It’s possible she had been dead for two to three days before she was found in garbage 100 meters from her home Tuesday, Atique said. Zainab’s parents were out of the country on a pilgrimage when their daughter was kidnapped and was staying with her aunt and uncle.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Obama's stern warning for Trump
By Julian Zelizer
During a conversation with David Letterman on his new Netflix program, former President Barack Obama issued a stern warning for the current commander in chief: "One of the things that Michelle figured out, in some ways faster than I did, was part of your ability to lead the country doesn't have to do with legislation, doesn't have to do with regulations, it has to do with shaping attitudes, shaping culture, increasing awareness." Although Obama was extremely hesitant about directly commenting about President Donald Trump, the message he sent was clear.
And it comes in the wake of the upsetting news that during a private meeting with legislators at the White House, President Trump referred to African nations as "shithole countries." The President tweeted out a denial that he ever said this, with two Republican legislators saying that they couldn't remember. Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin, who was in attendance, responded that Trump did use the term and said things that were "hate-filled, vile and racist." And a Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said he appreciated Durbin's statement -- and had challenged Trump's comments.
It would be a mistake to dismiss the comments as a "distraction" because, with Trump, they are the main show. His rhetoric sends a message to the nation and to the world about the values that we treasure and that the nation will stand for in 2018. As we learned again this week, the President is willing to use crass and hateful rhetoric in public and in formal events in a way we have not seen in the contemporary era, or at least not from presidents who were acting in the way we hope to see. To be sure, Americans understand that their presidents are very human and can speak in familiar ways when they are in private. They curse, they scream, they yell and sometimes they say mean things.
Speaking to a military adviser, President Lyndon Johnson called Vietnam a "little pissant country" and in racist phone conversations he can be heard uttering racist rhetoric. The architect of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 was not shy about using the "N Word" when talking with southerners, or comparing African-Americans to ungrateful children after the riots of 1965 and 1967. Following the Watts riots in 1965, Johnson complained to the president of the Steelworkers Union that African Americans had to learn they have "obligations as well as rights." They needed to be more "responsible." Much of his daily conversation was too R-rated for children. "I do know the difference between chicken shit and chicken salad," he reportedly said. Baby Boomers will remember just how shocked they were during the Watergate investigation to learn through the transcripts of the White House recordings that President Richard Nixon swore, personally insulted his enemies, and used anti-Semitic language behind closed doors. Nixon referred to Henry Kissinger as "Jew-boy."
Foul language in the White House didn't end there. Talking about a primary challenge from Sen.Ted Kennedy, President Carter famously told a group of legislators that he would "whip his ass" while President Clinton was famous for his curse-filled tirades in private meetings But even after the famous "expletives-deleted" transcripts from the Nixon investigation, the country expected that, in public and in formal political events, presidents would abide by a certain level of decorum and refrain from using harsh expletives. Sure, some presidents were caught cussing on a hot mic (such as when George W. Bush was heard calling reporter Adam Clymer a "major league asshole"), but those were exceptions.
The hope for many Americans was also that presidents would stop using the kind of demeaning language heard in the White House tapes of the 1960s and early 1970s -- that was the lesson of the "Expletives Deleted" controversy. Being presidential meant no longer engaging this language in public or even private settings, within reason, in the aftermath of the civil rights and feminist movements.
This administration has not fulfilled those hopes. The problem really isn't Trump's use of curse words, but the words he chose to use and the context within which they were uttered.
President Trump, who launched his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, was reported to have said that all Haitians "have AIDS" (the White House denied the statement) and that Nigerians "live in huts." When he said during the campaign that US Judge Gonzalo Curiel should recuse himself from the Trump University lawsuit because of his Mexican background, Speaker Paul Ryan called it the "textbook definition of a racist comment." Trump's comments about Muslims in the US and around the world, perpetually painting them as a dangerous and hostile population, are too extensive to list in one article. Trump has repeatedly made disparaging comments about women, from Rosie O'Donnell to Hillary Clinton to Mika Brzezinski. His refusal to come down hard against the Nazis in Charlottesville -- saying that "both sides" were to blame -- was in itself a powerful speech act loaded with racial implications, all of which builds on a long and controversial history where he has been accused of racism.
