Tuesday, February 9, 2021

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Israel-Saudi Arabia peace: What would the benefits be? - opinion

A simulation by Wikistrat explored opportunities for Israel-Gulf relations in 2025 following the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The signing of the Abraham Accords at the White House on August 13, 2020 marked a watershed moment in the history of the Middle East and the Israeli-Arab conflict.
The signing of normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain shortly afterward demonstrated the transformation in the region, as a centuries-old conflict that had defined the Middle East began to fade away. While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other regional hotspots such as Libya and Yemen have not magically disappeared, the normalization agreements signed with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain marked the beginning of a new and optimistic era in the region. Despite this important development, challenges to regional security and stability persist. Policymakers in the region and a new administration at the White House now need to assess and prepare for how dynamics in the Middle East will play out in 2021, capitalizing on the new dynamics created by the Accords and the normalization agreements. A recent simulation conducted by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) explored under what circumstances war might break out in the Middle East in the year ahead. While war is a constant possibility in the region, an equally interesting and important scenario to explore is how a peace agreement between Israel and another Gulf state in the coming year could create new opportunities for regional stakeholders.
IN A recent simulation, Wikistrat, a crowdsourced consultancy, focused on exactly that. The simulation, which included 50 participants from different sectors and countries, explored opportunities for Israel-Gulf relations in 2025 following the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The collaborative discussion of the participants in the simulation highlighted potential opportunities between Israel and the Gulf States in various domains, giving a sense of the enormous potential for joint ventures and opportunities for the private sector in Israel and the Gulf States.
Areas of potential cooperation proposed in the simulation included the Internet of Things (IoT), FinTech and agro-tech, as well as educational partnerships between Riyadh and Tel Aviv, academic exchange programs between Israeli universities and academic institutions in the Gulf, and religious tourism initiatives between Mecca and Jerusalem. Other proposals included an innovation hub that would bring together start-ups and tech entrepreneurs from Israel and the Gulf.
Many of the proposed initiatives in the simulation align with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which includes the goals of economic diversification, an increase in renewable energy production, and encouragement of innovation in advanced technologies and entrepreneurship. Given Israel’s well-known local start-up scene, a collaboration between Israeli and Gulf-based entrepreneurs and engineers is an obvious next step.
Many of these ideas might seem far-fetched at the moment, given the lack of open relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and the kingdom’s commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative. However, until a few months ago, the same could have been said about Israel’s relations with the UAE and Bahrain. What seemed impossible only yesterday has become today’s reality. In this reality, in the last two months of 2020 alone, $1 billion in investments were made between Israel and the UAE and advertisements for the Abu Dhabi Investment Office are posted over the main roads in Jerusalem. The deepening relations between Israel and the Gulf States promise even greater potential.
With Saudi Arabia possibly joining the growing trend of normalization with Israel in the next few years, the potential opportunities for the private sector in Israel and the Gulf are almost limitless.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israel-saudi-arabia-peace-what-would-the-benefits-be-opinion-658284

Jailed Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul set to be released, sister says

