Saturday, February 9, 2019
#France - Yellow Vest Unrest Leaves Protester Severely Injured In #Paris - #YellowVests #YellowRedWeekend #YellowVestprotests
The man's hand was nearly blown off when he picked up a tear gas grenade and it exploded, according to NPR's Eleanor Beardsley.
The AP reports police said the injured protester lost four fingers.
In a graphic video of the aftermath, French paramedics are seen gathered around the injured protester at the National Assembly gates, providing emergency medical treatment and preventing onlookers from getting too close.
Another protester recently suffered an eye injury from being hit by a rubber bullet.
The yellow vest protests began in mid-November, spurred by anger over high gas prices in rural areas where people depend on their cars because of no access to public transportation.
Now, in their 13th consecutive week, the protests have become a sort of an uprising against the French President, Emmanuel Macron, who is seen as out of touch with common people.
This weekend, demonstrators set fire to multiple trash cans and an anti-terror military car. France's interior Christophe Castaner tweeted his indignation over the car being set on fire saying,"These attacks are intolerable."
Indignation et dégoût.
Les militaires de la mission Sentinelle protègent au quotidien nos compatriotes du risque terroriste.
Ces attaques sont intolérables.
Tout sera mis en œuvre pour que leurs auteurs soient appréhendés et jugés.
3,154 people are talking about this
Police said 31 protesters were arrested on Saturday but the AP reports France's Interior Ministry said this week's protest was significantly smaller than last week's. Representatives for the yellow vest movement dispute that claim, according to the BBC.
امیر حیدر خان هوتي وايي د پښتنو ټول سیاستوالان دې جرګه وکړي
د عوامي نیشنل ګوند یوه مشر ویلي دي چې په پاکستان کې پښتنو ته د ورپېښو ستونزو هواري لپاره د ټولو پښتنو مشرانو د جرګې جوړولو وړاندیز کړی دی.
د ګوند صوبايي مشر او پخواني اعلا وزیر امیر حیدر خان هوتي پرون په پېښور کې د نومیالي لیکوال او سیاستوال اجمل خټک اتم تلین غونډې ته په وینا کې وویل، ټول پښتانه مشران تېر کال (۲۰۱۸ز) په انتخاباتو کې له پارلېمانه بهر وساتل شول نو ځکه دې افتاب احمد خان شېرپاو، محمود خان اڅکزی، مولانا فضل الرحمان او سراج الحق سره جرګه شي او ګډ دریځ دې غوره کړي چې په وینا یې سازشونه ناکام کړي.
امیر حیدر خان هوتي زیاته کړه چې د هېواد سیاستوالان دې د ۱۸م اییني ترمیم د زیانمنېدو مخه هم ونیسي.
د پاکستان انتخاباتي کمېشن د جولای په ټاکنو کې د درغلۍ ټول تورونه رد کړي ول.
همداراز، پوځ هم ویلي ول چې په انتخاباتو کې یې یوازې د امنیت چارې پر مخ وړې.
د پاکستان تحریک انصاف په مشرۍ حکومت هم د ځېنو سیاسي ګوندونو دا څرګندونې رد کړې دي چې ګواکې ۱۸م اییني بدلون ختمول غواړي.
د پښتنو د سیاسي مشرانو د ګډې جرګې خبره نوې نه ده.
تر دې مخکې د فبرورۍ پر درېیمه په کلا سیف الله کې د استاد محمد ابراهیم ارمان لوڼي تر جنازې وروسته نواب ایاز خان جوګېزي هم په خبرو کې وویل چې د پښتنو د مسلو د هواري لپاره ټولو سیاسي مشرانو ته ورځي او جرګه جوړوي.
شاوخوا دوه کاله مخکې د پښتونخوا ملي عوامي ګوند مشر محمود خان اڅکزي هم د پښتنو سیاستوالانو د جرګې وړاندیز کړی وو.
