After a Year of Silence, a Jailed Saudi Princess Appeals for Help

By Ben Hubbard

The detentions of a prince and princess add to the tally of royals who have been locked up during the rise of the kingdom’s powerful crown prince.

For years, she was a rare princess from Saudi Arabia who spoke her mind to the world, criticizing the kingdom’s treatment of women, calling its religious teachings “extremely dangerous” and voicing support for a constitutional monarchy.

And she got away with it — until she disappeared last March.

This week, the princess, Basmah bint Saud, a daughter of Saudi Arabia’s second king, confirmed what had long been suspected: A statement on her Twitter feed said that she was being held in a notorious prison in Saudi Arabia without charge and that she was in urgent need of medical care.“I was abducted without explanation together with one of my daughters and thrown into prison,” she wrote. She begged Saudi Arabia’s king and the crown prince “to release me as I have done no wrong.”

By Friday, that plea had been deleted.

The reason for her arrest was not clear, but it appeared to fit a pattern of Saudi Arabia’s government punishing prominent citizens who had publicly deviated from the government’s line.

Her detention was one of two new cases of Saudi royals locked up during the rise of the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.Last month, Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, also a child of a Saudi king, was detained, leaving his family with no idea why he was taken or where he is being held, according to three associates of his family.

Since his father, King Salman, ascended the throne in 2015, Prince Mohammed has repeatedly locked up members of the royal family while consolidating his position as the kingdom’s de facto ruler.He has also gone after prominent critics. Among them are activists who were imprisoned after campaigning for women to have the right to drive, and the dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed by Saudi agents in Istanbul in 2018 after publishing columns critical of the crown prince in The Washington Post.

But the detentions of less prominent figures like Princess Basmah baffled some Saudi experts.

“Why are they being arrested?” asked Madawi al-Rasheed, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics who studies Saudi Arabia. “Someone like Basmah, what kind of challenge does she represent to Mohammed bin Salman? I have no idea.”

Officials at the Saudi Embassy in Washington declined to comment.

At least 11 princes were locked in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton in 2017 and accused of corruption. At least one, Turki bin Abdullah, is still detained. The former crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, a cousin whom Prince Mohammed elbowed aside to become crown prince himself, was placed under house arrest before being detained last month, along with one of Mohammed bin Salman’s uncles.

Many of these princes had held powerful positions as the heads of security bodies or as provincial governors, leading analysts to conclude that the crown prince had detained them to neutralize potential threats to his standing.

But Princess Basmah and Prince Faisal, the two newest cases, had never held significant power or influence. And two associates of Princess Basmah said she was being held with her daughter in Al Ha’ir Prison, a notorious lockup for criminals and jihadists near the capital, Riyadh, a move that appeared to have no precedent, said Dr. al-Rasheed, the Saudi scholar.

“Historically, they just put them in their villas and didn’t let them out,” she said of previous detentions of female royals. “To put her in Al Ha’ir Prison is really extreme.”

Princess Basmah, 57, is the youngest daughter of King Saud, Saudi Arabia’s second king. He fathered 53 sons and 57 daughters with numerous wives and concubines and was forced to abdicate the throne in 1964 by other members of his family.

For many years, Princess Basmah lived in London, where she was involved in business and spoke about human rights and the need for change in Saudi Arabia.

In an interview with the BBC in 2012, she called for a constitution in Saudi Arabia “that treats all men and women on an equal footing” and that would protect citizens in court from “the whims of individual judges.”She criticized the kingdom’s divorce laws for not protecting women’s rights and said the Saudi education system “has left our youth vulnerable to fundamentalist ideologies that have led to terrorism.”While such criticisms were common among Saudi dissidents and rights activists, Princess Basmah stood out as a rare royal to voice such ideas publicly.But she faced no immediate consequences, and returned to Saudi Arabia after Salman became king. In 2017, she praised him in an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle, saying she expected him to improve the kingdom’s human rights record.“There is a progress in Saudi Arabia and in the human rights issue in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “It is being looked at more seriously than it was before.”But speaking to BBC Arabic the next year, she offered a veiled criticism of Prince Mohammed, who had begun a sweeping plan called Vision 2030 that sought to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from oil and open up Saudi society.

“He has a vision, Vision 2030, and I see that in that vision, there is a direction toward a type of isolation of all those who do not agree with that vision,” she said.

One of Princess Basmah’s associates said officials from the royal court told her she could face trouble if she did not praise Prince Mohammed in such interviews.

Princess Basmah suffers from health problems including heart trouble and osteoporosis, and in early 2019 she was planning to seek medical care in Switzerland. But on March 1, before she left, security officers arrested her from her home in Jeddah on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast with her daughter, Suhoud, 27, the two associates said.

The two women have not publicly been charged with any crimes.

As her detention has dragged on, her health has deteriorated and she now struggles to get out of bed, her two associates said. This week, out of desperation, she got word to her staff to post the appeal on her Twitter account.

Appealing to King Salman and Prince Mohammed, she described her health status as “VERY critical” and said she had received no medical care.

On Friday, her two associates said they did not know how the messages had been deleted.

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Prince Faisal, now in his mid-40s, was the head of the Saudi Red Crescent during the reign of his father, King Abdullah, who died in 2015, but has otherwise done little to gain public notice.

He was briefly detained in the Ritz-Carlton in 2017 and surrendered some of his assets to the government, one of his associates said. He had been living quietly off his remaining wealth since.

On March 27, security officers came to his home near Riyadh and accused him of having Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, two of his associates said. Prince Faisal denied that he had the disease and said he was living in isolation anyway.

