Thursday, July 9, 2020
#Pakistan - Opposition Leader And Bilawal Bhutto Agree To Call APC
Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif has agreed to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s anti-government APC proposal.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President and Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif has telephoned PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto.
During the conversation, the two leaders discussed the convening of the All Parties Conference (APC) and the points under consideration.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari inquired about the health of Shehbaz Sharif and also expressed goodwill while Shehbaz Sharif expressed good wishes for the health of former President Asif Ali Zardari.
Sources said that after contacts with other opposition parties, it has been agreed to announce the date of APC.
It may be recalled that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari wanted APC before or immediately after the budget but due to lack of positive response from PML-N, holding of APC had come to a standstill.
The PPP had expressed reservations about the PML-N in a meeting held two days ago. After these reservations, Shehbaz Sharif today responded to Bilawal’s proposal several weeks later.
Earlier, Chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had mobilized to convene an all-party conference of the opposition.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has sent a message to the leadership of PML-N and proposed to call APC soon.
Regarding the APC feeding, Bilawal Bhutto has contacted a League leader in which it was said that Shehbaz Sharif should take the initiative as the Leader of the Opposition.
خیبر پښتونخوا: حکومت لاهم د کم عمرۍ واده مخنیوی بل نه دی منظور کړی
خیبر پښتونخوا کې لا هم د ماشومانو نجونو ودولو په اړه په ۱۹۲۹ز کال کې جوړ شوی قانون عملي دی
د خیبر پښتونخوا د ښځو حقونو حکومتي کمېشن د پروګرامونو مشره وايي، د ماشومانو نجونو ودولو مخنیوي بل د خیبر پښتونخوا په اسمبلۍ کې د ۲۰۱۴م کال وروسته وخت په وخت وړاندې شوی دی خو لا هم نه دی منظور شوی.
له مشال راډيو سره په خبرو کې امنه درانۍ وایي، د بل پر مسوده لا هم خبرې روانې دي او له دغې وروسته به صوبایي اسمبلۍ ته د منظورۍ لپاره وړاندې کېږي.
"که دا بل منظور شي، نو د ۱۸ز کالو د کم عمره ماشومې نجلۍ د ودولو په تور کې یو تن له یوه تر درېوو کالو پورې سزا کېدای شي او دا شان د یو لک روپو تر دریو لکو روپو پورې جرمانه پرې هم لګېدای شي، خو دا په هغه وخت کې پر جج پورې ده چې هغه څومره سزا ورکوي. د دې بل د مسودې په جوړولو کې زیات کار د صوبې د ماشومانې د حقونو د خوندي ساتلو کمېشن کړی او د ټولو قانوني خبرو خیال پکې ساتل شوی دې او د دیني علماو نظر پرې هم اخېستل شوی دی.
په خیبر پښتونخوا کې لا هم د ماشومانو نجونو ودولو په اړه په ۱۹۲۹ز کال کې جوړ شوی قانون عملي دی.
په دغه قانون کې د یوې جینۍ د واده د عمر حد ۱۶ کاله دی. او د دغه قانون ترمخه ۱۶ کالو د کم عمره ماشومې ودولو په تور کې یو تن ته تر یوې میاشتې د بند سزا کېدای شي او جرمانه یې یو زر روپۍ ده.
د ماشومانو حقونو پوه ارشد محمد وایي، په پاکستان کې اوس هم د کم عمره نجونو ودولو رواج دې:
"په پاکستان کې اوس هم په یوشمېر سیمو کې وړې نجونه ودول یوه عامه خبره ده، د ۱۵ز کالو تر ۱۸ز کالو په عمرونو کې د جینکو د ودولو شرح زیاته ده او دا هغه یوه مهمه وجه ده چې په پاکستان کې د ماشومانو د زیږېدو پر وخت د میندو د مړینې شرح هم زیاته ده."
په سوات کې د ۱۰ جینکو یوه ډله د (( ګرلز یوناییټډ فار هیومن رايټس)) په نوم په سیمه کې د ماشومانو جینکو په زوره د ودولو خلاف کور په کور د پوهې پېدا کولو لپاره کمپېن کوي.
