Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Saudi Arabia’s hypocrisy in marching for free speech
PAUL SCHNEIDEREIT
It wasn’t so much the hypocrisy, which is routine with so many politicians. It was the timing.
There, among the dozens of world leaders marching in Paris on Jan. 11 to protest the Charlie Hebdo killings and show support for free expression, was Nizar Madani, minister of state for foreign affairs for Saudi Arabia.
One wonders why he was there, other than the photo op. For if there’s anything Saudi Arabia doesn’t support, it’s freedom of expression.
Just two days prior, a well-known Saudi blogger named Raif Badawi was lashed 50 times before crowds in Jeddah, the first weekly round in his sentence of 1,000 lashes, along with 10 years in prison, he received last May.
His crime? “Insulting Islam,” including criticizing the actions of the religious police and other opinions he too freely expressed on his now-shuttered blog.
I don’t know if marching Madani ever tweeted #JeSuisCharlie, the hashtag heard round the world that championed the irreverent French magazine’s right to mock whom it pleased. Probably not; surely even hypocrisy has its limits.
But I am sure the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs hasn’t touched the #JeSuisRaif hashtag adopted since by Badawi’s supporters to draw attention to the desert kingdom’s latest barbarity.
Despite global calls for clemency or even Badawi’s release, the Saudis first insisted the floggings would continue, although the most recent scheduled round was delayed for medical reasons as Badawi’s wounds had not yet healed. A hopeful report this week said the case has now been sent to the nation’s Supreme Court for review by the king’s office.
There’s another, far deeper level of hypocrisy represented by Madani’s appearance in Paris, say many experts. For decades, Saudi Arabia has been the world’s biggest financial backer for, and exporter of, the extreme, rigid fundamentalist minority creed of Islam, Wahhabism.
Saudi Arabia’s rulers denounce terrorism but seem unwilling to confront the reality that many of the most violent Islamist groups in the world today, such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, espouse Wahhabi doctrine.
In any case, for a state that wanted to be counted among those in Paris standing behind free expression, Saudi Arabia’s actions bely its appearance.
It’s a safe bet that Charlie Hebdo doesn’t get across its border, physically or digitally, at least legally. The kingdom represented in France by a delegation headed by Madani closely monitors, and tightly controls, what’s on the Internet within its borders.
Saudi Arabia hasn’t been content with only suffocating freedom of expression domestically. The Saudis have also been one of the strongest champions of an international anti-blasphemy law that would make criticism of religion a global crime.
In addition, they’ve been an enthusiast backer of giving the UN a bigger role in Internet governance, no doubt hopefully to serve as a back-door route for even more effective censorship.
Meanwhile, when they’re not imprisoning and torturing critical bloggers, the free-speech-hating Saudis are burnishing their regressive bona fides by accusing Saudi women of acts of terrorism when they defy the country’s religious ban on females driving.
In December, Saudi Arabia announced it would try two women, arrested for driving, at a special terror court in Riyadh. Loujain al-Hathloul and Maysa al-Amoudi had been picked up for motoring along the country’s border with the United Arab Emirates.
Yet Nizar Madani, Saudi Arabia’s foreign affairs minister, saw nothing inappropriate about metaphorically linking arms with millions of French citizens earlier this month and marching to denounce attacks on freedom of expression.
#JeSuisHypocrite.
Of course, there are other hypocrites in play. Many world leaders, including in Canada, publicly bemoan the Saudis’ repression of human rights but don’t push the oil-rich kingdom as hard as they might, due to trade and geopolitical strategical reasons.
Yes, those factors mean there’s no getting around the need to engage with Saudi Arabia. But the Saudis need their trade and strategic partners, too.
In the case of the blogger Badawi, whose wife and children are refugees living in Sherbrooke, Que., Canada must keep up its diplomatic pressure, seen and unseen.
#RaifBadawi - Why (some) states use religion to justify violence
By Ani Sarkissian
Badawi’s case is a reminder that it is not only extremist groups such as Boko Haram, the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula that commit atrocities in the name of protecting Islam. Saudi Arabia is only one case of a state that perpetrates acts of violence based on religious justifications under the guise of upholding the rule of law. My recent book, “The Varieties of Religious Repression: Why Governments Restrict Religion,” shows that this often has little to do with religion per se. Instead, certain types of non-democratic countries commonly use religious repression as an instrument of their rule.