He was arrested nonetheless. His family has not heard from him since and do not know why he was taken or where he is being held, his three associates said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/world/middleeast/saudi-princess-prison.html

Video Report - #CoronaVirusPakistan - PM House University Project | What Happened To The Project.

حکومت پیسے بہت خرچ کر رہی ہے لیکن نظر کچھ نہیں آ رہا: چیف جسٹس

مونا خان 

چیف جسٹس نے حکومتی اعلان جس میں درزی کو دکان کھولنے کی اجازت دی گئی، اس کے حوالے سے بھی سوال کیا کہ 'کپڑے کی دوکانیں کھولے بغیر درزی کھولنے کا کیا فائدہ؟ درزی کو کپڑا اور دیگر چیزیں بھی چاہیے ہوتی ہیں۔ایسے تو درزی ہاتھ پر ہاتھ رکھ کر بیٹھا رہے گا۔'

ملک بھر میں کرونا وائرس اقدامات کے حوالے سے ازخود نوٹس کیس کی سماعت پیر کے روز چیف جسٹس گلزار احمد کی سربراہی میں پانچ رکنی لارجر بینچ نے کی۔ آج کی سماعت میں چیف جسٹس پاکستان نے بیت المال میں موجود زکوة کے پیسے کے استعمال پر سوالات کیے۔

عدالت میں وزارت صحت اور تمام صوبوں نے رپورٹس جمع کروائیں۔ چیف جسٹس نے کہا کہ 'حکومت پیسے تو بہت خرچ کر رہی ہے لیکن نظر کچھ نہیں آ رہا کہ ہو کیا رہا ہے۔'

عدالت نے اپنے حکم نامے میں زکوۃ اور بیت المال کے پیسے کے بارے میں اسلامی نظریاتی کونسل اور مفتی تقی عثمانی سے شرعی رائے طلب کر لی۔ 'بتایا جائے کہ زکوۂ اور بیت المال کے پیسے سے ادارے کی تنخواہیں دی جا سکتی ہیں یا نہیں۔ کیا زکوۂ اور صدقے کی رقم سے ادارے کے دیگر اخراجات بھی چلائے جا سکتے ہیں یا نہیں۔'

چیف جسٹس نے کہا کہ 'کوئی طریقہ کار صوبوں اوروفاق کے مابین دکھائی نہیں دے رہا۔ بیت المال والوں نے عدالت میں جواب بھی جمع نہیں کرایا۔ بیت المال کیا کررہا ہے عدالت کو کیا معلوم؟ کسی بھی عمل میں شفافیت نہیں دکھائی دے رہی ہے۔'

انہوں نے مزید کہا کہ تمام حکومتیں ریلیف کی مد میں رقم خرچ کررہی ہیں لیکن اس میں ٹرانسپرینسی دیکھائی نہیں دے رہی۔ جسٹس عمر عطا نے کہا کہ 'نو ارب سے زائد رقم وفاق نے صوبوں کو دی لیکن صوبےآگے رقم کا کیا کررہے ہیں اس کی مانیٹرنگ  ہونی چاہیے۔ مانیٹرنگ سے صوبائی خود مختاری پر کوئی حرف نہیں آتا۔'  چیف جسٹس نے کہا کہ 'زکوٰۃ کا پیسہ لوگوں کے ٹی اے ڈی اے اورباہر دورے کروانے کے لیے نہیں ہے بلکہ مزارات کا پیسہ اللہ کی راہ میں خرچ کرنے کے لیے ہوتا ہے۔'

قرنطینہ سینٹرز کے حوالے سے چیف جسٹس نے کہا کہ 'تفتان کے قرنطینہ میں رہنا بھی ڈراؤنا خواب تھا۔ حکومت قرنطینہ مراکز میں کھانے اور تمام بنیادی سہولیات کی دستیابی یقینی بنائے۔ سیکرٹری صحت نے عدالت کو یقین دہانی کرائی کہ وہ آج قرنطینہ سینٹرز کا دورہ کر کے سہولیات کی فراہمی یقینی بنائیں گے۔

جسٹس قاضی امین نے کرونا کے پلازمہ کے ذریعے علاج بابت استفسار کیا کہ 'کیا پلازما سے واقعی کرونا وائرس کاعلاج  ممکن ہے؟' سیکرٹری صحت تنویر قریشی نے عدالت کو بتایا کہ پلازما انفیوژن ٹیسٹنگ کے مراحل میں ہے۔ تاہم ابھی تک اس کے مثبت نتائج سامنے نہیں آئے۔

چیف جسٹس نے اٹارنی جنرل سے استفسار کیا کہ 'ورلڈ بینک کے پیسے سے یونیسف سے خریداری کا کیا معمہ ہے؟ یہ تو پیسہ ایک ہاتھ سے لیکر دوسرے سے دینے کی بات ہے۔ کسی صوبے اور محکمے نے شفافیت پر مبنی رپورٹ نہیں دی۔ عوام اور بیرون ملک سے لیا گیا پیسہ نہ جانے کیسے خرچ ہو رہا ہے۔کھربوں روپے خرچ ہو چکے اور مریض صرف پانچ ہزار ہیں۔'

جسٹس قاضی امین نے کہا کہ 'قرنطینہ مراکز بنانے کی بجائے سکول اور کالجز کا استعمال کیوں نہیں کیا جاتا۔ قرنطینہ مراکز بنانے پر پیسہ کیوں لگایا جارہا ہے۔' اس پر اٹارنی جنرل نے تائید کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ سکولوں کی تجویز اچھی ہے اس پر غور کریں گے۔

