the International Children’s Peace Prize 2011 in Cape Town. The prize is an initiative of the Dutch organization ‘Kids Rights’ and was launched during the 2005 Nobel Peace Laureates’ Summit chaired by Mikhail Gorbachev. That year, Michaela Mycroft (17) from South Africa was awarded with the Children’s Peace Prize.

Malala was attacked by Taliban to punish her for campaigning for the education of young girls. One thought that the reaction through emails, Facebook, and Twitter would dwindle after a few days and new issues would pop up. And, when that happened, who would care about Malala?

The so-called independent media, which is more tilted towards the right wing and military establishment, would ultimately give more coverage to the Taliban as they usually do and come out with some appeasing comments such as the attack was the result of drone attacks or a military operation. After all Taliban are Pakistani and the attack was carried out by someone else in order to discredit the Taliban.

However, the reaction to the attack did not lose force, but continues even till today. The media and the journalists, besides the teachers and professors, the parents and other sections of society did more than could be expected of ordinary persons, despite the overshadowing threat of religious extremism.

An attempt to kill a 14 year old girl from a remote area of Pakistan radically altered the thinking of an entire society and the silence that prevailed in that society since the 1980s was broken. The silence had remained since the army with the nexus of fundamentalist forces coerced the whole country into crushing the freedom of expression under the name of national security and in the greater interest of the country.

The establishment of Pakistan, which mostly consists of the armed forces, the judiciary, and the bureaucrats, has consciously prompted religious groups to form a “religious power center” to crush the freedom of expression in the country. The other purpose of the religious power center has been to make such a force where the democratic institutions like Parliament and elected bodies lose their bargaining power to confront the military establishment for its role in sordid politics.

The freedom of expression, which is said to be the mother of all human rights, was the first to be eroded through the religious power center, so that society be made to remain silent and people’s actions against corruption and misuse of power would be minimized. At the same time, the importance of education was also minimised. Also, the urge of the masses for a democratic society was strangled. In the span of just a few years, thousands of Madressas (Islamic seminaries) were built with black money and funding from Saudi Arabia. Hundreds of thousands of students were produced through the Madressas, which have swelled the ranks of the militants to crush independent thinking and free choice of judgment in the masses. The blasphemy laws were the best tool in the hands of the bigots to declare who is infidel and who is pious. Even the student’s examinations papers were checked by applying blasphemy laws.

There is no doubt that Malala must be given the credit for breaking the silence imposed by fear, coercion, and terrorism through her brave and untiring courage to speak out. After the attempt to kill her shook the society out of its indifference against the religious militancy and the religious power center, the school children throughout the country came out in her support. The country’s youth came onto the streets and every person participated.

All this was thanks to Malala, the first person to break the silence – the silence that the elected representatives and intellectuals failed to break, even after over 40,000 people have died in Taliban instigated violence.

All these have proved to be the ‘silent broker’ as this was the best way of opportunism to deal with wasted interests so that system based on strangulating society, on one or the other excuse, should remain intact and we should be claimed to be the champions of civil liberties, freedom and rights.

It is sad that this silence resounded even after the assassinations, in broad daylight, of the Governor of Punjab and the Federal Minister of Human Rights. No one came onto the streets in protest. Instead, the killer of the Governor was feted by lawyers, religions parties, and the people themselves. The retired Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court  went so far as to offer his legal services to the assassin, as the assassin was immediately symbolized as a hero for Islam. And, most shamefully, the government remained a silent spectator and left everything in the hands of the religious bigots, and this, even after the governor’ son was abducted from his house by the Taliban. Two years hence his whereabouts still remain unknown, and the government does not want to rock the boat.

This appalling silence was in stark contrast to the reaction of the people to the attack on this brave young girl, who, at the age of 11, started writing a weekly diary to the BBC. Her campaign for the right to education started long before the military operation in the Swat Valley in 2009. When the Taliban moved into the valley, over 2000 schools were destroyed by bombings and suicide attacks. The women were flogged in open places, barber shops were stormed, and anyone found with a hair cut was beaten. All this was done in the name of Shariah. At the age of only 11, it was Malala that said enough is enough and had the courage to speak out. She did this in her limited capacity, but it was enough to frighten the Taliban into taking action. The lava building up inside minds of 180 million people finally erupted after the attack.

