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Pakistan's Shia Genocide: Shia activist gunned down in Pakistan’s Karachi

Unidentified gunmen have shot dead a Shia activist in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, security sources say.

Local Pakistani security officials said that assailants on motorbikes opened fire on Syed Rais Jafferi, 57, in the Marton Quarters area of the port city on Saturday.

The sources said that Jafferi was rushed to a nearby hospital with fatal injuries following the assault. However, he was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.

Local media reports said that the assailants managed to flee the scene before security sources arrived.

Jafferi had been targeted in a failed assassination attempt in the Rizvia Society area of Karachi in 2013.

Abid Qaimkhani, a senior police official, said that law enforcement agencies and relevant authorities have launched a probe into the killing.

“It appeared to be a sectarian killing and police are probing as to whether the same suspects targeted him,” Pakistani English-language newspaper Dawnquoted Qaimkhani as saying.

No group or person has yet claimed responsibility for the latest killing, but pro-Taliban militant groups have been blamed for such attacks in the past.

Also on May 13, pistol-wielding gunmen massacred nearly 50 Ismaili Shia Muslims in the same troubled city.

Karachi is home to numerous ethnic groups and has been hit by clashes between rival ethnic and political factions in the past two and half decades. Sectarian, political and ethnic violence in Karachi has claimed the lives of hundreds of people over the past two decades.

Several Shia religious gatherings have been attacked in different parts of the country in recent years.

The country’s Shia leaders have called on the government to bring to justice those behind the ongoing bloodshed and targeted killings.

Several Sunni groups have also denounced the carnage of the Shia Muslims at the hands of the extremists and described the issue as a conspiracy against the country.

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/07/25/421849/Pakistan-Karachi-Syed-Rais-Jafferi-Shia-Abid-Qaimkhani

How Hamid Karzai Continues to Rule Afghanistan From Beyond the (Political) Grave

By Kambaiz Rafi

The former Afghan president is leveraging a personal network to exercise influence beyond his term.

Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan since the 2001 Bonn agreement up until a year ago, never truly had his heart in building state institutions, at least not in the same way his Western partners had in mind. Coming from a tribal background, he was ideologically opposed to a strong state bureaucracy and rekindled tribal patronage at the highest levels of government, a trend that had hardly been seen in Afghanistan for at least a century before him, barring the 1990s Civil Warand the ensuing Taliban regime. Turning into a vocal critic of the current president, he continues to wieldinfluence among the tribal communities to challenge the government’s authority.

It was in late 19th century, under the reign of Amir Abur Rahman, that Afghanistan showed signs of statehood with a centralized bureaucracy and emphasis on rule of law. In his memoir, Amir, who had previously lived in exile for a decade in Central Asia, constantly derides the old ways of tribal loyalties and the prevalent backwardness among his subjects, cracking down on a number of tribal rebellions during his reign.

Except for brief disruptions, the process of institutionalizing a modern state continued in Afghanistan during the 20th century, albeit with formidable concessions given to tribal chiefdoms in the South and East in the form of tax releases and exemption from mandatory military service. Although this created pockets of tribal power which never entirely came under Kabul’s control – laying the bedrocks of the current religio-tribal Taliban insurgency – the Afghan court believed in fostering a modern state machinery, particularly under the firebrand Prime Minister Daud Khan between 1953 to 1963. The Afghan constitution of 1964, drafted by foreign-educated experts, even showed signs of limited democracy such as establishing a bicameral legislative branch.

The more pronounced institutional reforms came under the fiercely ideological People’s Democratic Party’s regime during the 1980s. In power for more than a decade, the party’s hasty measures to transform the Afghan social fabric in a Soviet fashion backfired tragically, precipitating conservative resistance and an Islamist militancy that continues today. Nevertheless, the party de-facto prime minister for nearly a decade, Ali Kisthmand, was from an ethnic group – the Hazaras – whose members were previously banned from entering University or gaining higher military ranks. The head of state for eight years, Babrak Karmal, was allegedly a Tajik, itself a direct challenge to Pashtun rule in the country. By this time, impersonal politics and freeing bureaucratic selections from tribal considerations had gained relative momentum in the country, more accurately in Kabul, and ethnic prejudices were reduced to personal preferences of government officials rather than being the common state of affairs.

