After Tunisia, the start of an Arab awakening?

www.globalpost.com
An unemployed Algerian committed suicide by lighting himself on fire outside a government building in his North African country last week.

A few days later, and over a thousand miles away, thousands of Jordanians took to their streets to protest rising food prices.

Discontent among members of Egypt’s typically weak opposition led to chanting in Cairo this weekend, calling for President Hosni Mubarak – one of the longest serving leaders in the Middle East – to take the next flight out of the country.

And on Monday, an Egyptian also attempted, but reportedly failed, to kill himself by self-immolation near the parliament building in Cairo.

Events like these have become more common across the Arab world since the ouster of Tunisia’s former president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, on Friday, following a month-long surge of unrest that intensified into a popular uprising across the tiny North African nation. Shock waves, albeit small in comparison, are still resonating in capital cities from Rabat to Cairo.

Anger and frustration over economic woes, from unemployment to the price of commodities such as sugar and bread, seems to be energizing opposition groups eager to promote financial and political reform across the Arab world.

In a region where some autocrats have remained in power for decades, often through the suppression of dissent by threat of force, there is no expectation of a domino-like toppling of power any time soon.

But the leaders of some Arab autocracies might be beginning to show signs of compromise. In the wake of Ben Ali’s surprise departure from Tunisia after 23 years of rule, they are more acutely aware, analysts said, that stability within their own regimes is no longer a guarantee.

“It’s clear that [discontent from Tunisia] is spreading. Opposition activists in the Arab world are trying to extend this into their own domestic contexts to take advantage of it, and use it in their own struggles,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. “Autocratic leaders in this region are probably pacing in their palaces, frightened. And they should be.”

Across North Africa, and as far into the Middle East as Jordan, governments have been scrambling to find solutions to economies plagued by stagnation, from unemployment to subsidies, to the cost of basic food items.

A January report issued by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said that international costs of food staples like sugar and oil were now higher than pre-2008 levels – when rioting broke out in countries like Egypt over the cost of bread.

Algeria’s government intervened to lower food prices last week, after rioting led to at least two deaths during clashes with security forces.

A local Algerian leader was dismissed this weekend following the self-immolation death of unemployed Mohsen Bouterfif in the eastern region of the country, according to the Reuters news agency.

Bouterfif’s suicide, as well as the attempted suicide in Egypt on Monday, was an apparent imitation of the death of Mohammed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old Tunisian fruit vendor whose act served as the catalyst for the recent uprising.

Egypt, perhaps eager to appease its own citizens, issued a statement supporting the will of the Tunisian people after Ben Ali’s departure.

“Egypt affirms its respect for the choices of the people in brotherly Tunisia as it trusts in the wisdom of its Tunisian brothers in fixing the situation and avoiding the collapse of Tunisia into chaos," responded Egypt’s Foreign Ministry in a statement on Saturday.

Only the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who has held power since leading a coup there in 1969, condemned the Tunisian protesters for inciting violence.

“What is this for? To change Zine al-Abidine? Hasn't he told you he would step down after three years? Be patient for three years and your son stays alive," said Gaddafi in a speech on Sunday, according to a Reuters report that cited Libya's state media.

Still, Gaddafi’s government lowered import duties on basic foodstuffs last week, after rioting and looting in his own country took place in protest of the lack of adequate state-subsidized housing in some districts.

“I think we may be seeing an opening in the Arab world, economically at least. Many in the government circles are racing around, trying to fix this. There is definitely a fear in the air,” said Magdy Sobhy, an economist at the Egyptian state-funded Al-Ahram Center think tank. “Especially since many of Tunisia’s neighbors are worse off. Egypt is in many ways worse than Tunisia, at least economically speaking.”

The minimum wage in Egypt, the most populous nation in the Arab world with about 80 million people, is roughly $70 per month. Around a fifth of Egypt’s population lives on less than $2 per day, according to the United Nations.

Unemployment among youth in Egypt, many of whom have higher education degrees, is around 22 percent, according to 2009 government statistics.

Still, members of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party wholeheartedly reject the idea that Egypt would ever experience widespread upheaval similar to that in Tunisia.

“The only danger of unrest spreading is if there is a strong linkage between economic and political crises occurring at the same time. Tunisia was a model of these two kinds of crises,” said Mostafa Elwi Saif, an National Democratic Party lawmaker. “Here, there has been much political reform in the past decade. Though we may need more, Tunisia cannot compare to Egypt at all.”


Political reform, though, moves slowly in Egypt.

Opposition groups frequently criticize Egypt’s stringent electoral laws – many of which preserve the status quo by hampering competition before challengers even enter the ring.
An election for Egypt’s lower house of parliament late last year was marred by numerous allegations of vote-tampering and by widespread violence at the polls – including intimidation by the country’s vast security services.

Years of relative peace and stability in Egypt – what Mubarak’s regime often showcases as its success – comes partially at the cost of basic civil liberties, say local human rights groups.
Egyptians have been living under a draconian emergency law almost continuously since 1981, when Mubarak took office.

Presidential elections in Egypt are scheduled for this September, amid growing speculation over the health of 82-year-old Mubarak, who has never named a successor in his three decades of rule.

Many in Egypt believe Mubarak’s son Gamal is being groomed for the top post.

But with a reinvigorated opposition movement, in light of what some are already calling the ‘Jasmine Revolution’ in Tunisia, analysts say that Egypt will have to introduce at least some basic reforms before the country’s upcoming election.

“The main lesson here is that you can’t always anticipate revolutions. Autocracies may seem stable, but they aren’t,” said Hamid, the Brookings researcher. “If you talked to any Middle East analyst five weeks ago and told them that Tunisia would fall in a month, they would have laughed. Though a similar scenario may seem unlikely now in countries like Algeria and Egypt, it’s no longer unlikely.”

Afghan singer enthrals audience in Peshawar

Popular Afghan singer Ustad Shah Wali enthralled the entertainment-starved audience here Saturday night.

Based in Canada for the last many years, senior Afghan singer Shah Wali is widely known for his velvety voice and command over Pashto folk, light, semi-classical and classical ghazal singing.

The sexagenarian singer kept mesmerising the select gathering for more than six hours with his 10-member orchestra.Shah Wali migrated to Pakistan in the early 1980s after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and settled in Jamrud in Khyber Agency. After receiving good response from Pashto music lovers, he shifted his family to Tehkal Bala in Peshawar and began living there in a rented home.

Shaukat Ali, a former producer of sate-run television in Peshawar, introduced Shah Wali on television while the local radio station also began airing his folk songs, which gained widespread popularity among the listeners across the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata.

During his stay in Pakistan, he received training from music maestros including Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali and Rafiq Shinwari. In late 1990s, financial constraints forced him to settle in Canada. He opened a music school there and began teaching traditional and classical South Asian music along with Urdu, Persian and Pashto architectonic of music.

“I have 200 students at my art school. They are from different countries and like traditional music more than any other music genre. Pashto traditional music is matchless and everlasting while pop music has no bright future,” said Shah Wali while talking to this scribe.

Recipient of 400 awards from various literary and cultural organisations, he has 2,000 audio and videocassettes and CDs to his credit. Shah Wali visited Peshawar in 2005 after a decade and pledged that he would visit his fans every winter both in Kabul and Peshawar. He, however, could not keep his promise last year because of the poor law and order situation in Peshawar.

His two singer sons, Zar Wali and Mumtaz Wali, are residing in Peshawar. The former recently started work as a music director with the Afghan state-run TV, RTA, in Kabul. Shah Wali this time recorded new and unsung poetry of Rahman Baba, Abdul Hameed Baba, Khushal Khan Khattak, Amir Hamza Shinwari, Qalandar Momand, Rahmat Shah Sail, Abaseen Yousafzai, Khatir Afridi, Khyber Afridi and Murad Shinwari. He also sang popular numbers of two Afghan poets Said Murad Baacha and Malang Jan that he had sung 30 years ago in Afghanistan. Nisar Khalil produced and Prof Abaseen Yousafzai performed as compere of the show in Peshawar while Mas Khan composed the music.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa suffered heavily from militancy: Hoti

Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti Sunday said that people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, particularly the Peshawarites, have immensely suffered material and human losses owing to militancy and terrorism in the province.

Hoti was addressing a gathering arranged for the distribution of compensation cheques among the members of traders whose businesses were damaged in terror incidents. Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour, Health Minister Syed Zahir Ali Shah, Sarhad Chamber of Commerce President Usman Bilour and Urban Sub-committee Chairman Shaukat Ali Khan also addressed the gathering.

Chief minister said, “The people of Peshawar had faced challenges due to terrorism with remarkable courage, patience and bravery and I pay gratitude to their greatness. Terrorism had greatly affected business activity in the province and the business community had a big share than the government in curbing the terrorism.”

He praised the business community for extending support and cooperation to the government and administration on the occasions of Eidul Azha, Muharram and 31st National games and that was the reason why terrorists failed to accomplish their evil agenda.

The chief minister expressed satisfaction over inclusion of 16 pending cases of Peepal Mandi blast. He said that keeping in view problems and needs of Peshawar city, the government has decided to start work on Gulbahar flyover. He said heavy traffic from Hayatabad would be linked to Khyber Road through Expressway while work on Northern Bypass project will also launched shortly.

