M WAQAR.....
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
--Albert Einstein !!!
NEWS,ARTICLES,EDITORIALS,MUSIC... Ze chi pe mayeen yum da agha pukhtunistan de.....(Liberal,Progressive,Secular World.)''Secularism is not against religion; it is the message of humanity.''
تل ده وی پثتونستآن
NAILA INAYAT A PTI minister calls coronavirus god’s punishment. Punjab CM has promised ulemas mosques won't be closed. And President Alvi has just returned from China.
In times of a pandemic breakout, citizens look up to their government for direction. But in Pakistan, the Imran Khan government has no plan and no direction to deal with the coronavirus, or COVID-19. In fact, Pakistan’s 70-year-old president Arif Alvi even visited China, at a time when everyone is avoiding the country. He even shook hands, a gesture that is akin to an invitation to death in these times. Why? To display Pakistan’s solidarity with its BFF. He was the first head of state to visit Beijing after the coronavirus outbreak.
While claiming to learn from the Chinese way of handling the crisis, there is no on-ground action in Pakistan that supports the claim.
China locked down several cities, including Wuhan — the epicentre of the outbreak — in Hubei province and banned travel to contain the spread of coronavirus. But in Pakistan, even after a significant surge in the number of positive COVID-19 cases, there is no government order to lock down the affected areas. There are no travel restrictions.
In fact, the Imran Khan government thinks that allowing international flights “only” at Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore airports, which are the bigger cities, is some kind of a foolproof way to stop the virus spread, knowing fully well that the screening process for passengers is faulty and there is no facility to quarantine those affected.
Out of the total 296 coronavirus cases, the southern province of Sindh is the worst hit with 208 positive cases.
Source of Pakistan’s worry
This sudden surge is due to the negligence of the Imran Khan government, which didn’t properly test and quarantine thousands of pilgrims arriving from Iran in the border city of Taftan, Balochistan. The pilgrims were packed together in unhygienic tents without medical facilities and access to clean bathrooms. Unsurprisingly, it became a nursery for coronavirus. Sindh officials shared how most of the newer cases were of travellers coming from the so-called quarantined zone in Taftan. This is how lack of seriousness and the absence of any sound policy bears fruit.
But for Prime Minister Imran Khan, nothing was amiss. In his address to the nation on the issue of coronavirus, he paid rich tributes to the Balochistan government and the Pakistan Army for their work at Taftan. If the plan is to win the fight against coronavirus with delusion, then, like the 1971 war, we might have won the COVID-19 war already.
World leaders are telling people that COVID-19 pandemic is a serious problem and they must remain extra cautious — that there is a cause for worry. Even at home, Sindh chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has been sharing numbers and telling people that they need to worry — remain indoors as much as possible.
But PM Imran Khan can say with extreme casualness: “Aap ne ghabrana nahi hai (don’t panic)”. Only 3 per cent of people tested positive, who are old and already have multiple health issues, are mostly at risk — the remaining 97 per cent people recover, the PM argued. So, citizens above 65 or those younger — but with various health conditions — don’t have a reason to worry, right?
Not learning from others
One fails to understand why the government hasn’t sought proactive help of the military yet, when the National Institute of Health is headed by a Major General. Countries like India, Canada and United States have all used their military bases for quarantine facilities; both the UK and the US are relying on their armies to set up field hospitals. But the Pakistan government has no clear policy for its army either. Downplaying the severity of coronavirus seems to be the only strategy here.
Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran have banned group prayers in mosques. But in Pakistan, the Friday Jumma prayers will likely continue. Despite the warning that Pakistan could be following in Italy’s footsteps if public gatherings aren’t avoided, there is no push from the government to ban these large congregations. Instead, Punjab CM Sardar Usman Buzdar is meeting Ulemas and assuring them that mosques won’t be closed. Shia clerics have vowed to continue their religious gatherings and shrine visits, because according to them, congregations heal people, not infect them.
Barelvi cleric Muhammad Ashraf Asif Jalali is confident of holding an All Pakistan Sunni conference in Lahore on March 21: “No one can get sick except as per the will of God. If anyone gets infected with coronavirus due to our conference, then (the Pakistan government) should hang me.” That’s coronavirus 101 for us all.
#Barelvi cleric Asif Ashraf Jalali @TheDrJalali: We shall hold All Pakistan Sunni conference in Lahore on March 21. No one can get sick except as per the will of God. If anyone gets infected with #coronavirus due to our conference, Pakistan govt should hang me.
