Wednesday, September 29, 2021
#Pakistan - Curbing media independence
By Usama Khilji
THERE has been a lot of talk by government ministers and on social media about the menace of ‘fake news’ — a term for misinformation and disinformation popularised by former US president Trump to delegitimise media criticism against him — and how the near mysterious Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) proposal is the saviour we have all been waiting for so that Pakistanis can finally access authentic information. Does this assumption hold legitimacy?
The PMDA is also said to be the solution to all the problems faced by the Pakistani media — delayed salaries, wage determination, content moderation, etc but the supporters of this proposal, mostly only the proposers themselves as the proposed ordinance has been rejected by all major stakeholders including journalist bodies, bar councils, civil society groups, digital media collectives, etc are conveniently overlooking two major factors.
First, the state has played a major role in contributing to the financial crunch the media faces, as well as the dismal state of media freedom in the country. The state covertly stopped distribution of newspapers that merely reported events that took place in government meetings, had cable operators take television channels that were critical of state policies to the end of the channel list, and stopped advertising in these channels and newspapers that were critical, which undermined the right to information of readers and viewers of government messaging apart from leading to salary cuts only because the journalists chose to stick to reporting the truth rather than toeing the state’s line. Such acts created an environment where only media platforms willing to do public relations for the state have been able to function freely, with anchors even there feeling pressure to toe a certain line.
Read: This is the first govt that has left media completely independent, says PM Imran
Major opposition figures have been barred from appearing on television, and anchors that asked tough questions have lost their jobs one by one, in most cases their production crews going down with them as well. I have been asked by television producers to ‘please keep our jobs in mind’ when commenting on issues deemed unpleasant by the state, clearly pointing to the chilling effect all these acts have had on the media where self-censorship is now routine and jobs are held hostage.
The way forward lies in working with the media and accepting its responsibility and rights.
Second, the PMDA in its current form will cause further job insecurity in the media. When media organisations have to renew licences every year — much like how non-governmental organisations have had to do in the past few years — at the whim of a state-controlled regulator, they will constantly be navigating a thin line, walking on eggshells, and reflecting all other associated idioms that describe a media having a gun held to its head in the form of licence non-renewal, exorbitant fines or jail terms for violating government-mandated terms. The media organisations and their employees that choose to stay independent will have to suffer more.
Should the media be regulated by the very state that the media is supposed to hold accountable? The answer is a no-brainer, but state propaganda is washing logic away. A Grade 22 officer of the government has no business heading a ‘ministry of truth’, and should remain the figment of a fictional Orwellian state. The PMDA also will have its own tribunal that can only be appealed against at the Supreme Court, again creating hurdles in the way of due process, and lending an additional portfolio of arbitration of truth to the state-run regulator.
This brings us to the menace of ‘fake news’. Misinformation is often news that is inaccurate or false and shared without the intention to deceive. Disinformation, on the other hand, is information that is shared to deliberately deceive and mislead the public. Whereas the news media is of course given to errors, and disinformation can also be fed through it, the state is in no position to arbitrate the truth. The state has a strong information apparatus through which it can publicise its own version of matters, including on digital and social media.
More importantly, what will be the consequences of disinformation being shared by state officials and institutions? Branding citizens as traitors without any proof, spreading rumours about political opponents, deliberately delegitimising journalists and activists that report facts and hold the state accountable, and spreading propaganda. Even Fatima Jinnah was accused of being a ‘foreign agent’ by dictator Ayub Khan with no evidence in order to win an election, so such tactics are not new either. Not to forget ministers accusing opposition members of smuggling drugs, claiming there are videos, but never making them public. Will there ever be accountability for such excesses and partisan propaganda?
The way forward rests in working with the media and accepting its responsibility and rights provided by the Constitution. The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, the All Pakistan Newspaper Society, the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors, the Pakistan Broadcasters Association and the Association of Electronic Media Editors and News Directors have put up a united front rejecting the PMDA, held a protest outside parliament during the president’s address to a joint sitting, and the government is now holding consultations with a range of stakeholders on the PMDA.
What was the purpose of the information ministry in creating such a hullabaloo? Why does the government not consult stakeholders first, like the human rights ministry did for the journalists’ protection bill when it comes to these regulatory proposals? And will the consultations take the feedback into account, or will it be another eyewash to borrow legitimacy and then go ahead with what was decided before? Neither is going to be easy, but the state must make apparent its desire to protect the media and work with it to strengthen accountability in Pakistan rather than just protect its own reputation.