Saudi Arabia has an interest in regulating all aspects of religious practice and expression, and the means to do so. Because it is a hereditary monarchy lacking elected officials, the ruling regime creates and enforces laws without any direct mechanism for representing the preferences of its citizens. However, being insulated from the populace does not insulate the regime from politics. Saudi leaders perpetually must take into account the interests of one key constituency: the conservative Islamic establishment that helped to found the regime and continues to give political legitimacy to the royal family. By virtue of the country’s absolutist regime type and a ruling interest in upholding the religious preferences of a particularly conservative segment of society, Saudi leaders have the motivation and means, including violence, to repress the country’s citizens. The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the mutawwain) and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Pious Endowments, Mission, and Guidance (MOIA), as well as other state institutions were established to create and enforce laws regarding Islamic dress code and behavior between men and women, manage the religious curriculum in schools and religious media programming, and monitor mosques and prayer leaders around the country.
The Saudi regime uses its authority to repress not only religious minorities (including about 2 million Shiites), but also Sunni Muslims who dare to publicly criticize the official interpretation of Islam or who are critical of the religious leadership. It is under this guise that Badawi was sentenced for publishing a liberal blog that challenged the religious establishment, advocated for secularism and criticized groups such as Hamas that seek to build a religious state in the Palestinian territories. They also, when needed, punish those they consider “extremists,” including individuals who fight for groups such as the Islamic State.
The acts carried out in order to appease that Islamic establishment are not costless. They run counter to Saudi efforts at home and abroad to present King Abdullah as a reformer. The publicity surrounding shocking acts such as the flogging of Badawi hurts Saudi Arabia’s image internationally. Last week, for instance, a bipartisan group of eight high profile U.S. senators condemned Badawi’s flogging and The Washington Post editorial board called for an international commission of inquiry on Saudi human rights. But, in spite of recent reports indicating that King Abdullah may be bowing to international pressure to cease using flogging as a form of punishment, those costs have evidently been considered worth paying because of the domestic regime survival interests at stake.
Saudi Arabia’s pattern of repression is typical of religiously divided societies that lack political competition. Low competition gives politicians more power to impose repressive measures against groups without fear of retribution at the polls. The presence of religious divisions – in terms of demographics and struggles between secular and religious actors who seek to change the nature of politics – increases the chance of a state imposing religious repression as a means of suppressing potential opposition. In non-democratic countries with greater political competition (in the form of unfree elections) or without societal religious divisions, the payoff for targeting religion as a policy area meriting repression is low, and thus politicians have less of an incentive to do so.
Around the world, religious repression is often targeted at religious minorities by regimes that are either anti-religion in general (for example, China) or allied with their country’s particular religious majority (for example, Russia). But even regimes claiming to support religion can engage in religious repression. When states such as Saudi Arabia (and Iran, for example) mandate that all laws should have a basis in religious doctrine, it constitutes religious repression, even if the state’s favored religion is the one practiced by a majority of the country’s adherents. By placing itself in control of the institutions that interpret religious doctrine, such states take the power to enforce that doctrine, in the process making it impossible for the majority to engage in the free practice of religion or exercise the right to self-government.
When states enforce a particular interpretation of religious law, citizens are forced to abide by it rather than their own conscience. And when states retain the ability to hire and train clerical staff, manage the construction of religious buildings and even approve sermons, they hinder the ability of individuals and groups to function as independent social actors. Through policy mechanisms, religion becomes a tool of the state, ready to be wielded to advance its interests. That tool can even be used to justify acts of physical coercion and even violence: Raif Badawi is feeling the state repression of religion 50 lashes at a time, once each week for the next five months.
U.S. senators ask Saudi Arabia to cancel 'barbaic punishment' of blogger
Eight U.S. senators have written a letter to Saudi King Abdullah to urge an "immediate halt" to the flogging of blogger Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to 1,000 lashings for criticizing Saudi Arabian clerics on his Free Saudi Liberals website.
In the Jan. 16 letter, the senators write that in the wake of the recent Paris terrorist attacks, especially, "such an example of state-sanctioned violence against peaceful religious dialogue is highly troubling and helps legitimize the extremist view that violence is a justified response to the free exercise of speech and religion."
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Jeanne Shaheen (R-N.H.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) signed the letter.