د دغه ډلې مشرې حدیقه بشیر د جولای پر نهمه نېټه له مشال راډیو سره په خبرو کې وویل اوس خلک رو رو په دې پوهېږي چې باید یوه جینۍ په ماشوموالي کې واده نه کړل شي خو لا هم په دې اړه ډېر کار ته ضرورت دی:
"په لومړیو ورځو کې چې کله به موږ خلکو ته وویل چې خپلې وړې لوڼه مه ودوۍ نو زموږ د خبرو مخالفت به کېدو چې پکې به ښځې هم وې، دوی به ویل واده خو ډېر ښه شی دې، او باید زر وشي، خو اوس دومره فرق راغلی چې دوی زموږ خبرو ته غوږ ږدي او زما په فکر یو ډېر لږ بدلون راغلی."
د خیبر پښتونخوا د واکمن تحریک انصاف پاکستان ګوند د صوبايي اسمبلۍ او د ماشومانو د حقونو خوندي ساتلو د کمېټۍ یوه غړې عایشه بانو د جولای پر نهمه مشال راډیو ته وویل حکومت یې کوښښ کوي چې دغه بل زر تر زره منظور کړي.
په ۲۰۱۹ز کال کې موږ دا بل وړاندې کړ، بیا کابینه کې پرې یو څو کسانو دا اعتراض وکړ چې باید دا بل د اسلامي تعلیماتو مطابق جوړ کړل شي او په دې نور بحث هم وشي چې دا مسله نوره روښانه کړل شي."
بلخوا په سند صوبه کې د ماشومانو د ودونو خلاف قانون په ۲۰۱۴ز کال کې منظور شوی او پکې د هلک او جینۍ دواړو لپاره د واده د عمر حد ۱۸ کال ښودل شوی.
د پاکستان په نورو سیمو کې د انګرېزانو د دور په ۱۹۲۹ز کال کې جوړ شوی د ماشومانو د ودونو په اړه قانون لا هم عملي دې، چې د ماشومانو د حقونو ادارې یې په اړه وایي دغه قانون د ماشومانو جینکو او هلکانو د ودونو په مخنیوي کې ناکامه دی.
Pakistanis are saying ‘mandir nahi banaenge’. Fatwas follow Hindu temple construction
By NAILA INAYAT
Not allowing the construction of a Krishna temple in Islamabad is Pakistan’s latest ‘sin’ against the Hindus who have equal rights under the Constitution.
With ‘mandir to banega’, Pakistan is having its own ‘mandir wahi banayenge’ moment.
Authorities halting the construction of a Shri Krishna Mandir in Islamabad’s H-9 sector last week is yet another reminder of how the space for religious freedoms is shrinking in Pakistan. The temple would have been the first new place of worship for the 3,000 Hindus residing in the capital. But not anymore.Marred with fatwas, religious bigotry, threats and political point scoring, the construction of the temple has now run into disputes. The other 16th century Ram Mandir in Islamabad’s Saidpur Village is just a tourist spot and Hindus are not allowed to pray in the temple.
Reconstructing temple against Islam’s spirit
What began as a goodwill gesture from the Prime Minister’s Office with a grant of Rs100 million for the temple construction, soon saw the religious and political groups go up in opposition. In one such decree, the Jamia Ashrafia madrassa ascertained that according to Sharia laws, it is not permitted for non-Muslims to build their new worship places or rebuild those which were in ruins. “This is a sin in an Islamic state.” The same was echoed by federal government’s ally and speaker of the Punjab Assembly, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi who said that only the repair of the existing places of worship of the Hindus, Sikhs and Christians was allowed, and that building a new structure was against the spirit of Islam.
Many had a problem with the temple being built on taxpayers’ money but it didn’t occur to anyone that Hindus as Pakistani citizens, too, pay their taxes. So why can’t the government spare money on their place of worship? The Kartarpur Gurdawara’s renovation, with much-hype and glitz, was made possible with the government money. Since that was in ‘national interest’, none of these religious and political charlatans dared squeak on it.
