Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Ghazal - 'Sabko Maloom Hai Mein Sharabi Nahin... Pankaj Udhas

Video - Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari addresses a huge public gathering at Bagh-e-Jinnah Karachi.

Pakistan failing on human rights, says report



An independent Pakistani watchdog criticized the country’s human rights record over the past year in a new report released yesterday, saying the nation has failed to make progress on a myriad of issues, ranging from forced disappearances, to women’s rights and protection of religious minorities.
The damning report card issued by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says people continue to disappear in Pakistan, sometimes because they criticize the country’s powerful military or because they advocate better relations with neighboring India.
The controversial blasphemy law continues to be misused, especially against dissidents, with cases in which mere accusations that someone committed blasphemy lead to deadly mob violence, it said.
While deaths directly linked to acts of terrorism declined in 2017, the report says attacks against the country’s minorities were on the rise.
The 296-page report was dedicated to one of the commission’s founders, Asma Jahangir, whose death in February generated worldwide outpouring of grief and accolades for the 66-year-old activist who was fierce in her commitment to human rights.
“We have lost a human rights giant,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said following Jahangir’s death. “She was a tireless advocate for inalienable rights of all people and for equality - whether in her capacity as a Pakistani lawyer in the domestic justice system, as a global civil society activist, or as a Special Rapporteur ... Asma will not be forgotten.”
April 16’s report also took aim at religious bigotry in Pakistan and the government’s refusal to push back against religious zealots, fearing a backlash.
“Freedom of expression and freedom of association is under attack, except for those who carry the religious banner,” commission spokesman I.A. Rehman said at the release of the report, which accused Pakistani authorities of ignoring “intolerance and extremism.”
Religious conservative organizations continue to resist laws aimed at curbing violence against women, laws giving greater rights to women and removing legal restrictions on social exchanges between sexes, which remain segregated in many parts of Pakistani society, it said.
Still, there was legal progress in other areas, it noted, describing as a “landmark development” a new law in the country’s largest province, Punjab, which accepts marriage licenses within the Sikh community at the local level, giving the unions protection under the law.
But religious minorities in Pakistan continued to be a target of extremists, it said, citing attacks on Shiites, Christians falsely accuse of blasphemy and also on Ahmedis, a sect reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics. Ahmedis are not allowed under Pakistan’s constitution to call themselves Muslims.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/pakistan-failing-on-human-rights-says-report-130389

Genocide of Hazara community reflects horrific treatment of minorities in Pakistan

Renowned Pak columnist Irfan Husain in his article “Hazara massacre” dated 5th May in a leading Pakistani daily has brought out the tragedy of Hazaras in its macabre details. No journalist in Pakistan had ever written earlier about the Hazara ethnic/sectarian cleansing taking place in Baluchistan in Pakistan.
While Hazaras’ struggle for human rights began nearly two decades ago, Human Rights Watch (HRW) was probably the first to report about the rampant human rights violation in Pakistan a few years ago. “There is no travel route, no shopping trip, no school, or no work commute that is safe for the Hazaras.” Going by HRW estimates, at least 509 Hazaras have lost their lives in the campaign so far.
However persecuted Hazaras put the casualty figure close to 3000. The majority of Hazara population – reported to be around 9 lakhs— reside in Baluchistan out of which around 70,000 have fled, mainly to Australia, while hundreds may have drowned during this perilous sea journey. Those compelled or forced to stay live in two ghettoes in Quetta, literally imprisoned to a few kilometres, guarded by police and military check posts. They can never go out of this confined area; stepping out for shop or work place puts their lives at risk. They look forward to people in media and elsewhere for to highlight Shia killing and Hazara genocide, but alas! The daily horrors faced by the community recently forced Hazara women to stage a hunger strike in Quetta. They could not trust the promises of security made personally by the interior minister, but called off the strike only after meeting Army Chief General Bajwa reflecting the low credibility of political dispensation to protect them.
Asking for better living conditions, or schools, or jobs is too big a luxury for them. All they demand is to live with basic human rights enshrined in Constitution, international law and religious scriptures. The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi spokesperson accepted the responsibility for most of the Hazara killings of earlier years but divulged exacting vengeance on the community for the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of American commandos. The slaughter of Pakistani Hazaras began in earnest after 9/11 when the Afghan Taliban secured safe haven in Quetta. Earlier they had killed Hazaras in thousands in Afghanistan for supporting the Northern Alliance; they continued the process in Pakistan. The Lashkar – i – Jhangvi and Sipah – i – Sahaba Pakistan now turn their guns from Taliban to Hazaras. The deadly Jhangvi member Malik Ishaq, was released on bail in 2011 and prominent Shia-hating extremists also broke out of jail to torment Hazaras.
The Supreme Court Chief Justice is conducting suo motu hearings of Hazara persecution in Quetta from second week of May. Currently the terrorist-land mafia nexus is forcing Hazaras to sell their properties at throwaway prices for fear of death. Will Chief Justice subside Hazara fears by disrupting orchestration from behind?
Baluchistan is deadly not only for Hazaras but also for Baloch nationalists and non-Baloch workers despite being the most heavily militarised province of Pakistan. Security establishment owes an answer. The intelligence agencies and paramilitary forces have contained the separatist rebellion, but allowed free hand to Laskhar-i-Jhangvi and the Sipah-i-Sahaba. The religious parties convene rallies supporting the Rohingyas but never even condemn Hazara killings.
The political and military dispensation in Pakistan has absolutely failed to implement the National Action Plan to end religious extremism. Mere cracking down on hate speech in television chat shows, classrooms and mosques would have ended the massacres of Hazaras who live amid intimidation and subjugation. Pakistan perambulates on its normal cycle of killings of minorities as politicians and the media shed crocodile tears. Pakistan needs honest internal dialogue within communities, various groups, regions and inter- communities, groups and regions.
Hazaras once held prosperous business interests in many Bara markets of the city, but have now systematically forced to sell at throwaway prices when target killings have hammered prices down. As the pathetic Hazara figure silently retreats to community enclave, the government, excessively obsessed with Kashmir, has no time for them.
http://www.newdelhitimes.com/genocide-of-hazara-community-reflects-horrific-treatment-of-minorities-in-pakistan/