The U.S. State Department and the U.N. high commissioner for human rights are also pressuring Saudi Arabian authorities to stop the "inhumane" punishment, but State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, "I don't think we're in the business of demanding things."
Putin Isn't Worrying About the Ruble
In recent weeks, news from around the country has shown panic among bank depositors and long lines at currency exchange points. Reports on the exchange rate consistently make headlines. It might seem as if the entire Russian population does nothing but monitor the ruble's dramatic rise and fall against the dollar.
If almost any other country besides Russia were to experience such a rapid devaluation of its currency, its government or central bank head would almost certainly be forced to resign. However, during a three-hour news conference, President Vladimir Putin supported his government and the Central Bank for, "on the whole," taking the right actions.
In fact, Putin did not even deign to scrutinize the foreign exchange market, or to announce any measures for radically reforming the country's economic and financial systems. Putin apparently believes that the system he created is functioning properly and coping adequately with the situation.
I must admit that Putin has always possessed a very keen sense of the public's mood, and in downplaying any threat from the currency and financial crisis, his rhetoric matched the feelings of the overwhelming majority of Russians.
Even if the ruble were to fall even further, it would not provoke the Russian people to take to the streets in protest. The most they would do to adjust to the rapidly deteriorating situation is to buy durable goods such as cars, apartments, and home electronics — or sacks of buckwheat for those of more modest means — to hedge their savings before prices begin to rise, or else convert their rubles into dollars and euros.
Russia has experienced several devaluations of the ruble in the post-Soviet period. In fact, the devaluation in 1998 was more severe, and today's situation is better by comparison. Never once did financial turmoil spark significant social, much less political protest, even back when the opposition was stronger and more organized, and the many restrictive laws against protests that legislators have passed in the last two years were not yet in place.
The main reason Russians remain "unmoved" with regard to exchange rate fluctuations is the fact that the vast majority live entirely with rubles and do not even hold savings accounts in foreign currencies. Russians currently have about 16.8 trillion rubles ($259 billion) in bank deposit accounts. That figure has remained stable overall since early 2014, even after many people initially withdrew savings when the fighting in Ukraine broke out in March, but then began depositing those funds again in summer.
Over the past four years, foreign currency accounts ranged from 17 percent to 19 percent of all deposits, rising only slightly to 22 percent now. In other words, Russians did not rush en masse to convert their rubles into other currencies.
However, according to various estimates, Russians might have as much as $80 billion in cash stashed away at home, as compared to the estimated $50 billion dollars that Chinese citizens are holding for a rainy day.
However, that impressively large 16.8 trillion rubles in deposits is owned by a relatively small number of Russians. According to state pollster VTsIOM, 71 percent of Russians have no savings at all, and only about 10 percent hold actual savings accounts — as compared to accounts used only for receiving salaries and paying bills.
The average Russian considers actual "savings" to begin at the modest figure of 250,000 rubles ($3,900). Much of that money is kept at home, in preparation for a major purchase. According to various surveys, only 4 to 7 percent of the people keep their savings in foreign currency. The rest prefer the ruble, the currency they receive their salaries in, and in which they pay for goods and services.
Fewer than 2 percent of Russians earn salaries in a foreign currency. My guess is that the sentiment "I have never held any foreign currency and the price of the dollar does not interest me" is very widespread in Russia.
At the same time, more than half of all Russians have been monitoring the ruble-dollar exchange rate, but primarily as an indirect indicator of the state of the economy. Of course, devaluation leads to higher prices, and especially for food — a commodity that concerns everybody.
On average, Russia imports 30 percent of its foodstuffs, but that figure increases to 60 to 70 percent in large cities — and food prices are expected to rise by 25 to 35 percent in the coming months. However, even that major rise in prices will not make people take to the streets in protest because such hardships are not surprising or new for Russia.
Now, paradoxical as it might seem for the Western mentality, the Russian president and government enjoy the trust of the population at a level unprecedented in the post-Soviet period — against the backdrop of a confrontation with the West in which the majority believes this country's policy was correct from the start and the West holds an unjust and hypocritical attitude toward Russia.
According to a Levada Center survey conducted in late November, 80 percent of Russians trust the president — a 150 percent increase over one year ago. During the same period, the number who feel that Putin is untrustworthy fell from 12 percent to just 4 percent.
And, in contrast to previous years, the rise in support for the president was accompanied by a corresponding rise in confidence in other government institutions. Last year only 30 percent of Russians had confidence in their government. This year that number stands at 46 percent.