چیف جسٹس نے سندھ ایڈوکیٹ جنرل کی سرزنش کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ 'سنا ہے آپ نے سندھ میں زائد المعیاد آٹا اور چینی بانٹی۔' اس پر ایڈوکیٹ جنرل سندھ نے جواب دیا کہ ایسی بات نہیں ہے۔ پتہ نہیں ایسی باتیں کون پھیلاتا ہے۔ سندھ حکومت کی رپورٹ میں بتایا ہے کہ تقسیم کی جانے والے اشیا یوٹیلٹی سٹورز سے خرید کردہ ہیں۔'

چیف جسٹس نے کہا کہ 'کسی کو علم نہیں ہوا اور سندھ حکومت نے ایک ارب کا راشن بانٹ دیا۔ سندھ حکومت چھوٹا سے کام کرکے اخباروں میں تصویریں لگواتی ہے۔ اور بلوچستان حکومت کی رپورٹ میں بھی شفافیت کا مسئلہ ہے۔

جسٹس سجاد علی شاہ جن کا تعلق سندھ سے ہے انہوں نے کہا کہ 'ہمارے صوبے کے بارے میں باتیں کیوں بنتی ہیں؟ سندھ سے متعلق باتیں بلاوجہ تو نہیں بنتی کوئی تو وجہ ہے۔'

چیف جسٹس نے حکومتی اعلان جس میں درزی کو دکان کھولنے کی اجازت دی اُس پر بھی اعتراض اُٹھا دیا۔ انہوں نے کہا 'کپڑے کی دوکانیں کھولے بغیر درزی کھولنے کا کیا فائدہ؟ درزی کو کپڑا اور دیگر چیزیں بھی چاہیے ہوتی ہیں۔ایسے تو درزی ہاتھ پر ہاتھ رکھ کر بیٹھا رہے گا۔'

 آج ہونے والی سماعت میں بھی سپریم کورٹ کا روم نمبر 1 بھرا ہوا تھا۔ وکلا اور صحافیوں کی کافی تعداد عدالت میں موجود تھی۔ جبکہ گلگت بلتستان کے ایڈوکیٹ جنرل کے علاوہ باقی تمام شرکا وڈیو لنک کے ذریعے عدالت میں حاضر تھے۔ گزشتہ سماعت کے برعکس چیف جسٹس اور جسٹس عمر عطا بندیال نے ماسک پہن رکھے تھے جب کہ باقی تین ججوں نے ماسک نہیں پہنے تھے۔

عدالت نے حکم میں کہا کہ صوبائی حکومتیں میڈیکل عملے اور ڈاکٹرز کا مکمل خیال رکھیں۔ ممکن ہو تو میڈیکل عملے کو اضافی مراعات دی جائیں۔ وبا سے نمٹنے کے لیے حکومتی ادارے آپس میں تعاون کریں۔ اس کے علاوہ چاروں  صوبوں اوروفاق کو آئندہ سماعت سے قبل کرونا وائرس پروگریس رپورٹ طلب کرتے ہوئے سماعت دو ہفتوں کے لیے ملتوی کر دی۔

https://www.independenturdu.com/

پاکستانی مسجدوں میں ہی عبادت کیوں کرنا چاہتے ہیں؟

عاطف بلوچ

سعودی عرب کی اعلیٰ ترین مذہبی کونسل نے کہہ دیا ہے کہ کورونا وائرس کے پھیلاؤ کو روکنے کی خاطر رمضان میں مسلمان گھروں میں ہی عبادت کریں لیکن پاکستانی نمازی مسجدوں کا رخ ہی کیوں کرنا چاہتے ہیں؟

حکومت کی کوشش تھی کہ نئے کورونا وائرس کے پھیلاؤ کو روکنے یا سست کرنے کی خاطر رمضان کے مقدس مہینے میں پاکستانی گھروں میں ہی رہیں اور نمازوں، سحری، افطاری اور تراویج جیسے اہم مذہبی امور گھر میں ہی ادا کریں لیکن ایک مرتبہ پھر تمام تر کوششوں کے باوجود پاکستان کا مذہبی حلقہ ’جیت گیا‘ ہے۔ آخر کار پاکستانی حکومت نے مسجدوں اور امام باڑوں میں ماہ رمضان کے دوران تراویح اور عبادات کی مشروط اجازت دے دی ہے۔

سوال یہ ہے کہ پاکستانی مذہبی رہنما اس بات پر زور کیوں دے رہے ہیں؟ کیا یہ ایک صرف مذہبی معاملہ ہے یا اس کے پیچھے سیاسی، نفسیاتی اور اقتصادی محرکات بھی پنہاں ہیں؟

سعودی عرب کی سینیئر اسکالرز کی کونسل نے البتہ کہا ہے کہ اگر کووڈ انیس کے پھیلنے کے خدشات ہیں تو نہ صرف سعودی مسلمان بلکہ تمام مسلم ممالک کے دین دار مسجدوں کا رخ نہ کریں بلکہ تمام تر مذہبی فرائض گھروں میں ہی ادا کریں۔

سعودی عرب کی اعلیٰ ترین مذہبی کونسل نے کہا کہ لوگوں کی جانیں بچانا ایک عظیم عمل ہے اور یہ عمل مسلمان کو اللہ کے قریب تر کرتا ہے۔

تاہم سوشل میڈیا پر  شائع کردہ تصاویر میں ہم نے دیکھا کہ اسلام آباد کی لال مسجد میں نمازیوں کی ایک بڑی تعداد نے پاؤں سے پاؤں جوڑ کر نماز جمعہ ادا کی۔

