M WAQAR.....
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
--Albert Einstein !!!
NEWS,ARTICLES,EDITORIALS,MUSIC... Ze chi pe mayeen yum da agha pukhtunistan de.....(Liberal,Progressive,Secular World.)''Secularism is not against religion; it is the message of humanity.''
تل ده وی پثتونستآن
INSIDER also spoke with activists and women's-rights experts to highlight the full extent of the system.
Shahad al-Mohaimeed got up at midnight to leave her hotel room overlooking the blue water of Trabzon, a Turkish vacation town on the Black Sea. Her family picked the hilly, historic port because it offered a seaside break, but within an Islamic society.
Creeping barefoot out of the bedroom, al-Mohaimeed gathered her family's credit cards, keys, passports, and, crucially, their phones. This would slow them down, she thought, when they tried to follow her.
Her escape had taken a year of planning.
Standing on the road outside the hotel she panicked at the silence. It was the first time in her life she had been outside on her own.
It was also the first time since she was 10 that she had not woken up and put on a full-body covering, either a burqa or a niqab.
"I was 17 and I was so scared, so, so, scared," she recalls. "I left at midnight, and the night was so dark. I was scared of my brother and my family."
Until that moment, al-Mohaimeed had spent the entire 17 years of her life almost constantly in the physical presence of a male guardian, in accordance with the system enshrined in Saudi law.
'When we decide to leave, we decide to put our lives on the line. Because if we don't succeed, our families are going to kill us.'
Her routine was mechanical: wake, school, home, sleep, repeat, she said. Don't talk to, or look at, any man you are not related to. The Quran deemed it indecent, she was told, and her father considered it worthy of a beating.
Under her father's guardianship, she watched her teen brother spend a $1,600 monthly allowance as he pleased, while she begged for money to buy the most basic products. "I couldn't even buy anything for my period," she said. "It was my brother who paid for it, all the time, and he was younger than me."
al-Mohaimeed's mother couldn't access money she earned at her job either, she said. She didn't have a bank account. Her husband took it because, in his view, she wasn't worthy of having her own property. Reflecting on her past life, al-Mohaimeed said bluntly: "That's bulls---."
Speaking with INSIDER, al-Mohaimeed described frequent physical abuse from a father who she said regularly threatened to kill her. Infractions like being seen in the company of men who weren't family would be punished with having her wrists and ankles bound with rope. "My family are an abusive family," she said.
"There is no support for the beaten," she said, "even when it's reported, police are always on the man's side."
Women who get caught running away from the country are regularly never seen again. There are rumors that some have been killed — a prospect al-Mohaimeed saw as all too real.
"When we decide to leave," she said, "we decide to put our lives on the line. Because if we don't succeed, our families are going to kill us. It's shameful to have a daughter leave."
INSIDER has not been able to contact al-Mohaimeed's relatives to ask them about her account.
A sprawling database of women in Saudi Arabia that men use to bar them from travel
As well as physical restrictions and social pressure, al-Mohaimeed had to navigate a sophisticated online system to escape. Her father's phone — the one she stole that night in Trabzon — would have given him access to a Saudi government system called "Absher."
Absher means "the preacher" in Arabic. It is the state-run system that contains the online expression of Saudi Arabia's restrictive male-guardianship laws.
The Absher system — little-discussed in Western media — contains a log of women in Saudi Arabia and the means to bar them from travel or catch them trying to leave without permission.
Many of Absher's functions are benign and would not be out of place in any local or national government online portal. You can use it to pay parking fines or renew a driver's license.
Vitally, Saudi men can also use this site to specify when and where women are allowed to fly out of the country and grant or revoke travel permission with a few clicks, rendering specific airports or destinations off-limits.
Men can also enable an automatic SMS feature, which texts them when a woman uses her passport at a border crossing or airport check-in.
The reason al-Mohaimeed waited for the vacation in Turkey is that she would have little chance of escaping from within Saudi Arabia, where borders are integrated with the Absher alert system.