Pakistan faces challenging 2011

Pakistan has been in the headlines throughout 2010, and seems likely to remain in the spotlight this year. The devastating floods of 2010 continue to affect millions, and many who escaped that tragedy still live in fear of Taliban attacks, sectarian bombings and US drone strikes.

Tunisia Riots: The Youth Revolution

Demographic shifts fomenting the Arab world's hunger for change.

Power change

17 Dec: A graduate sets himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid over lack of jobs, sparking protests
24 Dec: Protester shot dead in central Tunisia
28 Dec: Protests spread to Tunis
8-10 Jan: Dozens of deaths reported in crackdown on protests
12 Jan: Interior minister sacked
13 Jan: President Ben Ali promises to step down in 2014
14 Jan: Mr Ben Ali dissolves parliament after new mass rally, then steps down and flees

He was the minor dictator of a minor nation in North Africa that’s best known for exporting workers and courting low-rent tourists. But when Tunisia’s President Zine al Abidine Ben Ali fled his country on Friday after more than 23 years with a ruthless grip on power, the Arab world was swept by the kind of excitement that augurs epochal change.


From Morocco to Egypt to Jordan and beyond, the news racing across the Internet and on cell phones hit these long-oppressed societies the way word of the fall of the Berlin Wall impacted the shaky dictatorships of the decrepit Soviet Empire in 1989. Indeed, Ben Ali and his wife had come to be known in their own country as “the Ceaucescus,” a reference to the brutal couple who ruled Romania for decades, then faced summary execution when they fell.

What was especially shocking to Arab regimes was the way Ben Ali’s overthrow began: a young fruit and vegetable vendor who had his cart confiscated by police in the town of Sidi Bouzid set himself on fire last month to protest against job shortages and low wages. As news of the self-immolation spread, so did riots. At first, the head of the military, Chief of Staff Rachid Ammar, refused to put his troops into the streets to stop the protests. Ben Ali replaced him. Then last weekend the soldiers began shooting in earnest. The death toll mounted. But the riots continued, moving from outlying cities into the heart of the capital. And at that point the military, it appears, decided to replace Ben Ali. A state of emergency and curfew have been declared and the ineffectual prime minister, Mohammed Ghannouchi, has appeared on television to say he is running a self-described “temporary” government.

These events are resonating so widely because the core problems of Tunisia are common to just about every country in the region: a growing population of young people who are at once educated and ambitious, unemployed and frustrated, muzzled and resentful.

In a speech on Thursday, just one day before Ben Ali fell, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience in Qatar that “a growing majority” of the people in the region are under 30, and in some countries, like Yemen, the population is expected to double in the next three decades. “People have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order,” said Clinton, who called special attention to a member of the audience “whose work on human rights and democracy in Tunisia I admire.” Then with unusual vehemence, Clinton warned that “in too many places, in too many ways, the region’s foundations are sinking into the sand.” Whether Clinton was aware how fast Ben Ali was sinking at that point is not clear.

Yet for all the talk about human rights, the United States and Europe have grown so accustomed to the same set of strongmen running the Arab world year after year that there’s going to be some pretty frantic scrambling to sort out new relationships with new leaders as the old ones disappear.

In Egypt, the octogenarian President Hosni Mubarak will have held power for three decades this year, and is getting set to install himself for another term. In Algeria, the shadowy military regime survived a brutal civil war against radical Islamists in the 1990s, but now faces new unrest. In Jordan, the authority of the Hashemite dynasty has been undermined by dissent among influential retired generals and protests among the tribes that were its traditional base of support. Yet all these regimes are considered important allies of the West just the way they are, and no one has any idea how they might be replaced, or when, or by whom.

Ben Ali was Tunisia’s intelligence chief, with notoriously close ties to the CIA, before he moved to overthrow the increasingly senile Habib Bourguiba in 1987. Even back then, Ben Ali presented himself as a key player in the fight against extremism. By crushing dissent, courting tourists and playing along with international financial institutions, Ben Ali created an image of his country as a bastion of prosperous stability that Western governments appeared ready to embrace—at least in public.

In recent years, however, even the U.S. embassy in Tunis found Ben Ali’s regime hard to stomach. As Ambassador Robert Godec wrote in a July 2009 cable that surfaced through WikiLeaks, Ben Ali and his regime had “lost touch with the Tunisian people.” Corruption was on the rise, and popular resentment growing. “Tunisians intensely dislike, even hate, first Lady Leila Trabelsi and her family,” wrote Godec. It’s probably too much to say that WikiLeaks helped inspire the overthrow of Ben Ali, but the content of the cable was considered so damaging to the regime that it tried to block the websites where it was displayed.

France, which has a large population of Tunisian workers and longstanding historical ties to the country, remained keen to downplay Ben Ali’s faults until the very end. Even as the rioting gained momentum in recent weeks, top French officials suggested they would help Ben Ali’s forces restore order. Yet once Ben Ali cut and ran, the authorities in Paris let it be known he wouldn’t be welcome in France.

As Ben Ali’s plane is reported in different locations around the world, the traffic on Twitter suggests the emotions that have been aroused:

“Breaking: An earthquake just hit Egypt, ooops sorry that was Mubarak shaking!!”

“Ben Ali's plane stopping over in Cairo before final destination in the Gulf? A couple of seats free for Mubarak.”

“If Ben Ali plane ran out fuel, let it be above Mubarak mansion, then we'll live victory.”

As of this writing, it’s still not clear where Ben Ali and his family will end up. The same can now be said for their country and for the region.

Tunisia:The Un-Islamic Revolution

A secular, grassroots movement in Tunisia has sent the president packing. Protesters say this is not a religious revolution.
Tunisian demonstrators standing above the Interior ministry's main door in Tunis wave their national country flag during a rally demanding President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's resignation.

Hisham Ben Khamsa arrived early for this morning’s demonstration on Habib Bourguiba, Tunis’s Champs-Élysées, to find the street filled with people from all walks of life—from poor mothers with children to denizens of the city’s upper class, all singing the national anthem and chanting, “Ben Ali, get lost.”

But around midday Ben Khamsa noticed a small group of people nearby who stood out for their religious attire—women behind veils and men with long beards and taqiyah, the caps worn by the devout. They were chanting a different slogan: “There is no God but Allah, and all the martyrs are loved by Allah.”

The word for martyr used by the men—shohada—has a special resonance in North Africa; it’s what they call the people who died in the independence wars. But Ben Khamsa worried the group was trying to portray those who have died since the unrest broke out in December as Muslim martyrs. Ben Khamsa went over to the men and told them to focus on the message of throwing Ben Ali out—and the people around him chimed in. The men put their heads down and joined in with the rest of the crowd.

“This has nothing to do with Islamists,” Ben Khamsa, a film producer, tells NEWSWEEK. “This Muslim fundamentalist thing in North Africa is a scarecrow.”

The uprising, which on Friday sent President Ben Ali fleeing abroad, casting the country into further turmoil, appears largely to be a secular, grassroots movement. And autocrats throughout the region should take note, says Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center.

“Today there is no doubt. This is going to be everywhere. There will be no way for Arab leaders to escape from this,” Hamid tells NEWSWEEK. “Tunisia’s reputation was of being the most stable in the Arab regimes. If it can happen in Tunisia, it can happen anywhere.”

Until last month, Tunisia’s government was seen as having the firmest grip on control. People in the region are watching the situation in Tunisia closely; last night millions of people watched Ben Ali’s speech as it was broadcast on two Middle East–based satellite channels, Hamid says. Protests have also been taking place lately in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, and Kuwait.

As Ben Khamsa puts it: “We proved in this country that we’re worthy of having a democracy ... The proof is here. We threw that son of a bitch out just by taking to the streets.”

Arab activists hope Tunisia events inspire change

Celebrations over the Tunisian president's ouster spread Saturday as the popular uprising raised hopes throughout the Arab world that it could inspire pressures for reforms across a region dominated by authoritative regimes.

But while Middle East leaders may face bolder calls for change - such as chants against Egypt's Hosni Mubarak - the chances for other ruling systems to crumble quickly in domino-style fashion appear slim.

Many states with deep political rifts, such as Egypt and Iran, maintain vast security forces heavily vested in the status quo and have shown no signs of breaking ranks to join protesters. Still, the stunning rebellion in Tunisia against the 23-year rule of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali sent an unmistakable message to other leaders that no hold on power is guaranteed.

"Now the bell is ringing and it should be a reminder to other leaders that people are fed up," said political analyst Labib Kamhawi in Jordan, where more than 5,000 people joined rallies on Friday to protest rising prices and demand the prime minister's ouster.

"They need political freedoms and serious economic reforms, that there must be an end to corruption and nepotism," he added.

Dozens of demonstrators rallied outside the Tunisian embassies Saturday in Cairo and Amman, Jordan.

Meanwhile, thousands of messages congratulating the Tunisian people flooded the Internet on Twitter, Facebook and blogs, and many people replaced their profile pictures with red Tunisian flags.