Balochistan: Government Remains Silent On Increasing Insecurity Faced By Minorities


A leader of the Hazara community, a Pakistani Shia ethnic minority, was killed in Balochistan’s capital city of Quetta this weekend. This community, as many others in the area, has been the target of violence, both by Pakistan’s security forces and by sectarian groups such as the Sunni strand of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). As 7 were killed in the region since March 2018, this attack highlights the increasingly unstable situation in Balochistan. Protests have been held to call on the government and the police to react accordingly, but – so far – without any effect as authorities chose to be blind to the situation of minorities.

Muhammad Ali Rezai's light skin and facial features make him stand out from the crowd in the Pakistani city of Quetta. It is not often that one's face could be a death warrant.
For the last several years, he dedicated himself to working for the betterment of his persecuted community of Hazara Shia, of whom about 600,000 live in the southwestern Pakistani city.
The community - whose physical features make them easy targets - has been targeted in a sustained campaign of murders and bombings that has claimed at least 509 lives since 2013, according to Pakistan’s National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR).
On Sunday [29 April 2018] morning, he answered a call from a friend, asking him to help arrange a water tanker for his residence.
Rezai, who normally travels with a police guard, was hesitant. The guard had been re-assigned just a few hours earlier, on orders from Pakistan’s Supreme Court that more than 12,600 policemen on personal guard duty to private citizens be withdrawn.
His friend, however, was in dire need and so he decided to risk it, travelling by motorcycle with two others across the city to procure the tanker, his brother Muhammad Hussain told Al Jazeera.
Within hours, he had been shot dead, on his way back home, the latest victim of a campaign against the Hazara community, many of which have been claimed by the Sunni sectarian armed group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an affiliate of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). 
"He was hit will 11 bullets … on his forehead, on his hands, on his legs - all over his body," said Hussain, still in shock as to why his brother left the house without protection.
"Rezai has never left the area on a motorcycle for years. Usually he would never leave [the neighbourhood] without a police guard."
The killing of Rezai and one other man was the latest in a series of recent attacks on the community that mark an uptick in violence in the provincial capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province. The province has seen sectarian attacks, an armed separatist movement, and Taliban attacks for years.
Since last month [March 2018], at least seven people have been killed in five attacks on the Hazara Shia community in Quetta, a city of roughly two million people.  
After one attack on a Hazara taxi driver on April 1 [2018], at least 250 members of the community held a week-long sit-in demanding the government do more to protect them.
They spent days sleeping on a major road in protest against the violence, but were finally forced to wrap up their demonstration without any results.
Community leaders say they see little interest from the government in bringing an end to the killings.
"If there was an earnest effort to target these groups, I do not think that the area of Quetta could not be kept secure," says community leader Dawood Agha.
"If terrorist acts are still happening, then it seems that the government is not interested in acting against the attackers."
The government has taken strict security measures in the two main residential neighbourhoods - Marriabad and Hazara Town - where the community resides.
The neighbourhoods are surrounded by high concrete walls topped with barbed wire. Entry is strictly controlled through a series of checkpoints manned by paramilitary personnel. By 8pm, there is a virtual curfew with all entrances and exits sealed, bar one at each enclave.
"We have been imprisoned without having committed a crime," says Agha.
If Hazara citizens are attacked outside of their enclaves, community leaders say they are questioned as to what they were doing there. 
"If we are attacked then the security forces ask us why did you leave?" says Agha. "When we are killed, we are the ones who are being questioned, too." 
