World Report 2015: Minorities vulnerable to attacks: HRW

By News Desk

Published: January 31, 2015

Rights group slams govt for ‘failing to protect citizens’.

Pakistan’s government should ensure the security of the country’s religious minorities from judicial injustice and attacks by militants, Human Rights Watch has said in its World Report 2015. The rights group said violent attacks on religious minorities rose significantly in 2014 as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government failed to ensure religious freedoms.

The 25th edition of the report reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries. In his introductory essay, the group’s executive director Kenneth Roth urges governments to recognise that human rights offer an effective moral guide in turbulent times, and that violating rights can spark or aggravate serious security challenges.

“Pakistan’s government did little in 2014 to stop the rising toll of killings and repression by extremist groups that target religious minorities,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government is failing at the most basic duty of government — to protect the safety of its citizens and enforce rule of law.” The report notes that “institutionalized discrimination” fostered violent attacks on religious minorities.

Karachi remains a hotbed of sectarian violence, with at least 750 sectarian targeted killings in Karachi from September 2013 to September 2014, the report notes.

Across the border, incidents of violence against religious minorities, particularly Muslims, in India spiked in 2013 in the run-up to national elections, the report states, as 133 people were killed and 2,269 injured in 823 incidents.

Balochistan

Ongoing rights concerns in Balochistan related to enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and torture remained unaddressed in 2014, HRW said. A lack of government response to continuing rights abuses in Balochistan fostered a long-standing culture of impunity and the human rights situation in the province is described as “abysmal”.

Women’s rights

Abuses against women and girls – including rape, ‘honor killings’, acid attacks, domestic violence, and forced marriage – remained common in 2014 in Pakistan. In July, religious extremists committed a series of acid attacks on women in the Balochistan province.

Women who are members of religious minorities are noted to be “particularly vulnerable”, the report states, adding that “at least 1,000 girls belonging to Christian and Hindu communities are forced to marry male Muslims every year”. The coercion often originates from the prospective bridegrooms’ families, and failure to comply can prompt serious violence against the girls and their families. The government has failed to act to stop such forced marriages, HRW said.

Operation Zarb-e-Azb

On June 30, the military launched an offensive involving more than 30,000 troops against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan in North Waziristan and the report states, “Civilian casualties remained hard to assess due to severe military restrictions on independent media access to the conflict zone.”

HRW estimates that the conflict has displaced nearly 1 million people in squalid camps where the government has “failed to provide adequate supplies of potable water, sanitation facilities, and health care”.

Protection of Pakistan Act

The report notes that the PPA, passed in July, is “an overly broad counterterrorism law that violates international human rights standards and provides the security forces a legal pretext for abuses with impunity”.

Freedom of expression

It is also noted that freedom of expression was curbed significantly in 2014, as journalists in Pakistan who cover counterterrorism issues faced increasing threats. The report cites attacks against journalist Raza Rumi in March and Hamid Mir in April. Pakistan fares better than Afghanistan in this respect as the report notes that there were 68 attacks on journalists in the first six months of 2014 in Afghanistan, compared to around 41 attacks in the same period in 2013.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2015.

A nation that forgets its heroes will itself soon be forgotten

By Ayesha Siddique Khan Published: January 29, 2015

American president, Calvin Coolidge, once said,

“A nation that forgets its heroes will itself soon be forgotten.”

It was a moment of relief and glory for Pakistanis when a hero, who was later turned into a ‘villain’ by conspiracy theorists, won the noble peace laureate on October 9, 2014. Yes, it is our brave Malala who is the youngest recipient in the world to have received this prestigious award. She will continue to be despised by those who consider anyone getting an international acclaim a ‘yahoodi agent’ (Jewish agent), ‘ghaddar’ (traitor), ‘kafir/ mashriq’ (non-Muslim/ Western) or a ‘drama’. However, whenever someone mentions Malala and the Nobel Peace Prize, there comes an automatic flashback of our much forgotten and never duly acknowledged, first ever Nobel Prize winner, Dr Abdus Salam.

Malala Yousafzai. Photo: AFP

Today, January 29,2015, marks the 89^th birthday of Dr Salam. He was a genius, to say the least; topping the matriculation exams at Punjab University, with the highest marks ever recorded, and later getting scholarships at the Government College, University of Punjab, Saint John’s College, and at Cambridge for his PhD. He excelled wherever he went, so much so that 42 honorary doctorates were bestowed upon him by different universities of the world.