The world has seen so many conquerors in its thousands of years of history, but it was the pen of a humble 14-year-old girl that conquered not only the minds and hearts of the people of Pakistan, but those of freedom-minded people all over the world. It is only now that the people are demanding that the terrorists are crushed. The government, military, and all other stakeholders, however, are adding to the confusion by saying that the attack was in retaliation to the drone attacks, military operation, and the policy of the United States towards the Taliban. The state of mind prevalent in Pakistan for the last 66 years still allows for conspiracy theories in favour of the Taliban – that Malala is funded by the US.

In one of her earlier comments, she said that she respected Obama and they are now using this as ‘evidence’ of their accusations. This was emphasised by the fact that when the Chief of Army Staff visited Malala, after the pressure of public opinion became too strong in her favour, he condemned the attack but made no condemnation of the Taliban. This lapse was obviously done in the spirit of appeasement, despite the fact that the Taliban boasted about their responsibility for the attack. They have publically stated that they will continue their murderous attempts if she recovers from her injuries and will not rest until she is dead. Since the attack, they have continued their assault on the local schools in Swat Valley. And, to-date two more schools have been destroyed.

What the Taliban and the Pakistani establishment have failed to see is that the one person unaffected by the conspiracy theories is Malala herself. Her message to the people of the country and the world in general is simply: every child has the right to education, regardless of whether they are male or female. She has presented this message bravely, willing to sacrifice her life and in doing so has completed the job started by numerous NGOs and INGOs with enormous budgets and the backing of the international community. She has become a symbol for students all over the world.

Malala was not the broker of silence but the breaker of silence.

Unabated Religious Intolerance in Pakistan

Pakistan is known in the international community and declared in the country’s Constitution as an Islamic nation where Islam is glorified as the superb religion and its followers are pious Muslims. There is no doubt that Islam teaches tolerance, love, respect for other religions, and that life and death are in the hands of Allah. The killing of any human being is forbidden and in the Quran it is the highest form of sin.

But how Islam is defined in practice is yet a big question in Pakistani society. In the absence of any clear definition about the implementation of Islam a strong perception has been widely spread that it can be implemented only through the violence and exemplary punishment to those who do not properly follow its precepts. Saudi Arabia, being the role model of Shariah and a real Islamic country, demonstrates its commitment every Friday by handing down death sentences that are then carried out by beheading. At the same time thieves have their hands removed.

The Muslim fundamentalists, their militant organisations, the military governments and right wing political parties of Pakistan have been trying to replicate the Islamic model of Saudi Arabia which has generated an atmosphere of intolerance and violence by punishing ordinary people in the name of Islam. The gross misuse of blasphemy laws is one of the reasons society is turning into a killing field. Virtual anarchy rules in the country and total chaos is not far behind.

The absence of the rule of law and a weak criminal justice system allows the increasing religious intolerance where the religious groups, with the help of the mushrooming growth of seminaries (Madressas) and mosques are enforcing their own tailored Islamic laws by killing, attacking, forcibly converting non-Muslims to Islam and implicating any person who stands in their way in blasphemy cases.

The barbaric incidents of the Muslim fundamentalists can be seen in the following cases in which the state remains a silent spectator. The Asian Human Rights Commission has collected cases of killings, sectarian violence, lynching and false implication of blasphemy charges during the eight months of this year. Most of the cases were taken from the Urgent Appeals of the Asian Human Rights Commission and research compilations by Mr. Nafees Mohammad based on news clippings from the Daily Express Tribune, Daily Dawn, Daily Time and Daily TheNews.

On August 27, 2012, three more persons from the Hazara Shia community were shot dead and two were injured. The deceased were identified as Zamin Ali, Mustafa and Muhammad Ali. The injured were Ghulam Raza and Zahir Shah. Police said that a pick-up, which had been on its way to Marriabad from Hazara Town, Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, came under attack on the Spini Road.

Also during August more than 35 Shiites were killed by assailants in military uniform. During this period around 150 Shiites were killed in different attacks. The attackers claim to be followers of the Wahabi sect, a Saudi Arabian sect, which itself is a minority in Pakistan and number even fewer in comparison to Shia sect.