Unsurprisingly, succumbing before many religious pressure groups, City District Administration stopped work. When the Islamabad Hindu Panchayat halted the construction of the temple’s boundary wall, citing security reasons, a television channel proudly took credit for the same in ‘leading the anti-temple discourse’.
Now, the trespassers who no one is bothered to stop, desecrate the construction site, vandalise the temple’s foundation, chant slogans and shoot videos of themselves offering namaz with great pride. All this when an already beleaguered Hindu community in the capital feels helpless and threatened by such behaviour.
How a temple can shake the foundations of a republic that promises equal rights to the minorities is the sad reality of Pakistan.
Othering the religious minorities
Pakistan’s bias towards the minorities hasn’t surfaced overnight. Decades of othering the religious minorities as part of making a national identity lies at the root of this inherent bias. The glorification in the history textbooks of temple vandelisers like Mahmud Ghaznavi and at the same time hoping to show the world how Pakistan is a pluralistic society sounds delusional. You cannot preach one thing and practice another.
Pakistan faces some fundamental questions: what is Pakistan’s relationship with its minority citizens? What is the social contract between Pakistani Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and the State? If the Constitution gives rights as equal citizens and the freedom to practice religion, then why does the State let the pressure groups treat minorities as third-rate citizens?
Double standards
Pakistanis who draw immense pride in watching New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardren’s mosque visits, don’t want their leaders to speak for their own minorities. If Nawaz Sharif, Bilawal Bhutto or Prime Minister Imran Khan mention religious freedom, their beliefs are questioned at once. Their reaching out to the minorities is seen as a sign of shame and appeasement, but Ardren’s actions signify greatness. The hypocrisy at play is laughable. When Nawaz Sharif became part of a Holi event in Karachi in 2017, a fatwa was issued against him, which said “Nawaz Sharif’s Holi speech has shaken the ideological foundations of Pakistan”. I wonder how weak these foundations are? Today, PM Khan’s images are shared on social media superimposed on Hindu religious figures.
While mistreatment of minorities is an issue that’s as old as Pakistan, the Imran Khan government and his party’s track record on appeasing the Islamists is no secret. From supporting an anti-blasphemy sit-in against the Pakistan Muslim League-led Nawaz Sharif government, to appointing renowned economist Atif Mian as an economic advisor and then backtracking due to his Ahmadiyya faith, to signing a contract with Tehrik-e-Labbaik goons after Asia Bibi’s exoneration, to not including Ahmadis in the National Minority Commission, the list is long, and shows the non-existent resolve of the government.
But, the Imran Khan administration is the loudest when it comes to raising voice against persecution of Muslim minorities anywhere in the world, especially in India. If PM Khan’s idea of giving a lesson to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on treatment of religious minorities involves making a U-turn on every tough decision and appeasing the clergy, then how is Naya Pakistan any different from the old one?
In Pakistan, a bizarre arrest shows how media freedom is being squeezed
Beena SarwarThe country’s most prominent media owner-editor is detained and incarcerated. The image-conscious prime minister ignores a letter from United Nations officials about the detention, which Time magazine lists among the “10 ‘Most Urgent’ Cases of Threats to Press Freedom in the Age of Coronavirus.” The media tycoon is held for over 100 days without charge; five bail hearings are postponed, and the bench assigned to hear his case is changed three times in as many months. Even for a nascent democracy such as Pakistan, under military rule for much of its existence, the bizarre arrest and ongoing detention of Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman is novel and tragic. The owner-editor of Jang, arguably Pakistan’s most powerful media conglomerate, was arrested on March 12. The move was so unexpected that he didn’t obtain pre-arrest bail when responding to a summons by the National Accountability Bureau office in Lahore. (I have worked with Rahman and the Jang group in various editorial capacities.) The NAB is investigating Rahman for a 34-year-old private property transaction in Lahore. Also accused is Nawaz Sharif, a thrice-elected former prime minister who allegedly bent rules to lease property to Rahman when Sharif was chief minister of Punjab in 1986. If there was wrongdoing, the NAB should indict Rahman, say legal experts. Yet it took more than three months for the government to file charges against him. The “undue and unholy haste” of the arrest, which occurred on the same day the inquiry was authorized, violated the NAB’s own