The security is so restrictive, residents say, they have virtually been cut off from the city, forced to sell businesses and pull children out of schools outside of their own areas.
"People have been forced to sell their shops under threat," says Qayyum Changezi, chief of the Hazara Qaumi Jirga community organisation. "They are told to leave their shops or they will be killed."
Students, he says, take their lives into their hands when they leave the enclaves to take government board examinations, usually held at venues across the city.
"We are not getting … jobs because of the threats to our security. We are rejected based on the fact that we cannot safely travel to certain parts of the city."
Police officials and Pakistan's interior ministry did not respond to Al Jazeera's repeated requests for comment.
The Hazara are no longer, however, the only minority community being targeted by the ISIL affiliate in Quetta.
Since December [2017], at least 16 Christians have been killed in a series of attacks, including a bombing at Methodist church, and two targeted shootings. 
"We are peaceful people, and we love this soil. We cannot imagine that someone would target us. We cannot understand it," says Chaudhry Zubair, 41, a Christian community leader and political activist.
Quetta is home to roughly 25,000 Christians, most of whom work as labourers or in domestic staff positions with the government.
The latest attacks have shaken the community, Zubair says, as they had never previously come under attack. December's church bombing, where two suicide bombers stormed the building during Sunday services, was also claimed by ISIL.
Police have now begun installing CCTV cameras in Christian neighbourhoods where the attacks have taken place, and erecting barriers in the narrow lanes to block potential attackers on motorcycles from easy escape routes.
With the latest wave of violence, and the security measures that have followed, Christians say they fear they will soon be just as restricted as the city's Hazara.
"We want to be able to live peacefully," says Zubair. "And all we can do is pray for this. We cannot pick up arms. We can only pray to God."
The surge in violence against minorities has been accompanied by attacks against security forces as well.
At least 19 security forces personnel have been killed in attacks this year [2018], according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal research organisation. 
On Tuesday [24 April 2018], three suicide bombers attacked Pakistani police and paramilitary personnel in the provincial capital, killing at least six personnel and wounding 15 others.
In a statement following the attack, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) took "grave notice of the alarming spike in violence that has shot through Quetta".
"[HRCP is] extremely concerned over the continuing violence in Quetta - much of which systematically targets members of religious minorities - and the lack of an effective and sustained response from the state," said the statement.
Analysts say while overall violence has dropped in Quetta - a city that saw 84 people killed in a single sectarian suicide attack in 2013 - not enough is being done to shut down sectarian groups in the province.
"It's no longer the same level of violence, but they are picking up easy targets for targeted killings," says Zahid Hussain, a security analyst.
"This is basically the work of sectarian militant organisations which have gained strength in Balochistan in the last few years."
Hussain says the main reason Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is able to attack with such apparent impunity is because of the largely lawless rural areas around Quetta that offer them sanctuary, as well as the porous and ungoverned nature of the nearby border with Afghanistan.
"The main factor is that the sectarian organisations have developed a strong network in Quetta, despite the actions taken by security forces, and they still seem to have the capacity to carry out these targeted killings."
For residents, there seems to be no respite from the violence. 
"Police say that they are doing everything they can, that is perhaps the biggest lie I have ever heard," says Hussain, whose brother was killed on Sunday [29 April 2018].
"They cannot protect themselves … so how will they protect us?".

Christians claim they are being forced out of Pakistani city by Isil violence



By Anum Mirza
Christians say they are being driven from one of Pakistan’s major cities after a string of deadly terrorist attacks claimed by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