The same phenomenon applies to attitudes toward the Russian Orthodox Church, the army and security agencies. With the ongoing war in Ukraine that state-owned television continues to portray as the main news story in the country, Russians believe the authorities so completely that most people do not yet consider the dramatic battle between the ruble and the dollar worthy of serious concern.
The State of the Union and the Minimum Wage
In his State of the Union speech on tonight, President Obama is expected to again call on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage. His case is unassailable. The minimum was last updated eight years ago, when lawmakers passed a plan to raise it in steps to $7.25 in 2009. That level was too low even back then. And with each passing year, its inadequacy becomes more apparent. The economic underclass is growing, the economy is becoming more unequal and taxpayers are being forced to subsidize low-wage employers by providing public aid to underpaid workers.
And yet, Mr. Obama has consistently undercut his own strong case for a higher minimum by championing increases that are themselves too paltry. When he ran for president in 2008, he called for a raise to $9.50 an hour by 2011, but that idea was shelved in the rocky economy of his first term. When he revived his push for a higher minimum in 2013, he called for $9 an hour by the end of 2015, inexplicably watering down his original proposal. Later that year, he adopted as his own a proposal by congressional Democrats for $10.10 an hour phased in over two years.
That would be better than no raise, which is what most Republicans want. But it does not reestablish a firm wage floor. The minimum wage would be between $11 an hour and $18 an hour today if it had merely kept pace with average wages or productivity growth over the past several decades.
That would be better than no raise, which is what most Republicans want. But it does not reestablish a firm wage floor. The minimum wage would be between $11 an hour and $18 an hour today if it had merely kept pace with average wages or productivity growth over the past several decades.
A call for $10.10 an hour at some future date is behind the times in other ways, as well. Six states, Washington, D.C., and several citiesalready have or soon will have minimums at or above $10 an hour. The federal minimum is supposed to raise the standard for the nation, not merely ratify standards that have already been established. Similarly, widespread public support for a higher minimum and activism among low-wage workers for $15 an hourhave expanded the realm of the possible. It would be politically tone deaf for Mr. Obama to stick with “$10.10 a few years from now” when an informed public wants and deserves more.
A minimum wage that is too low would also undercut the president’s new agenda to rebuild the middle class. When the lowest-paid workers earn more, workers modestly above the lowest ranks also tend to get raises. Such boosts can put the middle class within reach, especially for the many married couples in which one or both spouses is currently at or near the minimum wage. For those reasons, Mr. Obama should abandon the $10.10 benchmark in favor of a bolder goal that is in keeping with economic and political realities — and with his promises to restore the middle class.
Despite Domestic Focus, Obama to Address Foreign Policy Concerns in Speech
President Barack Obama is expected to focus on domestic issues in his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night in Washington, but ongoing crises around the world will give him reason to update Americans on U.S. foreign policy efforts.
The terror attacks earlier this month in France and in Australia last month, the face-off in Europe between Ukraine with Russia, and ongoing unrest in the Middle East are sobering reminders for Obama that foreign policy remains a top priority in his agenda.
Fast-paced international developments involving Islamist extremists are forcing greater attention to security matters at home and abroad.
Recently, there have been a shoot-out in Belgium, police raids in Germany, arrests in Greece, and stepped-up security across Europe -- all following the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7.
Republican opposition
Obama will likely use his televised address Tuesday to update the nation on the U.S.-led coalition conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria and the efforts by several thousand U.S. troops sent to Iraq to act as advisers for its military.
The president and Secretary of State John Kerry have said that it will take years to defeat the Islamist group.
Iran and nuclear negotiations with the U.S. and five other world powers will likely be discussed as well.
Last week, Obama warned the Republican-controlled Congress to hold off placing new sanctions on Iran, saying penalties at this point could derail negotiations and raise the risk of war. He also threatened to veto any bill calling for new sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
To defend Cuba decision
The president is expected to defend his decision to seek to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba after a 50-year break.
On Monday, a senior State Department official said the U.S. would urge Cuba to lift travel restrictions and agree to re-establishing U.S. and Cuban embassies in historic talks in Havana this week.
However, Republicans -- led by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American who is a leading congressional opponent of the shift in policy regarding the Communist nation -- have been sharply critical of the move.