Any attempt to leave would be blocked as soon as her passport was checked at an airport. Even if she were to make it out, she would leave a digital trail making her easy to find.
At least 1,000 women try to flee Saudi Arabia each year, and experts told INSIDER the text alerts had enabled many men to catch family members before they make it out.
Getting around this system has become a critical step for women like al-Mohaimeed who try to run away from Saudi Arabia.
INSIDER decided to investigate after a flood of interest in Saudi female refugees. The spike was prompted by 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed, whose flight from the kingdom to Thailand became a viral phenomenon.
We have made repeated attempts to contact the Saudi authorities for comment on the system, both directly to the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and via the Saudi embassies in London and Washington.
At the time of publication, none had responded.
'I have 4 hours to leave Turkey before they wake up'
Outside the hotel in Turkey, al-Mohaimeed hoped to find a taxi to take her to the airport, but there were none. So she walked to the nearby hospital to call one. She would board a flight to Australia, she hoped — or anywhere but Saudi Arabia. "I have four hours to leave Turkey before they wake up," she remembers thinking.
Once she was inside a taxi, it took 20 minutes to reach the local airport, an airstrip offering mostly domestic Turkish flights.
Only at the check-in area did she realize there were no departures until 8 a.m. It would not be enough time.
The Turkish border with Georgia was 113 miles away, via a scenic highway hugging the Black Sea. The former Soviet state, which does not require a visa for Saudi citizens, was the only option she had left. She found another taxi, paid for the ride, and a couple of hours later was handing over her passport to the police at the border, and hoping.
Border guards looked from her face to the passport, and then again. For 15 minutes they kept al-Mohaimeed waiting. "Oh my God, what could happen now?" she recalls thinking.
"It was really a matter of life or death," she told INSIDER. "And when they let me in I was so surprised. I was going to ask them: Really?"
al-Mohaimeed walked into the town from there, but she does not remember its name. She went to sleep locked in a public bathroom.
From there she caught a ride to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, and found a room in the city with somebody she met. Her plan was to ask for an Australian tourist visa, which can be applied for online.
She was rejected.
Meanwhile, she knew Saudi diplomatic staff members were looking for her, and Interpol had already come calling to her flatmate.
How Absher works
INSIDER spoke with activists and Saudi refugees about Absher, the computer system that makes fleeing directly from Saudi Arabia so difficult. We also obtained screenshots from the site that show how it works.
Absher is Arabic by default, but it can also be accessed in English.
This image shows the main Absher dashboard where male Saudi guardians add "dependents," meaning women and children:
A second screenshot, from deeper inside the website, shows a screen for managing travel permissions.
Men can specify numerous journeys women are allowed to take or specify a time period in which they can travel.
On this form guardians can say where women can go, how long for, and which airports they can go to.Absher
Four options are displayed for travel permissions:
A single journey anywhere.
A single journey between two specific airports.
Multiple journeys.
Permission to travel until the passport expires (a maximum of five years).
Before Absher, Saudi women needed a paper consent form with a guardian's signature, known as a "yellow slip," to pass through customs.
Absher digitized the system, which can give a detailed readout of every journey somebody has made. (Men can view their own travel history as well as those of children and women in their family.)
Here's a screenshot of the passport section on Absher that shows the travel log of a registered passport.
A list of journeys taken on a passport, clearly listed on Absher.Absher
The alert system is one of the main reasons women trying to flee Saudi Arabia get caught, because it tips their guardians off while they can still be apprehended, according to Dr. Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a Saudi refugee who fled to Germany.
Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch, also told INSIDER about the SMS alerts and corroborated al-Abdulmohsen's story.
INSIDER located copies of several alerts sent by the Ministry of Interior, which were shared in 2012 when the system was still a novelty.
They all display on phone screens as coming from MOIJawazat. MOI stands for Ministry of Interior, and Jawazat is the name of the Saudi passport and visa office.