protocols, says Amjad Pervaiz, Rahman’s defense counsel. There are also concerns about Rahman, almost 65 years old with underlying health conditions, being incarcerated during the coronavirus pandemic. Pakistan’s infection rates rose by over 500 percent in May. Even as human rights defenders and health experts around the world urge governments to release nonviolent prisoners, coronavirus cases have emerged in the facilities Rahman has been held in. He and his media group have been under fire before. In 1998, then-Prime Minister Sharif used allegations of tax evasion to prevent Rahman from launching Pakistan’s first 24/7 television news channel (Geo TV, eventually launched in 2002, which I was also involved with). In 2014, pressure on Jang included a campaign by rival media group ARY News and other forces. Rahman filed a defamation suit against ARY in London, where a court convicted the ARY owners for slander and libel. ARY pleaded bankruptcy and paid nothing. Jang emerged with a moral victory and began rebuilding itself. These battles are part of a long-running war for media freedom in Pakistan. In the 1980s, Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime — supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia — imprisoned, tortured and executed political dissidents, censored the press and flogged journalists. A “democracy musical chairs” period followed Zia’s death in 1988, with four elected governments toppled before completing their tenure. Another military coup in 1999 ended that cycle. The tail end of the Pervez Musharraf dictatorship in 2007 imposed heavy media censorship, including for Jang’s Geo TV. Prime Minister Imran Khan, an Oxford-educated former cricket hero, heads the third government since the 2008 general election. His party is more aligned with Pakistan’s powerful military than any past elected government. In fact, some analysts say that the military is de facto in charge. The muscular nationalism in established democracies such as the United States and India finds echo in Pakistan, with Khan’s complaints about the “traitorous” media finding a sympathetic ear in President Trump. In the current climate, authorities no longer need to withhold newsprint or issue press advisories to bring the media in line. Threats to journalists from government officials and ministers, law enforcement and the prime minister himself now ricochet virtually, echoed by online troll armies. The increased targeting of social media users, human rights and peace activists, and journalists is pushing many into self-censorship. Lately, reporters exposing the inadequacies of Pakistan’s coronavirus response and province chiefs whose policies differ from the center are also being targeted.Over the past 18 months, the government has cut off advertising payments to media houses that don’t toe the line. Newspaper companies face distribution disruption, and television channels have been taken abruptly off air. A youth-led human rights movement is so heavily censored that it doesn’t exist on mainstream media. Direct threats to journalists via WhatsApp calls or messages are increasing. No one accepts responsibility for these violations. Since it is dangerous to name names, Pakistanis resort to euphemisms such as “angels” and “aliens” when airing their suspicions. Rahman’s case is just the latest example of a media environment that is becoming more dangerous and less free. Rahman’s incarceration has drawn condemnation from lawyers, business leaders, intellectuals and human rights and media freedom groups at home and abroad. His next bail hearing is Tuesday. But even if he is released on bail, this will be a minor victory achieved at a huge cost — not only for Rahman, but also for the dwindling state of media freedom and democracy in Pakistan. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/06/pakistan-bizarre-arrest-shows-how-media-freedom-is-being-squeezed/
In Pakistan, the Army Tightens Its Grip
As military expenditure soars in Pakistan despite an unprecedented economic catastrophe, Khan’s power looks to be waning.
Pakistan has faced an unprecedented set of challenges this year—from a locust invasion that threatened to infest 40 percent of the agrarian economy’s major crops to a pandemic that brought business activity to a grinding halt, prompting layoffs, falling household incomes, and a decline in purchasing power.
But when Prime Minister Imran Khan’s administration unveiled the federal budget for the fiscal year 2020-2021 last month, a response to those calamities was nowhere to be seen.
The budget allocated 1.29 trillion rupees ($7.7 billion) to defense expenditure, an 11.8 percent increase from last year’s budget and almost 18 percent of the total budget. Health, on the other hand, received 25 billion rupees ($148.6 million) in the central budget. Even after provincial governments stepped in to allocate an additional 467 billion rupees ($2.7 billion), health spending totaled a third of the military budget. As opposition Sen. Sherry Rehman said in a tweet, this is “not a national #budget for a country facing a crisis.”