Defence Minister Pervez Khattak confidently declared that coronavirus is under control in Pakistan, because the government had banned all public gatherings and political rallies. He said this while addressing one such ‘banned’ public rally in Nowshera. Now we know how ‘under control’ coronavirus is in Pakistan.
There is one PTI minister, Fayyazul Hassan Chohan, who is telling us that coronavirus is god’s punishment just like disabled children are the punishment for the misdeed of their parents.
Punjab provincial information minister fayyaz chohan says Fayyaz says children with disabilities are a punishment from God for the parents, links disability and disability of children with wrongdoing and corruption by parents. Unbelievable.
The same minister has also promised to beat coronavirus like we beat terrorism in Pakistan. Now how many decades that would take, he didn’t mention.
The World Health Organization (WHO) advisory is to test, test and test. PM Imran Khan’s advisory is: don’t run to the hospital for tests, just sit at home and wash your hands. Yes, prevention is important, and the biggest weapon against coronavirus we have, but it can’t substitute testing. Two months late for the awareness campaign too, as many think.
World leaders are looking at ways to treat, cure or take precaution against coronavirus but it is only Imran Khan who wants Pakistan’s debt written off. All in the garb of coronavirus. He is telling the world that Pakistan won’t have money if the situation goes out of hand and yet he is funding ventures at home for his own self-promotion. How does that work in a health emergency? It wants to beg the world but when asked to be part of SAARC on COVID-19, it goes in the ‘Kashmir Banega Pakistan’ mode. That too on the shoulders of health advisor Zafar Mirza, whose is accused of smuggling 20 million face masks.
When it comes to desi remedies for curing coronavirus, Balochistan CM Jam Kamal Khan has been kind to share forwarded-as-received corona cure: Gargle with salt and vinegar. His photoshopped image of leading a meeting on coronavirus is reason enough to take his high stature seriously.
And on social distancing, Fawad Chaudhry has the last word: “Humen are not programmed for Quarantine and our dependence on eachother is a precondition of Society and life,Isolation is only a very short term measure, salvation of human race depends on Science and Scientists how quickly they can respond to challenge #CoronavirusOutbreak.”
We wonder what we would do if Chaudhry hadn’t given us this earth-shattering information.
More than 1,000 remain there as thousands more are released into impoverished Balochistan.
It was the smell that was the worst. In this dusty camp on Pakistan’s border withIran, which at one stage held more than 6,000 people, the stench of sweat, rubbish and human excrement hung in the air. There was no real housing, just five people to a ragged tent, and no bathrooms, towels or blankets.
The camp, in the town of Taftan in Balochistan province, was supposed to function as a sanitary quarantine location, preventing the spread of the coronavirus from Iran, which has had one of the worst outbreaks globally.
Instead, according to Mohammed Bakir, who was held there for two weeks, it was no more than “a prison … the dirtiest place I have ever stayed in my life”.
“These were the hardest days and nights of my life,” said Bakir. “We were treated like animals. There were no facilities but also no humanity and everything was in disarray. They were not prepared; there was nothing for us to sleep in except some dilapidated tents.”
Thousands of people have been kept in close quarters in hot, squalid conditions in Taftan, with not even basic precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the virus. According to doctors at the camp, even those who presented with symptoms were not tested or even isolated, and there was a severe shortage of doctors and nurses. There was such a lack of medical facilities, the few doctors on site took to paying for necessary medicines themselves. Things got so bad that protests broke out among those quarantined.
“Neither the quarantining service nor the testing procedure was satisfactory at all,” said one doctor, who asked not to be named. “In the first 20 days, many people had symptoms, but there was no testing at all. We had no testing facilities for three weeks. One child was sent to [a] hospital in Quetta, and he tested positive. But there was no isolation or testing for anyone else.
“There were patients with diabetes, hepatitis and other diseases who were quarantined for 14 days without any proper medication. Their conditions were really bad there and they were treated like animals.”
The border between Pakistan and Iran is more than 600 miles and movement between the two countries is extremely common, especially among minority Shia Muslims in Pakistan who travel to Iran on religious pilgrimages. It is also a crucial trade route.
But over the past two weeks, it has become a hotbed of coronavirus, with infections going up by the dozen every day. There are 302 reported cases of coronavirus in Pakistan, the highest number of cases in south Asia.
Workers spray the quarantine camp at Taftan near the border with Iran. Photograph: Naseer Ahmed/Reuters
Even though infections in Iran began to rise rapidly weeks ago, the Pakistan government only officially shut the border less than a week ago. And the border is still porous; on Tuesday night at least 100 pilgrims crossed from Iran into Balochistan, reportedly after bribing border guards.