Media groups are fully capable of strengthening their own code of conduct for fact-checking, and for regulating rights and wages of their workers which is of utmost importance. If they do not act, the state may abuse this loophole to occupy further space as it is attempting to right now.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1648890/curbing-media-independence
US generals express concern over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in wake of Taliban takeover of Afghanistan
‘Living in a cave is no life’: Pakistani villagers trapped by Taliban and poverty
“Don’t talk to me about the government. They don’t help.” Ninety-year-old Shah Mast is angry. He has been living in the cave he calls home for seven years, ever since an offensive by the Pakistan army against the Islamist militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) destroyed his home. “I swear to God, no one has helped us. No charity or anything,” he says. In 2014, the Pakistani army began an offensive against insurgents in the Tirah valley close to Afghanistan, after negotiations with the militants broke down. What followed was a violent campaign to root out the fighters, whose main objective is to overthrow the Pakistani government. In August 2017, Lt Gen Asif Ghafoor announced the mission complete, but the battle continues today. While the Taliban was sweeping to power in neighbouring Afghanistan a month ago, the TTP carried out more attacks against the Pakistan army in the border region of North Waziristan, just south of Tirah. In September alone, 10 soldiers were killed in TTP attacks. The recent US withdrawal from Afghanistan threatens to fuel instability in the mountainous border region, meaning those displaced may never be able to return home.
The Pakistani government in Islamabad is refusing to grant the families the status of internally displaced people (IDPs) as officials say they can return home. But the army will not let them return while the fighting continues. Even if they were allowed, many families living in the caves could not afford the journey and their homes have been destroyed.Militant Islamist groups around the world have been emboldened by what they see as the Taliban victory over the US, but none more so than those in Pakistan. On 5 September, a suicide bomber drove his motorcycle into a Frontier Corps post in Quetta, a city in Balochistan province, killing at least four of the paramilitary force and injuring 18 civilians. The TTP claimed responsibility for the attack. On 20 September, the England men’s and women’s cricket teams called off their tour of Pakistan, citing security concerns. Furthermore, Afghanistan’s access to financial resources, such as grants and loans, has been frozen by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank after the Taliban’s takeover of the country. Without the funds to purchase goods from Pakistan and with foreign direct investment – a major source of external financing in developing countries – being severely curtailed, Pakistan’s economic woes look likely to intensify. According to the World Bank, Pakistan’s rate of inflation is close to 10%, nearly 4 percentage points above that of war-torn Afghanistan. As a country reliant on imports, including energy and now food, Pakistan is dangerously susceptible to the price fluctuations that drive inflation. Sitting on his bed in the hot and airless cave, Mast says he and his family are in trouble. With rising inflation and a lack of daily labouring work for his sons, the family are struggling to feed themselves. He has three wives and 21 children – nine sons and 12 daughters. One of his sons is still able to find work in a nearby quarry and another is a shepherd. He says he would have liked his daughters to be educated and to work, but this has not been an option. “We can’t afford food, so how could we afford books?” Mast was forced to flee his village in the Tirah valley of Pakistan with about 50 members of his extended family. He travelled on foot, first crossing over the border to Nangarhar in Afghanistan, before crossing back into Pakistan and finally settling more than 80 miles (130km) from his home in the cave complex close to the village of Charwazgi Mulankali, near Peshawar. The journey was a gruelling one. He and his family walked for three days over the harsh rocky landscape. They led the goats and sheep saved from the attacks, but lost many of them on the journey. According to Mast, there was no warning from the army of their impending attack and the animals were all they had time to take. “We had to leave late at night when the strikes started. We left everything behind.” Perched above an arid riverbed and pockmarked across the rugged hillside, the cave complex houses about 100 families, all from Tirah. The dark caves keep their heat in the winter and stay cool in the summer, fortunately for the residents as temperatures can reach 40C (104F) in Peshawar. Inside the caves, families hang colourful sheets and fabric over the walls for decoration and to conserve the heat. Each home relies on solar power for electricity and Mast hangs a single lightbulb and a small fan from the ceiling above his bed. Outside, soot climbs the walls from the fire lit daily for cooking. Fire pits and small clay ovens are dug into the ground outside the caves belonging to the women. Water is scarce, collected from a single well. For food, Mast and his family either sell or kill one of his son’s flock, or walk across the rocky riverbed and up the hill opposite to the highway that connects Peshawar to Jalalabad, where a scattering of shops line the road. Aftab Ali, 14, sits in a dark and sparsely decorated cave he shares with his parents and three siblings. Aftab wants to go to university to study medicine but with his family facing such hardship, he does not think that will now be possible. His father used to juggle two jobs as a day labourer and a nightwatchman at the industrial estate in nearby Bara, but his daytime work has all dried up. Aftab and his family have a similar story to Mast’s. Once fighting broke out between the TTP and the army, they were forced to flee and walked the same journey from Tirah to Charwazgi Mulankali. As the midday heat rises from the dry riverbed below the caves, young girls dressed in the traditional brown burqa begin to flow down the hillside from the local madrasa, or Islamic