By Ali Harb
Hathloul has been in prison for more than 1,000 days, where her family says she endured torture.
After more than 1,000 days in detention where she endured torture and hunger strikes, Saudi women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul is expected to be released on Thursday, her sister revealed in a tweet on Monday.
A Saudi court sentenced Hathloul to close to six years in prison late in 2020 on charges of contacting foreign organisations stemming from her human rights work. With time served and the court suspending part of the jail sentence, she was set for release in March.
"Today I was looking at the weekly work and looking at the agenda. Out of excitement, I cancelled all of my meetings on Thursday, 11 February and took the day off," Alia wrote.
"According to the judge's order, Loujain will be released this Thursday."
Her early release would come weeks into the administration of US President Joe Biden, who has vowed to "reassess" relations with Riyadh and prioritise human rights in its dealings with the kingdom. In a phone call with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan last week, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken stressed "several key priorities of the new administration including elevating human rights issues and ending the war in Yemen", according to a statement by the State Department.
1,000 days
Hathloul, a women's rights defender, had been engaged in public campaigns to allow women to drive.
Under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom lifted the driving ban on women but arrested Hathloul and others who lobbied for that right.
Hathloul was first kidnapped in 2018 in the United Arab Emirates, where she lived, and flown into Saudi Arabia against her will, where she faced a trial based on a loosely worded terror law often used to prosecute activists. She quickly became an international icon symbolising the crackdown on individual and political freedoms in Saudi Arabia. In 2019, Hathloul and fellow detained feminist activists Nouf Abdulaziz and Eman al-Nafjan received the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award that is given to prominent advocates of freedom of expression.
According to rights groups and family members, Hathloul faced sexual harassment and was tortured with the direct involvement of Saud al-Qahtani, a top aide to bin Salman.
Monday marked 1,000 days for Hathloul in jail. Human rights groups and women's rights activists had paid tribute for the jailed activist throughout the day.
"Today marks the 1,000th day that Saudi writer-activist Loujain Al-Hathloul has spent in prison for her work speaking up for women's rights," Pen America said in a tweet. "She now serves a nearly six-year prison sentence. We must continue calls to #FreeLoujain unconditionally and defend the #FreedomToWrite."
Biden's approach
The Biden administration, which had not taken office, had decried the sentence against Hathloul in December.
"Saudi Arabia's sentencing of Loujain al-Hathloul for simply exercising her universal rights is unjust and troubling," National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at the time.
"As we have said, the Biden-Harris administration will stand up against human rights violations wherever they occur."
Saudi officials, however, have argued that the cases of Hathloul and other activists are a judicial, not a political issue.
"They are not detained because of any human rights activity or activities related to women's emancipation. They are charged with serious crimes under our laws and everyone is equal under the law in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," bin Farhan, the foreign minister, said, when asked about Hathloul and other women rights defenders last October.
Seth Binder, advocacy officer at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), told MEE that the Biden administration's approach to human rights in the kingdom is a "dramatic change" from its predecessor.
Binder said that Hathloul's expected release is a "nice, positive" development. "But unless her release is unconditional, and she's not put on a travel ban or any other step that restricts her freedoms, then it's only a partial victory and not done."
Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said news of Hathloul's expected release shows that the administration of former President Donald Trump, including ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and top adviser Jared Kushner, did not push adequately to free the activist.
Whitson also warned that freeing Hathloul cannot be seen as a sign of reform in the kingdom, while many other dissidents remain detained.
"Great news and clear evidence that tireless activity works. Many #Saudi political activists remain in jail, and we will not rest until every last one is released," she wrote on Twitter.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/loujain-al-hathloul-saudi-activist-be-freed-sister-says

The decline in the US birth rate is not about moral failure, it's about economics

Moira Donegan
For years the US has made domestic policy that has punished women for becoming mothers, and de-incentivized those who want to have as many children as they would like.
Last month, the Brookings Institution updated a June survey on American fertility, concluding that 2021 would see a sharp drop in US births. The pandemic and its attendant economic recession would result in 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births in 2021, Brookings estimated, threatening what the thinktank called a “baby bust”. Brookings also cited a study by the left-leaning Guttmacher Institute, a group that tracks data related to reproductive rights and health. That study – based on an internet survey of roughly 2,000 straight women of childbearing age – found that a staggering 34% of respondents had chosen to wait to get pregnant, or to have fewer children, as a result of the pandemic. As corroborating evidence, the authors of the Brookings report also cited data from the University of Indiana and the Kinsey Institute that indicate that Americans, and particularly those with school age children, are having less sex since the advent of coronavirus restrictions.

Declining birth rates in the United States are a longstanding trend, consistent with similar phenomena in nations where women have gained greater economic independence and greater control over their own bodies. And the sharp downturn in fertility in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic is not unique to the United States, as the trend has also been seen in among women in European countries that were hit hard by the virus. The acute downturn in American fertility is likely temporary: sharp declines in births, followed by rapid increases, have been typical in the midst of historic events that caused mass disruptions to family life, such as the second world war. It’s likely that if life ever goes back to something like what it was before the pandemic, birth rates will go back to their previous levels, too.

But the longer-term trend of smaller American families and more adult women living childless lives is likely to continue. And it is this observation, perennially made by thinktanks and statisticians, which perennially sets off a minor moral panic among economists, pundits and observers of American political life. How will social services be paid for if America does not keep producing new generations of taxpayers? What will the social life and moral character of the nation look like if the childrearing nuclear family collapses as the primary social unit? What will America become, these thinkers ask, if women don’t start having babies again?