Trump insists on calling Sen. Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" and has gone after football players protesting police violence against African-Americans. Soon after Puerto Ricans suffered through a devastating hurricane, his instincts led him to tweet out that the inhabitants "want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort." So much for compassion. Just last August, he retweeted a meme showing him "eclipsing" former President Obama, sharing a post that came from someone on Twitter who posted anti-Semitic remarks. This, from a person who made his national political name by challenging the birthplace of the first African-American President, did not sit well with many people.
As David Leonhardt argued in the New York Times in his troubling catalog of the President's long history with racism, "He has retweeted white nationalists without apology. He frequently criticizes prominent African Americans for being unpatriotic, ungrateful and disrespectful. He called some of those who marched alongside white supremacists in Charlottesville last August 'very fine people.' He is quick to highlight crimes committed by dark-skinned people, sometimes exaggerating or lying about it."
The hope was that presidents would elevate our national discourse, not debase it. This has not been the case with President Trump, who has bombarded the country with a level of vile rhetoric that the nation has not witnessed before. The fact that he used curse words is just a minor part of the problem. There have not been any angels in the Oval Office. If cursing was the only issue, the response would not have been so explosive; nor would his actions have been so exceptional. Much more troubling is the kind of hateful invective that these curse words, which were grounded in both racist and nativist sentiment, express against social groups whom the President has repeatedly targeted.
In using this kind of rhetoric, Trump has been "unpresidential" in that he has allowed the words and ideas from reactionary extremist groups, that defend social inequality and promote hatred, to enter into the highest levels of power. We have seen these moments so many times since the 2016 campaign it becomes impossible to dismiss them as mistakes or aberrations. Even if the President continues to dispute the words he used in this particular private meeting, there is a long list of harsh statements that come directly out of the far-right universe.
In 2018, echoing anything that these groups say should be, by definition, unpresidential. The job of the president is to push back against these elements of society, even if they lean toward his or her own political coalition, to remain an example of the direction in which the country should move.
With all the recent obsession with his "mental fitness," it is crucial to avoid allowing that conversation to downplay the very intentional words that he has used to inflame social tensions and fuel irrational anger, fulfilling his promise of populism by directing anger toward certain groups rather than offering economic relief.
President Trump's rhetoric is also unpresidential in that he is willing to do and say big things, that entail huge risks for the country, in a dangerously ad hoc manner. Nowhere has this been clearer than with his tweets about North Korea.
Part of the job of being president, and particularly of being a good one, is to remain deliberative and to act with extraordinary caution based on the realization that every statement can trigger massive consequences, some even deadly. Most presidents know this upon taking the job and the rest learn it very quickly as they confront the realities of governance.
Obviously, many presidents have been willing to act by their gut and sometimes go off-script. This can lead to good things. But this is different. This is about a president apparently acting this way much of time, unless forced to contain himself when the cameras are rolling in a staged conversation with legislators and who lacks the basic respect for the institution he now controls to take norms seriously.
To say that Donald Trump is not acting presidential is not to romanticize what we have seen from previous inhabitants of the office. But it is to hold him accountable for going far beyond the proper limits on presidential behavior.
The biggest danger is that by tolerating Trump's behavior in office, the public will make what he is doing and saying part of our conception of what it means to be presidential.
It is vital that members of both parties admit what they see when these moments happen and avoid normalizing these kinds of reckless departures from presidential history. For if the political class, and the public, starts to brush these moments off as "Trump being Trump" or "nothing worse than what we have seen" we will lower the bar so far it will be impossible to ever repair the presidency.
A 7-year-old Pakistani girl was raped and killed — and the country is demanding #JusticeForZainab
Fiza Pirani
According to an autopsy report, Zainab was sodomized and strangled to death. Dr. Quratulain Atique, who did the autopsy, told CNN that there were torture marks on her face and her tongue was “crushed between her teeth.”
Pakistan Today reported Saturday that police arrested three suspects in the case, but the man seen leading Zainab away in surveillance video given to police by family remains at large. Officials said the suspect was between 30-35 years old.
She was buried Thursday at her ancestral graveyard in Road Kot.
But that’s only part of the story.