This one alerted a guardian that a Saudi businesswoman named Sarah al-Ayed had used her passport to leave Saudi Arabia by plane.
It says: "Sarah number ##### departed from King Abdulaziz Airport on 12-11-2012."
And this one, sent to a man named Khalid al-Shnanah says: "Exit permit for Sala number ***7698 expires 25-11-2012." This most likely refers to permission a guardian gave to a women to travel for a fixed amount of time.
This string of four messages documents two women, called Danah and Fatima, both listed as dependents under a guardian's page on Absher, leaving and returning to Saudi Arabia from Bahrain over the King Fahad causeway bridge.
Coogle, of Human Rights Watch, told INSIDER: "The text alerts are still happening and that's why they find out so quickly" when women try to escape. Two other experts corroborated this.
Fooling the system
Everyone knows about Absher in Saudi Arabia, al-Abdulmohsen said, and young women are now using a common technique to try to escape.
Saudi women steal their guardian's phone, reset the password, and get a new one in minutes, he said. A few seconds later they have given themselves permission to leave.
"But this is dangerous. If the guardian is thorough, he will regularly check the status of his dependents," he said.
Shahad al-Mohaimeed, the Saudi refugee who spoke with INSIDER about her escape from Turkey, says she now gives advice to those planning to flee, particularly on getting travel permission and avoiding the MOIJawazat SMS alerts.
"Steal the father's phone one night before they fly to make sure it's working," she said from her new home. "Sometimes it doesn't work, or the father has his phone with him all the time, so some girls can't."
Leaving Saudi Arabia through an official checkpoint is a risk. This is the Abu Samra border crossing to Saudi Arabia from Qatar.Reuters
Another Saudi refugee, who used only the first name Salwa, told the BBC she used this technique to flee the kingdom.
Yasmine Mohammed, a prominent women's-rights commentator, told INSIDER some women changed the phone number linked to their guardian's Absher account so the alert SMS message would come to their phone instead.
This page on Absher shows how to cancel travel permissions on a dependent's passport:
A page on Absher where a guardian can see which permissions are active and easily change them if needed.Absher
Even after navigating the technical side, the journey remains difficult and risky.
Refugees, including Rahaf Mohammed, cite the case of Dina Ali Lasloom, who made it to the Philippines in April 2017 but was apprehended by her family and taken back.
'Social media is showing women getting out, smiling, surviving'
Despite cautionary tales like this, the support networks between women are strengthening, and escape attempts are on the rise, the experts told INSIDER.
al-Abdulmohsen told INSIDER there were numerous forums and groups where women and girls shared tips for escaping.
"There used to be no girls paying attention to asylum, now they all know about asylum, and they know about escape plans," he said.
"Now they have more chance of being accepted abroad and have more knowledge of the process and evidence to get asylum."
Yasmine Mohammed, the women's-rights commentator, agrees.
"Social media is showing women getting out, smiling, surviving, happy, encouraging other women to get out," she told INSIDER. "It's falsifying the rhetoric Saudi women have been hearing all these years."
Rahaf al-Qunun, the 18-year-old Saudi woman who fled her family, at the COSTI Corvetti Education Centre in Toronto.REUTERS/Mark Blinch
More than 1,000 women flee Saudi Arabia each year, Mansour al-Askar of the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University told The Economist in May 2017.
Within Saudi Arabia, guardianship laws are also changing, but very slowly.
As long ago as 2013, Saudi Arabia told the UN it would abolish the male-guardianship system and all discrimination against women.
They have made some changes, according to Human Rights Watch. These include no longer requiring women to provide a guardian's permission to work or needing to bring a male relative to identify them in court.
In April 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told all Saudi government agencies that women should not be blocked from getting government services because they don't have guardian consent, unless regulations require it.
Life is hard, but she cannot go back
It has been two years since Shahad al-Mohaimeed left her hotel in Turkey and ran away from her family.
In Tbilisi, al-Mohaimeed met another refugee, who had also fled from a strict Islamic country. Through this connection, she was put in touch with human-rights activists, who referred her to the UN. She was granted refugee status and, ultimately, a home in Sweden.
