Friday, September 11, 2020

China, Russia oppose protectionism, hegemony

China and Russia issued a joint foreign ministers' statement after Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday in Moscow, calling on all countries to uphold multilateralism and firmly oppose unilateralism, protectionism and hegemony. 

Observers said China and Russia have been playing an increasingly important role in improving the US-dominated world order. They have also recently confronted Western countries head-on on a number of international issues, including voting against the US resolution to extend a 13-year-old arms embargo on Iran at the UN in August.

The statement was based on common views on the current international situation and major issues, and called on the international community to strengthen coordination, build consensus, and work together to tackle current threats and challenges, and promote global political stability and economic recovery.

The 12-point statement called on all governments, social organizations and enterprises to work together to fight fake information, as certain countries spread disinformation that threatens the health of people of different countries, social stability and order amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

China and Russia also reiterated their firm commitment to multilateralism, calling on the international community to safeguard the international system with the UN at its core, and the international order based on international laws. Adhering to the Cold War mentality, hyping competition among major powers, and pursuing one's own security at the expense of the security of other countries have seriously undermined the basic norms governing international relations and global and regional strategic stability and security, the statement said.

At Thursday's meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers, Wang also stressed the necessity of never to allow a "color revolution" to succeed in the region at a SCO meeting.

"We must firmly establish a sense of a community with a shared future for mankind, firmly support each other in following a development path that suits one's own national conditions, as well as maintaining political security and social stability, and never allow external forces to interfere in the internal affairs of SCO member countries, a 'color revolution' to succeed in this region, or the regional peace and stability to be undermined," he said.

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Friday that the "color revolution" with the involvement of the US and the West poses a great challenge to the SCO and emerging economies, and can drag the countries into the abyss, and disrupt benign development. 

"It is necessary for all SCO members to work together to avoid what has happened in Ukraine, and what is happening in Belarus," he said. 

Belarus is experiencing social unrest, and some Belarus experts believe that it's a "color revolution" with interference of foreign forces, media reported. 

Disguised as promoting democracy, a "color revolution" is a way for the US and the West to change regimes and achieve strategic goals in other countries since the start of the 21st century, analysts said. They said after Donald Trump assumed office, US unilateralism and hegemony became increasingly prominent, bringing greater "color revolution" risks to the world. What happened in Hong Kong last year is also an example, analysts said. 

Li noted that SCO members should actively share intelligence and other resources to avoid "color revolutions." "Countries like China and Russia which have successful experiences in preventing 'color revolutions' can share their experiences with other members."

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1200624.shtml

Saudi officials must testify in 9/11 lawsuit, says US judge

Among those to be questioned is the former Saudi ambassador to the US and member of the Saudi royal family.


A US judge ordered Saudi Arabia to make 24 current and former officials, including a former ambassador to the United States, available for questioning in a lawsuit claiming it provided assistance for the attacks that took place on 11 September 2001, lawyers for the victims said on Friday.
Saudi Arabia has long denied involvement in the attacks, in which almost 3,000 people died as hijacked jetliners crashed into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon outside Washington, and a field in western Pennsylvania. Friday marked the 19th anniversary of the attacks.
The Saudi government's media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment after business hours, Reuters said, and a Washington-based lawyer for the country declined to comment. US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn's decision was made public on Thursday in Manhattan federal court.
It followed another judge's March 2018 rejection of Saudi Arabia's bid to dismiss the litigation, in which families of those killed, as well as tens of thousands of people who suffered injuries, as well as businesses and insurers, are seeking billions of dollars in damages.While rejecting some of the plaintiffs' requests for depositions, Netburn said those who could be questioned include Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2005 and a member of the Saudi royal family, Reuters reported.She said Saudi Arabia "persuasively" argued that documents did not suggest the prince oversaw the work of two officials the plaintiffs linked to the attacks. Still, the judge said the plaintiffs' materials indicated he "likely has first-hand knowledge" of the role one official "was assigned by the Kingdom and the diplomatic cover provided to the propagators" working in the United States.
A drawn-out legal battle
It was not immediately clear how Saudi Arabia might arrange for or compel testimony by its citizens, including those no longer in the government. James Kreindler, a lawyer for the victims, called the decision a "major development" because Saudi Arabia had produced little documentation concerning its government officials working in the United States before the attacks.
The almost two-decade-old lawsuit has faced several major obstacles over the years.
In March, a legal team representing survivors and families accused Saudi authorities of trying to silence at least four of their witnesses in the case, saying they had been threatened or intimidated by alleged Saudi agents. On those grounds, the plaintiffs' legal team requested that the identities of the witnesses in the drawn-out legal battle be protected and kept secret.The lawyers of the 9/11 victims invoked the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi officials in Turkey as evidence of the kingdom's potential threat against their witnesses. Lawyers representing the Saudi government denied allegations of witness tampering, saying the claims were "based on hearsay within hearsay".
The defence also accused the plaintiffs' lawyers of trying to gain a "tactical advantage" in legal deposition interviews with witnesses.
In 2016, both chambers of the US Congress voted to override President Barack Obama's veto of the bill that gave 9/11 families the right to sue Saudi Arabia.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/911-lawsuit-us-judge-saudi-officials-must-testify