Men of his intellect are seldom born in the history of nations and are the greatest asset of any country, but it’s a pity that he was not treated justly by his own countrymen. He is buried in Rabwa; while it is shameful that he was not even given a state funeral, what is worse is that the word ‘Muslim’ was removed from his grave epitaph on orders of the judiciary. The grave now reads ‘First Noble Laureate’. He won the Nobel Prize for his contributions towards the unification of electroweak forces. Dr Salam was at the forefront of theorising the Higgs Bosonparticle in the 1960s and 1970s and who, along with Steven Weinberg, applied the Higgs mechanism to electroweak symmetric breaking.

Dr Abdus Salam.

His contributions in the field of natural and physical sciences are exemplary, and not only has he won many awards and honours, many documentaries have been made on him. The rest of the world acknowledged the contributions that Dr Salam made so much so that roads – CERN in Geneva where the Higgs Boson particle was finally discovered – and institutions have been named after him. The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy being one such example.

But how many people in our country know about this brave hero?

Can we ever imagine his name in our history books along with Tipu Sultan, Jinnah, Allama Iqbal or more precisely, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan for that matter?

All of us know the answer to this and the reason as well; his religious belief took precedence over his innumerable achievements. This is the pluralistic and democratic Pakistan we live in, the suffocating land of the ‘pure’, where the ‘other’ and the ‘impure’ are condemned to insignificance, regardless of what achievements and rewards they bring for the country. It’s a shame that the world celebrates our heroes and we not only forget them, but never even acknowledge their contributions in the first place.

Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. Photo: Reuters

I was once walking outside King’s College near the Somerset House in London. While reading the profiles of the notable alumni, the name Sir Chaudhry Muhammad Zafarullah Khancaught my attention. Truth be told, this was the first time I had ever heard of him. As I continued to read his achievements, there developed a mixed feeling of pride and shame inside of me. Mr Khan was a barrister from Lincoln’s Inn, a law graduate from King’s College and the only Pakistani president of the United Nations general assembly. In 1970, he was elected as the president of the International Courts of Justice in The Hague. Moreover, he was an active member of the Pakistan Movement, presided at the Delhi meeting of the All India Muslim League in 1931 and advocated the cause of Indian Muslims through his presidential address. He participated in the three Round Table Conferences held in the years 1930, 1931 and 1932. Furthermore, Mr Khan was appointed the judge of the Federal Court of India in September 1941 and was the first ever appointed foreign minister of Pakistan by Mr Jinnah himself – a post which Mr Khan held from December 25, 1947 till 1954. But since he also belonged to the Ahmaddiya community, his contributions were never fully acknowledged or remembered.

Sir Chaudhry Muhammad Zafarullah Khan. Photo: Wikipedia

Similarly, Mr Cecil Chaudhry is yet another example of a forgotten hero. He was the first photo-journalist of Pakistan, a veteran fighter pilot who was awarded the Sitara-e-Jurat for shooting down three Indian aircrafts in a mission in the 1965 war and Sitara-e-Basalat for his services in the 1971 war. His name was mentioned in the history text titled ‘Humaray Ghazi aur Shaheed’ but is not included in our history books any more. Mr Chaudhry was interrupted in 1983, when returning from his designation in Iraq, and was told that he would not be promoted any further. He has recorded that the discrimination in the forces started against the minorities from the Ayub era, where,

“Many generals felt it would not do if a Christian general one day stood up and took power in Pakistan.”

Cecil Chaudhry. Photo: PAF archives

Later, he asked to be discharged in 1985 and emerged as a human rights activist and educationist, holding the position of the principal of Saint Anthony’s College, Lahore and Saint Mary’s Academy, Rawalpindi. He contributed to bringing education and electoral reforms and his efforts culminated in the creation of a joint electorate system in 2012. In 2013, former president, Asif Ali Zardari, approved the conferment of the President’s Pride of Performance Award upon him.

But Mr Chaudhry is not widely known in our generation nonetheless, nor is Wing Commander Mervyn Middlecoat, who was martyred in the 1971 war.

However, there have been some distinguished minority figures who contributed towards the betterment of the country without demanding any acknowledgment in return. These include Justice Rana Bhagwandas, Justice Dorab Patel, Justice AR Cornelius, Bapsi Sidhwa, Ardeshir Cowasjee and Julius Salik.