However, minimal progresses in institution building was severely affected during the 1990s Civil War and the pursuant Taliban regime, spurring divisions propped up by local patronage systems throughout the country among all the ethnic groups.

In the post-Taliban regime excitement, Karzai’s leadership was endorsed by the international community as the safest option. Succeeding his deceased father as the head of the Popalzai tribe, he was a less known militia leader in the South at the time of the Bonn conference, having lived most of his life amidst tribal culture and traditional authority. While leading a small contingent of fighters against the Taliban after falling out with the group who allegedly assassinated his father, he was hand-picked at the Bonn Conference by the Bush administration envoy, Zalmai Khalilzad, as leader of the post-Taliban interim administration despite losing a conference-wide election to an ethnic Uzbek, the royalist Satar Sirat.

Contrary to western misunderstandings, Karzai was not leading Afghanistan for more than a decade without a political vision. He more than made up for his reluctance to create a central state bureaucracy in furthering an informal network of tribal clients, privately advanced to bypass the government institutions he himself was heading, but usually suspected were misleading him and were under Western control.

His opinion on tribal influence in the Afghan society is better described in an essay he wrote while studying in India, in which he sides with the long-standing policy of respecting tribal role by the Zahir Shah monarchy. Berating the western habits of educated tribal elite who had chosen an urban life at the cost of “isolation from realities of the Afghan society,” he doesn’t shy away from affirming his admiration to the historical place tribes have had in the Afghan society, mainly in the South and East.

In an interview two weeks after the April presidential elections last year, Karzai shows that his views on tribal matters have changed little since he wrote his essay nearly three decades ago. Criticizing representative democracy as an imperfect Western imposition too reliant on political parties, he derives a cursory analogy between the tribal communities of Afghanistan and the Panchayati Raj system in India, making a case for his back-channel policy of empowering tribal elders during his government in a bid to foster what he considered to be participatory democracy. While there are similarities between the two, the Panchayati Raj in India has never been a patronage-ridden system of tribal loyalties, neither have they been defiant of central authority but are village-level governance structures that have, in fact, become officially part of the Indian government since 1992. This is when Pashtun tribal groups remain strictly bound to their elders and are in most cases impermeable to social and political change, defying central authority as their raison d’ être.

Karzai’s analogy between the two cases betrays what was more likely a deep-seated affinity to preserve his tribal ties parallel to holding a legitimate government office. Moreover, it seems that his ideology follows his politics, rather than being the other way around. He came from an environment wrought with tribal relations of power and prestige and chose an ideology – participatory democracy – that would conveniently suit his tribal background in a seemingly modern guise. He even admits to have little relied on government institutions, thereby effectively widening the space for his tribal clients to function freely rather than streamlining government authority through formal institutions and strengthening his weak administration.

While serving as the president of the country, he was also bound by the Pashtun code of honor to serve his tribal affiliates after becoming the head of an influential tribe, and so he did by extending a network of tribal clients that continues to buy him legitimacy and political leverage.

Feeling the challenge from his predecessor, the current Afghan president Ashraf Ghani is trying hard to broaden his amiability among tribal elders. Rumors abound of Karzai’s intentions to undermine the decisions taken by the Unity Government, particularly the recent steps to mend relations with Pakistan, and Ghani wishes to counter them. He recently appointed 18 new advisers among whom the ones in-charge of tribal affairs seem more prominent. What is at stake in here is the course of institution building in the country which can be further derailed by periodic meddling of Karzai, shifting the attention to building informal political influence rather than the crippling state machinery.