د اجمل خټک د نهم تلین په مناسبت په پېښور کې غونډې ته په وینا کې د عوامي نیشنل ګوند نورو مشرانو په بوري (لورالايي) کې د ارمان لوڼي د وژنې او د شمالي وزیرستان په خیسور کې د کورونو د بې پرده ګۍ په ګډون د افغانستان د سولې په اړه پر هڅو هم خبرې وکړې.
#Pakistan - #PTI’s dilemma - Promises and ground realities
The PTI however boasted of a team of highly knowledgeable economic experts who had avowedly prepared policies to turn the economy around despite all these problems. The party promised everyone a pie the sky like 10 million jobs for the unemployed and five million housing units for the poor. Two months before the elections the party announced a slew of pledges that included Fata’s expeditious merger with KP, bifurcation of Punjab province, a development package for Karachi and a programme for alleviation of poverty besides a number of steps for improvement of the economy. All these projects require mega bucks.
The Federal Finance Secretary told the NFC moot on Wednesday that in the current fiscal year the government would pay Rs3.6 trillion on account of debt servicing and defence spending that is equal to 68.2pc of the current fiscal year’s revised budget. The two expenditures however are equal to 121pc of the net federal revenues. The finance ministry has to borrow to pay salaries, pensions, run hospitals, schools and build roads. Every penny that the centre spends on development is borrowed either from the banks or foreign sources.
The cabinet has now vowed to increase the defence budget. The only way it can satisfy both the voters and the army is by raising taxes in a big way, drastically improving exports and selling off major loss making public enterprises. Alternately it will have to go begging for more loans. In any case it is going to be a tight rope walk. Wining the elections was easy, governing the country is much more difficult.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari strongly condemns the arrest of Dr Ammar Ali Jan
In a statement, the PPP Chairman said that handcuffing, arrests and killings of academicians by PTI government shows the ugliest form of victimization perpetrated under any regime in the past.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari demanded immediate release of Dr Ammar Ali Jan and asked the government to desist from taking illegal and inhuman actions against the democratic rights of protest by the civil society.
He expressed solidarity with the family and friends of Dr Ammar Ali Jan and assured them every possible support from his Party.
It may be recalled here that Ammar Ali Jan is the son of Dr Khalid Javed Jan a renowned poet who wrote the poem
“Main Baghi hu Main Baghi hu”
And he is still working as General Secretary PPP Culture Wing, Punjab.
https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/
#Pakistan #PPP - Country needs to come out of security state mentality: Bilawal Bhutto
The PPP leader was speaking at the Institute of Peace in Washington.
He urged the country’s policymakers to take advantage of the country’s geostrategic position and trade with countries that border Pakistan. “If we follow this path, we have the potential to be the future trade hub of the world.”The PPP leader also spoke of the issues that face Pakistan’s fledgling democracy and how his party plans to tackle them.“Today in Pakistan, we are experiencing a curtailing of our freedoms, freedom of expression, liberty and justice are increasingly being compromised. We are witnessing censorship, the likes of which we have never before.”
“We are already witnessing indigenous organic movements spawning across the country where citizens, tired of being persecuted have begun to push back. And this is what we need, we need to keep speaking up, we need to keep fighting back, keep challenging the forces that seek to silence us.”
Pakistan will bear the repercussions of state-sponsored stifling of dissent and curbing of freedoms of speech, movement, and association for generations, added the PPP chairperson.
“One area that is not talked about much, but which nonetheless is a reality, are civil-military relations in Pakistan. My party is conscious that this issue has to be addressed for long-term democratic and political stability.”
Bilawal further said he has proposed that all parties come together and work out a new charter of democracy to deal with such issues.
Bilawal also highlighted the need to curb extremism, ensure implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) and the state of Pakistan’s economy.
In particular, he mentioned the youth bulge in the population. Over 60% of our population is considered youth and with a projected growth rate of 3%, our economy is not equipped to handle that level of unemployment, said the PPP chairperson while expressing concern over the country’s economic health.
Threatened for exposing scandals, #Pakistani #journalist seeks refuge in Malaysia
A journalist from Pakistan has been forced to seek refuge in Malaysia after getting into trouble with authorities there over his damning exposure of scandals involving powerful individuals.