This year, one of Obama's guests to the speech will be Alan Gross, the Maryland man who recently returned to the U.S. after being imprisoned in Cuba for five years.
Among the foreign policy successes Obama is likely to tout will be the end of the war in Afghanistan and the deployment of hundreds of U.S. troops to help fight Ebola in West Africa.
Domestic agenda
The president has already announced most of the domestic agenda items he plans to discuss Tuesday.
He has called for increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans; raising taxes on profits individuals make from selling assets such as stocks, bonds and real estate; ending tax breaks for inherited estates worth millions of dollars, and imposing a fee on the country's biggest financial firms.
Obama said he wants to use the revenues -- estimated at $320 billion over the next 10 years -- to offset tax breaks for middle-income Americans and for initiatives such as free tuition for many community college students.
Obama's aim is to help those left behind by an economic revival taking hold six years into his tenure, which began with the Democrat facing a crippling financial crisis.
"Now that we have fought our way through the crisis, how do we make sure that everybody in this country, how do we make sure that they are sharing in this growing economy?'' Obama said in a White House-produced YouTube video preview of his speech.
The proposals have already been soundly rejected by Republican lawmakers, who gained control of both the House and Senate after enjoying sweeping victories in last November's midterm elections.
"More Washington tax hikes and spending is the same, old top-down approach we've come to expect from President Obama that hasn't worked,'' said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, the top U.S. Republican.
Aiding the middle class
But White House officials are betting that Republicans, also under pressure to help the middle class and needing to prove they can govern, will be willing to compromise on some aspects of the plan.
"So are they going to agree on everything? Absolutely not,'' senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer told CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday. "I think we should have a debate in this country between middle class economics and trickledown economics and see if we can come to an agreement on the things we do agree on.''
"So are they going to agree on everything? Absolutely not,'' senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer told CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday. "I think we should have a debate in this country between middle class economics and trickledown economics and see if we can come to an agreement on the things we do agree on.''
The president has vowed to veto a number of Republican priorities, including approval of a controversial oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast and changes to his signature health care reform law.
The proposals are also likely to be the subject of a debate among potential candidates to replace Obama in 2016, a campaign that is just now getting started.
Obama will take his proposals on the road Wednesday, traveling to Idaho and Kansas to promote them. And he will be interviewed by three YouTube bloggers.
The president is currently enjoying a boost in popularity, thanks to an improving economy, falling unemployment rate, plummeting gas prices and a series of policy achievements, including his decision to ease deportation rules on millions of undocumented immigrants and diplomatic overtures with Cuba.
A new poll issued jointly by the Washington Post and ABC News show Obama with a 50 percent approval rating, a nine-point increase since December.
Obama's State Of The Union Speech Will Aim To Influence 2016 Debate
Key elements of the economic proposals President Barack Obama will outline in his State of the Union address Tuesday appear to be aimed at driving the debate in the 2016 election on income inequality and middle-class economic issues, rather than setting a realistic agenda for Congress.
Obama's calls for increasing taxes on the wealthy, making community college free for many students and expanding paid leave for workers stand little chance of winning approval from the new Republican majority on Capitol Hill. But the debate over middle-class economics is looking critical for the coming campaign.
"Inequality_and especially the growing opportunity gap_have become the top litmus test of seriousness for 2016," said Robert Putnam, a Harvard political scientist who has discussed inequality issues with the president and his advisers. "The entry ticket for the presidential sweepstakes is that you have a policy — some policy — for dealing with this issue."
Indeed, potential Republican candidates Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have been talking openly about income inequality and the need to give lower-earning Americans more opportunities. On the Democratic side, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren appears intent on keeping the party focused on a populist economic agenda, even if she doesn't plan to run for president herself.
As the nation's attention increasingly turns to the 2016 election, the Obama White House is making clear that it still wants to set the terms of the economic conversation.
"I think we should have a debate in this country between middle-class economics and trickle-down economics and see if we can come to an agreement on the things we do agree on," White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation."
The president's advisers argue that's a debate they have won previously, including in Obama's victory over Romney in the 2012 presidential campaign and the fiscal cliff fight with Congress that led to the raising of George W. Bush-era tax rates for the wealthiest Americans.
However, Obama no longer has the political advantage on Capitol Hill that he would need to enact more tax increases. When Obama addresses Congress Tuesday night, he will be standing before a Republican majority in both chambers for the first time in his presidency.