Although Ashraf Ghani is often charged with ethnic bias himself, appointing mostly from his Pashtun tribesmen and having previously shown strong opinion about the Mujahideen who are seen as representative of other ethnic groups, mainly Tajiks. But his core loyalty lies with his Western education that can be clearly seen in his emphasis on institution building in his program of action during his election campaign. Additionally, Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive of the Unity Government, seeks his power base among non-tribal sections of the population and considers too much tribalism a political threat. Absent Karzai’s interference, the leaders of the Unity Government might succeed in laying down the foundation of a modern bureaucracy in Afghanistan, perhaps for the first time in three decades.

Detainees Vanish in Secretive Facilities as Pakistan Fights Taliban

By TAHA SIDDIQUI and DECLAN WALSH

Niaz Bibi’s son disappeared into the night, whisked away by Pakistani soldiers who accused him of being a Taliban fighter. For 18 anguishing months, she could find no word of his fate. Then she got a phone call.

“Come to Kohat prison,” said the man on the other end. “Tell nobody.”

At the prison, in northwestern Pakistan, she was directed to a separate, military-run internment center where her son, Asghar Muhammad, was brought to her. They touched hands through a metal grill, and she wept as he reassured her that he would be home soon.

But when the phone rang again, one month later, an official delivered crushing news. “Your son is dead,” he said. “Come collect his body.”

Mr. Muhammad was one of dozens of detainees who have died in military detention in Pakistan in the past year and a half, amid accounts of torture, starvation and extrajudicial execution from former detainees, relatives and human rights monitors. The accusations come at a time when the country’s generals, armed with extensive new legal and judicial powers, have escalated their war against the Pakistani Taliban by sweeping into their strongholds and detaining hundreds of people.

Critics warn that those gains may be coming at the cost of human rights, potentially weakening Pakistan’s fragile democracy and, ultimately, undermining its counterterrorism effort.

“People live in abject fear of speaking out about what the military is doing,” said Mustafa Qadri of Amnesty International, which received reports of more than 100 deaths in military custody in 2014.

At issue is a network of 43 secretive internment centers dotting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and the tribal belt. Little is known about the centers, formally established in 2011 and given greater powers by a tough antiterrorism law passed last year. Most are based in existing jails and military bases and operate far from public view. The total number of detainees has not been made public.

Relatives of missing people have filed 2,100 cases with the Peshawar High Court, seeking news of their fates.

In many instances, the first news comes when a body is sent home.

Last year, for instance, a man from the Kurram tribal district told the court that three of his six sons who were detained in Kohat had died in custody. The man’s lawyer said he had not brought a criminal complaint against the military out of fear that his remaining sons would meet a similar fate.

The chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa, did not respond to a detailed list of questions about conditions at the internment centers.

Classified documents leaked last year by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden made clear that American officials were aware of widespread human rights violations by the Pakistani military, even as billions of dollars in American military aid kept flowing to Pakistan.

Pakistani military officials tortured and killed people suspected of being militants “with the knowledge, if not consent, of senior officers,” said one American assessment in 2011.

“The military took care to make the deaths seem to occur in the course of counterinsurgency operations, from natural causes, or as the result of personal vendettas,” said the document, first cited by The Washington Post.

The Obama administration, which has gradually improved its relationship with Pakistan this year, has been muted in its public criticism of the violations and has not invoked a provision of American law that limits assistance to foreign militaries guilty of human rights abuses.

Instead, the administration approved more weapons for the Pakistani military: In April, it approved almost $1 billion worth of helicopters and laser-guided Hellfire missiles for use in counterterrorism operations.

State Department officials say they have warned the Pakistani military that the accounts of rights violations could lead to future restrictions on military assistance. Until recently, accusations of such abuses by Pakistani soldiers and intelligence officers have been sharpest in western Baluchistan Province, where the army has faced accusations of abducting, torturing and killing people suspected of being Baluch nationalists as part of a decade-old effort to quell a separatist rebellion there.