Saudi accountability now: Tell the whole truth about 9/11

By TERRY STRADA

Nineteen long years after the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans, the families of loved ones killed on Sept. 11 are demanding the full disclosure and accounting of Saudi culpability for the crimes of that day.

I issue this call on behalf of my husband, Tom Strada, and all the innocent people killed and injured at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and on all four of the flights, as well as the thousands whose health has been irreparably harmed from breathing in the Ground Zero air.

The Kingdom, an authoritarian state that murders its own citizens for political advantage, continues to dodge accountability for its role in the 9/11 attacks. And as if that is not enough, our own Department of Justice facilitates the Saudis’ dodge by continuing to harbor the Kingdom’s secrets.
In March 2018, 9/11 families served a subpoena on the FBI for information in its possession regarding the Sept. 11 attacks, one of the most investigated events of our lives. Although the FBI and DOJ have produced about 5,000 pages of documents about what it calls an “active” investigation of Saudi government agents’ involvement in supporting the first arriving 9/11 hijackers, Attorney General William Barr has refused to provide some of the most important evidence we have requested concerning the Kingdom’s involvement, making the remarkable claim that this evidence about actions of Saudi government agents nearly 20 years ago is a “state secret” of the United States. A bipartisan trio of U.S. senators noted the FBI’s anomalous handling of the subpoena in a letter to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz citing apparent “major abnormalities.”
Americans know that Osama Bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and that Saudi Arabia was the epicenter of both terrorist financing and jihadist ideology during the two decades leading up to 9/11. Today, I want to be sure that the world knows of the direct link between the Kingdom and the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
FBI documents are unequivocal that three Saudi government agents have been “main subjects” of the FBI’s 9/11 investigation, and that those agents provided “substantial assistance” to the hijackers. Two of those Saudi government agents were associated with the Kingdom’s embassy and consulate in the U.S.
Instead of acknowledging the Kingdom’s malignant role in nurturing the jihadist threat for years before 9/11 and taking responsibility for their agents' direct role in supporting the hijackers, however, the Saudis have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lawyers and more foreign agents working hard, sometimes surreptitiously, to hide evidence that will show their involvement in 9/11. Their work is often callously hidden behind technical legal arguments, but always to evade responsibility for the malicious acts of their own employees whom they sent to the U.S., even as Saudi government actors continue to murder Americans in the name of radical Islam, most recently at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla., on Dec. 6, 2019.
Enough is enough. The DOJ needs to stop cowering to the Saudis and providing them a cloak of secrecy. I want the Saudis to know that the victims' family members, and those injured, will never stop fighting for accountability and justice. America’s allies do not dodge accountability and hide evidence when their government agents conspire to kill Americans.
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-saudi-accountability-now-20200911-3iadxata2ndw5l32ctxadirgbm-story.html

New UN Report Recommends ICC Investigate Possible War Crimes by All Sides—Including US-Backed Coalition—in Yemen