Syed Fawad Ali Shah, who wrote for The Nation, an English daily published from Lahore, said his life was threatened in Pakistan, a country where 27 journalists were murdered between 2011 and last year according to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Fawad’s troubles began in 2008 when he decided to investigate cases of missing persons. His work eventually led him to believe that the authorities were involved in the disappearance of these individuals, many of whom were accused of everything from spying for the Americans and Indians, to working for the Taliban.
“In 2008, I interviewed four to five families and I continued this till 2010 as I moved on to other news organisations.
“I found similarities in their stories,” he said.
Three years later, on Jan 10, 2011, while waiting for a bus from Allahabad to Peshawar, he was confronted by four men claiming to be from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), a powerful intelligence body under the interior ministry. They forced him into an unmarked vehicle and drove off.
He said he was detained in a small basement for three months and 18 days, and tortured with various methods including electrocution.
“I was in a total mess after all the beatings. Till this day, I have no idea how I survived,” he said.
He said during his detention, officers were carrying files of the Pakistan secret service, the Inter-Service Intelligence, and not of FIA.
They accused him of working with the “enemy of the state”, which could either be Indians, Americans or the Taliban group from Afghanistan.
Fawad was eventually released with a warning: stop writing about missing persons, and give up journalism.
So he did. He started doing odd jobs instead.
“But I couldn’t keep silent over the massive injustice happening in the country. So I left for Thailand in August 2011 with US$2,500 that I had saved.”
From Thailand, he travelled to Penang where he worked at a company monitoring CCTVs, earning RM1,100 monthly.
After a month, he approached the United Nations High Commission For Refugees (UNHCR) where he was interviewed 18 times, with each interview lasting four to five hours.
In 2014, he was recognised as a refugee and issued a UNHCR card.
When contacted, a senior police officer based in Peshawar, who wanted to remain anonymous, said Fawad had written about topics that stepped on the toes of corrupt officials, including terrorism, money laundering and the mafia.
“Journalists here often face death threats, especially those who write about the mafia and crime among the top echelons,” he told FMT.
In 2017, Reporters Sans Frontieres ranked Pakistan at number 139 out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index.
‘I want a normal life’
Today, Fawad, 37, awaits news of his application for asylum in the US.
He said his frustrations grow each day, and there is nothing he can do in Malaysia which does not recognise refugees.
“I can’t work legally. I cannot get married. I am left hanging. All for what? For fighting for my country,” he said.
But Fawad still does what he likes best: exposing the scandals by Pakistan’s powerful elite. He continues to write for a bilingual English-Urdu news portal, Hamariweb.com.
The downside is that the “secret service” will harass his family members on his whereabouts, he said.
Fawad hopes that the US, or any other country for that matter, will consider his application so that he can start a new life.
“I don’t want to live as a refugee. I want to work. I have so much to offer but my life is at a standstill.”
When contacted, UNHCR refused to comment, saying it is not their policy to share the individual details of refugees.
https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/01/31/threatened-for-exposing-scandals-pakistani-journalist-seeks-refuge-in-malaysia/
Pakistani journalist critical of government seized outside home
Rizwan Razi, who worked for private Din TV in the city of Lahore, was being investigated for “defamatory and obnoxious” comments about the judiciary, government and intelligence services, according to Pakistan’s law enforcement agency.
However, there was no official confirmation he had been arrested.
“My father went out of home to see off friends,” his son Osama told Reuters of the incident on Saturday morning.
“When the friends left, unknown persons, riding a black Honda Civic car, thrashed and dragged him in the car and fled away ... I ran after the car but could not do anything.”
Pakistani journalists say they face an increasingly hostile climate since the vote last year that saw Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) take power.A report from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), dated Saturday and seen by Reuters, said Razi had previously been questioned about his Twitter comments. It said authorization had been granted to register a case against him.
His account @RaziDada appeared to be offline on Saturday.
FIA officials in Lahore referred questions to the main office in Islamabad, where officials could not be reached.