The deaths at internment centers have come in conjunction with the military’s battlefield gains — in the past year, it has seized control of much of North Waziristan — and a general hardening of public opinion against the Pakistani Taliban.

Tough new antiterrorism laws have given the army greater legal powers, and the number of deaths in military custody has declined in recent months since a military court system, authorized by Parliament in January, became active. Fayaz Zafar, a journalist in the Swat Valley, counted 48 bodies being returned to that area in 2014 and 5 so far this year, the latest on June 2.

Experts say the military-run courts fall far short of international standards, and their authority is being challenged in Pakistan’s Supreme Court. But public opposition to the courts has been muted, particularly since a Taliban massacre that killed 150 people, most of them children, in December. The authorities have taken harder action against militants on other fronts, too, lifting a moratorium on executions that has led to 178 convicts being hanged.

The executions have drawn repeated protest from the United Nations and the European Union but barely a whimper of public complaint.

By several accounts, conditions at the internment camps can be brutal. One former detainee from Swat said he had been thrashed with barbed wire, reduced to eating soap because he was fed so little and forced to give false testimony against other detainees in court.

“I felt guilty, but I knew I would be beaten if I refused,” said the man who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid further trouble.

Relatives of detainees who die in custody say they have been pressured into conducting hurried funerals, often at night, and sometimes coerced into declining an autopsy, even if the corpse bears signs of ill treatment. In other instances, they say, local mullahs are forbidden from offering prayers for the dead.

Asma Jahangir, a leading human rights lawyer, has brought a Supreme Court case challenging the detention of 33 men. When brought to court two years ago, two of the men said they had been tortured. They have since died in custody. “They supposedly had heart attacks,” Ms. Jahangir said.

In Swat, several women have formed a protest group to seek news of their missing relatives through street demonstrations and court actions. Their leader, Jan Saba, said in an interview that she had “knocked on every door” in search of news of her missing husband, but that she still had heard nothing.

Few dispute that many of the military detainees are linked to the Taliban. Mr. Muhammad, the detainee who died in Kohat last year, admitted to his family that he had spent eight months in the company of Taliban fighters before being arrested, relatives said.

One of his brothers, Abid, said that when the family asked Mr. Muhammad what he was doing during that time, he replied, “The less you know, the better.”

Such tales have led civilian officials to turn a blind eye to conditions at the internment centers. Jamaluddin Shah, the top civilian official in Kohat, said in an interview that he did not believe the military practiced torture or conducted executions at the center. But, he added, “even if such cases were true, why would that be an issue?”

“Have you seen them slaughtering people and distributing those videos?” Mr. Shah asked, referring to Taliban execution videos. “Do you think they deserve any human rights?”

But although the army has clearly weakened the Taliban in recent months, experts warn that reports of abuse could ultimately hurt its counterterrorism effort, in much the same way that harsh American tactics after 2001 led to global condemnation and bolstered militant recruitment.

Ms. Jahangir, the lawyer, calls the network of internment centers “Pakistan’s little Guantánamo Bay.”

“These laws risk turning Pakistan into a security state,” Ms. Jahangir said. “We cannot afford torture and killings on a mass scale, even in a time of war.”

Pakistan - Mild quake shakes Islamabad, Rawalpindi, northern areas

A moderate tremor, measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, was felt in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gujrawala and northern areas of Pakistan late on Friday night.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) 5.1-magnitude earthquake was at a relatively shallow depth of 26 kilometres. Its epicentre was 15 kilometres to the northeast of Islamabad.

However, Pakistan Metrological Department has recorded magnitude of the quake at 5.5 on Richter scale and depth at 10kms

Besides the twin cities, mild tremor jolted Mansehra, Abbottabad, Peshawar, Batgram, Swabi, Kohistan, Malakand, Swat and adjacent areas.