The president and GOP leaders have spoken about their desire to compromise, but the opening weeks of the new Congress have offered few glimpses of where both sides plan to find common ground. Obama's economic proposals will do little to move the White House and Republicans closer together, given the GOP leadership's aversion to raising taxes on wealthy Americans.
The president's proposal would increase the capital gains rate on couples making more than $500,000 annually to 28 percent, require estates to pay capital gains taxes on securities at the time they're inherited, and slap a fee on the roughly 100 U.S. financial firms with assets of more than $50 billion.
Administration officials said much of the $320 billion in new taxes and fees would be used for measures aimed at helping the middle class, including a $500 tax credit for some families with two spouses working and a $60 billion program to make community college free.
Obama is also asking lawmakers to increase paid leave for workers. And he's moved unilaterally to lower a mortgage insurance rate that could help attract first-time homebuyers.
The White House cast the president's measures as steps that can help keep up economic momentum amid a recent spurt of growth that has also seen the unemployment rate fall below 6 percent.
There has been little Republican support for much of what the White House has rolled out ahead of Obama's address.
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the White House's tax proposal "the same old top-down approach we've come to expect from President Obama that hasn't worked." And Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is weighing a bid for the GOP presidential nomination, said the president's approach was outdated.
"Raising taxes on people that are successful is not going to make people that are struggling more successful," Rubio said.
In keeping with State of the Union tradition, first lady Michelle Obama will watch the speech along with invited guests whose stories bring to life some of the policies the president will tout.
Among those joining Mrs. Obama for this year's speech are Alan Gross, who was released from a Cuban prison last month as part of Obama's decision to normalize relations with the communist island nation; Chelsey Davis, a student from Tennessee who plans to graduate community college in May; and Dr. Pranav Shetty, who has been working on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
The effort to control Ebola is expected to be one of the foreign policy matters Obama addresses in a speech. While the president is not likely to make any major foreign policy announcements, he is expected to tout the formal end of the Afghan war, update the nation on the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, and urge lawmakers not to enact new sanctions on Iran while the U.S. and its partners are in the midst of nuclear negotiations with the Islamic republic.
Media freedom in Afghanistan increasingly under threat
Despite its rapid growth in the post-Taliban era, Afghan media continues to face many challenges such as attacks on journalists and political interference that threaten to undo the progress made over the past decade.
Media is considered to be one of the pillars of a modern nation. As an indispensable tool for democracy, the press is expected to act as a watchdog of government and empower the public. But at the dawn of a US-led invasion of Afghanistan over 12 years ago, the media in the war-ravaged South Asian nation found itself in tatters.
Under the Taliban rule between 1996 and 2001, nearly all forms of media in the country were banned except for the regime-run Radio Sharia, which only broadcast religious programs, and a few other Islamic publications. Listening to music and watching television were outlawed by the extremists. The country's communications infrastructure lay in ruins.
But when NATO troops ousted the Taliban from power in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Afghanistan's media experienced a renaissance. Vast sums of foreign investment flew into rebuilding the country's crippled press and broadcasting, propelling a transformation of the Afghan media landscape.
Today, Afghanistan boasts a sprawling media sector with some 65 television channels, 174 radio stations and hundreds of print publications. About 86 percent of population has access to telecommunication services; some 8 percent have Internet access, according to Afghan government.
This rapid growth has led many to view the country's media as a remarkable success story in the post-Taliban era. Ordinary Afghans have also placed greater trust in the nation's media than in their government or court system.
In a nationwide survey conducted by the US-based Asia Foundation in 2013, public confidence in electronic media stood at 68 percent, while the corresponding figures for parliament and judiciary were much lower at 47 and 43 percent respectively.
Rural-urban divide
But despite the impressive gains made over the past decade, acute challenges remain. The impact of the media boom has largely been confined to urban areas, where access to information is easier and electricity supplies are more reliable.
The picture in rural areas, however, remains starkly different. The Asia Foundation's survey notes that there hasn't been much progress in villages as local community councils continue to be the main channels of information due to a lack of infrastructure and low literacy levels.
With an estimated nine million illiterate adults, Afghanistan has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world, which accounts for the low newspaper readership. According to a report published in 2012 by the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), print plays only a small part in the nation's media scene.