school. Aftab’s neighbour, Khayal Muhammad, watches them and laughs when he says the name of the village – Charwazgi Mulankali means the “village of scholars”. The irony is not lost on him. “There is only one primary school in the area. The problem is no one can afford the transport to get to the secondary school.” Muhammad is less concerned with the financial situation than with the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan. The increased security threat is hampering his chances of returning home. “Almost all the people living here in the caves want to go home, but the army won’t let us back as the situation is not safe,” he says. “The army didn’t have enough intelligence. When the villagers came out of their homes the army thought they were TTP.” Pakistan’s financial woes, and the prospect of an emboldened TTP wreaking havoc across the country, mean it is likely that the families will have to wait longer to return home. If the government recognised the community from Tirah as IDP, they might receive aid. Until then, Muhammad’s demands are simple: “Either recognise us as internally displaced people or allow us back to our homes. Living in limbo in a cave is no life.” https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/29/living-in-a-cave-is-no-life-pakistani-villagers-trapped-by-taliban-and-poverty
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
It's time to pull the plug on our toxic relationship with Pakistan
BY ARTHUR HERMANThere’s a familiar saying: Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. “Fool me three times, however, and all is forgiven” has become a good description of U.S. policy toward Pakistan in the post-Cold War era. For more than three decades, our supposed ally in South Asia has systematically lied to and manipulated successive presidential administrations — Republican and Democratic — in ways that have made the U.S. and the world less safe. Islamabad has been the recipient of more than $33 billion in American assistance since 2002, including $14 billion to combat terrorism and insurgents in the region even while Pakistan has been busily doing the opposite. In the wake of the debacle of withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, it’s time to radically reassess our policy toward Pakistan. It’s time for policymakers, past and present, to explain why we continue to provide assistance to a country that cozies up to our enemies; has proliferated nuclear technology to some of the worst governments on earth; and has betrayed our friendship time and again. Fool me once? That was when Pakistan, having violated commitments to the U.S. in the 1980s to not build a nuclear weapon, not only did so but proceeded to proliferate that knowledge via the A.Q. Khan network. That proliferation network secretly armed North Korea, and would have armed Iraq and Libya if the U.S. hadn’t intervened. Fool me twice? Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan gave safe haven to the most wanted man in the War on Terror, Osama bin Laden, for nearly a decade until U.S. special forces tracked him down in 2011. In addition, Pakistan’s military and secret service have continuously protected and assisted terrorist groups, including the Haqqani network and the Taliban, even as U.S. and NATO forces were fighting and dying to suppress the same groups. The third egregious breach in trust has been Pakistan’s increasingly cozy ties to China. The government accepted a $60 billion handout from China in 2013, formalizing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as part of China’s Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative. Today, Pakistan is all but a Chinese client state. For example, we know that China is training Pakistan’s intelligence services and that the People’s Liberation Army and Pakistani army are forging close links, including conducting joint military exercises and buying Chinese tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other military equipment. These aren’t the actions of an ally. The sad truth is, Pakistan has been playing a clever double game with the U.S., which has paid off handsomely for Islamabad but not for the peace and security of the region. Given that history, and in the wake of Pakistan’s support of the Taliban and its top security chief’s journey to Kabul to bless the new Afghan government, Washington should stop sales of military equipment to Pakistan and all economic assistance, and induce allies such as Britain and Saudi Arabia to do the same; migrate Pakistan from the “grey list” to the “black list” for the Financial Action Task Force’s sanctions against countries providing funding for terrorism, alongside Iran and North Korea; and impose sanctions on individual Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Pakistan Army officials, including suspending travel to the U.S. and freezing bank assets, just as we do with other officials involved in state-sponsored terrorism networks.Of course, Pakistan holds a wild card that, until now, has been the excuse for staying America’s hand: its nuclear arsenal. Critics argue that taking tough actions against Islamabad will encourage its leaders to “go rogue” with their nuclear program, including possibly supplying terrorist groups with nuclear technology. The fact is, Pakistan has been somewhat of a rogue nuclear player for some time. It never has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Indeed, as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs have demonstrated, there are always clandestine steps that can be taken that will limit or thwart Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions — provided the U.S. has the will to use them. The situation in Pakistan is not entirely bleak. There are those in the army and political institutions who understand that their country’s cozying up to terrorist groups, and to China, can only damage their country in the long term. As John Bolton put it in a recent Washington Post article, “Pakistan is the only government consisting simultaneously of arsonists and firefighters.” U.S. policy needs to encourage the firefighters to put the arsonists permanently out of business. So far, our pandering has allowed Pakistan to help set the rest of the region on fire. It’s time to make Pakistan realize we no longer will treat them as a friend or ally, until and unless they stop behaving like an enemy.