 

The reality of why American families are smaller is not about a failing national character or a decline in women’s femininity

 Pro-natalism arguments such as these are never entirely devoid of sentimentality about family life, and they tend to make assumptions about women’s roles and responsibilities that are grounded in regressive, sexist and simple-minded ideas. When the trend of women having fewer babies is spoken about on the national scale, the old assertion that it is women’s role to bear children can advance from an item of moralizing paternalism to one of civic duty. In the minds of male pundits, fears of low birth rates can transform a woman’s fertility from a personal choice into an obligation of citizenship, something she has to do for her country, and theirs. Whose country, and whose babies, is always the unaddressed question in these conversations, and it is notable that those who think that America’s declining birth rates will cause problems as a result of a shrinking population do not usually offer increased immigration as a possible remedy. This focus on women’s choices makes the conversation around birth rates regressive and sexist, infused with a nationalism that exudes völkisch creepiness.

But the reality of why American families are smaller is not about a failing national character or a decline in women’s femininity. It’s about money. Because while many more women are choosing to have no children or fewer children, others are having fewer children than they would like. And for these women, their own smaller families are the result not of their own personal selfishness or moral degradation, but of economic constraints. For all of the pro-natalist handwringing over America’s shrinking tax base, the United States has spent shockingly little of its annual tax revenues on creating accessible and effective support for mothers. For years, the US has made domestic policy that has punished women for becoming mothers, and by extension, de-incentivized those who want to have as many children as they would like. This is one reason why the birth rate has declined so much: women are not given enough material support by the state to be able to raise children while still leading prosperous, economically productive lives.

Women, after all, are paid notably less than men, a trend that is especially dramatic when women of color are compared with their white male peers, and the gaps in compensation often begin early in women’s careers, even before they have begun raising families. Those pay gaps become larger as careers progress, making it harder for women to begin their families and harder for them to provide for the families that policymakers want them to grow.

 

Women are not given enough material support by the state to be able to raise children while still leading prosperous, economically productive lives

 But once a worker becomes pregnant, there is little protection to enable her to have both her baby and her job. Pregnancy discrimination is rampant and laws against it are enforced laxly when they are enforced at all, meaning that many women, when they become pregnant, are demoted or fired by employers who assume that she will be less productive after she becomes a mother.

Even if she manages to keep her job through her pregnancy, there is no guarantee she will be able to keep it once she gives birth. The United States is unique among its peer nations in having no mandatory paid maternity leave, meaning that when a woman leaves work to have her child, she often has to choose between staying with her baby in the vulnerable and tender early months, or rushing back to work while she heals.

That is all assuming that the pregnancy and birth go well. Because due to public neglect of women’s health, the United States has some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world, and those rates are dramatically, devastatingly higher for Black women.

There is no universal childcare in the United States, and the cost of childcare can be staggeringly high, meaning that mothers frequently have to choose between keeping their jobs, sending their children to substandard facilities, or allowing an acceptable childcare provider to eat a substantial chunk of her paycheck.

Male partners help, but not enough: women still do a disproportionate amount of the unpaid domestic labor of childcare, eldercare and housework. If a mother is owed child support by her children’s father, there’s a good chance that she’s not receiving it: less than half of custodial parents who are owed child support receive the full amount.

And now, all of these circumstances have been exacerbated by the pandemic, one in which most of the job losses have been borne by women, and where the childcare once provided by public schools has now been converted into yet another obligation for mothers – that of supervising online learning. As the writer Lyz Lenz put it in a piece responding to the Brookings report, “Now, with no schools, no daycare, no social support, and probably no job … now women are supposed to just suddenly feel in the mood to have babies because America’s tax base is eroding? Go to hell.”