She declined to give a precise location, citing safety concerns.
Now, al-Mohaimeed goes to school every day and has a part-time job. She describes Sweden as "a good place" but says living without a family is hard.
But she cannot go back. Even as a 12-year-old, al-Mohaimeed struggled to see the logic in believing God would punish her for exercising freedom of thought. "I didn't belong to this life," she said. "I hated it with all my heart."
She worries about her friends back in Saudi Arabia, some of whom she says are detained in what Saudis know as "protection houses," the same sort of facility that reportedly now houses Dina Ali Lasloom.
"I'm still sacrificing by living here in Sweden," she said. "But it's now who I am. I have seen a lot of things and it's what has made me. I can deal with anyone."
https://www.thisisinsider.com/absher-saudi-website-men-control-women-stop-escape-2019-1
The opposition parties in the Senate rejected the 63 per cent increase in Haj expenses and tabled a calling attention notice on Friday.
Senator Mushtaq Ahmed of Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) submitted the notice. He expressed disappointment over the Haj policy and reminded the government that it had claimed to transform the country into a Madina-like state.
The senator said that the entire nation was worried about the policy. He added that the government should have provided some relief to people in the Haj cost. He said that the recent increase in Haj expenditure has pushed the religious obligation out of the people's reach.
The federal cabinet on Thursday announced the Haj Policy 2019 under which the cost of performing the ritual under the government scheme has been fixed at Rs456,426 (with Qurbani), against last year’s expense of Rs280,000 per person. Now, every individual will have to pay an additional Rs176,426.
Under the Haj Policy 2018, the cost of Haj for individuals in the north of the country was Rs280,000 and for the south, it was Rs270,000. However, in the new policy, the cost of Haj for individuals in the north has been fixed at Rs456,426 (with Qurbani) and Rs436,975 (without Qurbani), while for those in the south it is Rs446,426 (with Qurbani) and Rs426, 975 (without Qurbani).
Ahmed, on Friday, termed the move a "drone attack" and said that Haj has become a target of 'tsunami'. He regretted that the government didn't seek recommendation from the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) before deciding on the matter pertaining to a religious obligation.
He said that introducing the new policy was tantamount to refraining people from performing Haj, adding that the government "should not invite ill wishes" of pilgrims.
"The government claiming to be a Madina state is refraining people from visiting Makkah and Madina," he said, claiming that the same government had announced to spend billions for restoration of cinemas.
He suggested that instead of spending billions of rupees for restoration of cinemas, the government should subsidise Haj.
PPP leader Raza Rabbani pointed out the absence of Minister for Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadri in the ongoing session. He asked the treasury benches if the minister was angry. "Neither did he address the press conference on Haj policy [yesterday], nor has he responded in the Senate to the notice."
In yesterday's cabinet meeting, Qadri had reportedly walked out after his proposal for a subsidy of Rs45,000 per pilgrim was rejected by his fellow members of the federal cabinet. Sources said that Qadri was due to accompany the information minister at the press briefing.
The information minister, however, denied reports that Qadri was to be present at the presser.
Senator Shibli Faraz of the PTI told the Senate on Friday that the minister was not angry.
State Minister Ali Mohammad Khan responded to the notice, saying the government was standing by its stance of establishing a Madina-like state.
The minister clarified that 70 per cent of expenditures are made in Saudi Arabia and the government has no control over expenditures there. He further elaborated that expenses for accommodation, meals and other services have drastically been increased in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
"The government has been trying to provide some relief," he said.
Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjarani suggested that provision of further subsidy to Haj pilgrims would be a better move.
Madinah model does not mean provision of free Hajj, says religious affairs minister
Federal Minister of Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadri also spoke to the media regarding the matter on Friday that "the Riyasat-i-Madinahmodel that the government keeps talking about is [a model that should] bring well-being to the people, the abolition of poverty, the [creation of] an educated society, development of infrastructure and the turning Pakistan into a welfare state."