Egyptian activists opposed to President Hosni Mubarak's three-decade regime danced outside the Tunisian Embassy in Cairo as the news broke on Friday, chanting "Ben Ali, tell Mubarak a plane is waiting for him too!"

Mubarak, 82, faces mounting dissatisfaction over the lack of democratic reform and frequent protests over economic woes in the country, a key U.S. ally.

Egyptian human rights activist Hossam Bahgat said he was glued to the news watching the fall of the Tunisian government and hoped that his countrymen could do the same someday.

"I feel like we are a giant step closer to our own liberation," he told The Associated Press. "What's significant about Tunisia is that literally days ago the regime seemed unshakable, and then eventually democracy prevailed without a single Western state lifting a finger."

Bahgat said the events in Tunisia would boost the confidence of opposition members in a region where leaders often rule for life.

"What happened in Tunisia ... will give unimaginable momentum to the cause for change in Egypt," he said.

News of Ben Ali's flight to Saudi Arabia was splashed on the front pages of all Cairo dailies on Saturday without editorial comment, while the mass-circulation Akhbar al-Youm tried to promote the government's performance on the economy with a dose of patriotism.

"Egypt is on the ascent," declared the paper's banner headline of a new story praising the government's policies on servicing foreign debt and the growth of money held in social insurance and pension funds.

In Iran, government-run media also reported the Tunisian uprising without any analysis or references to the massive protests after disputed elections last year.

Sudanese opposition leader Mariam al-Sadek said she had mixed feelings about the Tunisian riots: excitement the president was overthrown but sadness that her people haven't done the same.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted on an international indictment for war crimes in the western region of Darfur, faces the division of his country after a vote for southern independence, a rebellion in the west and east, and internal opposition.

"What caused this in Tunisia is so little compared to what we are going through," al-Sadek said. "Our country is being divided; our sovereignty is lost and we are humiliated, and this is happening in Tunisia ... I feel ashamed."

Jordanians also held separate protests Friday in several cities over rising prices for fuel and foodstuffs, although King Abdullah II slashed some prices and taxes earlier this week to try to stanch the public anger and ease the burden on the poor.

About 200 people, some wearing Tunisian flags as capes, huddled together on Paris' Place des Invalides after being directed away from the nearby Tunisian Embassy.

French police closed off the street where the embassy was located to foot and car traffic.

Haitham Nasri, a 21-year-old university student from the southern city of Sfax in Tunisia who has lived in Paris for two years, said Friday was a day of celebration but warned the mobilization could continue.

"It's like halftime in an important football match, when the home team is up 1-0. We're happy with our performance so far but are regrouping for the second half. We've won the battle but not the war yet," said Nasri, who was wrapped in the red-and-white Tunisian flag.

Mohammed Abdel-Qudous, a veteran Egyptian opposition activist, predicted the ripples from Tunisia to be felt soon in Egypt.

"Egypt is a candidate to be the next Tunisia because conditions in the two countries are very similar," he said. "It is a question of time, nothing more."

Tunisia and the New Arab Media Space

An interesting discussion has already broken out over whether Tunisia should be considered a "Twitter Revolution" -- a far more interesting and relevant discussion than whether it was a "Wikileaks Revolution" (it wasn't). I've seen some great points already by Ethan Zuckerman, Evgeny Morozov, Luke Allnut, Jillian York, and others. I'm looking forward to being one of the social scientists digging into the data, where I suspect that both enthusiasts and skeptics will find support for their arguments. For now, I would just argue that it would be more productive to focus more broadly on the evolution of the Arab media over the last decade, in which new media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, forums and blogs work together with satellite television stations such as al-Jazeera to collectively transform the Arab information environment and shatter the ability of authoritarian regimes to control the flow of information, images, ideas and opinions. That feels like a sentence which I've written a hundred times over the last decade.... and one which has never felt more true than the last month in Tunisia.

Calling Tunisia a "Twitter Revolution" is simplistic, but even skeptics have to recognize that the new media environment mattered. I would suggest that analysts not think about the effects of the new media as an either/or proposition ("Twitter vs. al-Jazeera"), but instead think about new media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, SMS, etc) and satellite television as collectively transforming an complex and potent evolving media space. Without the new social media, the amazing images of Tunisian protestors might never have escaped the blanket repression of the Ben Ali regime --- but it was the airing of these videos on al-Jazeera, even after its office had been shuttered, which brought those images to the mass Arab public and even to many Tunisians who might otherwise not have realized what was happening around their country. This is similar to how the new media empowered Egyptian "Kefaya" protestors in the early 2000s and Lebanese protestors in 2005, but in a significantly changed media space.

Al-Jazeera may be so 2005, but it is still by far the most watched and most influential single media outlet in the Arab world. It has also embraced the new media environment, creatively and rapidly adopting user generated content to overcome official crackdowns on its coverage of various countries -- a practice perfected in Iraq, where it had to rely on locally-generated content after its office was closed down in 2004. Other satellite television stations have followed suit, leading to genuine and highly significant integration among new and slightly-less-new Arab media. All of these media platforms and individual contributors layer together to collectively challenge the ability of states to control the flow of information, images, and opinion. This is the latest stage in the new media revolution in the Arab world about which I've been writing since the early 2000s, and it's profoundly exciting to watch.

I'd point to one other aspect of this which often gets overlooked. Al-Jazeera and the new media ecosystem did not only spread information -- they facilitated the framing of the events and a robust public debate about their meaning. Events do not speak for themselves. For them to have political meaning they need to be interpreted, placed into a particular context and imbued with significance. Arabs collectively understood these events quite quickly as part of a broader Arab narrative of reform and popular protest ---the "al-Jazeera narrative" of an Arab public challenging authoritarian Arab regimes and U.S. foreign policy alike. Events in Tunisia had meaning for Jordan, for Lebanon, for Yemen, for Egypt because they were framed and understood within this collective Arab narrative. From al-Jazeera's talk shows to internet forums to the cafes where people talked them out face to face, Tunisia became common focal point for the Arab political debate and identity.

Al-Jazeera's role may not fit the current passion for the internet, but overlooking it will lead to some serious misunderstandings of how the media works in today's Arab world and how the Tunisian events might matter outside of that country over the longer term.

President Ben Ali flees as chaos hits country

President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali, the pro-American leader of Tunisia, fell to a wave of student protest on Friday, fleeing into exile from a country that had descended into blood-soaked chaos.
Mohammed Ghannouchi, the prime minister, announced he was taking over as acting president as the army moved in to seize control of the main airport in the capital Tunis.

The collapse of the 23-year dictatorship, the first ever collapse of an Arab leader to a "people power" uprising, was met nervously by Tunisia's allies.

Mr Ben Ali was first thought to have flown to France but was reportedly refused permission to enter by President Nicolas Sarkozy. A plane carrying Mr Ben Ali landed early on Saturday morning in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah, a Saudi source said.

The US was keen to demonstrate it was open to a peaceful transistion in the North African state.

"We believe the Tunisian people have the right to choose their leaders, and will monitor this latest development closely," said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
The White House will, however, be monitoring the stability of Tunisia's Arab neighbours.

Like Tunisia, many have been led for decades by repressive regimes that depend on the support of America and fear the discontent of young, underemployed populations.

But while the protests in Tunisia were led by an educated young population eager to expand their freedoms, in its neighbours much of the opposition is demanding the replacement of pro-western regimes with Islamic rule.

The final moments of Mr Ben Ali's long dominance of his country will be remembered for the drama on the streets as protests that have raged across the country for four weeks, finally reached the capital on Thursday.

Demonstrators ignored a curfew, and took no notice of a promise by Mr Ben Ali that night not to seek a sixth term of office in 2014. Instead of returning home, they took to the streets and the roof-tops, even of government buildings and the interior ministry, hurling stones at symbols of authority.

The police struck back. According to one report another 13 people were shot dead, bringing the total killed to almost 80 by one count by human rights groups. Tear gas floated over the city.

Television pictures showed plain clothes police firing rounds, and hauling individual students to the ground, where they would then be kicked and beaten by riot squads.

Thousands of British and other western tourists were told to stay indoors.

Many were evacuated. Holiday-makers described rampaging mobs breaking windows along the street outside their hotels.

"I was scared I was going to get hurt and I felt sorry for the people," said Cynthia Rigby, 55, from Liverpool. "It is horrible out there."

The initial trigger for the riots was unemployment. They started after a young graduate, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself alight on December 17 in protest at having the vegetable barrow that was his only means of earning a living taken from him for not having a licence.

He died on January 5.

But students also objected to the heavy censorship of information, including the internet, and to the corruption in the president's family. A US dipomatic cable released by Wikileaks described their ally as a "police state".

Another described the luxurious beachside villa, complete with pet tiger, occupied by the president's son-in-law.

On Thursday night Mr Ben Ali also admitted that he had failed to listen to the people. But this only served to encourage the protesters.

He tried a final act of conciliation yesterday afternoon, sacking his government and saying he would call fresh elections. But not long after, state television said an "important announcement" was imminent, and Mr Ghannouchi appeared to address the nation.

"I call on Tunisians of all political persuasions and from all regions to demonstrate patriotism and unity," he said.