پاکستان کے موجودہ سیاسی و معاشرتی حالات کے تناظر میں بے شک لوگوں کو مجبور نہیں کیا جا سکتا کہ وہ مذہبی فرائض گھروں میں ہی ادا کریں کیونکہ اب یہ معاملہ صرف چند مذہبی رہنماؤں کا ہی نہیں بلکہ اکثریت کا قطعی یقین ہے کہ اللہ کے سامنے مسجدوں میں جا کر حاضری دینا ضروری ہے اور موت تو برحق ہے۔ لیکن حقیقیت یہ ہے کہ اسلام کے مطابق اللہ تو شہ رگ سے بھی زیادہ قریب ہے جبکہ موت برحق تو ہے لیکن خودکشی حرام ہے۔

کیا پاکستانی مسلمان سعودی عرب، ایران یا پھر دیگر مسلم ممالک کے مقابلے میں زیادہ متقی و پرہیزگار اور بہتر مسلمان ہیں؟ اور کیا صرف مساجد اور امام باڑوں کا رخ کرنے سے ہی یہ ثابت کیا جا سکتا ہے؟

کہانی پرانی ہے اور کڑوی بھی ہے۔ سابق فوجی آمر ضیا الحق کے دور میں اسلامائزیشن، سوویت جنگ میں مجاہدین اور پھر افغان جنگ میں طالبان کی تیاری یا کشمیر کے محاذ پر ’حریت پسندوں‘ کی تربیت۔ اس سب کی بھی ایک معیشت رہی ہے۔ لیکن اس کا فائدہ عام مسلمان کو ہرگز نہیں بلکہ صرف چند گروہوں کو ہی حاصل ہوا یا ہو رہا ہے۔

  عسکری اسٹیبشلمنٹ کی طرف گزشتہ کئی دہائیوں سے اسلامی تعلیمات کا غلط استعمال کیا گیا اور اب صورتحال یہ ہے کہ لوگ اس بارے میں شاید سوچتے تو ہیں لیکن لب کشائی کی ہمت نہیں کرتے۔ دیگر مذاہب کی طرح اسلام بھی اعتدال کا درس دیتا ہے ناکہ انتہا پسندی کا۔

لاک ڈاؤن کی وجہ سے ملک کی اقتصادیات کو شدید خطرات لاحق ہیں۔ اگر نیا کورونا وائرس پاکستان میں بھی ویسے ہی سرایت کر گیا، جیسے اس نے امریکا یا یورپی ممالک میں کیا ہے تو ہر پاکستانی شہری کو اس کے نتائج بھگتنا پڑیں گے۔ اٹھارہ ملین ملازمتوں کے ختم ہونے کا خدشہ ابھی سے پیدا ہو چکا ہے۔

اس عالمی وبا نے سوچنے پر مجبور کر دیا ہے کہ جہاں کئی امور میں بہتری لانے کی ضرورت ہے، وہیں اسلام کی درست تعلیمات پر عمل پیرا ہونا بھی ضروری ہے۔ اچھے، نیک اور متقی مسلمان ہونے کے لیے صرف مسجد جانا ہی ضروری نہیں بلکہ اس سے بڑھ کر دوسرے مسلمانوں کی زندگیوں کا خیال رکھنا اہم ہے

https://www.dw.com/ur

India and Pakistan report low cases – but are they underestimating the scale of coronavirus?

ByBen Farmer IN ISLAMABAD and Joe Wallen IN DELHI

Despite their huge populations and often overburdened healthcare systems, deaths have been nothing like that seen in Europe or America.

At a press conference last week, the Pakistan government's point man for coordinating the response to the Covid-19 pandemic gave what appeared to be good news.

Dr Zafar Mirza said the number of reported cases in the country was running at a third what epidemiological modellers had forecast.

The prime minister's special adviser on health said models had predicted more than 18,000 cases by mid-April, but fewer than 6,000 had been recorded.

Recorded cases have also been surprisingly low in India.  More than five weeks since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, India and Pakistan are not reporting the high case tallies and death tolls seen in many other countries.

Despite their huge populations and often overburdened healthcare systems, deaths have been nothing like that seen in Europe or America. While numbers are starting to gather momentum, by April 20 the two countries which between them account for a fifth of the world's population had reported a total of only 735 deaths and 25,722 infections.

Yet there are worries that the real picture is being hidden by a lack of testing and the two countries may be badly underestimating the scale of the virus. If the number of cases is being underestimated, the number of deaths is also likely to be underrated.

Reports of an unexplained rise in deaths in Pakistan's port city of Karachi last week caused alarm. The Edhi charitable foundation said its white minivan ambulances had been much busier than usual.

The fleet which tends to millions of residents has in the first two weeks of April picked up 70 per cent more dead bodies from homes than it did last year. What has caused the rise is a mystery and Imran Khan has said linking it to the coronavirus pandemic is political scaremongering.

The head of the foundation has stressed he does not know the reason and cannot link it to Covid-19, but in a time of pandemic, the rise has caused worry. The lack of testing means there is no clarity.

Likewise major hospitals in the city have reported a rise in patients being brought in dead from medical complaints. The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre wrote to the local health minister last week to inform him that the number of dead-on-arrival patients had risen at least two-fold in the first weeks of April.

Again, the cause is unknown and a lack of test kits mean the dead are largely not being swabbed for the new coronavirus sweeping the world.

Across the border in India, medical staff report chronic undertesting.  One doctor in Gujarat told the Telegraph his superiors had told him there was no need to test medical staff.