Khan’s government replaced the party of ousted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was at odds with the powerful military and is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for corruption.The increased official pressure has come at a difficult time for the media in general as advertising revenues have plunged and newsroom budgets been slashed.Government officials say Pakistan has an independent media and the military denies pressuring journalists.In a separate case, Ammar Ali Jan, an academic also based in Lahore, was arrested over his involvement in a protest at the death of Arman Loni, a regional leader of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement. He was later released on bail.
A message on Ammar’s Facebook page on Saturday said he was taken at 4 a.m. “I am a law-abiding citizen and will not be deterred in the fight for justice,” it said.
Police official Azhar Naveed confirmed the brief detention and bail, which followed other arrests over the protests earlier this week. He said Ammar was charged with taking part in a rally, blocking a road and making “anti-state” speeches.
Academic Dr Ammar Ali Jan released after being arrested by the Lahore police
Lahore-based professor Dr Ammar Ali Jan was released after being arrested by the Gulberg police early Saturday morning.
A case has been registered against him under the Punjab Sound Systems Regulation Act, 2015, Section 16 (dissemination of rumours) of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance and sections 147 (rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 290 (public nuisance) and 291 (continuance of nuisance after injunction to discontinue) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-journalist/pakistani-journalist-critical-of-government-seized-outside-home-idUSKCN1PY0DB
#Pakistan #PashtunTahaffuzMovement - Our struggle will go on till the last man, the last day: Manzoor Pashteen
He is young and handsome, with a Che Guevara-esque beard. And he wears a distinctive cap, a cap that has become the symbol of the Pashtun struggle against the Pakistan government. He is studying to be a doctor, like Che. But the similarities end here because, unlike the Argentine revolutionary, Manzoor Pashteen does not believe in guerrilla warfare or weapons. The protest of the ethnic group under the umbrella of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) founded by Manzoor and some of his closest friends, commenced more than a year ago, and it has been peaceful even though many of them have been arrested, harassed, beaten up or even killed by police. The last one to die, on February 2, was Armam Loni.
“The State killed our friend and member of PTM,” says Pashteen. “And they are not even letting us lodge an FIR against his killer, a police officer retired from the Pakistani army. We were harassed while going to attend his funeral. They even shot at my car.”
In the following days, police cracked down on protesters in several Pakistani cities. On February 5, five PTM members were arrested in Islamabad, outside the National Press Club, for no reason, says Manzoor.
“The same day in the same city there was a protest by mujahideen fighters in solidarity with Kashmir. The security forces didn’t disturb them but tortured and arrested the peaceful non-violent PTM members asking for human and civil rights,” he says.
The PTM took to the streets exactly a year ago after the killing in a fake encounter of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a peaceful PTM activist and aspiring model. Mehsud, according to his assassins, was a terrorist. “Pakistani agencies and Pakistani army,” says Manzoor, “are doing this in a systematic way. They target someone, accuse him of being a terrorist, raise false allegations, and then they kill him with impunity. This is what they call war on terror. Taliban commanders are sharing the same camps with the Pakistani army, none of them is targeted. In my area, out of 88 so-called Taliban killed by the army, only one was real Taliban. All the others were civilian, common people.”
The PTM was started by Manzoor and his friends in their college days, after their houses were first raided and then razed to rubble by the army during the “war on terror”. They were staging demonstrations at the university. For years, the locals caught in the conflict feared speaking out about such acts, until the PTM burst onto the scene. Its tactics and objectives caught the imagination of the media, and drew support from across the spectrum. But then a crackdown began and the media too was forced to black out the group.
Manzoor has been arrested a couple of times and his family has been told that he is mentally unstable. He has been blatantly called up a number of times by members of the ISI and ordered to stop protesting, because, “’Otherwise the morale of our troops will go down. Stop, if you don't want to face consequences.’ But I told them, ’I don't care for my life. You can kill me, torture me, beat me up but I will go on until the end, denouncing what you are doing to my people. Stop killing innocents, stop humiliating our women, stop making people disappear, stop cutting the throat of our elders. Stop hosting the Taliban in your fort’.”