Most information is transmitted by broadcasting stations. Radio is the country's dominant medium with more than 60 percent of Afghans regularly tuning into different stations, according to a 2010 research study commissioned by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Radio is followed by television with a viewership estimated at around 48 percent of the population.
Foreign aid
However, the success of Afghan broadcasting has a downside: a high-reliance on foreign money. Over the past decade, millions of dollars in international aid have been pumped into efforts to build independent media outlets. For instance, a significant amount of the 2.1 billion USD in German reconstruction aid to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2010 has been spent on media development.
There has been criticism that the financial support has led to the mushrooming of radio and television outlets which lack a viable business model and depend entirely on external financing for their survival.
In its 2010 Afghanistan Media Assessment Report, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) argued that instead of focusing on setting up media institutions which the Afghan economy could not support, donor countries "should invest primarily in the Afghan media's production and dissemination of socially constructive contents."
Analysts believe the sector's financial dependency on international aid makes it vulnerable to any cuts in funding. Andrew Wilder, South and Central Asia expert at USIP, told DW that "too rapid and drastic a reduction in foreign aid levels would be very destabilizing and risk undermining many of the tremendous socio-economic gains made during the past decade."
Foreign influence, however, is not only limited to investments. It has also had an impact on the content. For instance, more and more foreign entertainment programs are being broadcast and the nation's airwaves are filled with Indian "Bollywood" movies and soap operas.
Despite many people complaining in the USIP study that these programs convey ideas and messages that contradict their traditional societal norms and cultural values, these shows remain hugely popular, the report noted, echoing a clash between conservative values and the principle of freedom of expression in the conflict-ridden country.
Political meddling
The right to freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed under the nation's constitution, which came into force in 2004. But despite the laws that "ostensibly protect press freedoms, the government continues to use the restrictive elements of the constitution and media law to harass and punish media organizations and reporters," the CIMA report stated.
In 2012, for instance, the then President Hamid Karzai's administration tried to tighten its control of the media by placing restrictions on foreign broadcasting, creating a long list of media "violations" and setting up a government-controlled media complaints commission.
Following a huge domestic and international outcry over the proposals, Kabul decided to revise the draft law. But the incident showcased the political challenges faced by journalists and media organizations across the country.
Experts believe the attempts to curb press freedom have resulted in reporters and authors practicing self-censorship. "There is today a stronger sense of 'government control' and journalists fear that they may face reprisals if they criticize the government too overtly," Sari Kouvo, a human rights expert and co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, told DW. Kouvo added that the real test of a democratic state is how well it protects those expressing alternative views.
Physical threats
There are growing concerns about journalists being physically assaulted. A resilient insurgency and a climate of impunity make the country one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist. Statisticscompiled by the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee reveal that journalists were either attacked or threatened at least 35 times in the second half of 2013.
Journalists who try to expose the wrongdoings of warlords, insurgents or other powerful individuals are threatened, beaten and even killed, and this limits their ability to conduct in-depth reporting," Sheldon Himelfarb, director of the Media, Conflict and Peace-Building Center at USIP, told DW.
Threats to journalists, however, come not only from the Taliban and criminals, but also increasingly from government troops. "Of particular concern was the growing number of cases where the attacks implicated government officials, including members of the Afghan security forces," Human Rights Watch noted in its 2014 report on Afghanistan.
The country's media also regularly scores low in international rankings for press freedom. In 2013, Afghanistan ranked 128 out of 179 nations in the Reporters without Borders' Index, reflecting that the vibrant and expanding Afghan press still faces significant challenges in the coming years.
Pakistan - PPP holds three ministries responsible for petrol crisis
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Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPP) on Monday held three different ministries responsible for the petrol shortage in the country, apparently sowing distrust in fixing the responsibility on bureaucratic level.
The Ministries of Petroleum and Natural Gas, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Water and Power are responsible for the present state of affairs in the form petrol shortage and all three Ministers should take responsibility and give their statements in the house, the party stated in an adjournment motion submitted in National Assembly. The motion submitted under Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007, PPPP drew the attention of the government to urgent public matter of the acute shortage of petrol in the country, compounded by electricity and gas loadshedding which has added to the miseries of the people especially in the province of Punjab.