Earlier, a government statement had imposed a state of emergency. "The police and the army are authorised to fire on any suspect person who has not obeyed orders or fled without the possibility of being stopped," it said.

One opposition leader, Najib Chebbi, said change now had to be made permanent.

"This is a crucial moment. There is a change of regime under way. Now it's the succession," he told French television. "It must lead to profound reforms, to reform the law and let the people choose."

Officials in Afghanistan Begin Investigation Into Possible Fraud at Troubled Bank

New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials have begun an investigation into possible fraud at Kabul Bank, four months after irregularities there led to a weeklong run on the bank by depositors.

The investigation was confirmed Friday by Amanullah Eman, the spokesman for the attorney general, who he said ordered the inquiry, which began a week ago. Mr. Eman said that if the investigation showed evidence of fraud by any people connected with the bank, they would be prosecuted.

In early September, the Central Bank replaced the management at Kabul Bank, Afghanistan’s largest, with its own officials after revelations that it had made $300 million in questionable loans to its own shareholders, more than allowed by law. Several of its shareholders were politically influential, including Mahmoud Karzai, a brother of President Hamid Karzai, and Haseen Fahim, the brother of the first vice president, Gen. Muhammad Qasim Fahim.

The investigation comes against a backdrop of an increasingly troubled Afghan banking industry, which has drawn the attention of the International Monetary Fund. It is seeking an overhaul of the entire Afghan banking system and has delayed its renewal of its main credit program for Afghanistan until the financial system’s problems are addressed.

Among the I.M.F.’s demands are that Kabul Bank, as well as other Afghan banks, undergo an outside audit, and that steps be taken to tighten banking sector supervision. It also wants the government to come up with a plan for ensuring that the losses from Kabul Bank do not continue to mount, according to Western officials and diplomats in Kabul who follow financial institutions. The monetary fund declined to comment on Friday.

It is necessary to recapitalize the bank, the officials said, but it is not clear where the money to do so would come from. The Central Bank’s chairman, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, had been urged by American and other Afghan officials to act on Kabul Bank as long ago as last June. He stepped in when the revelations of the bank’s bad loans in the real estate market in Dubai, among others, threatened a potentially catastrophic run on the bank.

After Mr. Fitrat publicly declared the bank sound, the run on it eased, and the Central Bank began notifying the shareholders that they would have to repay their loans.

It was unclear, however, if all of them would be able to do so, according to bankers and businessmen in Kabul familiar with the bank’s finances. Little if any of the money has been recouped, they said. Since last fall Western officials and the I.M.F. have been pushing for the Afghan government to commission an audit of Kabul Bank by an outside accounting firm, but they have met resistance from the government. One point of contention is who would pay for the audit: the Afghan government or Western donors.

The Afghan government wants to ensure that the results are not necessarily shared with outsiders, but if donors pay for the audit, then they would have a right to see the results. Another point of contention is whether the audit would be forensic, meaning that the results could be used in a subsequent prosecution of wrongdoers.

So far there has been no agreement.

“There are lots of contentious issues,” said a Western official in Kabul familiar with Afghan banking.

“And there’s not a lot of incentive for an accounting firm to want to do this,” the official said, adding that a couple had been approached but that they had decided for one reason or another not to pursue the contract.

Meanwhile, many Western diplomats and Afghan bankers fear the banking system remains ill-equipped to make lending decisions and move quickly if loans appear to be going bad, especially when the loans have been made to people with powerful government connections, as was the case with Kabul Bank.

In addition to being politically well connected, the bank has been Afghanistan’s most successful, with an extensive network of branches nationwide and innovative promotions, like a popular lottery for depositors. It also handles a large portion of the Afghan government’s payroll, including salaries for police officers, soldiers and teachers.

It was unclear if the recent move by the attorney general was part of a larger effort to focus on the banking system’s problems or merely an effort to deflect pressure by finding someone to blame.

“When it comes to Kabul Bank and the Afghan government, a lot of people in the government are upset with the principals in the bank and seem to be needing to find a scapegoat,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul.

Mr. Eman of the attorney general’s office refused to give any details of the investigation, and would not say which officials it was focusing on.

Calling 295-C as ‘black-law’ is not blasphemy, lawyer

Daily Times

LAHORE: Waheed Anjum, counsel for Mumtaz Qadri, has said calling section 295-C, as the ‘black law’ was not blasphemy, a private TV channel reported on Friday.

Speaking in a programme, Rawalpindi Bar Association President Waheed Anjum said that 302 and 295-C are man-made laws and calling such laws, as ‘black-laws’ didn’t fall into the category of blasphemy. The Pakistan Penal Code section doesn’t have any provision which can implicate a person, who threatens others to kill over the blasphemy issue, he said.

He said there was no law to kill or threaten a person for blasphemy. He said section 506 could be applicable on a person who hurls death threat on others.

He added that section 302 would be imposed on the person who kills somebody over the blasphemy issue, for which there is capital punishment or life imprisonment. Anjum said article 302-C would be imposed on Qadri, who killed former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer for terming the blasphemy law as ‘black law. He said Qadri didn’t have any enmity with Taseer. He said that the court would decide about the case after considering the evidences, the channel reported.

Campaign launched to make Peshawar clean & green

Tauseef-ur-Rahman
PESHAWAR: The civil society organisations in collaboration with the Sarhad Tourism Corporation (STC) on Friday launched a joint campaign to make Peshawar, once known as the City of Flowers, clean and green.

Peshawar Youth Organisation, Institute of Architects Pakistan (Peshawar chapter), Tajjir Ittehad, Jamia Usmania Welfare Trust, AVT Khyber/K2 and Sarhad Tourism Corporation joined hands and chose the University Road (Hayatabad Phase III to Gora Qabristan) as a pilot project.

In the first phase of ‘Clean and Green Peshawar Campaign’ a weeklong survey will be conducted starting from today. In the survey 70 students will gather and document data about garbage and its disposal on the seven kilometres long road included in the pilot project.

A simple ceremony of survey launching was held at a local hotel and participated by representatives of all the stakeholders and organisations.

Talking to The News, Mansoor Ahmad, the spokesperson for the campaign, said with the financial support of STC they would scientifically gather and document data, sensitise the community and then work in collaboration with all stakeholders and departments to set a model project on this stretch of road.

He said that from January 24 to 30, 600 students of 24 different organisations in 28 groups would clean the road. The prayers leaders of the mosques situated on the road would educate people about cleanliness in Friday prayers.

The spokesperson said that the campaign would not be simply a ‘cleanliness week’ but a sustained intervention. He said Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) officials promised 4,000 plants, 50 gardeners and 8 sweepers to help the team in the campaign. He said the saplings would be planted on both sides of the road.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Students Society of Agriculture University Peshawar had also extended their support to the campaign. He said the campaign could be extended to other areas if successfully adopted and implemented.

Dr Ali Jan, consultant to Sarhad Tourism Corporation on Publicity and Promotion, said it was a daunting task but it offered a ray of hope as a large number of youth, community and civil society organisations were involved in the endeavours to make Peshawar clean and green, adding that with the support of government it would yield the desired results.

The official said although there had been attempts in the past to restore glory to the historical city but the initiatives could not yield the desired results due to poor coordination between various departments and lack of sustainability and community support and ownership.