Top: Julius Salik (L), Ardeshir Cowasjee (C), Justice AR Cornelius (R)
Bottom: Bapsi Sidhwa (L), Justice Rana Bhagwandas (R)

Generally speaking, there is, comparatively, still some room for acceptance when it comes to celebrating heroes who happen to be ‘ahl-e-kitab’ (people of the book). But those belonging to the Ahmaddiya community are strictly outcasts when it comes to being celebrated as heroes.

It is ignominious that though the father of the nation embraced the minorities and spoke of pluralism, his message has been lost and was never followed upon. Instead, it is covered by the smokescreens and propaganda of religion and ‘conspiracy against the state’.

This is not the Pakistan Mr Jinnah had envisioned and is definitely incongruent with the ideology of the Pakistan movement. So where did the subsequent drafters of the constitution get their inspiration from?

Article 25 of the constitution clearly states the equality of citizens but despite this general provision of non-discrimination, there are laws which are discriminatory by every definition. We should learn from our neighbours, where Muslim heroes, despite being a minority, are celebrated – Akbar, Amir Khusrau, Ustad Bismillah Khan and Dr Abdul Kalam, to name a few.

Unfortunately, we are wasting our potential, our pride and our honour, and before we become forgotten as a nation, let us start celebrating our heroes unconditionally.

Ayesha Siddique Khan

A barrister at law from Lincoln's Inn London and has LLM in International Protection of Human Rights Law from University of London.

‘Najma has gone’

Dawn.com

Zubeida Mustafa

Published about 5 hours ago

www.zubeidamustafa.com

HER entire life was a series of battles she fought for the disadvantaged, the empowerment of women, the right of people to land and the preservation of the environment. Many of these were battles that she won. Others were ongoing struggles, as she never gave up hope. That was Najma Sadeque described as the activist who wore several hats.

Her last battle was against death and this one she lost. “Najma has gone,” I was informed by a friend who was in the hospital with Najma when the end came shortly after midnight. With her the courage and inspiration she had instilled in many had also gone, so I thought. Then I knew they hadn’t for Najma has left behind a legacy of courage and integrity embodied so clearly in her daughter Deneb Sumbul. A picture of her mother, Deneb’s dignity in her hour of grief is something only Najma could instil.

Najma was also a journalist and for a few years we worked under the same roof of Haroon House which has provided me the opportunity to link with so many wonderful fellow professionals. With Najma, I also shared an interest in a number of causes. That created a natural affinity between us. Her major achievement was to translate into action what she advocated in words — written or spoken.

Thus she was a founder member of Shirkat Gah (1975) and the Women’s Action Forum (1981). Later, she broadened her horizons, and the scope of her writings stretched out to many areas that she investigated and delved into so thoroughly and insightfully. That is why Shirkat Gah where she created space for the Green Economics Initiative became synonymous with documentation and research.

Under its aegis, she published some of her best research pertaining to the harmful practices of multinationals and the dangerous aspects of the thrust of a neoliberal economy. Written in simple language and elegantly produced, these monographs became a source of knowledge for the lay person not initiated in economics, ecology and finance.

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Activism doesn’t have to be all work and no play.

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Another practical contribution that Najma, wearing the hat of compassion, made to promote social justice was to extend a helping hand to those in need. She learnt the art of giving gracefully from her mother, Syedah Fatima Sadeque, a professor of Islamic history at the Dhaka University.

In a piece Najma wrote in 2011 about her mother on her death anniversary, she recalled how Syedah Fatima would extend a helping hand to others, especially women, and yet make them cherish their dignity and independence.

When I read Najma’s piece on her mother I knew from where she got her humanism, her resilience and her strength to resist injustice and religious extremism. She did that boldly, mincing no words, as was her style. In our times this calls for courage and she had plenty of it.

She wrote about the baby reportedly stoned to death outside a mosque as it was supposedly born out of wedlock. The uproar from the self-appointed custodians of our faith, especially the establishment, could have been unnerving had Najma’s editor and the paper’s management not supported her fully. The incident, however, did not deter Najma from taking on irrational religious extremists when the occasion demanded.

What concerned her deeply were the health problems of the poor. She had a mammoth list that she used to circulate her messages and articles. There were numerous Marias (girl with a punctured lung), Sylvias (the baby born without a gullet), Gulshans (with cancer in both eyes) and their like who got help and support from people thanks to Najma’s organisational skills and email communications.