By Brett Wilkins
"Yemen has been ravaged in ways that should shock the conscience of humanity," said one of the report's authors.
A United Nations report published this week calls on the U.N. Security Council to refer alleged war crimes committed by all sides in Yemen's civil war to be referred to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution.
The report (pdf), states its authors, the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen (GEE), found "reasonable grounds to believe that the parties to the conflict have committed and continue to commit serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, some of which may amount to war crimes." 
It cites U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition airstrikes that have killed thousands of civilians, the Saudi-led blockade that has exacerbated the famine and disease that have killed at least tens of thousands of people, and a wide range of human rights violations by both Yemeni government forces and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, including unlawful imprisonment and killing, forced disappearances, and use of child soldiers. 
"All parties continue to show no regard for international law or the lives, dignity, and rights," a statement accompanying the report said, adding that there are "no clean hands" in the conflict. 
"After six unremitting years of armed conflict in Yemen, the multi-party war continues with no end in sight for the suffering millions caught in its grip," the report states.
"Whether through ongoing airstrikes, the crippling blockade, indiscriminate artillery attacks, impeding humanitarian relief supplies and access to food and healthcare, harm from landmines, arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances, widespread displacement, assaults on civil society and minorities, recruitment and use of children, gender-based violence, and endemic impunity, Yemen remains a tortured land," it says. 
GEE member Melissa Parke said upon the report's release that "Yemen has been ravaged in ways that should shock the conscience of humanity." 
For the first time, GEE called for a criminal investigation of the worst abuses detailed in the report, urging the Security Council "to refer the situation in Yemen to the International Criminal Court, and to expand the list of persons subject to Security Council sanctions." 
While not accused of war crimes by GEE, Britain, France, Iran, the United States, and—for the first time—Canada were called out in the report, which said their arms sales to warring parties are "helping to perpetuate the conflict."
Last April, President Donald Trump vetoed a bipartisan congressional resolution that would have forced an end to U.S. military funding and involvement in the five-year war. The Senate subsequently failed to override the president's veto. 
Despite being one of the world's worst human rights violators, Saudi Arabia has long enjoyed warm relations with the United States. Trump used the occasion of a March 2018 White House visit by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to tout the $12.5 billion worth of warplanes, missiles, warships, and other weapons the Saudi regime has purchased from U.S. corporations during his tenure.
The State Department was criticized last month by leading Democratic lawmakers for what Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) called a "sham" declaration of a national security "emergency" to sell arms to the Saudis. 
According to a new book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward, Trump also boasted about protecting the crown prince, whom the CIA and other countries' intelligence agencies believe ordered the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi. 
"I saved his ass," Trump allegedly bragged. 

 https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/11/new-un-report-recommends-icc-investigate-possible-war-crimes-all-sides-including-us

DAY OF EVIL When was 9/11 and what happened on the date of the attack?


Tariq Tahir
THE horrific events of 9/11 continue to shape the world we live in, almost two decades after they took place.
Thousands were killed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania.
 The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center had planes flown into them by terrorists
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The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center had planes flown into them by terroristsCredit: Getty Images

When did the attacks take place?

On September 11, 2001, a group of al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners.
Two planes - American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 75 - crashed into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City.
8.46am - The first American Airlines plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center
9.03am - Just 20 minutes later, a second plane crashed into the South Tower
9.37am - Later, a third plane then hit the Pentagon in Washington DC
10.03am - A fourth plane crashed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as passengers fought with the hijackers on the flight.
9.59am - The South Tower was the first to collapse after burning for around 56 minutes.
10.28am - The North Tower fell not long after
 The horrific events of 9/11 continue to shape the world we live in, 19 years after they took place
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The horrific events of 9/11 continue to shape the world we live in, 19 years after they took placeCredit: Getty - Contributor

How many people died in the terror attack on the World Trade Center?