Massive Protests in Tunisia Push President to Flee

Pakistani militant fight leads to polio spike

Tiny Shamsa is a victim of the war against Islamist militants in northwest Pakistan, but it wasn't bullets or bombs that paralyzed her right leg. The 18-month-old contracted polio after fighting blocked vaccination teams from reaching her village.
In a country with no shortage of alarming statistics, here is another: Pakistan was the only country in 2010 to record an increase in cases of the crippling disease — 138, up from 89 in the previous year, according to World Health Organization figures. That made it the nation with the highest incidence of polio in the world.
Most cases were in the northwest close to the Afghan border, where battles between the U.S.-supported Pakistani army and Taliban fighters make many areas too dangerous to visit. The army bans travel to parts of the region, citing the security situation, and territory under militant control is highly dangerous for outsiders, even Pakistani aid workers.
Last year, one Pakistan Taliban commander declared the vaccine un-Islamic, echoing a few conservative clerics in other Muslim countries. But others have not publicly stated any objections. In Afghanistan, the Taliban cooperate with health workers administering the vaccine, in part because doing so adds to the movement's legitimacy.
Polio was eradicated generations ago from the Western world, but remains endemic in Pakistan, neighboring Afghanistan and India, as well as Nigeria. Sometimes fatal and highly contagious, it can be prevented with a few drops of bitter vaccine on a child's tongue.
Eradication needs a comprehensive vaccination campaign. Missing even a single child can mean the disease reappearing. In 2010, India recorded 41 cases, Afghanistan 24 and Nigeria 18, according to WHO. A WHO-backed campaign, which began in 1988, aims to eradicate polio from Pakistan by the end of 2011. But some doctors say privately that the target will not be met.
"It is upsetting to know that our only child could not get vaccine because of the troubles," said Shamsa's mother, Majeeda Ali, at a hospital in the main northwestern city of Peshawar recently where she took her daughter for treatment recently. "Yes, I am angry."
Workers from the United Nation's children's agency, which is helping administer the vaccine, say they have not been able to access Shamsa's village in the Khyber region for almost two years because of intensified Pakistan military efforts to rid the region of al-Qaida and Taliban militants. Shamsa caught polio last year.
WHO director general Margaret Chan raised the effect of the conflict on the worsening polio rate in October last year during a meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. She complained that health workers could only reach two in every three children in the northwest tribal border region due to the security situation, WHO said. Zardari pledged the government's support to eradicate polio.
"The number one reason (for the increase in cases) is that the majority of the cases are originating from those areas which are not accessible due to the war going on, or are cordoned off by the army which is not allowing any civilians or any WHO or UNICEF personnel to go there," said Aziz Memon, national chairman of the Polio Plus Pakistan Committee.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said he was unaware of many areas where health organizations are not able to deliver necessary vaccinations. The army helps facilitate access in certain areas where the security threat is high, he said.
Vaccination in war zones is possible, but difficult and often politically sensitive.
UNICEF helped broker a truce between Sri Lanka and separatist rebels in Tamil Tiger-held territory during the 1990s that enabled families to travel safely to polio vaccinations centers on so-called "Days of Tranquility" when warring sides agreed to lay their weapons down. Polio has not been reported in Sri Lanka for well over a decade.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban fighting U.S. and Afghan forces allow vaccine teams to move around.
"All of the time, we are cooperating with the health workers," said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid. "In the past and now, there is no problem because it is useful for the Afghan children."
Memon said organizing such a cease-fire was a far more complex proposition in Pakistan, where Pakistani fighter jets, helicopter gunships and CIA drone-fired missiles regularly pound targets. It would also rely on the support of the Pakistani state, which may well be reluctant to agree to something that could legitimize the militants.
"The Tamil Tigers were one group," Memon said. "Here, there are the Pakistani Taliban, Afghani Taliban, there are this man's group and that man's group — it's a totally messy affair."
Janbaz Afridi, director of the Pakistani government's polio program in the northwest, said vaccination teams were determined to reach all children in the northwest. New strategies include enlisting villagers to persuade militants to support vaccination, he said.
Other Muslim countries have also encountered some resistance from conservative clerics, which have spread false rumors that the vaccine was part of a sterilization campaign or derived from pig products. A few clerics have even argued that vaccination in general is un-Islamic because it tampers with the will of God.
"We will definitely reach each and every child even in those areas which are in conflict and where there are military operations," Afridi said. "There were some inaccessibly problems due to militancy, but these have been removed for the future."
Haris Ahmed, an expert on public health administration, said access to the tribal belt and gaining the trust of its inhabitants would be essential to eradicating polio in 2011. "If these two areas are addressed and you see 100 percent coverage and you see the trust coming back to the people, then anything is possible," Ahmed said.

Clerics on the march

The News
Ayaz Amir

This is not about blasphemy or the honour of the Holy Prophet. This is now all about politics, about the forces of the clergy, routed in the last elections, discovering a cause on whose bandwagon they have mounted with a vengeance.

The blasphemy issue ignited by Aasia Bibi’s conviction was virtually over in November, the government making it plain that it had not the slightest intention of amending the blasphemy law, and no government figure of any consequence stepping forward to support Salmaan Taseer on the stand he had taken.

There the matter should have rested if Pakistan’s clerical armies were not masters of manipulation and cold-blooded calculation. They whipped up a storm in December, when the issue was no longer an issue, and fanned such an atmosphere of intolerance and hatred that it would have been strange if nothing terrible had happened.

There’s a danger of moaning too much. But what with the lionising of Salmaan Taseer’s killer and hailing him as a ghazi and defender of the faith, the impression is hard to shake off that what we are witnessing are the last burial rites of what remains of sanity in a Republic not particularly famous for any striking monuments to reason.

No cleric worth the name has refrained from adding fuel to the fires thus lit across the country. But if a prize has to be given to anyone, the honours will go to Pakistan’s path-breaking contributor to political gymnastics, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, and the Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Professor Munawar Hasan (professor of what?...one is tempted to ask).

The Professor is a study in contrasts: soft-spoken, even beguilingly so, and possessing a keen sense of humour but, at the same time, a master of virulence and of confusion spread in the name of the faith. The 2008 elections had laid the Jamaat low. It had made the mistake of boycotting those elections and its performance in bye-elections since then has furnished further proof of its dwindling political relevance. The Jamaat’s exploitation of the blasphemy issue is an attempt to engineer a political comeback, although there’s no altering the fact that its vote-getting ability comes nowhere near its high nuisance value.

But the issue has to be faced squarely. The clerics are on the march not because they are strong but because those on the other side of the divide – the non-clerical forces – are weak, directionless and devoid of vision...without any strategy and plan of battle.

Zardari’s vision is to stay in power and further enrich his person and his family. End of story. The common belief is he has enough but, by all accounts, we are dealing with insatiable appetites. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s vision is to enrich his family. If a tenth of the stories doing the rounds are to be even tentatively believed, they are doing pretty well for themselves. Names close to the army high command are also the subject of lurid rumours.

But the problem is greater than a few names. Pakistan’s governing class as a whole has earned the distinction of being rotten and corrupt. Everyone rightly-placed is on the take. Those not so fortunate are less emblems of virtue than martyrs to opportunities absent or lost.

A leadership thus tainted, compromised by ineptitude and greed, can neither initiate reform nor reverse the tide of obscurantism now washing against the walls of the Republic.

Lest we forget, the armies of the faithful – with their fearsome beards and shaven moustaches, shalwars pulled up over ankles – have never been in power in Pakistan (the MMA’s stint as Musharraf’s co-travellers in the Frontier not really counting in this equation). What Pakistan is today, the depths it has plumbed, the failures courted, the follies assiduously pursued, have been the handiwork of its English-speaking elite classes – who wouldn’t be caught dead calling themselves secular but who, for all practical purposes, represent a secularist point of view.

The mullahs have not been responsible for our various alliances with the United States; our entry into Cento and Seato; our militarist adventures vis-à-vis India; and the honing of ‘jihad’ as an instrument of strategic fallacies. This last piece of brilliance came from the army as commanded by Gen Ziaul Haq. Religious elements became willing accessories in this game but were not its inventors.

If the first Constituent Assembly lavished attention on a piece of rhetoric of no practical benefit to anyone, the Objectives Resolution, instead of writing a constitution which was its chief duty, the fault lay not so much with the clerical fathers as with the Muslim League leadership. The phrase ‘ideology of Pakistan’ was an invention of Gen Yahya Khan’s information minister, Maj Gen Nawabzada Sher Ali Khan. The central tenet of our security doctrine which sees India as an implacable foe out to undo Pakistan was woven in no madrassah or mosque but in General Headquarters, and a mindset which has been a distinguishing feature of the Punjabi elite.

Our fractured education system is a gift, paradoxically, of our English-speaking classes which have never felt the slightest need for framing a common education policy – the same books and curriculum, the same medium of education – for the entire country.

The army, a secular institution to begin with, has ruled Pakistan. The mainstream parties have been in power. Pakistan’s failures are their failures. The religious parties have been the hyenas and jackals of the hunt, yelping from the sides and helping themselves to the morsels that came their way. Lords of the hunt, lions of the pack, have been Pakistan’s generals and politicians, assisted ably at all times by a powerful and equally short-sighted mandarin class.

If the misuse of religion, the exploitation of religion for less-than-holy ends, the yoking of religion to unworthy causes – such as our never-ending adventures in Afghanistan – has poisoned the national atmosphere and narrowed the space for reasoned debate, the principal responsibility for that too lies with those who have held the reins of power in their hands. Why could they not have reversed the course of events, especially when it lay in their power to do so?

True, Gen Zia’s rule amounted to a visitation from the outer reaches of purgatory. We say he distorted Pakistan, which of course he did. But it is 22 years since his departure, time enough to have healed the wounds he caused and dismantle his legacy. But if the many temples to hypocrisy he erected survive, who is to blame? The Pakistan of today is Zia’s Pakistan not Jinnah’s. But if we have been unable to go back to our founding principles the fault lies not with the zealous armies of the bearded but Pakistan’s secular rulers, in mufti and khaki.

It is not the mullahs who frighten the ruling classes. These classes are afraid of their own shadows. And they have lost the ability, if they ever had it in the first place, to think for themselves. They live on imported ideas and the power of their own fantasies.

It is not a question of the English-speaking classes – our so-called civil society with its small candle-light vigils, usually in some upscale market – standing up to the clerical armies. This is to get the whole picture wrong. It is a question of the Pakistani state – its various institutions, its defence establishment and the creeds and fallacies held dear as articles of faith by this establishment – getting its direction right and then creating a new consensus enabling it to retreat from the paths of folly.

If the Pakistani establishment continues to see India as the enemy, keeps pouring money into an arms race it cannot afford, is afflicted by delusions of grandeur relative to Afghanistan, and remains unmindful of the economic disaster into which the country is fast slipping, we will never get a grip on the challenges we face.