"The senior doctors are saying, every one of us will get herd immunity sooner or later. So there is no need for extensive testing, isolation, quarantine and so on. So the numbers India is showing are grossly under represented," he said.

This lack of testing in the two countries is making tracking the outbreak difficult. While both countries are ramping up testing, Pakistan is currently carrying out 0.4 tests per thousand people, and India is carrying out 0.2 tests, compared with around 10 in the US and Korea.

“The deaths are likely to be much higher, the problem is that we are not testing enough,” said Dr Yogesh Jain, a public health expert based in Chhattisgarh, India.

“We are testing so little that people who may have the disease are not being tested and being labelled as a non-Covid death.

“Certainly it is more than ten times or one hundred times of cases because of our poor diagnostic methods and poor diagnostic ability.”

One international health official in Islamabad said: “The data available now may not be accurately representing the situation out there.” Pakistan has said it hopes to increase testing capacity to 10,000 a day this week. “Let’s hope that confirms as well the real situation on the ground,” said the official.

Tracking the progress of the pandemic has been made more difficult because officials suspect sick patients are not being taken to hospital. Pakistan's intensive care units have not been hit by a surge of patients and even its meagre supply of 2,000-odd ventilators remains largely unused.

“The hospitalisation is increasing but not at a significant rate,” said another international health official. “Partly it is due to the fact that hospitals are discouraging people from presenting at the facility if they are not so serious. So there is possibility of people staying at home for fairly serious illnesses.”

The lack of reported cases is so pronounced that it has launched another hypothesis among some Pakistani health officials however – that the virus is somehow behaving less virulently in South Asia, perhaps because of the heat.

Temperatures went above 35C in Lahore and Delhi this week. That could give a seasonal respite, until colder temperatures return and the virus strikes again, they argue.

World Health Organization officials have been reluctant to entertain that though. Not only is a lack of testing more likely to be the reason, they say, but the seasonal theory might lead to dangerous complacency.

As it stands, the lack of testing and low numbers are making the outbreak difficult to predict.

“The estimated figures that we have right now are three times less than expected,” said one Pakistani official. “There is no understanding on why it is not having that kind of effect. You could read the data in any direction you want because there is no surety on anything.

“You don't know what kind of response that should be there, so for now you just lock down and increase testing capacity, you are bringing people inside as much as your system can take and then hoping that nothing bad happens. A lot of this is actually pinned on hope.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/india-pakistan-report-low-cases-butare-underestimating-scale/

Pakistan Removes Thousands of Names From Terrorist Watch List

By Dylan Tokar

The list has been cut in half in the past 18 months without public explanation.

Pakistan has removed thousands of names from its terrorist watch list in what the country says is an effort to meet its obligations ahead of a new round of assessments by a global anti-money-laundering watchdog.

The so-called proscribed persons list, which is maintained by Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority, or NACTA, is intended in part to help financial institutions avoid doing business with or processing transactions of suspected terrorists.

The list, which in 2018 contained about 7,600 names, has been reduced to under 3,800 in the past 18 months. About 1,800 of the names have been removed since the beginning of March, according to data collected by Castellum.AI, a New York-based regulatory technology

No public explanation was given for the removals as they were made, but a Pakistani official said in an email interview that they are part of the country’s ongoing efforts to comply with a commitment to strengthen its counterterrorism safeguards.

The size and speed of the removals is unusual, according to Peter Piatetsky, a former senior policy adviser for the U.S. Treasury and co-founder of Castellum.AI. “Removing close to 4,000 names without a public explanation is unheard of and it raises significant questions about the listing process,” he said.

Global standards call for countries to communicate de-listings to the financial sector immediately upon taking such action. Pakistan, which designates entities and persons with suspected links to terrorism under its Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, hasn’t historically done so.

The Pakistani official, Tahir Akbar Awan, a section officer with the Ministry of Interior, said the list had become “bloated with multiple inaccuracies” because it contained names of individuals who had died and those who may have committed crimes but weren’t associated with a designated terrorist group.

The Financial Action Task Force, an international organization that sets global standards and monitors countries’ anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism-financing policies, is scheduled to evaluate Pakistan’s progress in June, although measures intended to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus could delay the assessment.

Pakistan has been under increased monitoring from the FATF since June 2018. If it fails to make progress on an action plan developed by the organization, FATF members could vote to further restrict the country’s access to the international financial system.

A FATF spokesperson declined to comment on the removal of names from Pakistan’s terrorist watch list. In February, the group said Pakistan had largely addressed about half of the action items it had agreed to implement to prevent additional sanctions.

The organization is famously opaque, and doesn't publicly explain in detail the steps a country must take as part of an action plan, said Michael Kugelman, a deputy director at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based global policy research institution chartered by Congress in 1968.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the FATF has an expectation that Pakistan move forward on the prosecution of certain prominent terrorists, he said. In February, a Pakistani court convicted high-profile militant leader Hafiz Saeed on terrorist financing charges. Mr. Saeed’s name remains on Pakistan’s watch list.

Irfan Vaid, a sanctions and financial crimes compliance consultant who previously worked at the U.S. Treasury as an adviser and attaché to Pakistan, welcomed the updates to the list but said Pakistan still had a way to go in making it fully effective.

“Their list is lacking a lot of names, identifiers and other information we need to make definitive matches,” he said.