Zainab was the 12th girl to be sexually assaulted and killed in the past two years from the 2-kilometer district in Kasur, Pakistan. The city is about 30 miles from Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province.
According to Australian news agency ABC, Eman Fatma, 4; Fauzia, 11; Noor Fatma, 7; Ayesha Asif, 5; Laiba, 9; Sana Omar, 7; and Kainat Batool, 8, were among the past victims.
At least five of the murders can be linked to one person, who is the focus of a manhunt involving hundreds of law enforcement officials, police said. At least 90 potential suspects have had their DNA tested.
"For the last two years, we are living in fear, parents are scared to send their kids outside," Zainab's father Muhammad Amin Ansari told reporters.
Mumtaz Gohar, senior program officer at Pakistani news agency Sahil, told The Express Tribune that in 2017, there were a total of 129 cases of child assault reported from Kasur. Thirty-four were abductions, 23 were rapes, 19 involved sodomy, 17 were attempted rapes, six abduction and rapes, and four abduction and gang rapes.
In 2015, an investigation into the Kasur district uncovered a major child sexual abuse scandal involving up to 25 men who blackmailed children into making sex videos between 2009 and 2014, according to CNN.
Pakistan's National Commission on Human Rights claimed that it published a report into widespread child abuse in Kasur following the 2015 scandal, but its findings were ignored by the district.
“The present incident is an example of the ineptitude of the authorities which have failed to address the issue in an appropriate manner to curb its future recurrence,” the NCHR’s reports stated.
Demonstrators flooded the streets Wednesday and Thursday following Zainab’s death this week, many angry that authorities in the Punjab province have done little to keep their kids safe. Residents chanted, "We want the perpetrators brought to justice,” ABC reported.
But the protests quickly turned violent. Some demonstrators set vehicles on fire, destroyed buildings and at least two people died in clashes with police.
On Thursday, the hashtag #JusticeForZainab spread online as Twitter users around the globe expressed outrage and demanded justice. Some shared photos and video of the 7-year-old.
Early evidence, officials said, suggests the perpetrator was a family acquaintance, the Washington Post reported. As aforementioned, Pakistan Today reported Saturday that police arrested three suspects in the case, but the man seen leading Zainab away in surveillance video given to police by family remains at large. Officials said the suspect was between 30-35 years old.
Some lawmakers seemed to imply that Zainab's family was partly to blame.
“A child's safety is its parents' responsibility,” Rana Sanaullah, the law minister of Punjab, told the newspaper Dawn.
http://www.ajc.com/news/world/year-old-pakistani-girl-was-raped-and-killed-and-the-world-demanding-justiceforzainab/ZxeO05uwYF6lE7TUoVyaQM/
#JusticeForZainab - Return to Kasur
Asad Rahim Khan
EARLIER this week, the body of a six-year-old girl was recovered from a garbage heap in Kasur. It has since been confirmed that she was raped and murdered. Kasur has erupted in riots. The autopsy report is unreadable.
In moments of human horror, we turn to the facts. And the facts tell us that Zainab’s case isn’t a onetime tragedy, but a recurring national nightmare, one we could have woken up from three years ago.
In 2015, as everyone knows, the same Kasur saw a child sex abuse scandal of staggering proportions: reports of hundreds of victims and hundreds of video clips. When the details bled into the headlines — spinal injections, sodomy, a network of paedophiles filming the abuse — there was outrage.
But the state took the same road it had taken before, and would soon take again. Kasur flared up in protest, as it did now. A police officer was suspended, as he was now. The chief minister of Punjab took strict notice, as he did now. And his office threw together an inquiry committee, as it did now.
It would seem there are only two modes of operation in Kasur: slumber and sadism.
Only in 2015, the committee said “no instance” of child sex abuse had been reported — per the Punjab government, the issue at hand was a land dispute.
This ran contrary to the findings of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which found that a large number of children had not only been abused, the police may have intimidated the victims when the scandal became public. It also ran contrary to the findings of the National Commission on Human Rights, which noted that DNA reports were pending for two years. Indeed, the Punjab government’s take even ran contrary to the Punjab government: the head of the Child Protection & Welfare Bureau called it “the largest-ever child abuse scandal in Pakistan’s history”. Yet for such a massive scandal, victims were calling for justice outside the Lahore Press Club as late as last December.