I would often discuss with her such issues on a one-to-one basis and her observations were most profound. Once she commented, “Bad health ruins not just an individual’s life if he or she is poor, but the entire family’s.”

Activism doesn’t have to be all work and no play. Najma proved that convincingly. There was a time when she organised monthly get-togethers for her journalist friends lending her office space for the purpose. Even these were occasions for her to demonstrate her anti-imperialist convictions. “No aerated drinks of any multinational company! It has to be our own green drink or Adam’s ale!” she would insist. Her email lists served another purpose. Some of the most hilarious jokes landed in our inbox.

But her circulars became sparse towards the end of 2014 until we received one from Deneb announcing the sad news. And when we all assembled on Friday for the final farewell, the host — the life of the get-togethers she organised to strengthen our links — was missing.

She had left in a hurry as Majrooh Sultanpuri had so aptly said, “Humsafar saath apna chhor chale/ rishte naate vo saare tor chale” (The co-traveller has departed breaking off all ties with us).

www.zubeidamustafa.com

Published in Dawn January 14th , 2015

Selective drive

Daily Times

12 Jan 2015

The Jamatul Ahrar, a splinter group of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the bombing of the imambargah (Shia mosque) in Rawalpindi on January 9 that killed eight worshippers and injured 18. It stands to reason that the target suggests a sectarian motive. Despite the claim of responsibility, investigators are pursuing the possibility of close coordination in the atrocity between the TTP and the fanatically sectarian Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), reportedly after a telephone tip-off. Two background facts lend weight to this line of inquiry. Some sectarian terrorists have been hanged in recent days, so this attack may be the beginning of blowback from the LeJ and affiliates. Amongst those with the hangman’s noose hanging over their heads was LeJ’s Akram Lahori, who received a last minute reprieve when the victim’s family pardoned him. However, the authorities are convinced Lahori will swing one of these days as there are 28 murder cases against him. Lahori is considered an important leader of LeJ. His and other LeJ terrorists’ impending execution has put the LeJ under pressure and it may be mounting a concerted campaign of terrorist attacks to try and stave off the inevitable. Second, the attacked imambargah lies in the area of Rawalpindi where a fierce sectarian clash between a seminary located in the area and the 10th Muharram procession occurred in November 2013, a clash that led to full-blown riots in which 10 people lost their lives. That too may provide a backdrop to the simmering sectarian tensions in the area that may have brought on the hit on the imambargah. But lest anyone rest sanguine that this is only a localised phenomenon, we need to remind ourselves of a grim reality of long standing. Shias have been targeted all over the country for many years in what some have categorised as a ‘slow genocide’. As though to drive home the point, another Shia doctor was assassinated in his clinic in Peshawar on Saturday.

An area of concern is the reopening of schools today all over the country after their winter vacations were extended in the aftermath of the Peshawar massacre of school children. The authorities, school administrations, parents and even children have the dread of what happened in Peshawar on December 16 still weighing heavily on their minds and hearts. Reports say schools and higher education institutions that are considered sensitive or are seen not to have adequate security procedures may not open along with the rest. However, that is insufficient to completely lay to rest the anxiety surrounding the safety and security of our little charges. God forbid that we live to see the black day of December 16 ever repeated. That can only be achieved if the drive against the terrorists is comprehensive, transparent, holistic and without discrimination. On this last condition, doubts and questions linger regarding the establishment’s practically continuing to turn a blind eye to proxies on our soil operating against neighbouring countries while paying lip service to having abandoned the good Taliban/bad Taliban binary. Of the 72 banned organisations in the country, only a few are planned to be moved against, those that are considered to have taken up arms against the state. Their cases would be tried by the recently set up military courts. Does this imply those that do not attack the state per se but challenge its writ by attacking people on a sectarian basis are absolved of all sin? And what if the suspected nexus between the TTP and the LeJ is found to be true in the case of the Rawalpindi imambargah bombing? Where will the ‘dividing line’ be drawn then?