Residents came out of their owing to the quake. No loss of life and property has been reported.

Women In Baloch Society

Hanif Dilmurad

The word Women, comprising of five alphabets, has a lot of meanings in different societies. When green revolution ended the authority of women diminished and with the help of Religion and social laws role of women was minimized in different societies. At the same time in other civilizations she gained the name of Goddess. However some societies still have respect for women including the Baloch society.

It is necessary to compare societies to know about role of women, without comparison it is impossible to know her role and rights. Every society has its laws and norms that determine role of person in their society. Therefore the role of Women is also shaped up by societal laws and norms.

In the Baloch society, a woman has equal rights and social status as compared to men. Examples of famous Baloch woman are Baanri, Haani, Gohar, Aadenag Gung, Sammi, Granaaz, Sazein, Zarrien, Mai Chaagli and Naaz Bibi. All these women have played a vital role in their fields, their decisions inspired whole society, even in everyday life and Baloch women have held power to make decisions.

In the field of poetry, music composing and singing there have been notable Baloch women including Gohar Malik, Rabia Khuzdari, Banul Dashtyaari, Aamna Tothi, Sharifa Saothi, Naseem Shaheen and Zubeda. These women were highly skilled in their field and played effective role during their lifetimes. Naseema sang a song and she compared her birth land Malir with Kashmir, she sang ‘malir maroo e malir en malir jannat e kashmir en’.

During Chakar-e-Azam’s period his sister Baanri commanded a battalion towards India and participated in the battle of Pani Path. In the mid of 17^th century Mai Chaagli ruled Lasbela, she belonged to Burfath tribe of Baloch, Mai Chaagli was a brave woman, she ruled Lasbela for decades and didn’t pay any taxes to Khan of Kalat. As a result, Khan of Kalat supported Jam of Thatta, district of Sindh, to attack Mai Chaagli’s Lasbela state and pushed her army towards Keerthar Mountain range. After Mai Chaagli’s defeat, Jam started his rule on Lasbela. Mai Chaagli sent her messenger toward Lasbela and challenged them about her return and termed it as her liability. Jam ruled on Lasbela with the support of Kalat but still he was scared of Mai Chaagli.

These are historical resemblances. In recent history, in western part of Balochistan, Dad Shah and his supporters took up arms against Iranian ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi then his sister Naaz Bibi also took part in the war. She fought and participated in war against Raza Shah Pahlavi’s army.

In Balochi Epic poetry, Gohar e Hirrani Shair is one of the largest poetry in Balochi Epics. It is the history of an era. Aadenag Gung took revenge of her father’s insult and this incident is also a part of Epic poetry.

According to Baloch tradition, when a woman without headscarf enters the battle field, the war must be stopped. If a group of women come in the house of belligerent then he will abandon his revenge and forgive the opposition party and agree on settlement in respect of their tradition.

Baloch society gives women her social status and Opportunities to utilize her efficiencies. She has participated in every field of life.  Corps cutting is a good example when corps is ready for harvesting; women also take part as harvesters in their corps fields. If she hasn’t outdoor activities then she has a role in their houses. As an artist, they make handicrafts and embroideries and teach her neighbors children about handcrafts on fabrics. In political field, Baloch women have a status, respect and the power of decision making.

Pakistan - Criticism of the Judicial Commission

Even as the nation looks towards a future unhindered by election rigging scandals, PTI’s social media team has started churning out posts that discredit the Supreme Court and the Judicial Commission Report.
This alternative campaign not only contradicts the statements of PTI’s top leadership, who have promised to accept the decision, it is based on a complete misunderstanding of the justice system.