Which brings us to Zainab and the present: as riots grip Kasur by day, the chief minister has visited the parents in the dead of night, promising them the same justice. But though we stand here yet again, the conversation we’re having is all wrong.
First, what happened to Zainab wasn’t some undetected evil: it’s the 12th case to occur over the past two years within a two-kilometre radius. There also came the stunning revelation, via Kasur’s regional police officer, that the DNA in five of the city’s sexual abuse cases was the same, pointing to the same perpetrators.
Second, one particularly privileged segment — from coddled aunties to elected representatives — see fit to blame the parents. They should try facing working-class Pakistanis that have no choice but to leave their kids at the mercy of the society we’ve created for them.
Third, when the state refuses to diagnose the disease — ie pegging a ring of child pornographers to a land dispute — it not only fosters a culture of impunity, it also knocks dead any momentum for investigation. As the HRCP’s report notes, “In the presence of clear and convincing evidence that a heinous crime […] has occurred, the issue of the land becomes irrelevant in the context of the duty of the state to investigate and to take all necessary measures to protect these children.”
Fourth, at a time when the Model Town massacre’s shadow has never loomed larger, the Punjab Police has opened fire on protesters yet again, killing two. It would seem there’s only two modes of operation in Kasur: slumber and sadism. The Punjab government should realise that just because it has a hammer, not every problem is a nail.
Fifth, the centre has made much about playing politics over tragedy. For once, it is right — to the extent of the opposition breathing fire without really touching on the real social issue at stake: that our children are vulnerable. For all else though, this argument is weightless. If indeed child abuse is a ‘structural problem’, then by dint of being in power in Punjab for the better part of 30 years, it’s the PML-N that should have dented the said structural problem by now.
Because if everyone is responsible, no one is responsible: the same has held true for much of our history. Men in this country take pleasure in sneering about sexual assault; that shouldn’t excuse Gen Musharraf from linking rape to Canadian visa scams. States have been known to use sexual violence to silence their enemies; that can never absolve Jam Sadiq’s CIA from brutalising women in Sindh. Rape is notoriously difficult to investigate the world over, yet hard stats tell us the Hudood laws jailed victims for adultery instead, many of whom were later molested in prison.
The buck doesn’t stop with dead committees and deposed district police officers. It’s been nine years since the chief minister assumed power, and two since his province saw the biggest child abuse scandal in our history. At this rate, the Shahbaz era won’t be remembered for some tired Mussolini metric; that the trains ran on time. It will be remembered for what it meant for Punjab’s children. Sans any real reforms, we can only pray his third chance is better than his second.
Finally, it’s time we realise society requires overhauling as much as the state does. Children are not usually molested by the stranger hiding in the weeds, but by family or friends. Sanctity of the child must come before warped views of honour, and it is heartening to see taboo subjects being brought into the light by conscientious citizens.
Parliament too has since amended the Pakistan Penal Code to include child pornography and sexual assault against minors, but the road ahead is long. Section 3 of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000, providing free legal assistance to child victims, has yet to be implemented. Child-friendly courts and protection centres also have yet to exist, and self-protection in our curricula has yet to catch on. But now is the chance.
It is easier to build strong children, the saying goes, than repair broken men. For the sake of Zainab’s family and so many like hers, we would do best to heed those words.
Pakistan - Editorial - #JusticeForZainab
Here in this country, it is easy to tell when a little girl has been raped, murdered and cruelly discarded as if worth no more than unwanted trash. It is easy to tell because the men of Pakistan become angry.
Our news channels cover the crowds of men demanding #JusticeForZainab, the seven-year-old who was kidnapped from outside her house in Kasur earlier this week. Before allowing all the big chieftains — from the Chief Minister Punjab to the Army Chief to the Chief Justice LHC — to lip sync their profound grief as they read from the autocue that gets pulled up for each and every time a girl child’s life is cut short in such brutal a way. And always it is the same script that is followed. All these big chiefs order as if by magic that those responsible be hunted down and brought to justice immediately.