Of the 2,996 who died on 9/11, including the 19 hijackers, 2,606 were killed at the World Trade Center and the surrounding area.
Both towers collapsed following the impact, with debris causing more deaths and injury on the streets below.
Many people including the emergency response teams lost their lives trying to save others. It was the worst loss of life due to a terrorist incident on US soil.
Those killed included:
  • 2,606 killed in or around the World Trade Center
  • 67 British people
  • 300 New York firefighters
 The Falling Man is one of the most-remembered photos from the attack
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The Falling Man is one of the most-remembered photos from the attackCredit: Getty
Among those who died was “The Falling Man”, a figure photographed falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 9.41am.
Many of those trapped in the towers threw themselves out of windows as they realised they wouldn't be able to make it out in time.
The person in the photograph has never been identified, but it's thought he worked at the Windows of the World restaurant in the North Tower.
About 40 per cent - or 1,109 victims - of the reported 2,753 missing from the Twin Towers remain unidentified.
 Smoke pours from the twin towers of the World Trade Center after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001
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Smoke pours from the twin towers of the World Trade Center after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001
In 2011, 10 years after the attacks, American officials said more than 18,000 people were still suffering from illnesses linked to the dust. Osama bin Laden, the  founder of Al-Qaeda, orchestrated the attacks. Bin Laden was finally hunted down and killed by US forces in May of 2011, nearly 10 years following 9/11.
 The memorial to those killed sits in the shadow of the One World Trade Center, which replaced the Twin Towers
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The memorial to those killed sits in the shadow of the One World Trade Center, which replaced the Twin TowersCredit: Getty - Contributor

Where is the memorial?

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum is at the original World Trade Center site.
The memorial features two huge, deep pools at the base of the old towers.
Around the edges of the pools, each almost an acre in size, the names of those who were killed in the attacks are embossed in bronze panels.
It includes the names of 2,996 people killed by al-Qaeda in New York, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.
 
Heroic first responders die and thousands battle crippling illness after being poisoned by toxic fumes from 9/11 terror attacks