The raging cleric, frothing at the mouth, is thus not the problem. He is merely a symptom of something larger. Pakistan’s problem is the delusional general and the incompetent politician and as long as this is not fixed, the holy armies of bigotry will remain on the march.

A Rescue, Under Fire

Clinton Bluntly Presses Arab Leaders on Reform

New York Times
By MARK LANDLER
DOHA, Qatar — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a scalding critique of Arab leaders here on Thursday, saying their countries risked “sinking into the sand” of unrest and extremism unless they liberalized their political systems and cleaned up their economies.

Speaking at a conference in this gleaming Persian Gulf emirate, Mrs. Clinton recited a familiar litany of ills: corruption, repression and a lack of rights for women and religious minorities. But her remarks were striking for their vehemence, and they suggested a frustration that the Obama administration’s message to the Arab world had not gotten through.

“In too many places, in too many ways, the region’s foundations are sinking into the sand,” she said to a stone-faced audience of foreign ministers, businesspeople and rights groups. “The new and dynamic Middle East that I have seen needs firmer ground if it is to take root and grow everywhere.”

Mrs. Clinton’s remarks were delivered at the end of an intense, four-day tour of the Persian Gulf that took her from impoverished, autocratic Yemen to the prosperous, comparatively open sultanate of Oman. She also stopped in Abu Dhabi and Dubai before finishing in Qatar, a wealthy fief still exulting in its selection as the site of the World Cup soccer tournament in 2022.

As Mrs. Clinton delivered her critique, events echoed loudly in the background: unrest in Tunisia that threatened its government while serving to buttress her arguments; and a developing political crisis in Lebanon that illustrated both the range and the limits of American influence in the region.

The United States has little leverage over the pivotal players in Lebanon, notably the militant group Hezbollah, whose ministers walked out of the coalition government in Beirut on Wednesday, forcing its collapse.

While Mrs. Clinton applauded signs of progress in Qatar and elsewhere, it was Yemen, with its crippled economy and creeping subculture of Islamic terrorism, that seemed to stick in her mind.

A day after her visit Tuesday, the Yemeni government announced that for security reasons citizens would need permits to visit foreign embassies, according to the official news agency, Saba. Mrs. Clinton had met opposition figures at the American Embassy in the capital, Sana.

“Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries’ problems for a little while, but not forever,” Mrs. Clinton said. “If leaders don’t offer a positive vision and give young people meaningful ways to contribute, others will fill the vacuum.”

She added, “Extremist elements, terrorist groups and others who would prey on desperation and poverty are already out there, appealing for allegiance and competing for influence.”

Mrs. Clinton saved her most scathing remarks for corruption, which she said was corroding Arab economies and making life impossible for foreigners who ran businesses in Arab countries.

“Trying to get a permit,” she said, “you have to pass money through so many different hands. Trying to open up, you have to pay people off. Trying to stay open, you have to pay people off. Trying to export your goods, you have to pay people off. So by the time you pay everybody off, it’s not a very profitable venture.”

Mrs. Clinton’s audience listened silently, though the foreign minister of Bahrain, Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, calmly defended his country’s record. Bahrain is much more open than a decade ago, he said, with major growth in advocacy groups and labor unions.

Even when Mrs. Clinton was pressed on why the Obama administration tolerated Israel’s expansion of settlements in the West Bank — an issue that rankles throughout the Arab world and has contributed to a breakdown of the Middle East peace process — she pushed back.

The United States, she said, gazing pointedly around the room, fails to get a lot of countries to do what it wants. And she said that Americans bore a disproportionate burden of settling the world’s conflicts.

Mrs. Clinton also noted that the United States was the top financial donor to the Palestinian Authority — an implicit rebuke of Arab states, which champion the Palestinian cause but, in the view of critics, do too little to support its efforts to build institutions on the West Bank.

Obama Speech Evokes Emotional Moments in Tucson

K O C H I A A N VERY SAD PASHTO SONG

Salman Taseer: Pakistan must face up to the enemy within

Eight hours before an officer on Salman Taseer's security detail emptied a Kalashnikov into his back, the governor of the Pakistani province of Punjab posted his own epitaph on Twitter.
"I am unafraid of the embers that are flying through the darkness," reads the couplet by the poet Shakeel Badayuni (in translation), "but I fear that the flame-like bloom of my flowers might reduce my garden to ashes."

Mr Taseer's murder makes clear that Pakistan remains on the edge of the abyss. Thousands of lives, and billions of pounds, have been lost in an effort to defeat the insurgents who threaten to seize control of the nuclear-armed state. And it is becoming clear that the Pakistani state either isn't willing, or isn't able, to confront the Islamist movement that it has nurtured for decades – and which now threatens to turn the country into a burnt-out dystopia.

The police officer who killed Mr Taseer was enraged by his decision to seek clemency for an impoverished mother of five who is on death row for violating Pakistan's blasphemy laws. In June 2009, Asiya Noreen, a member of the only Christian family in the village of Ittan Wala, was asked to fetch water for a group of women working in the blazing sun. Some of the women refused to accept the water, because of her low caste, sparking off an argument. Mr Taseer, who visited Mrs Noreen in prison, said she was beaten and gang-raped.

Later, the other women involved claimed that she had blasphemed the Prophet Mohammed, and in November, a judge handed down a death sentence. Pakistani liberals were appalled. Shahbaz Bhatti, the minorities minister, said the charges were "baseless". Sherry Rehman, an influential politician, sought to amend the blasphemy laws, a move backed by Mr Taseer, who said they were "man-made, not God-made."
But the religious Right hit back. The ultraconservative Deoband movement allied with clerics from the Barelvi sect, often claimed to represent a tolerant, anti-Islamist tendency in south Asian Islam. In December, the alliance was able to bring tens of thousands of people on to city streets in defence of the blasphemy laws.

Fearing the clerics' wrath, Pakistan's government panicked. Babar Awan, the justice minister, announced that he would not countenance amendments to the laws. Days before his death, Mr Taseer complained that the government was "not willing to face religious fanaticism head on".

It isn't hard to understand why. Pakistan's political system, regularly disrupted by military rule, long failed to address the need for development, or to improve the chronic inequality that besets the country. Instead, says the Pakistani scholar Ayesha Siddiqa, the politicians sought the clerics' support, in an effort to legitimise their position.

In 1956, Pakistan's first constitution decreed that the country would be an "Islamic Republic", in which no laws could contravene religious practice. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto's father and, ironically, Mr Taseer's mentor – went further, declaring Islam the state religion and setting up a council to bring secular law in line with sharia. In 1974, he made it illegal for Ahmadis, an Islamic movement founded in the 19th century, to describe themselves as Muslims.

Over the years, the process continued. Zia-ul-Haq, who deposed and later executed Mr Bhutto, mandated harsh punishments for "whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Mohammed". Nawaz Sharif, the subsequent prime minister, made this offence punishable by death.

Pakistan is reported to have prosecuted 1,276 individuals for blasphemy between 1986 and 2010 – up from nine cases in the period from 1929 to 1982. No death sentences have so far been carried out, but several people have been murdered while on trial. Last summer, Rashid Emanuel, a Christian pastor, and his brother were shot as they emerged from court. In 2003, Samuel Masih, was beaten to death while on trial by a police officer who wanted "to earn a place in heaven".

Efforts to reform these laws have been fitful. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's former military ruler, sought to sidestep the Hadood laws, which require rape victims to find four male witnesses, but the federal sharia court recently struck down his reforms. The government has also failed to repeal the Qisas and Diyat Laws, which treat murder as a civil offence – allowing influential perpetrators to buy their way out of prison.

The events this week, following Mr Taseer's death, illustrate how toxic the climate has become. The clerics representing the purportedly moderate Barelvi tradition ordered that there "should be no expression of grief or sympathy" over his death. Even within Mr Zardari's cabinet, the pro-Islamist voices are becoming stronger. Last month, Attaur Rehman, the tourism minister, described the Taliban as "true followers of Islamic ideology".

"Fighting terrorism isn't just about drones and troops," says Rafia Zakaria of Amnesty International. "It's about ensuring respect for the law and human rights. Here, you have people inciting assassination, and others applauding them – and the state refuses to act."

Taseer’s assassination

PESHAWAR: Activists of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) here on Thursday staged a protest to condemn the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and urged the government to unveil the hidden hands involved in the incident and award them strict punishment.
Led by PPP city district leaders including Syed Ayub Shah, Azam Afridi, Saeed Ahmad Khan and Tahir Abbas, the infuriated activists burnt tyres and blocked the main road for traffic near Hashtnagri while chanting vociferous slogans against the PML-N government in Punjab.
Carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans in favour of their party and leadership, the protesters urged the government to take action against those taking law into their own hands in the name of Islam.
Addressing the protesters, the speakers condemned the assassination of Salmaan Taseer and termed it a cowardly act. They said such acts could not stop them from their mission for which their leaders had sacrificed their lives.
They appreciated their party and its leadership for refusing to bow to any dictators and preferring death and suffering instead. Extending their sympathies with the members of bereaved family, the speakers stressed that no sect should be allowed to impose its particular point of view on others as it would lead to chaos in the country. “There are 72 sects in the country and if they try to impose their own will on others, there will be chaos and lawlessness all around,” one of the speakers said.
Terming Salmaan Taseer’s death as a great tragedy, the PPP leaders said Islam did not allow killing of any human beings. They said such senseless killings would earn a bad name for the country. Terming the PPP as a party of martyrs, the speakers vowed to continue their mission till the establishment of a peaceful, just and progressive society in which every person would have equal rights.