On August 16, in the early morning, four buses, carrying passengers from Gilgit to Rawalpindi, a city of Punjab, were halted by around 50 men in military uniforms at Babusar Top in Kaghan valley, Mansehra district. All the passengers were asked to alight from the busses and show their national identity cards, after identifying 25 persons as Shia Muslims. Their hands were tied and more than a dozen assailants opened fire at them, killing all 25. After the shooting they marched away in military style shouting Allah ho Akbar.
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-165-2012

The Shias from Hazara tribe of Balochistan were killed in those areas which were under the strict control of the Pakistan army and its unit, the Frontier Corp. the places of killings were barely three to 500 meters from the military check posts.

Further incidents may be seen at:

http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-038-2012
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-124-2011
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-136-2012
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/forwarded-news/AHRC-FOL-015-2011
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/forwarded-news/AHRC-FAT-008-2012

August 18, The 11 persons, from the Sunni sect, were killed in sectarian violence occurred in District Central,Karachi  where 10 people lost their lives in overnight killings that took place in a span of two hours, while another man was killed at noon. Police suspect the wave of violence was in retaliation  for attacks on the Shia community. The first attack occurred in Gulberg locality, where motorcyclists fired on Qari Asif and Qari Shakirullah while they were sitting in their office. At around 1:20am, the second target were three friends: Maulana Muhammad Yahya, 32, Faizan Ilyas, 27 and Mujahid Aleem, 26. Twenty minutes later, a similar incident occurred near Masjid-o-Madrassa Quba, just two kilometres from Masjid-o-Madrassa Yasinul Quran. Assailants sprayed people sitting at Café Green with bullets, killing five people and injuring another. One of the men killed, Hafiz Sharjeel Ali, was associated with the Tableeghi Jamaat. Witnesses and acquaintances claimed the five men were targeted because they were Deobandi, a sect from Sunni Muslim. The fourth such incident occurred at a two-kilometre distance from where the funeral prayers for the Gulberg victims were being offered – another Deobandi, Qari Ahsan, 30, was gunned down when he was returning home from Friday prayers.

On August 17, Karachi: A day after a horrific massacre of 19 Shias in Mansehra, a bus carrying young Shia men was targeted by a bomb in Karachi. Two of them were killed and 13 others were injured. The bomb was planted at a footpath near the main gate of Safari Park, close to an electric substation. The bus was carrying activists of the Imamia Student Organisation (ISO) who boarded the bus at Karachi University

On August 16, a minor Christian girl, Miss Ramsha, 11, with Down ‘s syndrome, was arrested on the charges of blasphemy when she burned some copies of newspapers which were collected from the garbage. The Muslim population of the slum area attacked her house and beat her mother and sister and also burned some houses of Christians. The police arrested the mother and her two daughters and immediately sent Ramsha to Adiala prison illegally as according to law minors below the age of 15 years cannot be sent to prison or detained in police lockup. After her arrest police took the custody of her mother and sister and their whereabouts are unknown. Police say that both mother and daughter are in the protective custody because of the apprehension of their killing by the Muslim activists. However, the Christian community suspect that they were handed over the Muslim activists and that their lives may be in serious danger. http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-146-2012

In August, more than 200 Hindu families migrated to India because of continuous abduction for ransom, forced conversion to Islam after kidnapping, attack on their places of worship and houses, displacement, accusation of blasphemy and general persecution by the Muslim seminaries. Hindus, whose sizeable population live in all the districts of Sindh, have been facing continued incidence of violence compelling them to live under insecurity. The trend has continued for many years now.

On July 4, in Bahawalpur there was a harrowing incident of mob justice, hundreds of people accused a ‘deranged’ man of sacrilege, mercilessly beat him and burnt him alive in southern Punjab. The incident took place in Chanighot area of Bahawalpur. Residents saw a man allegedly throwing pages from the Holy Quran onto the street. Local police took him into custody and put him in the lockup. Soon a frenzied mob gathered outside the Chanighot police station baying for blood. Police couldn’t stand up to the furious and violent crowd who got hold of the alleged blasphemer, described by one police official as deranged, and brutally tortured him. Nine police officers, including SHO Gujjar and DSP were injured while trying – though unsuccessfully – to rescue the man. The mob burnt down several police vehicles, including DSP Mumtaz’s four-wheeler, before getting hold of the man, who has not been identified.