"The Riyasat-i-Madinah [model] certainly does not mean sending people to Hajj for free and throw the nation's subsidy at it. [It does not mean] that those on whom [the pilgrimage is] mandated upon, do it using the peoples' money."
The minister did, however, say "yes, had it [a subsidy] been given, it would have been great."
Walkout over ministers' absence
Raza Rabbani recorded his protest over the absence of ministers from the session. He said that the opposition had demanded to ensure presence of the relevant minister over the issue of Pakistan Medical and Dental Council. He accused the government of deliberately ensuring that the PMDC chairman doesn't appear before the Senate.
"[We] raised the issue of dialogue between the United States and [Afghan] Taliban but didn't receive any response," he said, adding that the Senate was being kept in the dark.
He added that Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, the director general of the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), held a detailed interview on Jan 27, in which it appeared that he was well aware of all details [pertaining to the dialogues].
"Will you inform us about the details after culmination of the talks?" he asked.
Later, the opposition parties staged a walkout in protest against the absence of ministers. Following the walkout, the session was adjourned as the quorum was pointed out.
On Jan 25, the Senate chairman had shared same concerns and sought a reply from Prime Minister Imran Khan over the continuous absence of PTI ministers from Senate proceedings.
While Senate proceedings were underway, the chairman had instructed the Senate Secretariat to write a letter to the premier, informing him of the ministers' absence and inquiring as to why these lawmakers had not been attending the house's proceedings.
"The ministers have made a habit of not attending the Senate session," the chairman had said, adding that his dissatisfaction at the ministers' absence should be conveyed to the premier.
Earlier today, the Senate approved budget recommendations by the Senate Standing Committee on Finance. Senator Farooq Naek presented the recommendations.
The February 2018 Islamabad sit-in gave birth to the most dynamic, active, and nonviolent youth political uprising Pakistan has seen.
One of the most important developments in Pakistan last year was the emergence of a powerful but nonviolent civil rights movement among the country’s long-suffering Pashtun minority. The movement, popular and led by youth, is known as the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) or Movement for the Protection of Pashtuns.
Events over the past year have shown that this organic grassroots movement hasn’t been a temporary outburst of youthful unrest and anger in a war-ravaged and marginalized community. Instead, the PTM has come to represent a resilient, peaceful, and popular initiative that has withstood extensive state repression, persecution, and a media blackout since its inception.
The movement has consistently but peacefully protested against Pakistani state policies that have imposed an armed conflict on the underdeveloped Pashtun homeland in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan provinces.
The early January 2018 murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a young aspiring Pashtun model, in a fake police encounter in Pakistan’s southern seaport city of Karachi triggered an explosion of anger in the western districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). This anger among the Pashtuns had built up over decades through various cycles of the Afghan war and the so-called War on Terrorism after 9/11. These events brought the Pashtun people the three Ds: death, destruction, and displacement.
The Pashtun Long March, prompted by Mehsud’s murder, proved a rallying cry for Pashtuns. They were sick and tired of the war and the disempowerment imposed on them by decades of the Pakistani security establishment’s misguided Afghan policy.
The protest that originated from the South Waziristan district went from Dera Ismail Khan through Peshawar valley, the Pashtun heartland, to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, in the first week of February 2018. After a few days of pressure and persuasion, the traditional tribal elites left the protest, which resulted in the young leaders of the PTM taking over. The movement’s charismatic leader, Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen, 24, has successfully navigated troubled waters.
The Islamabad sit-in gave birth to the country’s most dynamic, active, and nonviolent youth political uprising. It has taken the Pashtun belt in Pakistan by storm and mobilized Pashtun diasporas in several countries on an unprecedented scale. In massive protest gatherings, it has successfully taken its message to the big cities of Pakistan like Karachi, the eastern city of Lahore, Quetta in the southwest, and the northern metropolis of Peshawar.