New York City Marks 9/11 at a Time of Harrowing Loss

By Michael Gold
As they memorialize a past tragedy, New Yorkers face another profound and deadly crisis that is not yet over.
The mourners entering the plaza wore face masks, and the teary, intimate hugs of years past were replaced by awkwardly choreographed fist bumps. When the bells tolled at 8:46 a.m., marking the moment the first jet smashed into the north tower 19 years ago, those gathered stood at somber attention, trying to draw comfort from neighbors required to stand six feet apart.
The solemn ceremonies held at and near the Sept. 11 memorial in Lower Manhattan on Friday provided a poignant resonance in the face of a pandemic that has crippled the country for months and brought particularly devastating loss to New York City.
Outside the memorial plaza, a widow holding a picture of her husband admitted that the anxiety she normally felt on this anniversary was compounded by her fears over the coronavirus. A woman who lost her cousin when the Twin Towers fell equated the dedication of rescue workers in 2001 with the toil of health care professionals this year.A retired firefighter said the lingering effects of the virus made him think of the continued ailments suffered by emergency workers who inhaled toxic dust, smoke and fumes at the site of the attack.Even the notable politicians who attended, including Vice President Mike Pence and Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic candidate for president, made concessions to the current threat. They, too, wore masks, gave no speeches and distanced themselves as they stood among the crowd.It has been 19 years since passenger jets hijacked by terrorists slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost, some 2,700 of them in New York, in the deadliest attack in the country’s history, a blow to America’s psyche. Now, the United States confronts a far deadlier calamity. During the pandemic, the United States has exceeded the death toll of Sept. 11, 2001, by orders of magnitude. In New York City alone, more than 23,000 people have died of the virus.
In both tragedies, the eyes of the nation turned to New York, looking to see how a city brought to its knees would stagger back to recovery.
“It’s two of the most traumatic things that have ever happened to New York City, and it’s probably changed it forever,” said Diane Massaroli, whose husband, Michael, was killed in the World Trade Center.
“We just have to find a different way to live now,” she said, her hands clutching a bouquet of roses and an old wedding photograph. “Like I had to find a different way to live then.”
Though the city has rebounded significantly from a spring when it was the epicenter of the pandemic and hundreds were dying daily, the crisis has not ended. The threat of Covid-19 still lurks.
Having already transformed so many aspects of daily life, the pandemic also injected a note of tension into one of the city’s most sacred commemorations.
Amid concern over gathering, there was no platform where readers took turns at a microphone, honoring the victims by reciting their names. This year, the list was read and recorded in advance, then broadcast online and at the plaza.
Frustrated by the change, the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which honors a firefighter who died while responding to the attack, decided to hold a simultaneous memorial just blocks away.
When the 9/11 memorial said that it would do away with its annual Tribute in Light, in which two blue beams of light are projected over the city until the dawn of Sept. 12, its decision was quickly reversed after it provoked outrage from some victims’ families, elected leaders and police and firefighter unions.
Also planned for the day had been an F-18 jet flyover, an announcement that drew fierce backlash from city residents shaken from its echoes of the day when planes were used as deadly weapons. The Department of Defense later canceled the event after a request from City Hall, a City Hall spokesman said.
Still, politicians and civic leaders gathered at the 9/11 memorial in a display of unity at a time more often marked by bitter partisan division. That included Mr. Pence, Mr. Biden and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, who exchanged genial greetings despite their disagreements.
Mr. Biden stopped to comfort a woman in a wheelchair holding a picture of her son, who had died at age 43. The former vice president, who lost his own son to cancer in 2015, took the image and looked it over.
“It never goes away,” he said of grief. The woman, 90, echoed his words.
As is customary for presidential candidates on Sept. 11, Mr. Biden said he would be following tradition and suspending campaigning for the day, including pausing ads in the midst of a bitter contested election.
After the memorial in New York, he traveled to Shanksville, Pa., where President Trump and his wife, Melania, also attended a memorial service.
“Our sacred task, our righteous duty and our solemn pledge is to carry forward the noble legacy of the brave souls who gave their lives for us 19 years ago,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Pence and his wife, Karen, also appeared at the ceremony held by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation at Zuccotti Park, where around 125 relatives of 9/11 victims read the names of those who died on a stage, sharing emotional messages to those they lost.
As she took her turn reading names, Sue Levy, whose nephew, Jason Cayne, was killed in the attack, thanked police and firefighters for their sacrifices on Sept. 11. Then, she thanked the emergency responders and frontline workers who have responded to the pandemic.
Ms. Levy, a nurse who lives in New Jersey, said later that she thought the two calamities were remarkably similar.
“Family members were just snatched away from you,” Ms. Levy said. Mr. Pence and his wife, Karen, read biblical passages during the ceremony.
“I pray these ancient words will comfort your loss and ours,” Mr. Pence said, before reading the words from Psalm 23. He then went to pay a visit to Ladder Company 10 and Engine Company 10, the fire units stationed closest to the World Trade Center and that were among first to respond to the attack.In the months that New York City has grappled with the pandemic, city leaders and elected officials have often invoked 9/11 as a rallying point, citing it as a moment when New Yorkers exhibited tremendous resilience in the face of a devastating crisis.“People grieved with us, but they also admired New York City in that moment of crisis,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday. “And now we find ourselves in a new and different crisis, and once again, people all over this country, people all over this world are looking at this city with tremendous awe.”Several historians acknowledged the parallels between the tragedy that befell the city on Sept. 11, 2001, and the persistent crisis that New Yorkers were living through now.
“Everyone in New York knew someone who was killed on 9/11. And everyone in New York now knows somebody who died of Covid-19,” said Louise Mirrer, the president of the New-York Historical Society. “And people were similarly uncertain and terrified.”
Still, historians cautioned against drawing too neat a comparison. Chief among the distinctions, they said, is that the pandemic continues, and we don’t know when it will end.
“We’re not through this crisis yet,” said Mary Marshall Clark, an oral historian who has been interviewing New Yorkers about their experiences during the pandemic. “We’re not sure what the new demands are going to be."
Ms. Clark, the director of Columbia University’s Center for Oral History Research, had helped lead a project to interview New Yorkers about their experiences of 9/11. When the pandemic struck, she and her colleagues embarked on a similar endeavor to document it.
“People are still processing this and what it will mean for them and their families and their safety,” Ms. Clark said. Matthew Vaz, a professor at the City College of New York, said that the virus, like the 9/11 attack, had thrown the city into a kind of identity crisis.
But the attack on the World Trade Center created a definitive physical scar — a hole in the ground, a space in the skyline — from which the city could rebound and rally around.
The impact of the virus has been more pervasive and systemic, Mr. Vaz said, making the city’s path to recovery less clear. Yet New York’s history has been filled with adversity confronted and overcome, Ms. Mirrer said.
“So many times, New York has really been on the verge of destruction,” she said. “It’s remarkable to see the city’s resiliency over time.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/nyregion/9-11-ceremony-September-11th.html