On July 19, Karachi, a devout senior Ahmadiy Muslim, Mr Naeem Ahmad Gondal, was shot in the head by two motorcyclists and died on the spot. He was an elite Ahmadiy Muslim and also holding the high position of Assistant Director in the State Bank of Pakistan. He was an active member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and had been the President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Korangi town, Karachi, for the past 11 years. Mr Naeem was the seventh Ahmadiy Muslim killed in Karachi for his faith and belief since the beginning of this year and the world is aware of the hundreds of other Ahmadiy Muslims who have been killed in Pakistan so far just for being Ahmadiy and being devoted to their faith and belief. http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-154-2012

On July 1 in Faisalabad mob rule trumped the law when an infuriated crowd severely beat a man accused of blasphemy, within the jurisdiction of the Ghulam Muhammad Abad police station. According to the police, Faryad allegedly committed some blasphemous acts over which the residents of Marzi Pura caught him and severely thrashed and tortured him. After this, the police registered an FIR on the complaint of Abdus Sattar, a resident of Marzipura, and started an investigation.

On July 6, Khanpur a barber was sent to jail after he was arrested on charge of defiling pages of the Holy Quran. Rafiq Ahmed, a resident of Basti Ghazipur, was accused by Abdur Rasheed, the prayer leader of Ayesha Siddiqa Masjid, of using pages of the Holy Quran to clean some mirrors at his shop. Ahmed later said that he was illiterate and had no idea whether the papers he had used had verses of the Holy Quran written on them

On June 28 at least 13 pilgrims were martyred and several others injured in a bomb blast on Zaireen’s bus in Hazar Ganji, Quetta, the capital of Balochistan where the city remains under the tight control of the Frontier Corp (FC), a unit of the Pakistan Army. In the city it is not possible for anyone to move without being body searched by the FC and other law enforcement agencies yet the militants pass freely. The reports say that a police officer was also killed in the attack.

During the month of June alone, 31 Shiites were killed in the Quetta and Mand areas of Balochistan

On June 24 Rekha alias Pubi (14) was working at a factory for the manufacturing of bottles for beverages at Gadap Karachi. She was abducted by gangsters and forcibly converted to Islam. When a police case was filed against the abductors the girl was produced before a Magistrate’s Court by the gangsters to record a statement that she has embraced Islam as her religion. The irony of the judicial process is that the judicial magistrate has accepted her subsequent marriage as legal in spite of the Pakistan law which does not allow the marriage of girls before the age of 16 years.

The irony of the case is that the Chief Justice has with his own technique of law allowed the forced marriage and conversion to Islam as an Islamic victory. The next Friday, after the prayers, chief justice met with Naveed Shah and congratulated him on success on converting a Hindu girl to Islam.

On June 16, a mob attacked a police station in Quetta on Saturday, demanding a man detained for allegedly desecrating the Quran be handed over, leaving at least two children dead and 19 with gunshot wounds. Violence erupted after police arrested a “mentally retarded” man said to have burnt pages of the holy book in Kuchlak, about 16 kilometres (10 miles) north of Quetta, senior administration official Qambar Dashti told AFP. The clash left two children dead and 19 people wounded including eight policemen, he said. “All the wounded people have bullet injuries,” he added. “The man appeared to be mentally retarded, we have taken him into custody and ordered an investigation,” Wajid said, adding that control had been restored.

June 7, Quetta: In the targeted killings two brothers belonging to the Hazara Shia community were gunned down outside the regional passport office near Joint Road. The victims had come to the post office to get their passports made and were attacked outside the main gate of the office.

In May 2012, An 82 year old man, was shot dead by the complainant in Sheikhupura after his release from prison after acquittal by a court on being proved innocent in a blasphemy case. Iqbal Butt was on his way home on a rickshaw when he was shot dead in the city’s Farooqabad locality. Two men, including his accuser Maulvi Waqas and an unidentified accomplice, chased him on a motorcycle and opened fire, resulting in his death. Javed Butt, a stepson of Iqbal Butt, said that Maulvi Waqas accused his father of blasphemy just to settle a score with him after they exchanged harsh words during an argument earlier on.