What we witnessed over the past year shows that the PTM braved all hurdles on its path, holding big protest rallies in places like the northwestern Swat Valley, Swabi, and Karachi. Its recent rallies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s southern cities of Bannu and Tank have been particularly impressive. Pakistani political observers have been pleasantly surprised by women’s participation in public meetings in conservative areas like Bannu.
The movement has given voice to the voiceless people of former FATA, who for decades were at the receiving end of extremist violence and state oppression. But the PTM’s anti-war narrative has resonated with Pashtun masses in neighboring Afghanistan and elsewhere. Despite promises at the highest level, the Pakistani state has failed to effectively address grave abuses such as enforced disappearances, landmines, and mistreatment by security forces.
The nonimplementation of legal and administrative reforms outlined at the time of FATA’s merger into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa last year has left more than 6 million Pashtun residents of these regions in legal limbo and an administrative vacuum. Since military authorities run the day-to-day administration in the area without judiciary and other civilian institutions, voices are raised against the uniformed bureaucracy during the agitation, which invariably attracts its wrath.
Pakistani military leaders have issued several public warnings against the movement for crossing what they said were undefined “red lines.” But PTM leaders have emphasized the need for respect of the fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution. They complain that Mehsud’s murderers roam free after more than a year of calling for justice.
The recent abduction and brutal murder of Tahir Dawar, a decorated police officer from Waziristan, remains uninvestigated despite official promises at the highest level. The refusal of state authorities to investigate the alleged harassment of women and children by the security forces in Khaisor, a village in North Waziristan, has further added fuel to the fire of alienation.
As a grassroots movement, the PTM is grappling with organizational and structural problems as it evolves. There has been an intense debate within the movement about whether it should pursue parliamentary politics by standing in elections. Many PTM supporters say it should remain a mass resistance movement against tyranny and oppression and shouldn’t waste its energy on parliamentary aspirations. But others maintain that the parliament could be used as a front for people’s resistance.
Two of the top PTM leaders, Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar, won parliamentary elections in July 2018 as independent candidates. They have boldly raised issues in the National Assembly or lower house of the Pakistani parliament. Even when I was a member of the Senate or upper house of the parliament from 2009 to 2016, most of my colleagues avoided discussing the issues they are now raising.
Similarly, the movement has also yet to figure out the nature of its role for the long term. So far, it has functioned as a pressure group brought into being by a political uprising among Pashtun youth. But it obviously can’t remain that forever: It must make a decision about its long-term structure and sociopolitical program.
In conclusion, the policy of harassment and oppression adopted by the country’s security institutions toward PTM isn’t expected to bring positive results. Banning its coverage by the mainstream media hasn’t been able to stop the movement from delivering its message to the masses.
If Pakistan’s ruling elites are wise, they must realize that only the formation of an independent truth and reconciliation commission, tasked with investigating the atrocities committed by both state and nonstate actors and respecting the fundamental rights enshrined the constitution, will help restore political stability and end the movement’s agitation.
A group of Pakistani Catholics were twice stopped from traveling to the World Youth Day event recently held in Panama after being accused of human trafficking and drug smuggling.
The ten pilgrims denied the unsubstantiated allegations and church officials have backed them up.
Officials from the Federal Investigation Agency stopped them from boarding a Turkish airlines flight bound for Panama at Lahore international airport first on Jan. 21.
The young Catholics tried again three days later but were again blocked and verbally harassed by officials.
Asghar Nazir, a Catholic teacher in Lahore, said officials told them that the World Youth Day was only an excuse for human trafficking and marijuana smuggling.
“We were asked questions about Pope Francis and humiliated despite producing travel verifications and supporting documents,” said Nazir.
“After making us wait for three hours, they tore the boarding passes up right in front of our eyes,” said the 33-year-old.
“My dreams of meeting the Pope have been crushed,” he said. “I only wanted to grow more in gospel and spirituality and share my experience with local religious minorities.”
Nazir took out a bank loan to fund the pilgrimage and he said the non-refundable expenses have now jeopardized his marriage plans for next month.