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/573686-its-time-to-pull-the-plug-on-our-toxic-relationship-with-pakistan
Need to fully examine Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan: US General Mark Milley
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/need-to-fully-examine-pakistan-s-role-in-afghanistan-us-general-mark-milley-101632853569411.html
Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari appoints Gen (R) Abdul Qadir Baloch as Coordinator on Balochistan Affairs
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/25536/
Monday, September 27, 2021
Fissure widens between Pakistani Army and ISI chiefs over control in Afghanistan
Taliban could get nukes from Pakistan due to Afghan withdrawal - Bolton
#Pakistan #PPP - Mission of PPP is to serve masses, says Bilawal
https://dunyanews.tv/en/Pakistan/621499-Mission-of-PPP-is-to-serve-masses,-says-Bilawal
Sunday, September 26, 2021
Pakistani Minorities ask government to protect their communal property
By Shafique Khokhar
An amendment to a 2001 ordinance threatens to multiply cases of illegal occupation. Christians, Sikhs and Hindus worried about their historic places of prayer. Civil society and religious leaders are calling for the restitution of stolen property.
Human rights activists and lawyers and religious leaders are asking the government to protect the communal property and places of worship belonging to minorities. The appeal came on September 23 during a conference organised by the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), during which participants dennounced that an amendment to the 2001 Ordinance on the Protection of Community Property risks multiplying cases of illegal occupation of property belonging to minorities.
Christians, Sikhs and Hindus fear that proposed changes to the law will deprive them of valuable historical property. According to Peter Jacob, director of the SECJ, the repeated attacks on sacred places cause great suffering and social unrest.
Historian Yaqoob Khan Bangash emphasised the social value of the common property of minorities, which should be safeguarded from corruption, the 'land mafia' and the government itself. Albert David, member of the Commission for Minority Rights, expressed the same view, calling for a total ban on the sale of community property. Humphrey Peters, Protestant bishop of Peshawar, on the other hand, pointed out that the rights of minorities are explicitly protected by the Pakistani Constitution.
In addition to blocking parliamentary approval of the amendments to the 2001 ordinance, the conference rapporteurs call on the authorities to take action to ensure that illegally stolen property is returned to the affected minorities.
The government should also act to address religious intolerance and ensure protection for minorities, as stipulated in a 2014 Supreme Court ruling.
According to various sources, Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Shiites are the most discriminated against minorities in Pakistan, a country of 212 million people, most of whom are ethnic Punjabis and Sunni Muslims.
http://asianews.it/news-en/Minorities-ask-government-to-protect-their-communal-property-54143.html
Pakistan will be exposed to international recrimination if the Taliban revert to their old ways.
WHILE the ramifications of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan are far from clear at this point, what can be said with certainty is that Pakistan appears ill-equipped to deal with the challenges that regional developments can potentially throw up.
Claiming vindication of the military strategists’ long-held view and policy on Afghanistan is one thing; buckling down to what changes that ‘win’ can bring and the need for fleet-footed policy responses is altogether another.
The US rightly got slammed for the manner in which it announced its departure from Afghanistan and executed the pullout. The Taliban saw it as a huge win with some justification as they had faced the US military might for two decades.
The Taliban fought the hi-tech juggernaut with small arms, improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers. Even if they found a few sanctuaries, succour and counsel in the erstwhile tribal areas of neighbouring Pakistan, during those 20 years, the win was theirs and theirs alone.
Pakistan will be exposed to international recrimination if the Taliban revert to their old ways.
Since they see the win as theirs alone, they don’t seem to be in the mood to listen to anyone including Pakistan, long seen by the international community as a benefactor and protector of the Afghan militant group with extraordinary influence over it.
The reality was evident when a senior Taliban leader in an address whose clips were shared on social media responded harshly to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s call for an inclusive government in Kabul. He used rather strong language and called into question the latter’s democratic credentials.
Of course, this is not to say Pakistan has zero leverage over the Taliban but merely to underline the complexity of the Afghan situation with different elements of the militant group such as the military and political pulling in different directions.