Another anomaly that has emerged is that while the religious parties are banding together to defend their madrassas and the constituency they represent from any drive to bring them into line and prevent them from feeding the terror machine, and while the government seems to be fumbling and indecisive regarding this basic task, non-religious civil society NGOs are being harassed by investigating their personnel, sources of funding, programmes, etc. If ever there was a case of misplaced concreteness, this would be hard to beat.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/editorial/12-Jan-2015/selective-drive

The litmus test

Another outrage against the Hazaras is completely unacceptable. No Shia doctor or scholar should be killed with impunity in the future. The Auqaf department of the Punjab government should stop funding conventions of hate-filled mullahs calling for the killing of Ahmedis

• Yasser Latif Hamdani
• January 12, 2015
• Be First To Comment

 

 

 

A foreigner taking a keen interest in Pakistan’s current situation asked me what the litmus test would be to indicate the government of Pakistan has indeed turned a new leaf since Peshawar. This article is a response to that question.

First of all, hanging terrorists and defeating the Taliban militarily is tantamount to alleviating the symptom while not addressing the underlying cause, i.e. the mindset that tolerates, if not outrightly celebrates, Talibanisation of the country. To this end the government needs to take several intermediary steps, foremost of which will be curriculum reform. These need to be broad based reforms that should inculcate in the young the following principles: first that Pakistan is a multicultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic society and its diversity is its greatest strength. Second, Pakistan was not created in the name of Islam. This a historical lie fed to us and is the basic issue with the imagination of Pakistan as a nation state. Pakistan was created because the two main representative parties in the subcontinent could not agree on the constitution of a united India. Third, all human beings and consequently all Pakistanis, regardless of what their religion is, regardless of the language they speak, irrespective of their colour or caste, are equal and should be recognised as equals. Curriculum reform should ensure that young Pakistanis look at themselves as human beings and Pakistanis before they see themselves through the prism of their religious or linguistic identity. Without the inculcation of these basic principles, any victory on the battlefield will be a short lived one.

The more immediate litmus test would be the response of the state to extremist threats posed to the many ‘others’ of Pakistani society. Another outrage against the Hazaras is completely unacceptable. No Shia doctor or scholar should be killed with impunity in the future. The Auqaf department of the Punjab government should stop funding conventions of hate-filled mullahs calling for the killing of Ahmedis. No group should be permitted to distribute hate-filled posters and pamphlets against any other group. The state must act decisively against the self-styled scholars on television who, even today, attempt to confuse the people by blaming law abiding and patriotic communities like the Ahmedis for the outrages of the Taliban. All mullahs who use the pulpit to arouse public opinion or the mob against people in the name of blasphemy should be tried by the military courts. Any mob that tries to influence proceedings in a blasphemy trial should also be tried by the military courts. Those who threatened and later killed Rashid Rehman the lawyer must be brought to justice and made an example of. No lawyer who has the courage of his convictions to stand up for unpopular causes should fall prey to these real terrorists. Take up Mumtaz Qadri’s case on priority and take it to its logical conclusion. Regardless of sectarian affiliation, anyone who supports this murderer should also be tried in military courts.

Finally, the time has come for the state to regulate the mosques and the madrassas (seminaries). All mosques and all madrassas must be registered and accounted for. Not only should the state ensure that there is no incitement in any of the content, it should also ensure that hate speech of all kinds is mercilessly put down. No doubt, this has implications for freedom of speech, but worse than no freedom of speech is selective freedom of speech. The freedom to abuse minority groups like the Ahmedis is a case of selective freedom of speech because Ahmedis are forbidden even from defending themselves. The same applies across the board. I would rather that there be no hate speech than partial freedom of speech.

Are these issues really linked with terrorism? There are people who would try and distinguish the two. They are wrong. The mindset that has championed the Taliban has its roots firmly in the fertile soil of appeasement. Only those insensitive to the minorities’ plight and to women’s rights will be able to countenance the idea of the Taliban ruling any part of Pakistan. If Pakistanis learn to respect their own subsets they will never tolerate the Taliban for even a single minute. Real de-radicalisation begins with educating the people in universal human values instead of limited religious ones.

Remember the precious young martyrs of Peshawar who gave us another chance at living; we owe it to every last one of them to fix this country once and for all and make it a place where our children can live proudly and with their heads held high. The political leadership must not back down in any way, form, or for any excuse. There must be no surrender and it us, the people, who must keep them honest and accountable. We must never allow them to forget the price of inaction and indecisiveness.