Express Tribune journalist Bilal Farooqi arrested in Karachi for 'defaming Pakistan Army'

Bilal Farooqi, a senior journalist associated with English-language daily The Express Tribune, was allegedly taken into custody from his home in Karachi's DHA neighbourhood by Defence police on Friday evening, according to his family, friends and official sources.
Karachi police chief, Additional Inspector General Ghulam Nabi Memon, confirmed to Dawn that "Bilal Farooqui of Express Tribune" had been "arrested by the station investigation officer (SIO) of Defence police".
Memon said Farooqi was "wanted in FIR No. 613/2020 u/s 500/505 PPC of PS Defence. dated 9.9.2020”.
Earlier, a senior police officer, who requested anonymity, told Dawn that the FIR against Farooqi was under Sections 500 and 505 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Sections 11 and 20 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca), 2016, on September 9 on the complaint of a private citizen.
Farooqi works as a news editor at the newspaper, according to a report published in ET.
In a tweet, journalist Ebad Ahmed said Farooqi was taken into custody from his home by "two men in plainclothes accompanied by two policemen".

He said police later visited his home again and officials informed Farooqi's wife that he had been detained at a police station in DHA. "Police have taken possession of Bilal’s phone," the journalist added.


According to the contents of the FIR reviewed by Dawn, the complainant, Javed Khan, a resident of Majeed Colony in Landhi, said that he is a machine operator at a factory in the Landhi area. He said he visited a restaurant in DHA Phase-II Extension on Sept 9 where he checked his Facebook and Twitter accounts and found "highly objectionable material" shared by Farooqi on the two platforms.


The complainant claimed that "highly provocative posts" had been shared by Farooqi against the Pakistan Army and that the same also contained material pertaining to religious hatred.
Khan alleged that Farooqi had "defamed" the Pakistan Army and such social media posts may be used by hostile elements for their "nefarious designs". Therefore, legal action should be taken against him, he said.
The specific posts which led to the filing of the complaint could not be immediately ascertained.
Meanwhile, the Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ), in a statement released later in the evening, said "that the arrest of Bilal was part of the nefarious and concerted campaign to gag the free and independent voices".
The statement observed that "Bilal Farooqi, an active journalist who also remained executive committee of the KUJ, has been an educated and responsible youth, who never indulged in any kind of violation of Pakistani laws".
"His only crime is that he dissents with ruling elites and raises his voice for the betterment and a progressive society," remarked Ashraf Khan, the KUJ president.
Ahmed Khan Malik, the KUJ's secretary-general demanded his immediate release. "We demand withdrawal of false charges against Bilal, and he must be released immediately," said Malik