When the CM Punjab says, or in this case tweets, that those failing in their duties to arrest those responsible will face action — he doesn’t appear to understand that the buck stops with him. And as for the police, who by their own admission, are struggling to hunt down those behind 12 similar murders in the last two years, they decided to show how seriously they took Shehbaz Sharif’s words by killing at least two men from the protesting crowd.
And herein lies the rub. Pakistan is a country where crimes against women and girls only go punished when the big chiefs deem it so. When of course we all, and they too, know that what we need is not the flourish of a magic wand but the building and strengthening of institutions. As well as the recognition that Pakistan, like any other country, has a toxic substance abuse problem: the patriarchy. And that it is slowly but surely robbing this country of some 200 million of its vast potential.
So what therefore is to be done?
This is where the state, at all levels, would do well to invest in civil society. Naturally we are not talking of corporate sponsorship deals. But we do mean providing honest and sincere support to and working alongside with and taking the lead from civil society actors as well as those who have much research under their belt about how best to begin the long and arduous journey towards a gender sensitive society. This will be one hard slog; far more so than quibbling about which (imperialist) English language pronouns are the most inclusive of all binary and non-binary genders.
What Pakistan needs is a mainstreaming project of a different kind: mainstreaming of women into all spheres of society; both public and private. Meaning that we need to make public spaces here safe for all women — especially the hundreds of thousands who have no choice but to navigate these on a daily basis; without the luxury of documenting it on Instagram. But going beyond this, we need gendered interpretations by women themselves of both the law and religious edicts. For the former will only serve to strengthen the criminal justice system. And then we need to see about taking women all the way to the glass ceiling and beyond because she isn’t called Lady Justice for nothing. The latter, for its part, will strengthen the state against the religious right over the coming generations as will the normalising of women as religious scholars. This is not to overlook the intersectionality of non-Muslim and Muslim minority sect women.
After all, we are far too ready and willing to show off Pakistani women engaging in combat roles to defend this nation from enemies across our borders. But isn’t it about time that Pakistan defend its women from the enemy within. We certainly think so.
معصوم زینب قصور کی نئی پہچان بن گئی - #JusticeForZainab
قصور کی ایک پہچان میڈم نور جہاں ہیں لیکن اس کی نئی پہچان معصوم سی زینب ہے جس کو خود بھی نہیں معلوم کہ اسے اس تاریک راہ میں کیوں قتل کر دیا گیا۔
حیرت کی بات یہ ہے کہ یہ قصور شہر میں اپنی نوعیت کا پہلا واقعہ نہیں، پچھلے دو سال میں ایسے کئی کیس سامنے آ چکے ہیں لیکن پچھلے چند ماہ میں تسلسل کے ساتھ بچوں کے اغوا، زیادتی اور قتل کے 12واقعات رپورٹ ہوئے ہیں۔