The latest budget would have been an apt time to push for much needed equitable resource allocation and a bigger development budget—more than 40 million Pakistanis are living in a state of food insecurity, and hospitals across the country are buckling as they cope with an influx of coronavirus patients. But Islamabad’s excessive defense funding, and failure to account for the country’s already stressed health infrastructure, isn’t simply an oversight. Rather, it is indicative of the military’s influence over the government and the weak government’s reluctance to push back.
Despite poor testing, there have been nearly 240,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Pakistan and almost 5,000 deaths—figures scientists estimate are more likely in the millions and tens of thousands respectively. Already, at least 5,000 health care workers have tested positive for the coronavirus since the outbreak began, and 65 have died. At the same time, growing mistrust and government-propagated misinformation—Khan and his aides have routinely dismissed the coronavirus as the flu—have resulted in medical workers being assaulted by frustrated patients. Khan runs a precariously balanced government where his party holds only 46 percent of seats in the National Assembly and is reeling from the shambolic aftereffects of a poorly managed coronavirus response—one of which seems to be widening military influence in day-to-day government operations.
Armies have been played a critical role in emergency responses across the world: The Australian state of Victoria called for military assistance after a spike in coronavirus cases in June, and in Italy, Spain, and South Africa, soldiers patrolled the streets to enforce lockdowns. But in Pakistan, where the military has long wielded immense power and sometimes seized direct control, such efforts indicate more than civic mindedness. “I think there’s an additional factor at play right now,” said Arif Rafiq, the president of New York-based Vizier Consulting. “The Army is filling a void in areas in which it perceives Imran Khan’s government and the civil administration to be weak.”
There are growing signs that control of the government is sliding fast out of Khan’s hands.
There are growing signs that control of the government is sliding fast out of Khan’s hands.
A host of retired and serving Army officers sit in prominent government roles, and the military (along with the Inter-Services Intelligence, the country’s politically influential and conservative intelligence service) has been overseeing the government’s coronavirus response. It was the military that called for a countrywide lockdown on March 23, a day after Khan opposed it. Retired Lt. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa is now the prime minister’s communications advisor, and the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) set up to manage the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is run by Army Lt. Gen. Hamood Uz Zaman Khan. Subsequently, the health ministry has been relegated to a largely advisory role in decision-making, having to rely on institutions such as the military-led NCOC and the National Disaster Management Authority, also run by a general.
Undoubtedly, the military’s expanding footprint doesn’t bode well for the country’s feeble democracy or its citizens, particularly since neither Khan’s government nor the military seems to have paid heed to World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations. Official numbers of coronavirus infections soared dramatically after Pakistan lifted its nationwide lockdown on May 9, citing economic concerns—a move criticized by WHO and by the country’s medical fraternity. In a letter addressed to the government in early June, WHO recommended intermittent lockdowns of target areas, adding that the country’s health system should be able to “detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact.” (On Wednesday, the government finally announced it was imposing 227 smaller “smart lockdowns.”) Now, many hospitals in the country are full. “Shockingly, even the specter of hundreds of thousands of deaths is insufficient to convince the military and civilian establishment to allocate a greater share of scarce public resources toward life-saving welfare,” said Ammar Rashid, a public health researcher based in Islamabad. “As with every other aspect of Pakistan’s pandemic response, cold calculations of power and patronage have taken precedence over the critical health and economic needs of the public.”
In a country where democracy has often been interrupted by military coups, it is ironic that a government allegedly backed by the military (word on the street when Khan won election in July 2018 was that he was the military’s favored candidate, a notion he was quick to deny) is now fighting for survival. The budget debacle was followed by yet another catastrophic scandal—just one month after a plane crash that killed 98 people, 150 out of 434 pilots working for national carrier PIA were found to have “bogus or suspicious licenses.” On June 28, Khan hosted a dinner at his residence for his advisors and parliamentarians that read like a last hurrah. Over plates of pulao and mutton handi, he assured them that his government would complete its term. Two days later, on the floor of the National Assembly, however, Khan quoted Charles Dickens and hinted at his possible departure. “No one remains in power forever,” he said.