Several of the names removed from Pakistan’s list appear to be aliases for designated terrorists listed on U.S. or United Nations sanctions lists, according to Castellum.AI. The lack of certain identifiers—such as dates of birth or, in some cases, a national ID number—on NACTA’s list makes it difficult to know for sure, sanctions experts said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pakistan-removes-thousands-of-names-from-terrorist-watch-list-11587393001?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2

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#COVIDー19 - Irresponsible actions in US, Brazil, Pakistan can undermine global efforts

Political considerations, which are clearly motivating the leaders who are advocating dangerous behaviour, have to be put aside for now. This could mean the difference between life and death.

When nations across the world are pulling out all the stops to flatten the coronavirus curve, it is incumbent upon leaders to refrain from any statement or action which could exacerbate the situation. But, regrettably, not all world leaders have been responsible or circumspect in their utterances and behavior.

The United States President Donald Trump’s tweets asking his supporters to liberate the Democratic states of Virginia, Michigan, and Minnesota have been taken as a licence to indulge in dangerous behavior, disregarding norms of social distancing and easing lockdowns of businesses. This puts the lives of people at much greater risk. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsanaro has summarily sacked his health minister, Luiz Mondetta, an advocate of social distancing and isolation. Despite a high number of cases, Mr. Bolsanaro has dismissed the virulent pandemic as nothing more than a “little flu.” Closer to home, in Pakistan, conditional congregations in mosques have been allowed, violating protocols laid down by the World Health Organization. Muslim countries across the world have not eased restrictions, and rightly so, and have got the full support of their clergies on this.

This cannot be merely treated as the policy preference of specific countries, and their internal affair, for its consequences, will be global. The spread of the coronavirus disease has shown the intricate ways in which the world is interconnected and interdependent. In a world where borders are still porous, even when one nation slips, it carries the threat of the rapid spread of the virus. The international community needs to collectively insist on the need for scientific advice to be followed. Political considerations, which are clearly motivating the leaders who are advocating dangerous behavior, have to be put aside for now. This could mean the difference between life and death.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/editorials/irresponsible-actions-in-the-us-brazil-and-pakistan-can-undermine-global-efforts/story-1Nq6H9RTYyZyiUfyVYKfyO.html

As #coronavirus cases surge in Pakistan, its prime minister preaches “no need to worry”

By Sampath Perera

21 March 2020

Pakistan is seeing a surge of COVID-19 cases, with the number of confirmed victims of the virus rising from fewer than 30 to 495 in the span of less than a week. There have been three COVID-19 deaths to date.

The rapid spread of the deadly virus will be catastrophic for millions of people in this poverty stricken South Asian country of more than 200 million.

As of now, Pakistan reports the highest number of confirmed cases in South Asia. Despite severe COVID-19 outbreaks in neighbouring countries, including China to the east, the initial epicentre of the virus, and Iran to the west, Pakistani authorities did little to nothing to prepare for the inevitable spread of the coronavirus to the country.

While the government attempted to delay the spread of the virus by refusing to evacuate its citizens from China’s Hubei province and imposed air travel restrictions, no significant measures were taken to mount a medical response to the outbreak. According to reports, most initial tests were conducted on patients who had become infected while traveling in Iran.

Despite the rapid increase of cases, the government has allocated only a paltry 5.4 billion rupees ($34 million) to deal with the pandemic.

The actual infection numbers are certainly far higher than reported, given the severe lack of testing. Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Islamic populist Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) government hurriedly convened the National Security Council March 13 amid reports indicating an unchecked spread of the virus. Following the military-government huddle, it shut down schools and the country’s borders while enforcing restrictions on air travel. However, fearing a backlash from an increasingly powerful Islamic right, the government did not ban prayers or large religious gatherings.

As panic built throughout the country, Reuters reported Wednesday that there was a “growing dispute in Pakistan between federal and provincial authorities.” Provincial authorities were scrambling to secure coronavirus testing kits, according to the report. Additionally, the central government has been blamed for its failure to test and quarantine those returning from abroad.

The criminal indifference of Pakistan’s ruling elite to the well-being of the masses was illustrated by Khan in an address to the nation on Tuesday. As the government is increasingly coming under criticism for a severe lack of testing kits in public health facilities and the prohibitive cost of the test in private medical centres, Khan demanded only those with “intense symptoms” to go to hospitals. “There is no need to worry,” he claimed, demagogically declaring, “We will fight this as a nation. And God willing, we will win this war.”

Pakistan’s public medical facilities are dilapidated, having been ravaged by decades of IMF austerity, and are utterly inadequate to fight a highly contagious and novel virus like the coronavirus. The medical crisis is enormously exacerbated by the poor living and hygienic conditions that the venal Pakistani bourgeoisie imposes on the majority of the population.

In the major cities, where whatever available social infrastructure is concentrated, health facilities were on life-support even before the arrival of coronavirus cases. In rural areas, including in the two most populous provinces, Punjab and Sindh, medical facilities are hardly existent. The situation is even worse in the war-ravaged former Federally Administered Tribal Areas that are now part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and in Balochistan, where the military is brutally repressing a longstanding nationalist-separatist insurgency. The cost for the coronavirus test in a private facility, 7,900 rupees, or more than US $49, is about equal to the monthly income of most Pakistanis. With extreme poverty, food insecurity and widespread malnutrition among children, the consequences of the virus spreading widely in Pakistan will be catastrophic and far reaching.