ان معصوم پریوں میں ساڑھے 4سالہ ایمان فاطمہ سے لے کر 11سالہ فوزیہ تک 12بچیاں شامل ہیں، ننھی پریاں جو ابھی اپنے گھروں میں بھاگتی پھرتی تھیں، منوں مٹی تلے جا سوئیں، وہ بھی اتنے ظلم کے بعد کہ روح کانپ جائے۔
سابق ڈی پی او کا کہنا ہے کہ انہوں نے ان واقعات کے حوالے سے بڑی کارروائیاں کی تھیں، وہ ہاتھ پر ہاتھ دھرے نہیں بیٹھے، 5ہزار سے زائد افراد سے پوچھ گچھ کی گئی، 60سے زیادہ لوگوں کے ڈی این اے ٹیسٹ کرائے گئے لیکن حیرت کی بات ہے کہ ان دو سالوں کی کارروائی کا کوئی ریکارڈ ہی نہیں۔
آج معاشرہ ’جسٹس فار زینب‘ پرہم زبان اور ہم قدم ہے لیکن اگر ہم سب ان معصوم سی پریوں کو اتنی خاموشی کے ساتھ دفن نہیں کرنے دیتے اور ان کیلئے بھی بروقت اٹھ کھڑے ہوتے تو یقیناً آج زینب ہمارے درمیان ہوتی، وہ بچیاں ہم سے سوال کرتی ہیں کہ معاشرے نے ان کے ساتھ ہونے والے ظلم پر کیوں خاموشی اختیار کی ؟
جنگ کی ایک رپورٹ کے مطابق روزانہ پاکستان میں 11بچے جنسی تشدد کا شکار ہوتے ہیں، اس طرح کے واقعات میں 10فیصد اضافہ دیکھنے میں آیا ہےاور اس فعل بد میں بچے اور بچی کی کوئی قید نہیں بلکہ کسی بیمار ذہن کی غلیظ تسکین شامل ہے۔
ہونا تو یہ چاہیے تھا کہ پچھلے سال قصور شہر کے جنسی ویڈیو اسکینڈل کے مجرموں کو سزا ملنے کے بعد ایسے واقعات میں واضح کمی آتی، یہ مکروہ اسکینڈل جو قصور سے صرف 5کلومیٹر دور حسین خان والا میں رپورٹ کیا گیاتھا، جس میں معصوم بچے اس ظالم گینگ کے ہاتھوں پہلے زیادتی کا شکار ہوتے، ظلم یہاں نہ رکتا بلکہ پھر اس مکروہ فعل کی ویڈیو کے ہاتھوں وہ خود اور ان کے والدین بلیک میل کئے جاتے۔
آواز اٹھائی گئی، شور اٹھا، ہنگامہ ہوا، مجرم پکڑے بھی گئے، انسداد د دہشت گردی کی عدالت سے فوری فیصلہ بھی آیا لیکن ہوا کیا مزید ظلم۔
وجہ ایک ہی سمجھ میں آتی ہے کہ جب ایسے مجرموں کو سزا صرف عمر قید اور اور تین لاکھ جرمانے کی ملتی رہے گی تو مزید بچے ان جیسے واقعات کا شکار ہوتے رہیں گے۔
پولیس کے ریکارڈ کے مطابق ان تمام زیادتی اور قتل کے کیسز میں کئی باتیں مشترک ہیں جس سے خیال کیا جا رہا ہے کہ یہ ایک ہی شخص کا قبیح فعل ہے۔
معاشرے کے ہر شخص کیلئے کچھ بنیادی چیزوں سے آگاہ ہونا ضروری ہے کہ اگر ایسا کوئی واقعہ ان کے بچے کے ساتھ ہوتا ہے، یا ان کے اطراف میں بھی ا یسا کوئی واقعہ ہو تو وہ لوگوں کی مدد کریں اور ان کو بتائیں کہ وہ فوری طور پر پولیس میں رپورٹ کرائیں۔
شواہد یعنی، کپڑے اور بچے کے پاس دیگر چیزوں کو ضائع نہ ہونے دیں، متاثرہ بچے کا فوری میڈیکل چیک اپ ہونا ضروری ہے اور یہ سارے اہم نکات، ایف آئی آر میں ضرور لکھوائیں۔
کیونکہ عدالت کی نظر میں شواہد اہم ہوتے ہیں اور ان ہی کے تناظر میں فیصلے دیے جاتے ہیں جو ظلم ہو چکا، ہوچکا، ان باتوں کو نظر انداز کرکے مزید ظلم نہ ہونے دیں۔
اب معاشرے کے ہر فرد کی ذمہ داری مزید بڑھ گئی ہے کہ اپنے بچوں کو سمجھائیں ضرور لیکن انہیں ڈرائیں نہیں، بچے ہیں، اجنبی لوگوں کے پاس جائیں گے لیکن انہیں بتائیں کہ کیا باتیں غلط ہیں۔
اگر کوئی بچے کو غلط انداز میں چھوتا ہے تو بچے آپ کو بتائیں، ان کو اعتماد دیں، بچوں کو سمجھ دار بنائیں لیکن دل کانپ رہا ہے کہ بچے بھی سمجھ دار بن جائیں تو بچہ کیوں کر کہلائیں۔
بچوں کی تو معصومیت ہی ان کا حسن ہے، چلیں وہ دن میں جگنو کو دیکھنے کی ضدکریں تو بھی ٹھیک لیکن خدارا بچوں سے ان کی معصومیت نہ چھینیں،بچوں کی آنکھوں میں خوف دیکھنا کسی کیلئے بھی ممکن نہیں۔
#Pakistan - Bilawal, Aseefa Bhutto, Sindh Governor visit Karachi Eat 2018
Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, along with Aseefa Bhutto Zardari, paid a visit to Karachi Eat 2018, a food festival at Benazir Bhutto Park near Boat Basin on Saturday.