For now, things remain uncertain in Islamabad. While there has been talk of a “minus one” formula—suggesting Khan’s removal as prime minister—it is unclear how this will impact his party’s already fragile National Assembly majority. But one conclusion is certain: Those caught in the crossfire of the government’s waning power and the military’s gradual attempts at taking control will be far removed from politics and the hallowed halls of the National Assembly. With the festival of Eid-ul-Adha right around the corner, Pakistan is likely to witness another surge of coronavirus cases—a catastrophe the country is not ready to bear. In the southwestern city of Gujrat, Tamkenat Mansoor, a physician at a local public hospital, is already sounding alarm bells. “Within a few weeks, our hospitals are going to reach maximum capacity,” she said. “Eventually, the coronavirus is going to turn into another case of polio for Pakistan. The world will have eradicated it, and we will be the only ones still struggling.”
Dangerous Political Agendas in #India and #Pakistan are Being Promoted Via Twitter
Sylvia Mishra, Hamzah Rifaat
Alarm at the spread of false information about the coronavirus on social media platforms is echoing fears raised over the impact of social media as nuclear-armed India and Pakistan teetered precipitously on the brink of all-out war last year.
After a suicide bombing triggered the conflict on Valentine’s Day 2019, fake news and doctored videos seen by millions of users circulated on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms as the conflict escalated.
In the corona pandemic, the circulation of malicious and incorrect information has sown public confusion about the coronavirus pandemic and threatens safety, say health experts and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Last year’s conflict between India and Pakistan ended peacefully five weeks after it began. However, the global information system of which social media platforms are a part may be remaking the rules of war and contributing new dangers to already unstable relations between the two nuclear powers.
In the new information order the speed at which information can be delivered cheaply, and the ease with which it can be manipulated, leaves human cognition outpaced and prone to error. Changing the information system is the only option, experts say.
On February 14, 2019, a 22-year-old Kashmiri jihadist drove his car packed with three hundred kilograms of explosives into an Indian paramilitary police convoy in the Pulwama district of India-administered Kashmir, leaving more than forty Indian soldiers dead. Jaish e Mohammad, a Pakistan-based terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing.
Twelve days later, Indian air force jets launched a retaliatory cross-border strike on an alleged terrorist training camp near Balakot, deep in Pakistani territory provoking a counter-attack by Pakistan in which an Indian MiG-21 fighter jet was shot down. As the situation threatened to spiral out of control, both countries mobilized their armed forces and moved tanks to the frontlines.
The crisis significantly raised the stakes in the more than seventy-year territorial dispute over Kashmir, a major flashpoint in their relations, and heightened international fears of renewed military confrontation.
This was the first time since the India-Pakistan War of 1971 that fighter planes had crossed the Line of Control, the unofficial border dividing Kashmir. It also demonstrated a new willingness on India’s part to strike deep into Pakistan territory and Pakistan’s determination to respond swiftly to establish strategic balance.
The combined effect of electronic media and social media the crisis set a new precedent for South Asia, said Feroz Khan, a former brigadier in the Pakistan army and research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
The use of social media to spread fake news and disinformation to impact on politics is completely new, he said in an interview, although information warfare has always been part of statecraft during wars and peace.
Both governments used social media to spread fake news, Khan said. The Modi-led BJP government in India used social media to advance its political ambitions with looming elections and managed to turn a failed military operation into political victory by making an incredible claim of a MIG-21 shooting down an F-16. Simultaneously, he said, Pakistan also used social media to fudge the fact a U.S.-made F- 16 was not used when it was a Chinese-Pakistan JF 17.
With multiple delivery means at their disposal and by exploiting social media as a tool to achieve political purposes, nuclear-armed India and Pakistan risked the strategy going dangerously wrong, said Khan. Fake news was blurring the nuclear redlines further and thickening the fog of war, he said.