The jihadist militant group has said it carried out two gun attacks that have killed six Christians in Quetta this month so far, and also bombed a church in the city shortly before Christmas.
The recent attacks in the south western city come on top of increasing persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan, where Christians and others have faced mob violence and accusations of blasphemy.
Christians told the Sunday Telegraph that many in the community were fleeing Quetta fearing for their lives and being chased from homes where they had lived for generations.
Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (Isil) attacked and oppressed Christians after the militant group captured swathes of territory in the Middle East to establish its so-called caliphate.
Isil has established a franchise in Pakistan, largely by recruiting established Sunni Islamist militants, but the country’s religious minorities have also long been targets for other extremist groups. The terror group said its militants in Pakistan killed two Christians in a motorbike drive-by shooting as they left church last week, and shot dead four members of a family a day after Easter.
Two suicide bombers killed 10 and wounded scores when they stormed Quetta’s Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in December.
The recent attacks and a campaign of threatening letters have prompted many of Quetta’s 50,000-strong Christian population to consider fleeing to the port of Karachi. One Christian, who declined to be named, told The Telegraph: “We have been living for centuries in Quetta but due to targeted killings of the Christian community, I have lost nine of my family members and friends.
“Many of our relatives shifted to Karachi and we will also leave Quetta due to the deteriorating security situation.
“We will rebuild our lives and establish our business in some other peaceful city, which is really a difficult task. Leaving home town is quite tough but we have no other option”.
Pastor Simon Bashir, who was leading a service in Bethel Memorial Methodist Church at the time of the attack, said the incidents had left his congregation “afraid and concerned about their security”.
Christians make up less than two per cent of Pakistan’s population of 207 million, and many hold only poorly paid manual and labouring jobs. As well as being the targets of extremist militants, they also face spurious blasphemy charges. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan last week attacked the government for doing too little to protect minorities and for not pushing back against religious bigotry.
Saroop Ijaz, the Pakistan researcher for Human Rights Watch, said: “The recent attacks on places of worship of minorities and target killings in Quetta highlight the increasing insecurity faced by religious minorities in the country.
“The legal and institutional discrimination against non-Muslims provides a toxic, enabling environment for such acts of violence to be perpetrated against them. The impunity is heightened by the complete failure of the Pakistan government to hold perpetrators of past attacks on churches accountable”.

Religious extremism: a case for a secular Pakistan



Jamil Junejo
Extremism and the terrorism it causes are the single biggest threat facing the Pakistani state and society.

When arrest warrants of hatemonger Khadim Rizvi were issued in the month of March this year on account of Faizabad sit-in held last year, none dared to arrest him and he continued to make public events in a very brazen way.
Faizabad sit-in was one of the most fatal offshoots of the culmination of the long cherished culture of extremism by State elements in Pakistan. Farhatullah Babar rightly said in an event that Faizabad dharna infused extremism into the core of the State of Pakistan. Mumtaz Qadri, a convicted killer of then Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer stands publicly eulogized across Pakistan. Jamaat-ud-Dawa — an outlawed organization at national and international level was making public shows in an open way till recently. What warrants anxiety is that none of the State institutions feel empowered to stop these outlawed acts.
It simply reflects that religious extremism and zealots have critically surpassed writ of State in several ways. Such state of affairs carry detrimental effects for the State and Society in Pakistan. At this juncture, extremism that also leads to terrorism can safely be called the biggest of all threats to the State and Society in Pakistan.
What is a real solution to the problem? I believe that the problem of religious extremism cannot be solved without overhauling of State’s constitutional and legal order on the lines of secularism. Religion must be completely separated from politics and State affairs in Pakistan. Currently, our State, albeit being a non-living entity, has a religion and its hybrid legal order is structured on common laws and Islamic codes.
Let me ground my argument in the work of John Locke ‘A Letter Concerning Toleration’ one of the early masterpiece writings which professed cause of secularism and secular State. He wrote this letter in the 17th century in the backdrop of increasing religious intolerance because of the nexus between State and Religion and mix-up of State affairs with religious beliefs. I wish that all our policymakers and de facto and de jure rulers of this country read this letter and understand normative grounds and exigency of a secular State and a society.
Until our state separates itself from religion, persecution of religious minorities will continue
John Locke structured his arguments and developed a case for a secular State and a society on followings grounds.
Firstly, he believes that religious beliefs are a personal phenomenon and spiritual in their nature, while State is a political entity and an administrative machinery to manage material aspects of society ie peace, social welfare, and social development. Thus, State must not involve itself in beliefs of people. Civil power [State] should not try to establish any articles of faith or doctrine, or any forms of worship, by the force of its laws… the only way to change men’s opinions is through light, and you can’t produce light in someone’s mind by torturing him. The civil government’s power relates only to the public good, attending only to the care of the things of this world. The care of souls is not the magistrate’ business. . . The magistrate [government] has no power to enforce by civil law — in any church, even his own — the use of any rites or ceremonies in the worship of God.
Secondly, once a State begins to meddle into the personal beliefs of people, it provides leverage to the community belonging to the State religion. In return, those people violate civic and human rights of others including the right to faith. He writes that no individual or church or commonwealth has a right to attack the civil rights and worldly goods of anyone on the pretence of religion. No private person has any right to encroach in any way on another person’s civil goods because he declares his allegiance to another church or religion. If there is anything that a man has as a matter of human rights or civil rights, is to remain inviolably his own.
Locke believes that prerogatives enjoyed by a community of State religion pose threat to the State and its society. He calls such State-sponsored religious hegemony as an evil. He writes that an evil that is less visible but more dangerous to the commonwealth [State] occurs when men claim for themselves and their co-religionists some special prerogative that does in fact conflict with the civil right of the [other] community.
Thirdly, it is an inherent responsibility of a State to protect religious minorities. State loses its legitimacy once it fails to protect these minorities. He writes that whether the man is Christian or pagan, he is to be kept safe [by State] from violence and injury.
Last but not least, it is the sheer responsibility of a State to maintain public peace against the outrageous acts of religious zealots. He writes that [State must] let no man’s life, or a body, or house, or estate; suffer any kind of harm on these accounts. . . . If anything happens in a religious meeting that is seditious and contrary to the public peace, it should be punished in exactly the same way as if it had happened in a public square. These meetings ought not to be sanctuaries for trouble-makers.
Based on these arguments of John Locke, our defacto and de jure rulers must realize that State is a political entity that has nothing to do with religion which is apolitical and spiritual in its nature. State being administrative machinery must be structured around modern day laws and codes to meet modern day needs. Until and unless our State separates itself from religion, persecution of religious minorities will continue to occur; religious extremism will continue to muster and will prove fatal for this country and its people. If we really want to see Pakistan to progress and to sustain its existence, we must make it completely a secular State at the earliest. There is no room left for further delays and excuses.