Further worsening the current health emergency is the 20.4 percent cut the Khan government made in health expenditure from the 2018-19 financial year, in order to appease the IMF and Pakistan’s other creditors

The impact of the gutting of health care spending is exacerbated by skyrocketing inflation, which has been running at double-digit levels since July. Public health facilities face severe shortages of medical supplies and personnel, neglected maintenance of equipment and facilities, and a shrinking capacity to meet even the usual needs of the population, not to mention a highly contagious pandemic. Pakistan only provided 0.6 beds per 1,000 people in 2014, the latest statistic available from the World Health Organization. According to the country’s representative for the WHO, the federal and provincial governments have made only 2,000 isolation beds available to deal with the current pandemic.

While utterly indifferent to the horrendous social conditions and virtually non-existent health care services available to the vast majority of the population, Pakistan’s ruling elite fears the pandemic could trigger an economic collapse, which would threaten their wealth and potentially ignite a social explosion. Speaking to Associated Press, Khan appealed to the “world community” to consider “some sort of a debt write-off for countries” like Pakistan, while voicing concern that the virus outbreak and the measures to arrest its spread could trigger an “unstoppable slide backward” of the economy.

In his address Tuesday, Khan argued against shutting down daily life in the county’s cities with the claim, “people are already suffering” and if they were to be “saved from corona [virus]” by such means, then “they’ll die of hunger.” The PTI government, as its negligent response to the pandemic and the policies it has pursued in its year and a half in office demonstrate, is chiefly concerned with protecting the wealth of the super-rich.

Khan and his PTI won election in July 2018 by cynically promising an “Islamic welfare state.” Predictably, no sooner did they take office than they pivoted to imposing further austerity and began to lay the groundwork for seeking a new IMF bailout. Khan has increasingly staffed his government with prominent members of the former dictatorial regime of General Pervez Musharraf, which, in addition to making Pakistan the logistical linchpin of the US war in Afghanistan, carried out a wave of privatization and other “pro-investor” neo-liberal reforms.

Pakistan’s coronavirus outbreak has overlapped with the Khan government’s negotiations with the IMF over a further round of austerity and economic “reforms” so as to secure another $450 million tranche of the current $6 billion bailout package. According to reports, the IMF has agreed not to aggregate coronavirus related expenditure towards the budget deficit. Otherwise, the government is expected to fulfil its pledges to the IMF to cut social spending and raise taxes and electricity rates, further increasing the economic burdens on the poor. When massive floods in 2010 put millions of people at risk of starvation, disease and financial ruin, the government, then led by the Pakistan People’s Party, dutifully followed the diktats of the IMF and refrained from providing any substantial aid to the suffering masses. Khan’s rise to power in 2018 was facilitated by the country’s nuclear-armed military, which, having ruled the country for decades with Washington’s backing, continues to wield effective control over foreign and military policy, and internal security.

While Khan justifies his government’s negligent response to the coronavirus pandemic by claiming the state is bereft of resources, it is spending massive sums on Pakistan’s armed forces, amid dangerously escalating war tensions with India. In February 2019, the reactionary strategic conflict between India and Pakistan came to the brink of all-out war, after their air forces engaged in a dog-fight over disputed Kashmir.

The PTI government has allocated 16 percent of all state expenditure for defence. But this figure excludes pensions for retired military personnel, and never publicly revealed spending on major procurements and strategic programs.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6906155786122195046#editor/target=post;postID=8649106671777090788

Doctors are concerned about Pakistan’s healthcare capacity as COVID-19 cases increase.

By Rabiya Jaffery

Pakistan Struggles to Fight COVID-19

Doctors are concerned about Pakistan’s healthcare capacity as COVID-19 cases increase.

Healthcare workers in Pakistan are voicing concerns about the inability of Pakistan’s healthcare system to cope should the number of COVID-19 patients continue to rise exponentially.

According to the most recent data, Pakistan has 5,988 positive COVID-19 cases and 107 deaths but these numbers are understood to be greatly underestimated due to limited testing.“Even if we leave out the general population – only the healthcare workers, people who are working around those tested positive, are not being tested despite being at the highest risk,” says Dr. Kashaf Khalid, currently a junior doctor at Combined Military Hospital (CMH) Sialkot.Khalid adds that Sialkot, a city in Punjab, has been lucky and hasn’t had that many cases so far, but is concerned about the insufficient quantities of personal protective equipment (PPE) healthcare workers are being provided.

“At many facilities what we have observed is that doctors had to protest or refuse to work and then they were given the minimal required PPE,” she states. “Still, there are many hospitals where doctors are working in ERs/OPDs [emergency rooms/outpatient departments] and wards that either have to arrange PPE for themselves or are simply working without it.”

On April 6, 150 doctors and medical staff in the city of Quetta, in the southwestern province of Balochistan, were arrested for protesting the lack of PPE. The protests took place after 13 doctors in the city tested positive for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

Following the arrests, the Young Doctors Association (YDA) announced an immediate boycott of all medical services in Balochistan. The boycott has since ended after the YDA reached an agreement with the provincial government.

YDA’s demands included action against police officers for beating, manhandling doctors and the provision of PPE, medical kits and other facilities so that they could treat COVID-19 patients.

“There is just no proper system in place — not only is there a severe shortage of PPE, young doctors don’t even know the protocol to donning and doffing [the method of putting on and taking off the protective gear] the gear,” says Dr. Shehryar Khan, working at Mayo Hospital, one of the one of the oldest and biggest hospitals in Lahore.

Khan, earlier this month, shared on social media his experiences struggling and fighting to get sufficient PPE which gained a lot of traction.

“After I shared my experiences online and the reaction it had on social media, they have gotten a bit scared,” he says. “But, overall, doctors and medical staff are not being provided with the required PPE at all. The ones who have it have to struggle and demand it.”