Investigating tragedy

EDITORIAL:Daily Times

Emerging from the darkness that has engulfed this country in the wake of the tragic demise of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer are many myriad questions. Reports have indicated that while the murderer, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, emptied numerous bullets into his victim, no one else from among the security personnel stopped him during this rampage. However, further investigation reveals that the position from where Qadri fired and the way he carried out the operation made it very precarious for anyone to stop him. What actually happened is still a matter of speculation and the fact that some members of the elite force in the governor’s security convoy have been arrested is proof that the plan could very well have been known by other members of the convoy. What is genuinely irksome is the fact that the Islamabad police failed to provide security to the slain governor. In case of VIP movement, security is always provided by the police in whose jurisdiction the movement is taking place. The fact that the Islamabad inspector general of police had been aware of Salmaan Taseer’s presence in the capital but still failed to provide security is a question that will demand immediate answers.

One of the most alarming and glaring aspects of this case is the deployment of Qadri to the governor’s security detail. That an extremist could be allowed to get into such close proximity to a man who needed the best possible security (especially after the tough stance he had taken to get justice delivered to Aasia Bibi) is a cause for extreme distress. The whetting process for the selection of security personnel has come under intense scrutiny now as many questions are being asked as to the functioning of this all-important task. Just how careless have those in charge of the protection of our politicians become? More unsettling is the prospect that there was some conspiracy at work, allowing Qadri to be close to the governor, making his mission successful. If this is the case, investigating authorities will have to dig deep and look harder into the grimy circumstances surrounding Mr Taseer’s death. What this murder has made clear is the fact that these security convoys are penetrable and as such there now remains no fool-proof guarantee for VIPs, especially those who have taken a firm position on the blasphemy laws – they may be a minority but they are a desperately needed voice in this ocean of extremist madness.

Meanwhile the whole world has condemned the assassination. Everywhere from the US to Turkey and to the UN, an outpouring of condolences has come in to comfort the nation. Protests by workers of the PPP have started countrywide. It is recommended that the process of the law not be stalled when it comes to making sure that Qadri is brought to justice. With his case being sent to an anti-terrorism court and Qadri now being put on a five-day physical remand, we wait to see speedy and efficient justice. Any laxity could have the potential to drive party workers out into the streets in droves. It could also give the religious parties time to consolidate their efforts to make sure that Qadri is not punished. That is the last thing this blighted nation needs.

Qadri could become a warped hero for the obstructionist forces. The governor’s murder has clearly shown how the progressive political and democratic forces in this country are under siege. It has outlined the ever-deepening divide that has polarised society with galloping extremism on one end and the promise of a better, more progressive future tightly packed into a silent little corner on the other end. It is time to reassert political democracy to silence these voices of hate. For Salmaan Taseer that will be the best revenge. *

Salmaan Taseer...The forever governor

By Reem Wasay
Daily Times

The underbelly of extremist Islam is swarming with individuals who would rather promote a desecrated dogma than salvage a strengthened sanctimony of compassion, human rights and tolerance

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Salmaan Taseer left the Governor House with both honour and dignity intact. In a country where the megalomaniac pull of power and politics has sold many souls to the devil, our forever governor was a force to be reckoned with. Contrary to popular opinion, Salmaan Taseer did not offend people – he intimidated them. In a society harnessed to hate, that is a dangerous precedent to set. Coming from a family distant from the flaws of feudalism, Salmaan Taseer was a rarity; he rose to gargantuan heights on no secondary shoulders but on his own two feet. Where dynasty and imaginary lineage have, for decades, mauled the mandate of true democracy and progress, Salmaan Taseer became a somebody from the long line of nobodies who live and rise among us. Defining a liberal Pakistani dream, Mr Taseer epitomised everything that this land promised its newly christened citizens back in 1947. His very existence demonstrated to people that even in this gloom and pallor of a state riddled with rustic curses, one man’s determination can free him of the antiquated sermon of submission that all us Pakistanis have fallen prey to. His life, travels, views, raw honesty, ascendance and dynamism emboldened the quiet moderates to voice their ideologies without fear for the very first time in a manner unheard of in a country rocked and ruled by men and women who have no identity because they have departed from integrity and progress. He was an intimidating man because he did not suffer the malaise of hypocrisy that has penetrated the pith and principle of most human beings in this land. He spoke his mind and he spoke it without fear, but with plenty of wit and, at times, stinging valour; it stung because he said what we all felt and knew was right but were too intimidated by the wrong factions to say it. Intimidation is a strange thing; it can either make you cower in submission or it can make you a gallant of Goliathan proportions.

Salmaan Taseer intimidated his peers, his subordinates, his fellow liberals and even the swarm of extremists who orchestrated and celebrated his death but are, in actuality, responsible for making the man into the first true martyr for a more liberal, more just Pakistan. ‘Muslims’ are so fond of quoting worldly examples to expunge their irrationalities that I would like to take a leaf out of the bigot book for this. Many Muslims hold the opinion that God shows to the believers the true value of a man’s worth only in his death. Salmaan Taseer died fighting for a cause he believed in and that makes him a hero. Dear fanatics, what do you think God is trying to tell you? His last rites, the mammoth turnout of mourners to pay their final respects, a hero’s goodbye and the colossal grief that has confounded the country are not the reactions awarded to a sullied soul. In a nation where men and women have been booted out of power and governors have been unceremoniously kicked out of the Governor’s House – some without shoes on – Salmaan Taseer left with homage and honour. If we are so blinded by convictions, let us take stock of the man’s final farewell.

The Blasphemy law has demonstrated in practice that it is not a devout law; it is atonement for the lunatics who achieve their only worth in life on the burdened back of our Prophet’s (PBUH) exploited honour. The underbelly of extremist Islam is swarming with individuals who would rather promote a desecrated dogma than salvage a strengthened sanctimony of compassion, human rights and tolerance. The real blasphemy does not take place in open fields between women of two different cultures, different beliefs and different opinions; it takes place in the house of God where different edicts are screamed from the speakers by men who have made themselves false prophets – as warned from the times of Abraham. Blasphemy occurs when the gunning down of a progressive is met with celebration instead of castigation and sanction instead of sentence. When mullahs incite further anger over the sands that falter on the grave of a man who had so much more to say, they practice blasphemy. They read upside down from their scriptures when they condemn any attempts at mourning and offering prayers for the fallen. They, by the very essence of their existence, are walking, breathing examples of blasphemy because they have intervened between God and man; they have demonised our own personal spirituality with their rituals, symbols, rules and rewards for violence. When a certain maulana on the television recently said that the governor’s death had no association with blasphemy but the anger generated in the people due to his “excessive” lifestyle, the bearded bastion’s arrogance screamed of blasphemy for he failed to grieve the death of a fellow citizen, something our Prophet (PBUH) would weep over. Such mullahs and radical rejectionists practice blasphemy by baying for the blood of a woman the governor died trying to set free.

It is time we fought fire with fire. If they can call voicing an opinion blasphemy, we can demonstrate extremist existence as blasphemy. A voice of moderation and liberal ideas has been snuffed out between the thorny fingers of misconstrued and manufactured ideologies. His death must not be in vain. It is time the PPP sprout a spine and address the very laws their governor died to amend. In the end, he was the lone voice in a rampage of irrationality; his party deserted him but he did not abandon a just cause. Blasphemy is real when we do nothing over the death of a true progressive. Blasphemy becomes us when we sit back in silence and drown out the rabid, white noise of the mercenaries of the minarets by ignoring these issues, a stance that Salman Taseer did not take. He truly was “the last man standing”; let us pay due tribute and work to amend the cruelty that comes with the blasphemy clauses.

The writer is an Assistant Editor, Daily Times.

Taseer's death exposes fissures in Pakistani society

Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was one of Pakistan's best-known political figures, but his death has revealed much more about this country than just its politics.

It has exposed the deep fissure that runs through society here, and some signs of the direction in which this country appears to be heading.

There are still questions as to whether Mumtaz Qadri, the assassin and one of the governor's own bodyguards, acted alone, or with the backing of a radical movement.

But his motive appears clear - he was angered by Salman Taseer's stance against Pakistan's stringent blasphemy laws.

The governor felt they discriminated against Pakistan's religious minorities and was the most prominent supporter of a Christian woman in Punjab who was sentenced to death for insulting the Prophet Muhammad, something she denied doing.

'Feted celebrity'

That made him something of a hate figure among some radical, fundamentalist quarters.

For some of them Qadri, the man accused of killing him, has become a feted celebrity.In the city of Peshawar, a demonstration has been held to celebrate Salman Taseer's murder and there were chants calling for Mumtaz Qadri's release.

"We, all the students, are proud of the job which Mumtaz performed," said one demonstrator. "We all are with him."