The success of the Taliban’s military and terror campaign, experts said, was also due to decentralised command structure. From recruitment, training to planning, targeting and executing attacks a lot was left to the local commanders.
Now that the task is to run the country and present a unified whole, that autonomy is proving difficult to curtail as is evident in old-style Taliban system of summary ‘justice’ ie brutal punishments and confining women, even schoolgirls, to quarters in so many areas of the country.
Understandably, this may be the view of the apologists who also maintain that the reborn Taliban leadership is not anything like what the world witnessed when they took power in 1996. Pakistan is among those nations that are pumping out this message daily.
Pakistan may be advocating global engagement with the ‘changed’ Taliban and arguing for Western funds to flow to Afghanistan to ward off hunger that large swaths of the population will soon be facing so that a flood of refugees doesn’t come knocking at its door soon.
But in the process it is also giving an undertaking of sorts that the Taliban will behave in a certain manner over the coming months and in the future. Ergo, leaving itself exposed to international recriminations if Kabul’s new rulers revert to their old ways.
In these columns over the past weeks, we have already discussed the new US priority: encirclement of China. Whether the Taliban defeated the US or the latter decided to refocus its energies and priorities on its new enemy is difficult to tell.
What is not is that from AUKUS to the Quad contacts and initiatives, the Biden administration now seems to have its sight set on one goal. As it tries to restrict China’s growing footprint in the Asia Pacific region and beyond, the US sees India as one of its main partners.
Pakistan’s astute military planners, I am sure, are already gaming multiple scenarios and the policy responses to those. However, one major piece is missing from the jigsaw. The importance of that piece can’t be mentioned enough.
It is the need for a consensus within the country on both the challenges and the response to those. National security and large chunks of foreign policy decisions are being made by the military, more than in the past, in the incumbent set-up which some of its key supporters call hybrid.
Neither parliament nor key opposition leaders have been consulted in any meaningful way in the past so many weeks. The odd briefing to a handful of parliamentary committee members at GHQ is not the same as seeking input from elected members representing the popular will.
However, that is proving difficult as with two years to go before elections, the governing party is not willing to lift its foot off the confrontation pedal as it believes that castigating and hounding the opposition for even uncommitted sins is a winning formula.
And if doing that vitiates the environment and divides society, it is a small price to pay. While the PTI government is easier to blame because of its leaders’ inflammatory statements and its visible persecution of opposition leaders, its backers are not.
This, despite the fact that in a hybrid set-up responsibility has to be shared by all partners for all actions. Talking of responsibility, the opposition is not blameless either. It is terribly fragmented and now seems to be fighting for crumbs off the ‘head table’ and is content with what it can pick up.
The main opposition PML-N and its top leaders have played the ‘good cop, bad cop’ game so many times that it has lost its utility. If I were a supporter of the party I’d be totally confused regarding its direction and whether to offer a fight or flight response.
The PML-N has chosen to appease a few it deems powerful at great cost. The most obvious being treated no better than a doormat more or less like the PPP also chose to do so. With new regional realities and the country’s economy tanking, one is left at the mercy of unaccountable institutions, decision-makers and hoping for miracles.
Fire Imran Khan or the speech writer? People ask after Pakistan PM’s mujahideen claim at UNGA
At the UNGA forum, Khan said the ‘mujahideen’ were considered ‘heroes’ and that former US President Ronald Reagan had invited them to the White House.Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is in a fix once again, and this time regarding his comments at the United Nations General Assembly. At the UNGA forum, Khan said the ‘mujahideen’ were considered ‘heroes’ and that former US President Ronald Reagan had invited them to the White House. “…According to a news item, he (Reagan) compared them (mujahideens) to the founding fathers of the United States. They were heroes!” Khan is reported to have said. PM Khan’s comments were met with harsh criticism. Pakistani journalist Gharidah Farooqi said it was an ‘international embarrassment’ that he was quoting from ‘fake news’ to launch Pakistan at the UNGA. She also called for the firing of his speech writer. Among those who lashed out at Khan was Pakistan Opposition leader Maryam Nawaz Sharif, who said, “Fire Imran Khan, not the speech writer. Bad SELECTION!” Meanwhile, academician and former Afghan diplomat Mahmoud Saikal said that Khan’s defense was poor and most of his facts were wrong. “The days of plausible deniability are over. The exposure of Pakistan will continue,” he tweeted.Pakistani journalist Naila Inayat, on the other hand, pointed out that this was not the first time Imran Khan had been caught claiming that Ronald Reagan had invited the mujahideen to the White House. She tweeted that he had made a similar claim in 2019 at an event of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Indian diplomat’s response The Pakistan PM also got a strong reply from Indian diplomat Sneha Dubey, who said that Khan had tarnished the image of the international forum by bringing in “internal matters and spewing falsehoods.” She asserted that terrorists enjoy a “free pass”, while those targeted by them (especially those coming from minority communities) had their worlds turned upside down. She alleged that Khan continued to defend acts of terror, which was unacceptable. “This is the country which is an arsonist disguising itself as a fire-fighter,” she said. https://theprint.in/go-to-pakistan/fire-imran-khan-or-the-speech-writer-people-ask-after-pakistan-pms-mujahideen-claim-at-unga/740330/
جمہوریت کیلئے جدوجہد کی تاریخ نصراللہ خان کے تذکرے کے بغیر ادھوری رہے گی، بلاول بھٹو
پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی (پی پی پی) کے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری کا کہنا ہے کہ جمہوریت کے لیے جدوجہد کی تاریخ نصراللّٰہ خان کے تذکرے کے بغیر ادھوری رہے گی۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے نوابزاہ نصراللّٰہ خان کی برسی پر پیغام دیتے ہوئے انہیں خراج عقیدت پیش کیا ہے۔
پی پی چیئرمین نے کہا کہ مرحوم پختہ سوچ رکھنے والے ہمہ گیر شخصیت کے مالک تھے۔
بلاول بھٹو نے کہا کہ نوابزادہ نصراللّٰہ رواداری اور جمہوری اقدار و روایات کے امین تھے۔
Saturday, September 25, 2021
Backing terror will be dangerous for you: Indian PM Narendra Modi's veiled warning to Pakistan on Afghanistan
Decoding Taliban apologist Imran Khan's speech at UNGA: A rant mixed with lies and fiction
#Pakistan - Imran Khan says Pashtuns are Taliban-sympathisers, leaders react
Imran Khan said three million Pashtuns are still there in Pakistan as refugees. ‘They do attack Pakistan,’ Imran Khan said drawing flak for spreading ‘misinformation about Pashtuns.
Elaborating how Pakistan has suffered being caught between Afghanistan and the United States, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan at his United Nations speech said the Pashtuns living in the semi-autonomous tribal belt along the Afghanistan and Pakistan border always had affinity and sympathy towards the Taliban. "Pakistan and the United States trained Mujahideen groups to fight for the liberation of Afghanistan. Amongst those Mujahideen groups were al Qaeda, were various groups from all over the world..these were considered heroes," Imran Khan said."Come 1989, the Soviets leave. So do the Americans.. Pakistan was left with 5 million Afghan refugees. We were left with sectarian militant groups which never existed before. And a year later, Pakistan was sanctioned by the US. We felt used," Imran Khan said."Fast forward 9/11. Pakistan is needed again by the US because now they are invading Afghanistan and that can't happen with the logistical support of Pakistan. What happens after that? The same Mujahideen that we have trained that fighting for occupation was a sacred duty, they turned against us. We were called collaborators," the Pakistan PM said.The statement by Imran Khan at the UN regarding Pashtuns supporting the Taliban is misleading & condemnable. This is a reflection of his regressive mindset. Pashtuns as a nation never supported the Taliban they are the victims of their extreme ideology,Aimal Wali Khan of ANP tweeted.
Pashtun Tahafuz Movement leader Mohsin Dawar took to Twitter and said this is misinformation that the Prime Minister is spreading on an international platform. "Just shocked at how the PM of Pakistan can describe Taliban as Pashtun nationalists. The Taliban is a project of Pakistan's Generals for decimating Pashtun identity. Does the PM really think that the world is so uninformed that he can sell such lies on the UNGA forum?" he tweeted.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/imran-khan-says-pashtuns-are-taliban-sympathisers-leader-reacts-101632567729241.html
Radical leader of Pakistan’s Red Mosque emboldened by Taliban takeover of Afghanistan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistan-red-mosque-taliban/2021/09/24/e6d0c0ec-1b50-11ec-bea8-308ea134594f_story.html
Friday, September 24, 2021
#PAKISTAN - Global Community Can't Turn Blind Eye to Human Rights Violations Under the Taliban
Mohammad Taqi@mazdaki.