Rapes of Woman and 5-Year-Old Fuel Outrage in #Pakistan


By Salman Masood and Mike Ives
The girl’s burned body was found two days later. The woman was dragged from her car. The two cases have focused the country’s attention on its handling of sexual abuse.
A 5-year-old girl in southern Pakistan was raped, hit on the head and set on fire. Five days later, a woman in the country’s east was dragged from her car and sexually assaulted on a highway in front of her children.
The two episodes, which occurred hundreds of miles apart, have prompted protests and an outpouring of rage in a country that critics say has a toxic culture surrounding sexual assaults and child abuse.
Hashtags calling for justice for the victims have been shared widely on social media by ordinary people, opposition politicians and high-profile athletes, including Shan Masood, a member of Pakistan’s national cricket team.
“We cannot lose our youth to such disgusting and inhuman acts,” Mr. Masood wrote on Twitter. “Keeping quiet is contributing to the issue. We must stand up to these cowards and take action.”
Pakistan has been plagued by episodes of rape and child abuse over the years. Victims are often treated as criminals or blamed for the assaults. Human rights activists have long said that officials at all levels of the national government have regularly failed to address the issue in a comprehensive way.“There is a lot of indifference” to such cases from Pakistani officials, said Mehnaz Akber Aziz, a member of the opposition in Pakistan’s National Assembly and a prominent children’s rights advocate. “There is no empathy, only silence. That is changing, because the public is pushing back.”Ms. Aziz said that most of the child rape and abuse victims come from small towns or villages, and their cases do not usually catch fire on social media. Officials generally do not visit them either, she said, and perpetrators are often quietly released after public outrage has subsided — lending a sense of impunity after the crimes.
“You are signaling to these people, the rapists, that ‘It’s OK, you can continue doing what you’re doing and there will be a way out, even if you’re arrested,’” she said.
But she said that the public rage over the girl’s killing was the largest groundswell of anger in a case of child rape and murder that she had seen on social media in recent memory — outrage that has had the government scrambling to respond.
The girl was kidnapped last Friday after going to buy cookies at a shop in the southern port city of Karachi, the police said. Her body was found two days later, and an autopsy indicated that she had been sexually assaulted.
The police have arrested more than 20 suspects in the case, and investigators said on Wednesday that one had admitted to kidnapping and murder.
In the second case, the woman was driving late Tuesday night with her three children from Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab Province, to the city of Gujranwala, when her car ran out of fuel. She called the police, and as she waited for assistance, two men, both believed to be in their 30s, broke the driver’s-side window with sticks and stones and dragged her and her children off the road.
The woman was raped multiple times, and the men stole her A.T.M. cards, jewelry and cash, the police said. The Lahore police chief, Muhammad Umar Sheikh, later said that an extensive search for the culprits was underway.
But the police chief also appeared to blame the woman for the crime, questioning why she had been traveling late at night without an adult male companion, and why she had not checked to see that her car had enough fuel for the journey. The backlash was swift.
Social media users — writing under the hashtag #motorwayincident — several leading politicians, television talk show hosts and celebrities called for him to be fired.
“If a top police officer can openly engage in victim blaming imagine how junior policemen treat rape survivors,” Ailia Zehra, a Pakistani journalist, wrote on Twitter on Thursday. “THIS is why women don’t report sexual crimes.”
Shireen Mazari, the minister for human rights in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s cabinet, condemned the comments by the police chief, who serves in a province that is controlled by Mr. Khan’s governing party. “Nothing can ever rationalize the crime of rape,” she wrote on Twitter. “That’s it.”
Dr. Mazari did not immediately respond to a request for comment early on Friday.
Reacting to both cases, Mr. Khan said in a series of tweets on Thursday that officials would bring the perpetrators to justice. “Such brutality and bestiality cannot be allowed in any civilized society,” Mr. Khan said.
Pakistan ranks 147th out of the 182 countries that have ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to an index on children’s well-being published by the KidsRights Foundation, a research and advocacy group in the Netherlands. The index measures the prevalence of child labor and rates of mortality and malnutrition, among other criteria.
Pakistan’s consistently poor ranking in the survey proves that “policymakers and state machinery in Pakistan have utterly ignored welfare and rights of children,” Ms. Aziz, the opposition lawmaker and children’s rights advocate, wrote last year in The News International, a major English-language daily in Pakistan.
Some sexual assault cases in the country have led to calls for a national reckoning.
In 2015, Pakistan was rocked by accusations that at least 280 children under the age of 14 in villages in eastern Punjab Province had been subjected to sexual abuse by a gang of 15 men, who made videos to extort money from the children and their parents.
More recently, the case of Muhammad Faizan, an 8-year-old boy who was raped and killed in the eastern Pakistani city of Chunian, drew more outrage and protests. People surrounded the local police station and accused officers of neglect.
There are signs that the country is moving to tackle the issue.
Under legislation that Parliament passed in March, anyone who kidnaps, rapes or murders a minor can face life imprisonment or the death penalty. On Friday, Ms. Aziz said that the measure should be the start of a broad array of reforms to promote child welfare.
But to her knowledge, Ms. Aziz said, no one had been prosecuted under the legislation so far.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/world/asia/pakistan-rape-5-year-old-lahore-karachi.html