"The governor said the blasphemy law was a black law, that's why Mumtaz killed him," says another. "He did a tremendous job."

This is one - admittedly extreme - guise of Pakistan though it has shown itself elsewhere since Mr Taseer's death - on social networking sites, and radio phone-in programmes.

But there are also many Pakistanis who have been profoundly affected by what has happened, and are mourning the loss of a liberal hero.

This evening, at the spot where Mr Taseer was killed in Islamabad, was an altogether different gathering of people from the one in Peshawar, of people with a very different outlook.

For them, Qadri's alleged act was an attempt to rob them of their liberty too.
Eye-opener'

"It is a very, very shocking incident," said one man at the candlelit vigil in Kohsar Market.
"I would say it's an eye-opener for the mainstream political parties. They should close ranks and deny religious parties the space they have which fuels a lot of radical people like the person who killed Salman Taseer."

"We are small in numbers when we speak against all this extremism that's going on," one lady tells us.

"There are many people who will not come out because they're afraid. My children want to go abroad rather than be suppressed in this manner."

The governor's brutal death could spark debate as to what type of society Pakistanis want for themselves - one which is moderate and progressive, or one which is conservative and hard-line.

But it could also simply have the effect of silencing those, like Mr Taseer, who want to stand up for those they feel are being unfairly persecuted.

In November, when I last met Salman Taseer, he repeatedly voiced his belief that Pakistanis were an inherently liberal, humane people. He insisted they would ultimately reject extremism.

He pointed out that, in elections, religious parties have never done particularly well in Pakistan.

But the manner of Mr Taseer's passing is an indication to many that the radical elements within this society, however small or large they may be in number, are the ones currently forcing the agenda

Taseer Assassination Deepens Divide in Pakistan

The emotional funeral of the assassinated governor of Punjab and the cheering of his killer in court Wednesday highlighted the intensifying struggle between secular and religious forces in Pakistan that has grown nastier than ever in the country’s history.

As the 26-year-old assassin, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, appeared before a magistrate in Islamabad, to be charged with murder and terrorism, he was showered by hundreds of supporters with rose petals and garlands. Moderate religious leaders refused to condemn the assassination, and some hard-line religious leaders appeared obliquely to condone the attack.

Meanwhile, thousands of mourners thronged to the funeral in Lahore of the governor, Salman Taseer, a prominent voice for secularism who had recently become the focus of religious fury for speaking out against the nation’s strict blasphemy laws.

Many of the nation’s top politicians, including Mr. Taseer’s chief rival in Punjab and the leader of the opposition, Nawaz Sharif, did not attend the services. Neither did President Asif Ali Zardari, a friend and ally of Mr. Taseer, but out concern for his own security.

Government ministers and party officials indicated that they were dropping the campaign to change the blasphemy laws that Mr. Taseer had championed. No senior official would be drawn to comment on the religious extremist aspect of the killing at the funeral. Those who did comment, indicated a shift in the government position, by suggesting the killing was a political murder and a conspiracy, rather than a religiously motivated attack.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureishi avoided all comment and merely expressed his condolences to the family when approached by journalists. The Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, went as far as to say he would shoot any blasphemer himself.

“We have a very, very severe polarization in the country,” said journalist and author Ahmed Rashid, an expert on the Taliban and radical Islamism. “We have a small minority of extremists and small number of liberals speaking out, but the very large silent majority are people who are not extremist in any way but are not speaking out.”

Yet as the economic, political and social problems mount and extremism spreads, there is no sign of leadership from the government, he complained.

The Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who did attend the funeral, was described by one national daily newspaper as “rushing from pillar to post” in his frantic efforts to keep his government from collapsing after two coalition partners withdrew from his government last weekend.

Certainly the assassination has thrown the government off balance while the religious right, as the conservative and religious parties are generally described, remains unabashed in its open loathing of Mr. Taseer and his opposition to Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws, for which, apparently, he was killed.

The assassin, Mr. Qadri, hails from Bhara Kahu, a suburb of Islamabad, currently lives with his family in Muslim Town, a neighborhood of Rawalpindi, the military garrison town adjacent to Islamabad.

A follower of Dawat-e-Islami, a religious party based in Karachi, Mr. Qadri had joined the Special Forces branch of the Punjab police in 2002. At that time, he was declared a security risk because of his extreme religious views and sectarian activities during a routine check by his superior, according to a senior Pakistani police official.

In 2008, Mr. Qadri nonetheless managed to join the Elite Force of Punjab police, and had been assigned to guard the governor, raising alarming questions about the vetting and screening of security personnel, former police officials and associates of the former governor said.

At a market in Islamabad on Tuesday, Mr. Qadri pumped more than 20 rounds into Mr. Taseer’s back, Pakistani media reported, and yet was not fired on by any other member of the security detail, raising still more questions about whether any of the others knew of his plans in advance.

Mr. Qadri immediately surrendered, called himself a “slave of the Prophet,” and indicated that he had killed Mr. Taseer for his campaign against the blasphemy law.

He has so far not been linked him to any extremist religious organization, the senior police official said. But investigators were still combing his phone records and personal belongings. They are questioning his five brothers and father. Five other police officers who served with him are also under detention, the official said.

In contrast to the muted response of Mr. Taseer’s mourners, the supporters of Mr. Qadri were boisterous Wednesday. Lawyers who campaigned so vociferously two years ago against the military dictator Pervez Musharraf in the name of the constitution and the rule of law were among those who feted the suspect when he arrived at court Wednesday. Some volunteered to defend him free of charge.

Others voiced support Tuesday on an impromptu Facebook page for Mr. Qadri before it was forcibly shut down.

A former cabinet minister and leading member of the 2007 lawyers’ movement, Athar Minallah, said only a few extremists within the legal community would really support the killing of Mr. Taseer.

“Among the 100,000 lawyers in Pakistan, less than half a percent would go out and throw petals on this criminal, but the rest are hostages because the government is not providing any security, and why should I risk my life and that of my family,” he said. He pointed out that the religious parties have never done well at the polls and that the voting public, when given the chance, do not choose extremism.

Yet blasphemy is such an emotive subject in Pakistan that the day after such a high-profile murder, many seemed to side with the murderer, possibly for fear of being accused themselves.

Maulana Fazalur Rehman, the leader of Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazal, a Deobandi religious party, which left the federal cabinet last month, seemed to issue a veiled warning to supporters of Mr. Taseer, saying that sympathizing with a blasphemer was just as extreme as blasphemy itself.

More than 500 religious leaders of Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat, a leading Barelvi religious party, forbade its followers to either pray or attend the funeral prayers for Mr. Taseer, reported Jang, the country’s leading Urdu newspaper in its Wednesday issue.

“No Muslim should attend the funeral or even try to pray for Salman Taseer or even express any kind of regret or sympathy over the incident,” read a statement attributed to the religious clerics.

In Lahore, Muhammad Ibrahim, 25, a recent graduate who owns his own shop, was typical of ordinary citizens who did not condemn the assassin. “We are Muslims and nobody can compromise on the dignity of the Prophet,” he said. “Salman Taseer crossed the limits,” he said.

Half a dozen policemen interviewed while on duty around the city of Lahore voiced support for the assassin or refused to condemn the murder. “He acted according to his conscience,” one said. “What is done is Allah’s will,” another said. The policemen spoke to a journalist without giving their names.

Still, scores of workers from Mr. Taseer’s Pakistan Peoples Party were not able to gain access to the funeral ground because of the tight security and big crowds. Even the prime minister was unable to reach the coffin to say his goodbyes because of the press of people. The large black coffin, draped with the Pakistani flag, was carried by military helicopter to the nearby graveyard.

Party workers chanted slogans in memory of the party’s founder and amid some emotional grieving blamed the opposition Punjab government for failing to provide adequate security to the governor.

Sajida Amir, a provincial assembly member from Pakistan Peoples Party, the nation’s most secular-leaning, said the party had always made sacrifices for democracy. “The mission will continue and we will continue to speak out on these things,” she said.

Waqar Gillani contributed reporting from Lahore and Salman Masood from Islamabad.

Salmaan Taseer ....Remembering a liberal

More than a hundred people showed up on Wednesday at the Karachi Press Club for a candlelight vigil organised in memory of slain Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, and to commemorate his stance in favour of the minorities of Pakistan and against the blasphemy laws.

Participants of the vigil comprised citizens from various social strata and represented almost every shade of the religiosity spectrum. All of them, however, stood for a repeal of the blasphemy laws, or at least procedural amendments as suggested by former federal information minister Sherry Rehman. They chanted slogans against the misuse of laws by fanatics (‘Qatil qatil mullah qatil’ – the mullah is a murderer) and called for drastic punishment for those responsible for Taseer’s brutal killing (‘Zaalimo jawaab do, khoon ka hisaab do’).

Despite the grave danger to the lives of those who stand against the blasphemy laws, as evidenced by Salmaan Taseer’s assassination on Tuesday, no security was provided to the protestors in Karachi. Undeterred, they went around the press club, and also circled Zebunnisa Street and Zainab Market in Saddar, much to the horror of shopkeepers who gawped at the protestors chanting slogans against fanatics and fanaticism.