Amnesty slams 'digital attacks' on Pakistan activists

Rights activists in Pakistan are facing "a targeted campaign of digital attacks", Amnesty International said Tuesday, the latest warning about the rising threat to campaigners in the country.
Attackers have used elaborate schemes to steal data and install spyware on Pakistani activists' electronic devices, the watchdog said in a report.
The study - entitled "Human Rights Under Surveillance" - is based on the experience of four activists out of a dozen cases investigated by Amnesty, the report's co-author Sherif Elsayed-Ali told AFP.
One campaigner, Diep Saeeda, said she suffered sustained harassment by hackers after calling for the release of activist Raza Khan , who fellow campaigners say was abducted from Lahore in December. Saeeda told Amnesty that after she started campaigning for Khan's release, she was lured by a hacker posing as an activist on Facebook into revealing her email address.
She was then sent emails disguised as messages from government departments containing malicious links aimed at stealing her passwords and data.
"Every time I open an email I am now scared. It's getting so bad I am actually not able to carry out my work," Saeeda told the organisation.
Amnesty documented a series of similar methods used to try to contaminate activists' computers and phones with malicious software, some of which was created by "a network of individuals and companies based in Pakistan".
The watchdog said it was unable to identify the entity orchestrating the attacks, but demanded that Pakistani authorities order an "independent and effective" probe. "It is already extremely dangerous to be a human rights defender in Pakistan and it is alarming to see how attacks on their work are moving online," said Elsayed-Ali in a statement.
https://nation.com.pk/15-May-2018/amnesty-slams-digital-attacks-on-pakistan-activists

Rise in Militant Attacks on Schools in #Pakistan

Saroop Ijaz

Recent Violence Shows Grave Risks Pakistani Schoolgirls Face.
Last week an improvised explosive device was used to target a girls’ school in Hassokhel, North Waziristan, in northwest Pakistan. Thankfully, no children were injured in the attack, although a boundary wall was damaged. That bombing came just three days after another girls’ school in North Waziristan was attacked, this time in the town of Mir Ali. Residents said that militants have been distributing pamphlets demanding authorities shut down girls’ schools in the area.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/05/14/rise-militant-attacks-schools-pakistan

An important meeting of the Pakistan Peoples Party will be held at Bilawal House today



An important meeting of the Pakistan Peoples Party will be held at Bilawal House today afternoon. Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and former President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari will jointly preside over the meeting.

Those attending the meeting include MNA Faryal Talpur President PPP Women Wing, Senator Sherry Rehman Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Syed Khursheed Shah Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, former Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, PPP Sindh President Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, MNA Syed Naveed Qamar, PPP Sindh Senior Vice President Manzoor Wassan, PPP Sindh General Secretary Waqar Mehdi, and PPP Karachi Division President Minister for Planning and Development Saeed Ghani.


https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/an-important-meeting-of-the-pakistan-peoples-party-will-be-held-at-bilawal-house-today/