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۔