Catholic Church officials condemned the harassment by the immigration authorities.
Father Yaqoob Yousaf from the Catholic Youth Ministry in Lahore Archdiocese said what the pilgrims experienced was blatant discrimination.
“The pilgrims had valid visas and Church approval. Catholic youth in Pakistan already faces challenges of getting into higher education and obtaining jobs. This adds to their disappointment,” Father Yousaf said.
“A small percentage of oversees Pakistanis are Christians. Foreign visas are already a challenge for our people,” he said.
“Immigration officials often take money from Christian tourism groups. Strong lobbying with foreign ambassadors is needed.”
Last year the Irish embassy denied visas to about 10,000 families who applied from all over the country to attend the World Meeting of Families in Dublin.
According to Henley Passport Index, which periodically measures the access each country’s travel document affords, the Pakistani passport remains the fifth-worst passport globally, offering its holders visa-free access to just 33 countries.
The Constitution of Pakistan guarantees equal rights for all citizen irrespective of their religion or belief. Christians, however, insist that they have long faced both deep-seated prejudice and institutionalized discrimination because of their faith.
World Youth Day was held from Jan. 22-27 with the theme of “I’m the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word (Lk. 1,38).”
It may be easy for the Pakistan military to manage traditional mainstream media, but social media plays by its own rules.
The Pakistan army’s media wing, the ISPR, flew journalists to North Waziristan, a tribal zone close to the Afghanistan border in the last week of January. It is normally a no-go area for journalists from outside the region. But this time, the ritualistic dog-and-pony show between the army and journalists has backfired.
پاکستانی میڈیا چینلز کے لوگ میرانشاہ شمالی وزیرستان لے جائے گئے ہیں اچھی بات ہے.. لیکن سوال یہ ہے کہ کیا رپورٹ کریں گے؟ بدقسمتی سے پاکستانی میڈیا دہشت گردی کے خلاف پوری جنگ میں ہمارے خلاف ایسے استعمال ہوئی ہے جیسے کسی ملک دشمن کے خلاف جنگ کے دوران پروپیگنڈہ کے لیے استعمال ہوتی
The Pakistan army media wing has been conducting controlled trips for many years now, with journalists embedded with the military to travel to such conflict zones. The goal is to manage the narrative of the local and international media.
Considered at one point as the headquarters of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani military now claims that it has been able to clear the tribal belt. In a bid to show its “success”, it flew in a delegation of local and foreign journalists.
But the visit couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient moment. There is an ongoing controversy of a Waziristan woman coming forward days before the trip claiming sexual harassment and abuse by the Pakistani army soldiers. In a video statement that went viral on social media, the woman says that Pakistani soldiers threatened to rape her, after abducting her husband and her son. Such testimony is the first of its kind and was shared by members from the grassroots movement ongoing in Pakistan right now called the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), which was launched in the wake of an extra-judicial killing of a man from North Waziristan last year. Once PTM members shared the video, it went viral. This rattled the Pakistan Army’s media wing so much that in an attempt to diffuse the situation, it flew in its selected team of journalists to counter the woman’s statement with an alternative discourse.
But it may be easier to manage traditional mainstream media, but social media plays by its own rules.
The attempt to manage the narrative this time through controlled PR exercise has received severe backlash on social media, and a number of social media users from Pakistan are for the first time questioning the very purpose of such reporting trips. It appears that the PTM has given them the courage to speak up, just like it encouraged the woman to make that video statement, which is also a rare occurrence.
What has further added fuel to this fiery criticism of the Pakistani military on social media is the subsequent attempts by some prominent journalists from traditional media to spin the statement of the abused woman.
One of Pakistan’s most well-known television show host Hamid Mir who was also a part of this trip to Waziristan uploaded a video on Twitter Monday in which he is seen interviewing the Director General of ISPR – General Asif Ghafoor. But his line of questioning gives away his attempt to spin the story: He asks about the “propaganda on social media about the incident in Waziristan regarding dishonouring of women”. In response, the general rejects the accusations and cites a jirga (a tribal council of sorts) ruling to say that the woman is lying. But jirgas, which are male-dominated judicial councils consisting of elders from the area, have been deemed illegal by the Pakistani courts, especially due to their anti-women verdicts.