The truth is that American policy has not treated childrearing and childcare as essential infrastructure, the kind of thing that workers need to have access to in able to keep the economy going. Instead, America has treated the raising and maintaining of children – and the care and support of pregnant women – as private issues, sentimentalized as labors of love. And of course, mothers do love their children, and many of them find that love rewarding and personally sustaining. But love does not pay the bills. The state has abdicated its responsibility to help women raise families, meaning that this burden has been borne by women alone. In light of these profound obstacles to child-rearing in the US, the question that comes to mind is not why so many American women are not having children. The question is why so many of them still are.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/09/us-birth-rate-decline-one-economics-coronavirus


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Time for Pakistan's Christian TV channels to raise their voices

Kamran ChaudhryKamran Chaudhry
While the Church is embracing the digital age like never before, it needs to address national issues to escape its bubble
The year 2020 will go down in history as the year of coronavirus, but for the Catholic Church in Pakistan, it marked a revival of the media ministry.
When the Covid-19 pandemic forced the closure of churches last March, many priests were forced to train in social media and take their parishes online by celebrating Masses on Facebook Live and initiating WhatsApp groups.Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore dedicated the conference hall of the bishop’s house for a studio-cum-chapel, while Radio Veritas Asia (RVA) Urdu Service revamped its format to launch a news program — the first of its kind in Pakistan.I revived the YouTube channel of Caritas Pakistan. Islamabad-Rawalpindi Diocese became a YouTuber last November with the launch of Ave Maria Catholic TV under the theme of “A journey of peace and hope.”The efforts to spread spiritual awakening through electronic media are continuing. During an RVA board meeting on Feb. 8, Archbishop Joseph Arshad, chairman of the National Commission for Social Communications, approved sample TikTok videos based on hymns, Bible verses and quotes of the saints for evaluation.
For the first time, a session on media has been added in the ongoing formation of 75 young priests (five years into their priesthood) in Lahore Archdiocese.
“This is the biggest number we ever had in the history of the local Church,” Archbishop Arshad told me. “Diocesan directors of the Commission for Social Communications will be instructed to activate existing channels. The Church cannot afford to lose the media competition.”
About 16 Christian TV channels are operating in Pakistan. All share the common goal of evangelization, broadcasting prayers and church activities as well as dispelling misconceptions regarding Christianity. Their presenters use Urdu, the national language. Few of them report minority rights. Many are being managed by resourceful ministries. Their founder pastors can be commonly seen in colorful coats on the stage at healing crusades with wives wearing heavy makeup.
“It is a fact that most issues related to minorities are highlighted by the foreign media, and they reach Pakistan mostly through social media and are discussed in mainstream media,” said Peter Jacob, executive director of the Centre for Social Justice.
To check the facts about minorities’ complaints regarding Urdu media, UK-based Minority Concern Pakistan (MCP) followed two national Urdu newspapers’ front pages in June 2020. The survey revealed that not even a single news story regarding minority issues or their activities appeared on those pages.
Smaller news items about non-Muslims were found in the middle pages. Although minority coverage is better in English newspapers, Urdu media is the main opinion maker. Christian TV channels in Pakistan are struggling, but they face challenges of mostly untrained communicators and sub-quality content. As a result, the community doesn’t rely on them,” MCP founder Aftab Mughal told a recent talk show. Fear of blasphemy allegations and lack of interaction with Christian professionals in mainstream media further constrain their freedom of expression, according to other speakers.
The solutions
Mughal, a former executive secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Major Superiors Leadership Conference of Pakistan, suggested Christian TV channels in Pakistan raise their voices about national issues and contribute to national movements to escape their ghettoized situation.The Pakistan Church addresses the misuse of blasphemy laws and persecution only through the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), its human rights body.Other commissions have adopted a non-controversial approach. The National Commission for Interreligious Dialogue and Ecumenism condemns misuse of blasphemy laws, but only if it occurs in other countries. The media ministry highlights good news, while Caritas Pakistan deals with development, and so on.All these commissions can establish a platform with the cooperation of mainstream media organizations to hold seminars, discussions and debates on interfaith harmony. The new year offers them another chance to mend their broken ties with liberal civil society, human rights defenders and free thinkers, creating more space for church groups.
Punjab’s recently launched draft policy on interfaith harmony, the first of its kind in Pakistan, recommends the Punjab government use the Punjab Information Department and Directorate General of Press Information to motivate the media to be part of the "Harmonious, Tolerance and Safe Punjab for Everyone" campaign.
The survival of Christian media in Pakistan depends on the country’s complete transformation to a democratic state. More provinces should develop and ensure implementation of policies on interfaith harmony. Protection of minorities and journalists can help soften the image of our country. Right now, it is a dangerous place for them.
https://www.ucanews.com/news/time-for-pakistans-christian-tv-channels-to-raise-their-voices/91331