That Taliban 2.0 is a reformed version of its earlier avatar is a myth, as the experience of the past one month has shown that it is a hardline regime both ideologically and politically.It took just over a month for the Taliban to draw a damning indictment from international human rights groups over its systemic dismantling of rights and liberties that the Afghans had gained over the past two decades. In their joint report published on September 21, 2021, Amnesty International (AI), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) have documented the jihadist terror machine’s rampant atrocities and the sweeping “crackdown since their seizure of Kabul little more than five weeks ago”. Both Afghans and longtime Afghanistan observers never had any illusions about the Taliban being a band of treacherous and vicious thugs and its Emirate 2.0 merely a revival of its Emirate 1.0 that was one of the most ruthless regimes of the 1990s. But timely documentation of the Taliban brutalities by independent rights organisations was imperative, to put on notice, both the jihadist regime, as well as the governments and groups that have insisted on calling it a changed entity. Despite being much more media-savvy this time around and professing to be reformed, the Taliban has not actually made any tangible effort to be seen as ‘reformed’. On the contrary, after usurping power it has catered to its rank and file that remains ideologically anchored in austere Islamism and its coercive enforcement. In fact, it seems that the jihadist enterprise has been trying to make a statement both at the policy and practice levels that it has ushered in an era of austere Islamist rule. For days, the Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid and other surrogates parroted that the new government would be a hama-shamool – an all-inclusive one. But the announced interim cabinet and its first expansion showed that it included all men and only the Taliban. And over a dozen of them are designated terrorists or former Guantanamo detainees. While a few non-Pashtun Taliban have been included in the cabinet, it is heavily packed with Pashtuns, especially those from Pakistan’s most trusted proxy, the Haqqani Network (HQN). The HQN’s current leader and the Taliban’s deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, became the interior minister and a dozen-odd alumni of Pakistan’s Haqqania Madrassa received assorted other portfolios. Mullah Ghani Baradar, a relative political pragmatist who has been the political face of the Taliban and its chief negotiator for the past several years, was demoted to deputy prime minister and left Kabul after being roughed up in a palace brawl by the HQN’s Khalil Haqqani and his men. An ill-tempered, religious hardliner Mullah Hassan Akhund was chosen the prime minister, as a compromise. The Taliban’s emir Haibatullah Akhundzada, who has not been seen or heard from in years, was pronounced the Supreme Leader and has ostensibly called for the implementation of sharia. The messaging is clear: it will be a hardline regime, both ideologically and politically. As the Taliban’s chief political patron, Pakistan is bent on ensuring that the regime remains under its total control. That Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate chief Lt General Faiz Hameed arrived in Kabul for a victory lap, days before the Taliban announced the caretaker setup, merely consolidated the impression. The Taliban for its part had no qualms celebrating its victory by parading its suicide bombers along with their suicide vests and vehicle-borne explosive devices. The propaganda event boastfully titled Fa’teh Zua’k – the Victorious Force – to glorify suicide bombers in particular, was aired on Afghanistan’s state television. The narrator described the use of suicide attacks and devices as the core skill of the Taliban’s military campaign. The Taliban has banned women presenters from appearing on the same state television, since the day it seized power! It was not a one-off event. The Taliban has put its Badri 313 Brigade or Command – housed in a kindergarten building – in charge of security in Kabul, especially the airport. The contingent, now equipped with US-made gear and weaponry, is drawn from a pool of suicide bombers, who had been trained for special operations and the so-called complex or spectacular terrorist attacks such as the ones that targeted the US and Indian diplomatic missions in Kabul. The Taliban has deployed two suicide attack units in Badakhshan and Kunduz, ostensibly against the remnants of resistance there. The Badri 313, which has been under the HQN’s wing, gets its name from the seventh-century Battle of Badr, in which 313 Muslim fighters under Prophet Muhammad are said to have defeated a much larger Meccan pagan army. The name is a carry-over from al-Qaeda proper’s military wing, 313 Brigade, which was founded in Camp al-Badr, outside Peshawar, Pakistan. According to al-Qaeda’s primary sources, the HQN’s founder Jalaluddin Haqqani had collaborated with al-Qaeda’s founders to get military training going for the so-called Afghan Arab jihadist, and had served as one of the earliest hosts to Osama bin Laden. The relationship between the HQN and al-Qaeda remains alive and well. According to the UN reports, Sirajuddin Haqqani remains prominent in al-Qaeda’s senior leadership. Not only did al-Qaeda participate in the Taliban’s August offensive, especially in the country’s north, but also celebrated the victory in a comprehensive statement. Delusional United States The US intelligence community has already warned that al-Qaeda fighters are returning to Afghanistan and could threaten mainland US in one-two years. But the Joe Biden administration continued to proclaim through the secretary of state Anthony Blinken that al Qaeda has been severely degraded. Be that as it may, the situation for Afghans is much more dire and urgent. And it was deeply disconcerting to hear Blinken’s testimony to the US Senate and Congress last week. While lawmaker after lawmaker excoriated Blinken for Biden’s