The PTI has been characterised by its opponents as a party that always cries conspiracy when things go against it.
Attacking the Judicial Commission will not help dissipate it’s image as a tantrum-throwing child – especially when the tantrums are based on flawed facts.
Faced with a climb-down, the PTI media team has decided to attack the entirety of the legal system; ignoring the vast differences that exist between its different operations.
Social Media posts that ‘prove’ how the judiciary is rigged by listing unresolved cases such as the Model Town incident, Ayyan Ali bail, and the Baldia factor fire miss several important points.
Firstly, the functions of a Judicial Commission, designed to probe a specific question and staffed by Supreme Court judges, are completely separate from the functions of criminal courts – the success or failure of one does not affect the other.
Secondly, these cases are ongoing trials, just because they haven’t reached conclusion yet does not mean they never will.
Trials take time because it is necessary to give both sides time to prepare their arguments, it does not simply imply ineptitude.


Most importantly for PTI supporters – who consider the words of Imran Khan gospel – the composition of this judicial commission was thoroughly vetted, and approved by the Kaptaan.
He declared this panel trustworthy, and promised to accept its verdict.
This is the same Supreme Court, the same Chief Justice who was lauded by PTI when he hounded PML-N and PPP on holding Local Government election; calling them ‘corrupt’ only show that PTI extends support as long as the results are favourable.


Had this been restricted to social media, this senseless campaign could have been ignored.
Yet, party members are echoing these thoughts in talk shows and press conferences.
The inability, or unwillingness, of the PTI top leadership to reign in this campaign speaks volumes about their views.
With PML-N adapting an uncharacteristic restraint and speaking in conciliatory tones, the PTI looks all the more disruptive – and a little hypocritical.
It is true that the legal system needs reform, but that does not mean all its verdicts are automatically flawed.
If Imran Khan wants his party to be considered a serious political contender, he has to teach his workers and supporters then how to gracefully accept defeat.

Pakistan Foreign debt rising: Govt’s loans tally up to $5.1 billion

Pakistan received $5.6 billion in foreign financing in fiscal year 2015, over 90% of which was in the form of loans. The government fell short of its estimates by $1.8 billion, mainly due to its inability to introduce reforms in the energy sector, and made up for the shortfall with heavy domestic borrowing.

The government had projected receiving $7.4 billion in loans and grants in the fiscal year that ended June 30. Instead, it was able to secure only $5.1 billion in loans and $515 million in grants, according to figures released by the Economic Affairs Division of the finance ministry.

Among the grants, the United Kingdom was the single largest donor, giving $260 million, followed by the United States, which gave $97.4 million, and China, which provided $47.7 million.

Of the $5.1 billion in new foreign debt, $1 billion was raised by floating a US-dollar denominated sukuk (Islamic bond) on the global capital markets. The government also secured a $100 million short-term loan from the London-based Standard Chartered Bank after loans from multilateral lenders fell through.

As much as 18% of the total economic assistance was short-term credit that the government has to either roll over or retire in fiscal 2016. Roughly one-fourth of the foreign inflows came in shape of budgetary support while project assistance was slightly over one-third. Only 2% of the receipts were meant for 2014 flood relief activities.

Part of the reason behind the shortfall was lethargy on the part of Pakistani bureaucrats in approving the development projects that needed foreign financing, as well as delays in procurement, according to officials familiar with the budgetary process. As a result of the bureaucratic laziness, many foreign funded projects will now face delays. Pakistan received Rs92 billion in foreign financing for development projects in fiscal 2015, against a budgeted Rs102 billion.

According to the EAD, the Asian Development Bank gave $450 million in loans in fiscal 2015, 59% less than the government’s estimates of $1.1 billion. The ADB delayed the approval of $400 million in budgetary support for the energy sector due to the government’s failure to implement reforms.

The World Bank gave $1.2 billion, or slightly less than two-thirds of annual estimates of $1.9 billion. The World Bank too has postponed the approval of a $500 million loan for energy sector reforms. The Washington-based lender was the single largest source of development assistance last year, followed by Islamic Development Bank and China.