Why Most Pakistanis Can't See The Film Pakistan Is Submitting For An Oscar Nod

By ZUHA SIDDIQUI 

 
With Oscar nominations just a day away, Pakistan is hoping its picture gets one of the slots for best foreign film. But it's a film that most Pakistanis aren't able to see.
The 2-hour, 15-minute long movie is called Zindagi Tamasha, or "Circus of Life." Set in the hazy old quarter of the Pakistani city of Lahore, prostitutes, devout families, drug dealers and men hustling a living live side-by-side. It is the fictional story of a devout, middle-aged real estate agent and performer, Rahat Khwaja, whose life capsizes after a guest at a wedding films him sensually swaying to an old Pakistani song, "Zindagi Tamasha" (the film is named after the song) as he sings it for the audience.
The video goes viral and Khwaja, who is respected in his crowded quarter for his singing of devotional Islamic poems, is suddenly viewed by his community as vulgar.


Religious events where he once starred as an esteemed singer are now off limits – he is literally pushed out of one event by other performers who are enraged by his wedding performance. He finds his face plastered across tawdry memes on the internet. Children who once loved him for the sweets he handed out in their crowded alley call him a pig and a pimp. A cleric threatens to accuse him of blasphemy – which can be a deadly accusation in Pakistan. Worse, his beloved daughter turns against him.
The film was banned in Pakistan after an extremist religious group watched the trailer and became enraged at its portrayal of the cleric in the movie. Not only does he loosely hurl accusations of blasphemy against the protagonist, the cleric is painted as a sneering, arrogant man who turns a blind eye to child sex abuse in his seminary, even as he leads the charge to shame the protagonist. And the group rallied against the director.
"Who are you to talk against scholars?" demanded Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the then-leader of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan at a rally last February against the movie, which gathered thousands of angry, chanting protesters.
"The prophet did not delegate the faith to you!" he said, referring to the film's director, Sarmad Khoosat.
So just like the protagonist of Zindagi Tamasha, Khoosat faced a whirlwind of hatred.
"I would be added to these WhatsApp groups where mysterious people would just send me messages with gross, horrifying images of beheaded people," he tells NPR. "On social media, Twitter was on fire with 'ban Zindagi Tamasha' and 'kill this bastard.' "
He says other users accused of him of blasphemy, which can trigger vigilante attacks and even lynchings in Pakistan.
Following the outcry by Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, the Pakistani government postponed Zindagi Tamasha's release. They also asked the country's Islamic advisory body to conduct a "critical review" — effectively shelving the film.
The shelving of the film reflects a decades-long trend of Pakistani authorities appeasing the religious right, says Raza Rumi, the director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, and the editor of a liberal outlet called Naya Daur."This is a trend that has been there for a long time, and it's been growing over the decades, with more and more pressure from the religious lobbies," Rumi says. "Every government attempts to appease them, because it's a risk to anger the mullahs."
"The mullahs have street power in Pakistan," he adds.
But critics argue that the current ruling coalition of the prime minister Imran Khan appears even more obsequious than previous governments. That's because of a perception among some Pakistanis that it is indebted to the country's powerful military establishment for being propelled to power."This government has the unique distinction that it is probably the weakest civilian government in a long time," says Murtaza Solangi, a colleague of Rumi at Naya Daur. "It's easier to blackmail them and put them under pressure."In response to a request from NPR for an interview about the shelving of Zindagi Tamasha, and the banning of other media products, the information minister Shibli Faraz denied the government was in the business of censorship. In a statement, he wrote: "The government neither believes nor practices any kind of censorship or press advice. What it does believe in is encouragement of self-regulation by all forms of media. Further, it strongly believes in the preservation of our cultural and moral values." Faraz declined to answer specific questions.
In any case, the government is sensitive to the criticisms of turbaned preachers, conservative viewers – and even an influential newspaper editor, Ansar Abbasi. He successfully demanded a jaunty biscuit advertisement be banned for showing an actress performing folk dances.
"Wasn't Pakistan built in the name of Islam?" demanded Abbasi, as he complained in October about a Gala Biscuit advertisement to his 1.7 million Twitter followers. "Will biscuits be sold through mujra dancing now?" he demanded, a pejorative that refers to sexualized dancing.Within hours, Abbasi's tweet was shared thousands of times, and the ad was taken down for review by Pakistan's Electronic Media Regulatory Authority. "We received tons of complaints," Muhammad Tahir, a regulatory authority official, tells NPR. "A certain segment of our society definitely thinks dances are vulgar."Zindagi Tamasha and the biscuit ad are among the flurry of items that were banned or prevented from circulation over the past year. They include books, social media apps, television shows and even video games.As the triggers of offense appear to broaden, content makers have been left uncertain of how to work. The Gala Biscuit advertisement was a case in point: the director Asad ul Haq said it was meant to be family-friendly, celebrating local folk traditions. The actress who danced in the ad, "was fully layered up, there was no skin showing."
The fear is that the country is creeping back to a repeat of its darkest days, under dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who tried to reshape Pakistan in his stern image after he seized power in the late 70s.
He stopped movies from being screened and effectively choked the local film industry. Actors stopped finding work. Movie houses shut down. Musicians who provided their scores packed away their instruments. The military dictator Zia-ul-Haq died in 1988 in a plane crash, and it has taken years for the industry to recover. It was only in 2013 that Pakistan submitted a film for Oscar consideration: Zinda Bhaag, which followed the path of three young men who try smuggle themselves to Europe to start a new life. The committee responsible for picking the entry has submitted a film for consideration every year since.
One committee member, Hamza Bangash, told NPR that Zindagi Tamasha was selected in November because it "really kind of upends a lot of hypocrisy within our society," he says. "It does so with humor and it's so gentle."
But Bangash says he doesn't expect the nomination to change anything — in fact he calls Zindagi Tamasha "a cautionary tale, because it tells you you can pour your heart and soul into a film," he says, "and you might face death threats at the end of that."
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/02/08/965328189/why-most-pakistanis-cant-see-the-film-pakistan-is-submitting-for-an-oscar-nod