The reports that the public sector distribution company the Pakistan State Oil has defaulted on payments are alarming and demonstrates total inefficiency incompetence and callousness of the present government. The reports the PIA, Railways, IPPs have not paid their dues to PSO reflects failure of government generally. “We demand answers and explanations especially as the international fuel prices have fallen below $50 a barrel and this provided an excellent opportunity to the government to fix the energy crisis facing the country”, PPP’s lawmakers Ms Nafisa Shah, Ms Shazia Mari, Ms. Azra Fazal, Naveed Qamar & Abdul Sattar Bachani stated in the motion.
The response of the government by sacking 4 officials and trading blame between one ministry to the other shows that this is a government created problem and it must inform the parliament why and how was the problem called, and why has the government not been able to address it”, they added. They pointed out that PPP parliamentarians have from time to time raised the issue of ministers total lack of responsibility, failure to attend the sessions or the committee meetings which has made them unaccountable to the people generally.
“We have also warned of a crisis of circular debt, as the government failed to take it seriously”, they said and added that they feared that such an impasse would occur and now our fears have come true as millions of people are suffering as a result of the cabinet failure.
They wondered what happened to the Prime Ministers audit of performance of ministers and said that party is awaiting results of this exercise.
Balochistan Development forum Reflects Lack Of Seriousness By Balochistan Government
Balochistan Development forum (BDF) is taking place in Marriott hotel Islamabad from 19th to 21th January. BDF is being conducted by Chief Minister’s Policy reforms Unit (CMPRU) with technical support of UNDP. The stated purpose of this forum is to share the development vision of government of Balochistan with federal government and donor agencies and get their support. It’s also meant to entice the foreign investors to invest in resources rich Balochistan. However there is one major flaw, the publications used by CMPRU which act as development vision of Balochistan government have some basic level mistakes and those have not been corrected despite being identified.
Mistakes in a CMPRU publication “Mapping of Rural Settlements” were identified by The Balochistan point. Head of CMPRU, Mr. Kaiser Bengali told The Balochistan Point that CMPRU has no mandate to rectify those mistakes because mistakes are in source data of Planning and Development (P&D) department of Balochistan. Almost entire cabinet of Balochistan is attending BDF, including the minister of P&D. There is no reason that CMPRU can’t ask the concerned department to correct their data so that basic mistakes in CMPRU publication can be corrected as well.
Express Tribune has specifically reported that how CMPRU has used GIS technology to “map the rural areas and water resources and their development potential.” What Express Tribune failed to report is that the same publication, produced with the help of GIS technology, contains basic errors. It’s not very hard to understand that any development policy made based on incorrect mapping will be flawed from the outset. At least, CMPRU should have been honest and told the participants of the BDF about the flaws in their publication which still require correction.
The buck stops at Chief Minister (CM) of Balochistan and He is the one who is ultimately responsible for conduct of CMPRU. He is the one who has authorized the use of CMPRU publications as development vision of Balochistan without any verification. At the moment, CM Balochistan is facing serious problems running the province. BDF is nothing more than an attempt to distract the people from the harsh realities of Balochistan. The situation in Balochistan is not conducive for any investment or mega development. First the issues related to the security are needed to be addressed. Those issues in turn require a political solution of the Balochistan conflict.
Former CM of Balochistan and leader of Balochistan National Party (BNP), Sardar Akhtar Mengal, while talking to The Balochistan Point termed BDF as fruitless exercise where precious government resources will be lavishly spent in Five Star hotels. He candidly said that security of finance and life are pre-requisite for development and investment, in Balochistan Dr. Malik government can guarantee none. At the moment only graveyards are developing in Balochistan and BDF can be used only to attract invest in them, said Mr. Mengal when asked by The Balochistan Point about BDF.
Balochistan is faced with many basic problems such as bad governance, massive corruption, and nepotism and so on. In such circumstances, conducting BDF for the sake of self-promotion and political mileage is last thing that should have been done by a so-called middle class CM of Balochistan. In the best interest of people of Balochistan Dr. Malik should refrain from such futile exercises and instead concentrate on solving the most basic issues relating to governance such as appointment of Additional Chief Secretary (P&D).
CMPRU needs to correct the basic mistakes in its publications. In this age of digital media they can’t get way with the mistakes not corrected. Conducing BDF in Marriot hotel proves that CMPRU is not short of resources. It should use those resources to correct its mistakes or at least give a time frame, publicly, for the correction. If Dr. Malik Balochistan and management of CMPRU are sincere in development of Balochistan then they need to take the required action to prove it.