There was a lot of baying for blood for retaliation and to up the ante from both sides, Vipin Narang, associate professor of political science at MIT told a nuclear policy conference after the conflict. Had Twitter existed during the Kargil War twenty years earlier, he said, India and Pakistan may have gone nuclear.
In South Asia, inflated claims on social media can make it harder to manage and de-escalate crises, said Andrew Futter, a UK academic and authority on cyber-nuclear security at Leicester University.
“Unlike the numerous near misses and periods of tension experienced by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the geographical proximity of nuclear forces in South Asia, the lack of trust and predictability, and the concurrent pressure to act quickly makes the risk of accidents, miscalculation, unintended escalation and nuclear use much higher today than in the past,” he said.
The current information ecosystem, the habitat of social media platforms, increasingly poses risks to crisis stability says Ben Loehrke, one of the authors of “Three Tweets to Midnight: Effects of the Global Information Ecosystem on the Risk of Nuclear Conflict.”
The new study spells out how social media could contribute to international conflict—including the failure of deterrence and nuclear war, and calls for measures to minimize the impact of bad information on crisis decisionmaking.
Manipulated information can also be used by partisan actors with a variety of agendas to put pressure on leaders to act, Loehrke said.
The disruptive effects of social media needs reassessment of how existing frameworks for understanding crisis stability might be affected by the evolution of today’s information ecosystem, according to a report by Three Tweets to Midnight.
“Human cognition is unlikely to change significantly on anything less than an evolutionary scale, so that means the information ecosystem needs to be modified to minimize the impact of bad information on crisis decision making,” the report concludes.
After the Pulwama attack, the spike in misinformation circulating in India was so alarming that Trushar Barot, head of Facebook India’s efforts to counter fake news, tweeted “I’ve never seen anything like this before—the scale of fake content circulating on one story.”
The challenge with misinformation is that social media users are repeatedly exposed to fake content. According to a report by the Internet Institute of Oxford University, computational propaganda is becoming “a pervasive and ubiquitous part of everyday life.”
Although Facebook tried to keep up with weeding out misinformation and preventing the dissemination of false claims during the conflict it was met with only partial success.
India’s The Wire news website reported that three of Facebook’s seven fact-checking partners—India Today, Dainik Jagran, and Newsmobile—were themselves circulating misinformation following the Pulwama attack.
In India’s general election in 2019, nine hundred million voters went to the polls; Facebook India had an eleven to twelve-member team fact-checking content, the New York Times reported.
In last February’s conflict, Pakistan vigorously pursued the information war with a series of tweets and pictures from its Inter-Services Public Relations spokesman within hours of the airstrikes. A video message later by Prime Minister Imran Khan urged India to join Pakistan in de-escalating the crisis.
By the time India commented fully, days later, social media was awash with posts based largely on Pakistan’s narrative. This, Indian Military Intelligence claimed, was because Pakistan’s Inter-Services account operates twenty thousand fake social media handles, or usernames, and was able to create doubts by spreading misinformation.
In India, social media warriors sought revenge for the Pulwama terrorist attack that killed more than forty Indian servicemen by using #RevengePulwama; #JusticeforPulwama and played on a public sense of grievance concerning India’s perceived victimhood and the belief that Pakistan should be taught a lesson.
Similarly, in Pakistan, cross border skirmishes with India on the Line of Control regardless of the casualty toll, generate considerable anger on social media.
In this atmosphere, where nuclear weapons play a key role in maintaining strategic deterrence, developments such as the modernization of existing weaponry, arms deployments, and India’s “Cold Start” military doctrine trigger massive coverage on social media. In 2015, when Pakistan launched its Shaheen three missiles, Facebook and Twitter, were crowded with euphoric messages about the need to deter India with robust countermeasures.
Yet amid the charged atmosphere of the Pulwama-Balakot crisis, a small but significant minority on social media platforms advocated for peace, hinting at prospects for economic prosperity and the betterment of both Indian and Pakistani populations as the price to pay if a war broke out between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize Laureate, Malala Yousafzai tweeted: “Everyone aware of the horrors of war would agree that retaliation and revenge is never the right response.”