Imran Khan attempting to make Senate elections controversial like the 2018 general elections and conceal his farcical majority: Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

  

Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that the PTI government was attempting to make the Senate election controversial like 2018 general elections adding that the Sindh government will challenge the presidential ordinance on the open ballot in court.

 
Addressing a press conference at Media Cell Bilawal House, the PPP chairman said that we are ready to contest the Senate elections against the government even through open ballot, and angry members of the ruling party will vote against the regime despite the open ballot. “However, every citizen has the constitutional right to the secret ballot so that he can exercise his right to vote with complete privacy and without any pressure. This fundamental right is exercised in every election, but now the same right of the Assembly members is being attacked,” he added.
 
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the reference regarding the Senate election is under hearing in the court, but the PPP will also challenge the Presidential Ordinance through the Sindh government, while Senator Mian Raza Rabbani and the provincial government will take a stand on the reference.
  
He said that there could be some rotten eggs who have sold their votes, but the majority of the members of the Assembly vote on the basis of their conscience. “If the PTI  government wanted electoral reforms it had ample time during last three years to consult other parties for Constitutional amendments but now by using unconstitutional means it has exposed its bad intentions,” he added.
 
PPP Chairman further said that the selected government had hoped that they would also be given open concessions in the Senate elections like in the last general elections, but when Imran Khan saw that the PDM was ready to contest and his members were also angry, he first filed a judicial reference and then tried to impose a constitutional amendment bill through the committee without any discussion.
 
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that if the conspiracy regarding the Senate elections was successful, it would be a major attack on democracy, Parliament and the electoral system. “if the Constitution of Pakistan is violated to satisfy the ego of a party and an individual, then it would make all the institutions controversial as the democratic parties want to stay with the system and struggle,” he stated.
 
PPP Chairman said that everyone knows that Imran Khan and PTI has no organic majority but these puppets have been imposed on us by undermining democracy and this key mistake is now dragging the economy of the country to destruction. “Imran Khan wants to conceal his farcical majority by trampling the Constitution and electoral laws, which won’t be allowed by the people of Pakistan,” he added.
 
He said that the PDM public meeting in Hyderabad would let the people of the country know what the people of Sindh wanted as they have already fought and given sacrifices during the popular movements of MRD and ARD.
 
Provincial Ministers Nasir Hussain Shah and Saeed Ghani, MNA Shazia Ata Marri and Jamil Soomro were also present on the occasion.

https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/24362/

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