Among those held in Taftan was Abid Hussain, who is from Nagar in Gilgit-Baltistan, and was quarantined for two weeks after returning from Iran. “It’s like I have been released from prison,” said Hussain. “They call it a quarantine but we didn’t get hand wash, face masks or any other sanitary facilities. The only check was that in the morning a doctor used to come round taking everyone’s temperature. That was it for 13 days. Everyone was desperate to leave.”
Many of those in Taftan have been released or transferred to other facilities, but 1,200 remain.
Hussain also described lax regulations on movement for those in the camp, with many going to shops in the town, walking around the vicinity and having regular social gatherings. No guidelines were issued for how those in quarantine could protect themselves from getting the disease, and there was no running water for people to wash their hands.
Hundreds of people supposedly under lockdown left the camp to shop at local markets and stores, buying food and returning to the camp without any checks.
“Around these fruit stalls it was more like a scene from a busy Friday bazaar which was run by people who should have been quarantine camp in lockdown,” said one eyewitness.
The situation was equally bad in the hospitals in Balochistan, the least developed and most impoverished province of Pakistan, which were tasked with dealing with the outbreak. A doctor at one hospital in Quetta claimed that medical staff had refused to treat or even examine a young girl with all the symptoms of coronavirus, whose father had recently returned from China for work. The girl reportedly died days later without being tested.
Pakistan’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak, said the doctor, was “depressing and disturbing”.
Pakistan has a notoriously poor track record for containing disease outbreaks and is one of only two countries in the world that have failed to eliminate polio. The government’s fear of a coronavirus outbreak meant it even refused to evacuate the 600 Pakistani students stranded in Wuhan province in China, where the pandemic began.
چیئرمین پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی (پی پی پی) بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا ہے کہ کورونا وائرس کی وجہ سے سندھ میں کاروبار بند ہونے پر غریب طبقات کو یقین دلاتا ہوں صوبائی حکومت آپ کو سنبھالے گی۔
کراچی میں پریس کانفرنس کرتے ہوئے چیئرمین پی پی پی بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے وفاقی حکومت کو اپنی حکمت عملی تبدیل کرنے کا مشورہ دے دیا۔
ان کا کہنا تھا کہ تفتان سے آنے والے زائرین میں بڑی تعداد میں کیسز مثبت آئے، سندھ حکومت نے کورونا سے لڑنے کے لیے فوری اقدامات کیے۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے ملک بھر میں مل کر اقدامات کرنے کی ضرورت پر زور دیا اور کہا کہ ہم سب کو مل کر مشترکہ حکمت عملی طے کرنا ہوگی۔
چیئرمین پی پی پی کا کہنا تھا کہ اس وقت تنقید، الزامات اور سیاسی پوائنٹ اسکورنگ کی ضرورت نہیں ہے۔
کورونا وائرس کے باعث سندھ میں کاروبار کی بندش کی وجہ سے متاثر ہونے والے غریب طبقے کو مخاطب کرتے ہوئے بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ میں آپ کو یقین دلاتا ہوں سندھ حکومت آپ کو سنبھالے گی اور راشن دے گی۔
انہوں نے کاروباری مالکان کو مخاطب کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ موجودہ صورتحال میں ڈیلی ویجز پر کام کرنے والوں کو نہ نکالاجائے۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ ملازمین اگر نہیں بھی آرہے تو بھی ان کو پوری تنخوا دی جائے۔
چیئرمین پی پی پی نے مخیر حضرات سے اپیل کی کہ صوبائی حکومت کی مدد کی جائے۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ اس وائرس کی وجہ سے جو حال معیشت کا ہوا ہے اس کے لیے بھی وفاق کو ٹھوس اقدامات کرنے ہوں گے۔
حکومتی کارکردگی پر بات کرتے ہوئے بلال بھٹو زرداری کا کہنا تھا کہ سندھ حکومت نے چین میں کورونا کے کیس سامنے آنے کے بعد سے ہی صوبے میں اقدامات کیے۔
انہوں نے بتایا کہ سندھ میں بڑی تعداد میں کیسز تفتان سے آنے والے افراد میں مثبت آئے، تفتان سے آنے والے افراد کو قرنطینہ میں رکھ رہے ہیں۔
چیئرمین پی پی پی کا کہنا تھا کہ ہمیں ٹیسٹ کرنے کی استعداد کو بڑھانا ہوگا، سماجی طور پر ایک دوسرے کو فاصلے پر رکھنا ہوگا۔