May 30, Quetta: A Hazara was shot dead, the victim has been identified as Ali Muhammad, and was traveling on his bicycle after having lunch in a restaurant on Joint Road, when unknown armed men opened fire. Later, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in a phone call to Quetta Press Club claimed responsibility.

On May 06, Quetta: A Hazara Shiite was killed by unknown gunmen Mastung on Sunday,. He was working at his tyre shop in Dasht area of Mastung, when unknown armed men riding on a bike opened fire and killed him at the spot. The victim is identified as Muhammad Ali.

On May 4, Policemen scratched out Quranic verses written on the walls of an Ahmedi place of worship and ordered them to cover up short minarets at the entrance as they made the place look like a mosque. After receiving a complaint about the place of worship in Sultanpura, Kachhupura, a large contingent of Misri Shah police visited it and told the Ahmedis they had a day to make the place look less like a mosque, failing which a case would be registered against them under the ‘Anti-lslamic Activities of Qadiani Group, Lahori Group and Ahmadis (Prohibition and Punishment) Ordinance’ of 1984.

On May 4, clerics in Sultanpura, Lahore, who complained that an Ahmedi place of worship looked too much like a mosque were unsatisfied with changes made to the building’s facade and demanded that the building’s dome be demolished, The Express Tribune has learnt. The administration of Baitul Hamd, the worship place, covered the chhatri (flattened dome) at the entrance by installing a hoarding in front of it on May 4. A day earlier, Misri Shah police had removed some tiles with the Kalma and Quranic verses from the building entrance.

In the month of May a Hindu lawyer, Mr. Mohan Lal Meghwar, son of Karo Mal, resident of village Bhadisindhu, Chachro, district Tharparkar, Sindh province, was released by his abductors after paying millions of rupees. On December 30, 2011 he was abducted again when he was on way to Sindh high court, Hyderabad bench, 56 kilometers away from his residence to attend the court proceedings. http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-252-2011/

On April 18, the decision in the cases of Ms. Haleema alias Asha Kumari, Ms. Hafza alias Dr. Lata, and Ms. Faryal alias Rinkle Kumari who were forced to convert to Islam after abduction, has proved that that the highest court is a biased Muslim court rather than institution of justice. The judgment concerning this issue has worried the religious minorities who already face an existential threat, demographically but also due to rising religious intolerance in the society.

April 15, Quetta: At least eight members of the Shia Hazara community and a policeman were killed in three attacks . After the attacks and subsequent violence, the administration called out Frontier Corps in the city. The paramilitaries started taking up positions at important places in the evening.
“Seven people were killed in firing on two vehicles on Brewery Road and Subzal Road. Saturday’s killings took the number of Hazara Shias killed in Quetta and its vicinity during the past fortnight to 26.

On April 3, Mr. Abdul Qudoos Ahmad (43), a well respected school teacher, belonging to the Ahmadiyya sect was tortured to death while in police custody in Chenab Nagar (the Ahmadi community refers to it by its old name of Rabwah), Punjab province. He was taken into custody by the police on 10 February 2012 and was kept in a private torture cell of the police until 26 March when his condition deteriorated due to the severe torture he endured. He remained in police custody for 35 days with any charges being laid against him and was not officially arrested. He was forced to confess to the murder of one, Muhammad Yousuf, a stamp-paper seller from the Nusrat Abad area who was murdered a few months earlier. During the illegal detention Mr. Qudoos was deprived from access to any the legal assistance was not provided. http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-057-2012/

On March 15, the Khushab district police officer has sought assistance from the Muttahida Ulema Board Punjab in a blasphemy case against two Shia clerics. The particulars of the FIR, a compact disc with recordings of allegedly blasphemous lectures by a Shia zakir and the legal opinion of the district public prosecutor have been sent to the board, Ghulam Murtaza, personal staff officer to the DPO, told The Express Tribune. Murtaza said the matter was referred to the board to ensure that the prosecution was in accordance with the law. The DPO’s reader said that in his written opinion the district public prosecutor had supported the insertion of Section 295 C (use of derogatory remarks, etc, in respect of the Holy Prophet) of the Pakistan Penal Code in the FIR registered on March 15 against Gorot resident Shuja Abbas and Multan resident Nasir Multani.