Many are now questioning Hamid Mir’s intent in uploading such a problematic response from the general when he should have been interviewing the woman instead.
But given that Mir was embedded with the military, it appears that the famous television show host went a step ahead in ensuring the broadcasting of ISPR’s propaganda.
The practice of embedded journalism was intended to humanise soldiers fighting in conflict areas, but the military media managers make it difficult for a journalist to break the bond that builds up and report critically about the very soldiers that he or she has spent days with on the field.Second, the Pakistani military ensures that if a journalist is not okay about reporting only with what he or she is being fed, it may become his or her last trip as an embed and access is blocked in future.
Such pressure tactics end up putting journalists in a tight spot with their own editorial management.
I have witnessed this first-hand when I travelled to South Waziristan in 2013 with the Pakistan Army. The army had widely claimed that it had brought peace to the region and once we reached the tribal zone, we were taken on a tightly controlled visit to pre-decided locations. When we insisted on being allowed to go independently in a local village, the military media personnel accompanying us refused and when we showed our dismay at this, they told us that this was the last time we were being allowed.
Despite my repeated requests to be embedded in the next few years, it never invited me, while taking many other journalists to Balochistan and Kashmir. But I have now realised that these trips are useless anyway.
Another issue with such embedded trips is that the military men act very differently when there are no journalists observing them. A soldier spoke about this during the Iraq/Afghanistan Winter Soldier hearings in 2008. One of the participants of the hearing – a young US Iraq veteran John Michael Turner stated: “Any time we did have embedded reporters with us, our actions would change drastically. We never acted the same. We were always on key with everything, did everything by the books.”
What should journalists do if they want to report independently? A reasonable option is to collaborate with local stringers in the region like the BBC did after an ISPR-arranged trip to Pakistan’s Kashmir (that the military undertook to dispel claims of a surgical strike that India said it had carried out across the Line of Control in 2016).
Subsequent to this trip, the BBC had sent its own team and investigated how the incursion did occur, but it was only possible to report this without the prying eyes of the military.
Pakistan is considered a conflict zone by international media especially in areas like the tribal belt, Balochistan and disputed territories like Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan. It is, therefore, important that journalists report the truth from this region, especially in times of war, instead of becoming party to the conflict by embedding with the very forces that have an agenda in presenting a certain kind of positive image of themselves to the public.
The PTI-led government, which had promised to create many jobs, has taken away people’s employment after coming into power, said PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
“Unemployment has been rising in every sector since the new government took over,” he told the media in Kandhkot on Friday.
When asked about the ‘downsizing’ in the media industry, he called it an attack on the freedom of the press and media. “The federal government is a part of this conspiracy,” he remarked.
He was flanked by other PPP leaders including Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah. “Selected governments don’t respect people’s mandate,” said the MNA.
He said that Sindh has yet to be given its Rs90 billion for development funds. “They [the federal government] are doing it on purpose. They know they can’t defeat us in the elections so they have even made fake JIT reports,” he added.
We are only concerned with serving the people of Pakistan, he remarked.
Bilawal accused the federal government of not implementing the 18th Amendment, which concerns the devolution of powers to the provinces. “Whatever PM Imran Khan has said has been a lie. His ministers are seen criticising the 18th Amendment,” he said.
The PPP scion said that Sindh’s ‘world class’ institutions, such as the NICVD, NICH, and Jinnah hospital, are being taken away from the province.
He had made the same remarks at a rally earlier in the day. “Young people have the responsibility to protect the 18th Amendment,” he said. “The clause is in danger and being attacked from all sides.”
The PPP is committed to fighting all these forces, he remarked. “We are not willing to compromise on our democratic and human rights.”