After the funeral of Squadron Leader Ninad Mandavgane, one of the six Indian Air Force officers killed in a helicopter crash in Budgam, Kashmir, on February 27, his wife Vijeta Mandavgane, said: “I ask Facebook warriors to stop conducting war on Facebook and other social media. Nothing will come of this . . . We do not want war; you have no idea about the destruction of war.”
Among international observers of Pakistan, the perception is that in a crisis with India the response on social media platforms is stronger from conservative clergy, right-wing groups and military sources than from people of relatively liberal backgrounds.
But there was a massive response on social media in both Pakistan and India and when Pakistan posted images of Indian Air Force pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, captured after his plane was shot down.
Hashtags such as #SayNoToWar and #BringAbhinandanBack trended heavily on social media as users on both sides came together to condemn war-mongering and hatred, demanding his dignified treatment and swift release, in line with the Geneva Convention
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s subsequent decision to release Varthaman days later was widely hailed as a gesture of peace and led to a de-escalation of the immediate crisis.
In spite of anger over India’s violation of Pakistan’s airspace during the Balakot incident, few social media opinion makers in Pakistan rushed to fan the flames of war with repeated calls for peace. Hussain Nadim, a former advisor to Pakistan on matters of security, planning and foreign policy, said in a tweet, “Not gonna lie but in this entire hashtag India-hashtag Pakistan fiasco in recent days I’ve found a new respect for Pakistani journalists, analysts, celebrities & twitter folks. No calls for war, jingoism or hate-mongering with India.”
Facebook and Twitter were introduced to the South Asian countries in 2006 and have left an indelible mark and a significant impact on society in both countries attracting millions of users. Together with platforms such as WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram, they have become major disseminators of news and opinion among users.
Yet the platforms do not have a uniform effect on crisis dynamics, says MIT’s Narang. Different social media platforms can have a differing impact. Open social media platforms such as Twitter, for example, are more likely to thicken the fog of war in acute crises and can be used for external signaling to a larger target audience—adversaries and a broader international community.
Taberez Ahmed Neyazi of the University of Singapore analyzed Twitter data from two crises in 2016 between India and Pakistan—a terrorist attack on Indian security forces near the town of Uri in Kashmir and India’s subsequent “Surgical Strikes” on Pakistan.
His study, “Digital Propaganda, Digital Bots, and Polarized Politics in India,” reported that online public opinion had been manipulated, dissent suppressed and activists’ voices diminished.
A digital social media analyst in Pakistan, speaking on the condition of anonymity said Twitter has an immediate impact within the political community and is a powerful tool for engaging audiences and shaping public opinion. Tweets with hashtags also have a greater impact because they allow for social bonding similar to Facebook, but are more orientated towards issues and debates in Pakistan, she said.
Celebrities and religious leaders exert considerable influence over their millions of followers and in Pakistan can have a significant bearing on the public's attitudes towards a national crisis. The official Twitter account of Pakistan’s prime minister, for example, has nearly eleven million followers, while the director-general of the Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of Pakistan’s Armed Forces which coordinates and disseminates military news and information to the general public, has close to 3.3 million followers.
In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of the top Indian influencers on social media with more than forty-nine million Twitter followers. The second most popular Twitter account is that of Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan, who has nearly thirty-nine million followers.
Twitter has also been adopted by nationalist and extremist groups seeking to promote their political agendas by way of hashtags, such as the Pakistan Cyber Force and, in India, Clean the Nation.
In August 2019 when Modi stripped Kashmir off of its special status by abrogating Article 370 and taking away its semi-autonomy in the process, tweets from Pakistani politicians, celebrities and other opinion-makers hinted at utter disgust and condemnation. Prominent comedian, Ahmed Ali Butt, was quick to denounce Modi’s actions and tweeted: “Speak up and stop the madness. Stop killing innocent people.”
India and Pakistan will continue to be at loggerheads due to triggers such as India’s clampdown in Kashmir, the rise of Hindu nationalism, Pakistan’s inability to take effective action against militant groups based on its territory, and a quantitative and qualitative nuclear arms race in the region. As social media gives the public a voice, discussion of these differences and triggers will only become shriller and more amplified in this digital age but will afford a few solutions.