blood-soaked blunder in Afghanistan, he was shockingly obstinate in defending those disastrous policies. Blinken simply could not bring himself to say that the Taliban must be held to account for the atrocities it has committed in just one month of grabbing power, let alone the past two decades. He kept repeating by rote the line that the Biden administration would judge the Taliban by its actions and not its words, as if its most recent brutalities are not actions taking place in the here and now but something ethereal that he can’t fathom. It almost seemed that Blinken was setting the stage for recognising the Taliban government and avoided giving a hard commitment to Congress.US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing examining the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, September 14, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein.The Biden administration’s tack appears rather straightforward. After having cut and run from Afghanistan, it wants to believe and have the public believe that al Qaeda and its Taliban allies are no longer a threat, and that ISIS-K is the more evil enterprise there and so long as the Emirate 2.0 partners with the US to target the local Da’eshis, it can get a free pass. Blinken also indicated that while reevaluating the US relationship with Pakistan in the context of the latter’s past behaviour, the Biden administration is looking at what it would need that country to do in the future. In other words, the Biden administration would seek some manner of overflight facility from Pakistan to launch the so-called over-the-horizon counterterrorism (CT) missions into Afghanistan, ostensibly to attack the ISIS-K. All in all, this game plan has disaster writ large. The parting US shot that pulverised an innocent Afghan family should have been a sentinel event calling for introspection in the Biden administration, but it clearly didn’t. The drone strike that murdered the Afghan family showed the limits of over-the-horizon CT efforts, including reliance on the Taliban for intelligence-sharing and Pakistan for overflight. This literally would mean more misery for the Afghan civilians as well as the US becoming beholden to the Taliban in addition to its patrons in Pakistan. It is in the context of the Biden administration’s pusillanimous reticence over the Taliban’s atrocities and the Taliban’s patrons going into overdrive to humanise the monster that the AI, FIDH, and OMCT’s joint briefing becomes all the more important. When governments try to shove the Taliban’s heinous acts under the rug of geopolitical expediency, rights defenders have to call the perpetrators out as well as call upon the bystanders to break their criminal silence and do their part. This timely joint briefing chronicles in detail the Taliban repression, reprisal and retributions against the Afghan population in general, and women in particular. An unmistakable footprint of violence In a little over a month, the Taliban has crushed dissent, fired upon and then banned protests. It has tortured journalists covering peaceful protests and forced media houses into self-censorship or overt restraint. Attacks on human rights defenders have become a norm. The regime has evicted and displaced civilians from their homesteads. The Taliban has practically banned girls’ education at secondary level and higher, prohibited women’s sports, forbidden female workers from their government jobs, induced women-owned businesses to shut down or female staff to stay off work. The regime has abolished the ministry for women and replaced it with the ministry for promoting virtue and curbing vice, a euphemism for its moral police. Despite the Taliban’s proclamations about a general amnesty for all, including those associated with the collapsed state, it has targeted and killed former government officials, servicemen and women, and anyone it deemed to be a “collaborator”. The consolidated report from the international human rights groups goes a long way to highlight the infinite human cost of the new phase in the 40-year-old Afghanistan conflict. It calls upon the Taliban and its regional locutors to abide by their word. The groups call upon the UN and the international community to facilitate and accommodate the Afghan refugees and migrants, especially the women. The report, released incidentally, on the eve of the Taliban asking to address the UN and eying Afghanistan’s seat there, rightly calls for the “international community must not turn a blind eye to the violations being committed by the Taliban. Taking concrete action at the UN Human Rights Council will not only send the message that impunity will not be tolerated but also contribute to preventing violations on a broader scale.” At a time when the Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid had the audacity to say that his regime would respect human rights only after it is recognised internationally as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, it was important to remind the world of the crass irony in this demand.In addition to putting the Taliban on the spot by documenting its viciousness, the rights groups’ briefing also shows how tenuous its tyrannical regime is. The Taliban, in all its brutal might and regional backing, is darned scared of the Afghan women coming out to protest its brutal rule. These brave women, out only in dozens not droves, are still doing the unthinkable. They have forced the Taliban regime to show both its true colours and its vile hand. When an austere, dark and dreary regime is foisted upon a people, the mere acts of smiling, wearing makeup and colourful clothes, and marching out in twos and tens are acts of high resistance. By trying to quell these nascent protests, the Taliban continues to prove the incompatibility of its medieval Islamist creed with both the current Afghan society and its historical values. The Taliban order is unjust and untenable; it could last a while, but its tyranny will not endure. https://thewire.in/south-asia/global-community-human-rights-violations-taliban-afghanistan