After failing to implement the reforms that would have resulted in financial assistance from the ADB and the World Bank, the government turned to domestic borrowing to make up for the shortfall, borrowing Rs865 billion ($8.5 billion) from local financial institutions in fiscal 2015, compared to Rs303 billion in fiscal 2014, according to the State Bank of Pakistan. The government’s heavy borrowing has meant that banks have very little left to lend to the private sector.

China lent slightly over $1 billion, which was 30% less than the government’s estimate of $1.5 billion. Beijing lent mainly for the construction of two nuclear power plants in Karachi.

The Islamic Development Bank was the only multilateral institution that gave more than the government’s estimates. The country received $1.15 billion from the IDB, which was 15% more than the government’s projections.

The UK was the only country that gave more than what it promised. It extended $260 million in grants to Pakistan in fiscal 2015, $14 million more than promised. In contrast to London’s generosity, the US gave only $97.4 million, 73% less than its promised $358 million, according to the EAD.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari summons meeting to discuss flood situation in Sindh

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has called a crucial meeting on Friday to discuss the flash floods in Sindh.

The flash floods have swept away hundreds of villages in southern Punjab and Sindh. At least 70 villages in Ghotki have lost land connections to other parts of the province.

In Layyah, floods caused severe damage to as many as 150 schools. Around 382 villages and small towns have been washed away in Layyah affecting at least 200,000 people.

In Ranjanpur and Mianwali several hundreds of villages have been inundated by floods affecting thousands of the residents. People are using private boats to shift to safer places.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Army in collaboration with civil administration is engaged in relief and rescue efforts to rehabilitate the affected people.

https://ppppunjab.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/bilawal-bhutto-zardari-summons-meeting-to-discuss-flood-situation-in-sindh/

Pakistan cracks down on BlackBerry’s encrypted messaging

SYED RAZA HASSAN

The Pakistani government plans to shut down BlackBerry Ltd.’s encrypted enterprise communication services by Dec. 1 for “security reasons”, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said on Friday.

Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 180 million people, is plagued by militancy, criminal gangs and drug traffickers.

”PTA has issued directions to local mobile phone operators to close BlackBerry Enterprise Services from Nov. 30 on security reasons,” an official with the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority said in a text message.

He asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of discussing communications and intelligence.

Earlier this week, the Pakistani advocacy group Bytesforall published a document it said was leaked from the PTA, signed by director of licensing Amjad Mustafa Malik.

The memo cited “serious concerns by the Security Agency” (the precise agency is not named) in demanding that mobile operators Mobilink, Ufone and Telenor Pakistan shut down access to BlackBerry Enterprise Server [BES] by November 30, 2015.

BlackBerry was not immediately available to comment.

A report released this week by British-based watchdog Privacy International said Pakistan’s powerful military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was seeking to dramatically expand its ability to intercept communications.

There are several jurisdictions with surveillance laws that can intercept messages sent over public telecom networks. Messages sent by a regular consumer’s BlackBerry have a lower level of security than those sent by a devices that communicates over the company’s BES network, a separate service that many governments and corporations pay for.

BlackBerry’s BES encrypts data such as emails and its BlackBerry Messenger messages sent between a user’s phone and public networks, ensuring greater privacy for users but making life harder for police and intelligence agencies.

If a government ordered BlackBerry to hand over messages sent via its BES network, the company couldn’t comply because there is no backdoor into those coded messages.

That technical inability for BlackBerry to bow to pressure could explain why Pakistan would ban the service outright.

“This [move] suggests that BlackBerry wasn’t willing to capitulate to those requests for access,” Christopher Parsons, a researcher with the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.

The company has faced similar problems in the past in India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.

The Privacy International report said the ISI had few legal checks on their surveillance.

”Pakistan’s intelligence agencies have abused their communications surveillance powers, including by spying on opposition politicians and Supreme Court judges. Widespread Internet monitoring and censorship has also been used to target journalists, lawyers and activists,” the report said.