On February 23, Ms. Rinkle Kumari, (17), a Hindu girl living in Mirpur Mathelo; a small city of Sindh province and the daughter of a school teacher, was abducted on the night of 23 February by notorious gangsters of the area with the help of a member of the National Assembly from the ruling party and local Muslim fundamentalist groups. Following her abduction she was forced to embrace Islam. According to the information received, Naveed Shah, a member of a famous criminal group of Hassam Kalwarh, along with more than dozen persons abducted Kumari from her house on 23 February. They kidnapped her at gunpoint and took her to the resident of Mian Abdul Haq, alias Mian Mithhu, the member of the National Assembly from the ruling party, the Pakistan Peoples’ Party. She was then taken to a famous Madressa at Dargah Aalia Qadria Bharchoondi Sharif where she had forced to sign the marriage certificate (Nikkah Nama) and married with Naveed Shah, a street gangster. The Madressa is famous for converting Hindu girls in the province which claims that it has the target to convert 2000 Hindus every year to Islam. http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-165-2012

On February 23, in Lahore a mob stormed the school where Saira Khokhar teaches in an attempt to abduct her after she was accused of burning a copy of the Qur’an. Asia News wrote; After Asia Bibi, another Christian woman has been targeted by Muslim fundamentalists because of allegations of blasphemy. Saira Khokhar, who teaches at the City Foundation School in Lahore, is accused of burning a copy of the Qur’an. However, the case is still shrouded in mystery. The school is run by a Christian NGO, City Foundation.

On January 29, a big gathering of more than 5000 persons, mainly from Madressas (Islamic seminaries) was held outside the place where members of Ahmadiyya community have their Mosque and other places like a hospital and library. The place of the protest gathering was not far away from the General Head Quarters of Pakistan and was addressed by none other than the leaders of the banned religious organizations who were declared as terrorist organizations. The leaders from Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Sipahe Sahaba addressed the rally. The rally was held to protest alleged land ‘encroachment’; the speakers used the occasion to demand that Ahmadis must stop religious activities such as proselytizing and worshipping. Participants carried flags of different religious parties, including some banned ones, and portraits of the self-confessed assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, who killed former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-025-2012/

On January 26, five men were arrested for allegedly using offensive language against the companions of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in Kotri. According to the on-duty officer, the men wrote derogatory remarks on the walls of six bogies of Sukkur Express when it was at Kotri. Abid Hussain, Mohammad Hussain, Tasawar Hussain, Asghar Abbas and Mirza Hussain were brought to Karachi and arrested. According to the police, a score of members of the Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat gathered at Cantt Station and staged a sit-in.

On January 27, there have been stories aplenty about extremist elements publicly punishing men who groom their facial hair in the far-flung tribal badlands of Pakistan. However, the practice has now been reported a little closer to home: At a school in Peshawar, where the institution’s administration suspended a student for trimming his beard too fine – or, to be more precise, for getting an “English cut”.

On January 7, in a mockery of the Blasphemy Law:  A man wrote that his name was ‘Jew Jurian’ on his national identity card form. The data entry clerk then assumed he was a Jew. Thus for the first time in the history of Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC), a Pakistani was officially declared a Jew. The problem was that he was a Christian. The bigger problem for Jurian, as he told The Express Tribune, was that he was accused of being a Jew – and subsequently, through the twisted logic of twisted souls, of blasphemy. After thorough investigations, Jurian was released by the police, along with three others, in May 2003. Almost nine years later, he and his family still face death threats.But his two other friends were shot dead by the fundamentalists and he is hiding.

On January 3, the car owned by Mahesh Kumar, the former President of Press Club Hyderabad was attacked by three motor-cyclists while Mahesh was inside the club building. This is second time that Mahesh’s vehicle has been attacked by unknown people. From the pattern of the attacks, it seems this is the second warning issued to the journalist and this time the level of threat is higher than before. Mahesh’ colleagues believe that this might be the last warning for Mahesh Kumar before he will be personally harmed. Eight bullets holes were found at different places on the body of the car.  http://www.humanrights.asia/news/forwarded-news/AHRC-FPR-001-2012/

These cases all are well reflected in Pakistani society, particularly after the promulgation of section 295 (B) and 295 (C) of the blasphemy law during the regime of the military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq in 1980s.