According to an unreleased WHO report, at least 138 health workers have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Pakistan, but the real numbers could be much higher.“It is not on paper but verbally we are being discouraged from conducting tests on possible COVID-19 patients unless they are critically symptomatic,” Khan says. “So doctors don’t even often know for certain if they have possibly been exposed or not.”Khan mentions a doctor he knows who was treating a patient who died “under suspicious circumstances with a travel history.” The doctor asked his hospital to test the diseased patient’s sample to confirm if he could have possibly been exposed to the novel coronavirus.

“The next day when he went to collect the results, he was told that the sample was never collected so he just has no way of knowing if he could have been exposed or not,” Khan says. “So many test samples are being ‘wasted’ to keep the numbers low intentionally as no hospital wants [a] high number of deaths from COVID-19 on their record. It is really just about those at the top just trying to save their jobs.”

A senior doctor based in Karachi, however, who is working with the provincial government on policies to build up healthcare capacities, and has requested his name not be mentioned, disagrees that doctors are being discouraged from getting their patients tested.

“I am part of a team working to identify testing capacities and we have only discouraged testing from labs that aren’t complying with national and WHO standards,” he states.

Pakistan performed nearly 15,000 coronavirus tests by the end of March, according to Health Minister Dr. Zafar Mirza. Officials have also stated that Pakistan’s testing capacity has been enhanced from 30,000 to 280,000 and would be further enhanced to 900,000 by mid April.

“The government is striving to increase the number of laboratories that are testing by inspecting the capacity of lab and technical staff available and more labs will soon be operating and be able to increasing testing capacities,” states the Karachi-based doctor. “As for PPE — yes, there is a shortage which needs to be sorted out as healthcare workers are at the frontlines and if they get infected, transmissions will exponentially increase even more.”

He thinks the government should take urgent steps to order local companies to manufacture PPE so the healthcare workers that are necessary to effectively implement the country’s National Action Plan to respond to the novel coronavirus are protected. The government’s National Action Plan against coronavirus, which was revealed on February 29 — just days after the first positive cases in the country — involves the full coordination of the federal government with provinces to deal with the viral outbreak, with some hospitals in every province dedicated to patients infected with the disease.

But most of March saw a lack of clarity at the federal level when it came to leading the country on decisions about social distancing, curfews, and lockdowns.

Prime Minister Imran Khan initially rejected calls for lockdowns.

“If we shut down the cities […] we will save them from corona at one end, but they will die from hunger on the other side,” he stated in a speech addressing the country where 39 percent of households live in poverty. Provincial leaders however, especially in Sindh, have been fairly efficient in imposing restrictions on public gatherings, except at mosques, and have also shut down schools and non-essential shops and markets. Khan has since hinted on imposing a curfew if the situation worsens stating that the country is “not immune to coronavirus” but also stated that he is confident that Pakistan will come out of this challenge stronger.

But as the number of patients continue to increase, doctors are increasingly concerned about the country’s healthcare and governance systems which fall short even during the best of days. Khalid has stated that they are “thinking of alternate ways to ventilate patients in case of a severe breakout, [given] the limited number of ventilators and other facilities we have throughout the country.” Hospital administrations are grossly overstating information about their capacities to health minister, who then share that inflates information with the federal government, claims Dr. Khan.

“Hospital administrations give inaccurate reports to health ministers who then, without fact-checking the information, pass it to the federal government — just so everything looks good on paper because everyone wants to save their jobs,” he says.

“But they are just upholding a shell at this point which will collapse when the burden on our capacity increases.”

India questions Pakistan’s ‘deficiencies’ as 5 Kartarpur Sahib domes collapse due to winds

NAYANIMA BASU 

The fibreglass domes were restored overnight, but Indian officials say Pakistan must appreciate the sentiments of the Sikh community about the Gurudwara.

India has questioned Pakistan on the ‘deficiencies’ in building Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib, as five domes of the structure collapsed Saturday owing to strong winds.

The domes, which sources in the Pakistan government said were decorative ones made of fibreglass, were restored by a team of experts throughout Saturday night. Pakistan’s Science and Technology Minister Fawad Hussain Chaudhry also tweeted about it.

However, Indian government sources doubted the quick restoration work, saying they hoped the repair work would be long-lasting.

A senior Indian government official told ThePrint that the question is about the Sikh community’s “strong sense of faith and devotion to the holy site”, which “must be fully understood and appreciated”.

“India has taken up the issue of the collapse of domes of the holy Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib with Pakistan. It has been highlighted that the damage to the structures in the holy Gurudwara has caused great consternation to the members of the Sikh community,” the official said.

The official said India has urged Pakistan that in “deference to the sentiments of the Sikh community, the deficiencies which led to the damage to the newly constructed structures be urgently rectified and remedied”.

The restored domes are also made of fibreglass, and there are plans to replace them with concrete domes in phase-II of the restoration work, a Pakistani source added.

Shut due to Covid-19

Pilgrimage to the Gurudwara through the Kartarpur Corridor, which was inaugurated with much fanfare in November last year, got suspended on 15 March due to the Covid-19 pandemic, at the same time as the movement of people at the Attari-Wagah border.

The Kartarpur Corridor links Dera Baba Nanak in India’s Gurdaspur to the Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan, where the founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak, spent the final years of his life.

The corridor was opened to the public on 9 November last year in a historic people-to-people initiative between the two countries, amid the downgrading of diplomatic ties by Islamabad in the light of India scrapping Article 370, which promised special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Ahead of the ceremony, Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib, which was once in a dilapidated condition, was developed into a sprawling four-acre compound covered with white marble.