A Bilawal House Media Cell statement said that Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari intermingled with the visitors and many among them clicked selfies with the PPP Chairman.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari himself made a color design of Party's electoral symbol Arrow at a stall.
Governor Sindh Muhammad Zubair also visited the festival. Zubair stated that the holding of the social and cultural events in the metropolis speaks of the improved law and order situation. - APP
#PPP proposes Aseefa’s name for contesting election from Lyari or Tando Allahyar
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on
Aseefa Bhutto will turn 25 next month, making her eligible to contest elections from NA-248 in Lyari and NA-223 from Tando Allahyar.
She is a registered voter from Tando Allahyar but is interested in contesting the election from Lyari. However, the parliamentary board will finalise the seat she will be contesting from.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto will also contest elections in the upcoming polls this year.
The PPP chairman has dispelled all rumours about forming a political alliance, saying, “The party will not forge any alliance in the next general elections and will contest the polls on its own”.
Rejecting the idea of forging alliance with any party, Bilawal has said that the party will step into the elections on its own sign and slogan.
#JusticeForZainab - Bilawal Bhutto Zardari for joint plans by Sindh government, civil society to check child abuse
Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has stressed for urgent steps to save the children from abuse and other crimes and urged the civil society and the Sindh government to work-out joint plans for creating comfortable and secure environment for our children to grow.
The PPP Chairman was talking to a delegation of Aahang, an NGO engaged with communities and build awareness around rights for critical issues like child abuse, gender-based violence, and early age marriages. Aseefa Bhutto Zardari, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, Senator Sherry Rehman, Special Assistant to Chief Minister for Human Rights Rehana Leghari, Shamim Wasi, Shahzad Roy and Nazo Pirzada were present in the meeting.
The meeting discussed the update on process taken by Aahung for the integration of Life Skills Based Education (LSBE) into the secondary school curriculum in Sindh. The Chairman and Chief Minister were requested for steps for ensuring that subsequent process of teacher training and reprinting of textbooks with LSBE content will take place in Sindh province.
According to Aahung, it has already developed and tested content for younger children on body protection and sexual abuse prevention in public and private schools. The Chairman and CM agreed that this content now needs to be made a part of the primary school curriculum in Sindh for classes 3, 4, and 5.
PPP Chairman agreed in principle that the Chief Minister Sindh may head a joint committee of Sindh government and civil society to oversee the process of integration of content into primary curriculum. Aahung will provide technical assistance as they already have the content and methodology ready. Training of a special police task force, judges and medico legal officers on child abuse prevention will also take place.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that children will be protected whether in schools, Madressahs, streets or playgrounds and appreciated Sindh government for working together with civil society organizations for the cause.
PPP Chairman said that his Party has already brought in legislation for child protection from Sindh Assembly including the bill Sindh Child Protection Authority.
https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/2018/01/13/bilawal-bhutto-zardari-for-joint-plans-by-sindh-government-civil-society-to-check-child-abuse/
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will address a public gathering on occasion of 31st martyrdom anniversary of MRD leader Shaheed Fazil Rahu in Rahuki district Badin on January 17
Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will address a public gathering on the occasion of 31st martyrdom anniversary of MRD leader Shaheed Fazil Rahu in Rahuki, district Badin on Wednesday, January 17.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Peoples Party Balochistan will hold a public meeting in Balochistan’s industrial capital Hub on Saturday, January 20.
Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will address the public meeting and announce his political and development plans for the province.
PPP Balochistan has started preparations for the public meeting in full gears and vowed that this will be a historic Jalsa.
https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/2018/01/13/bilawal-bhutto-zardari-will-address-a-public-gathering-on-occasion-of-31st-martyrdom-anniversary-of-mrd-leader-shaheed-fazil-rahu-in-rahuki-district-badin-on-january-17/
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