He was released, eventually, and the protest went on. The PTM is asking the government to stop enforced disappearances, to stop extrajudicial killings, to send the ‘missing’ people to court and, if they are found guilty of something, to punish them according to the law. They are asking the State to stop killing and torturing people during the 'search for terrorists’, to remove landmines from their land, to be allowed to lodge an FIR against the culprits. They are asking the world to take notice of their situation. The result is they are called “foreign agents” by the same State that should give them justice. However, Manzoor is very clear on the matter: “RAW and India are supposed to be our worst enemies, according to them. But Kulbhushan Jadhav who, they say, is an Indian spy, is not a missing person and has not been extrajudicially killed. If we are RAW agents, we should at least be granted the same treatment.”
The protest will continue, even though everyone’s life is at risk. Manzoor says he is not afraid to die. “They will not kill me now, not when so many people are on the streets and the press and the rest of the world are aware of our fight. But I cannot rule out the possibility of being killed by somebody else, by non-state actors, Taliban or jihadis. But my life is not important. They can kill me, but they cannot kill the movement. Our struggle will go on till the last man, the last day.”
#AsiaBibi - Christian woman freed by court still unable to leave Pakistan: friend
The Christian woman freed by Pakistan's Supreme Court three months after acquitting her on a blasphemy charge has been transferred from her previous location near the capital by security forces, unable to leave Pakistan to join her daughters in Canada, a friend said Saturday.
Aman Ullah, who said he spoke to Asia Bibi by telephone Friday, said the 54-year-old Bibi is being held in a room in southern Karachi. He said Bibi, who spent eight years on death row, is frustrated and frightened, uncertain of when she will be able to leave Pakistan.
"She has no indication of when she will leave ... they are not telling her why she cannot leave," said Ullah, who fled the country Friday after receiving threats from religious radicals angered by his assistance to Bibi, which began while she was on death row.
Ullah has been a liaison between Bibi and European diplomats, who have sought to assist her. The Associated Press also spoke to Bibi by telephone following her October acquittal with the assistance of Ullah.
Bibi's ordeal began in 2009 when two fellow farmworkers refused to drink from the same container as a Christian woman. There was a quarrel and the two Muslim women later accused Bibi of blasphemy. The Supreme Court on Oct. 31 last year, however, acquitted Bibi and last month the high court rejected an appeal by a radical religious party to review her acquittal. The Supreme Court judges charged there were widespread inconsistencies in the testimony against Bibi saying had the case not been so sensitive the accusers would face perjury charges. Bibi has steadfastly maintained her innocence.
That court decision should have given Bibi her freedom, but Ullah said diplomats were told that her departure from Pakistan, where she feels her life would be in danger, would come not in the "short term but in the medium term," said Ullah.
He said Bibi told him she is locked in one room of a house.
"The door opens at food time only," said Ullah, and she is allowed to make phone calls in the morning and again at night. He said she usually calls her daughters.
There was no immediate response from the government but Bibi's case has brought international attention to Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law, which carries an automatic death sentence for a conviction of insulting Islam. However, there have been widespread complaints that the law is used to settle scores and that it targets the country's minorities, including Shiite Muslims.
The mere suggestion of blasphemy can incite mobs to kill. After Bibi's October acquittal the radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik party called its followers onto the streets where they protested for three days demanding Bibi's immediate execution as well as the death of the judges who acquitted her. The party leadership also advocated overthrowing the government of Imran Khan and incited the military against the army chief.
Since then the leadership has been arrested along with dozens of their followers for inciting violence.
Ullah, a rights activist, first began aiding those falsely charged with blasphemy when his wife was wrongly accused. Since then, he has helped several people gain their freedom but Bibi's prominence brought him to the attention of religious radicals.
In recent months, he has been physically assaulted, gunmen have opened fire on his home, and several religious radicals attacked his home. Ullah said he fears being attacked again or charged with blasphemy.
Bibi hopes to be able to join her daughters in Canada, where they have been granted asylum.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/christian-woman-freed-by-court-still-unable-to-leave-pakistan-friend-1.4289814
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