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Mr Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email address yasser.hamdani@gmail.com

Surging violence

Daily Tribune

By Editorial

Published: January 12, 2015

There were 187 cases of violence against women recorded in Balochistan during the year. ILLUSTRATION: TALHA KHAN

The plight of women in Balochistan is particularly sorry in the wake of a decades-old insurgency, much underdevelopment and widespread crime. In 2014, 75 women were killed in the name of ‘honour’ in Balochistan, a figure significantly higher than the previous year when it was put at 45. Five fell victim to acid attacks, 21 committed suicide due to domestic circumstances and others were subjected to violence of other kinds. The growth in the rate of violence is, of course, disturbing, but we should remember this could also be due to the fact that across the country, more women and their families are stepping forward to report such cases rather than covering them up. Nevertheless, there is clearly a need to act to change the order of things.

According to the Aurat Foundation, there has been a 24 per cent surge in violence against women in 2014 compared with the previous year. This is hardly a comforting statistic. There were 187 cases of violence against women recorded in Balochistan during the year, according to data compiled by monitoring input to police. Of course, many more cases could have gone unreported and almost certainly did. Protection mechanisms such as prompt action by police when they receive a complaint or warnings of a threat are one part in this.

Another can be played by the government and the agencies working under it. They must find a way to empower women so that their status can be improved. The low status of women within households has repeatedly been found as a main cause of violence. This is linked to the capacity of women to earn and help support families. When they are put in a position where they can do so, their standing within families goes up as does the role allotted to them in decision-making. Education, then, is critical to this endeavour. We must focus on factors such as this, as well as the effort to move away from violence carried out in the name of tribal tradition, as a means to save women from the brutality they suffer and to make their lives a little safer both in provinces such as Balochistan, where development is amongst the lowest levels in the country, and in other areas, too, where violence continues to be inflicted on women.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th,  2015.

Beleaguered denomination: Ahmadis running from pillar to post to return to their homes

Daily Tribune

By Rana Tanveer

Published: January 8, 2015

Qari Zahid Saleem, a member of the peace committee, said they were trying to solve the issue amicably. PHOTO: AFP

LAHORE: Nearly 125 Ahmadis from 23 families are still running from pillar to post to return to homes they had vacated after an enraged mob set alight eight houses belonging to members of the Ahmadiyya community on July 27 in Gujranwala, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Four people were burnt alive in the incident. A member of the Jamaat-i-Ahmadiyya (JA) said an aged woman had been taken into custody by the police after she had gone to visit the area. He said she was released after the intervention of the CPO. The member said police had stopped them from returning to their houses due to security concerns. He said the department could not let them return till the clerics behind the attack had been convinced to let them come back.

Chaudhry Muhammad Amin, another member of the JA told The Express Tribune that the families had appealed to the police to access their residences several times in vain. He said CPO Waqas Nazeer had called him three times to his office to meet with members of the district peace committee but the meetings had never materialised. Amin said a meeting was held with CPO Nazeer and City SP Tahir Masood Chheena at conference hall. He said CPO Nazeer had constituted a coordination committee of six Ahmadis and five members of the peace committee to facilitate the peaceful return of the displaced families.

SP Chheena expressed hope regarding the ability of the committee to ensure the safe return of the families in 10 days. He said the committee would meet again on Saturday to review proposals in this regard. SP Chheena said committee members had inspected the affected area on Wednesday to evaluate losses and possibilities of rehabilitating the families.

An exasperated mob had attacked residences belonging to Ahmadis on July 27 following an announcement from a mosque that had accused a member of the community of blasphemy. The house of Muhammad Boota was the first to have been targeted by the mob. Boota’s mother, expectant wife and his two daughters perished in the incident.

Six people were nominated and 500 unidentified suspects were accused in an FIR of the incident. The residences of Muhammad Boota, Hasnain Ahmed, Muhammad Ashraf, Muhammad Aslam, Saleem Ahmed, Feroz Deen, Hameed Ahmed and Bashir Ahmed were pillaged and burnt according to the FIR.

Another FIR was registered against Aqib Ahmed, an Ahmadi, who was later arrested.

Munir told The Express Tribune no one had been arrested for setting their houses alight and killing Ahmadis. He said the rioters were free to roam and police had not taken action against them. Munir said police had instructed them to desist from demanding the arrest of the perpetrators before the meeting on Wednesday.

Qari Zahid Saleem, a member of the peace committee, said they were trying to solve the issue amicably. He said he was hopeful that they would be successful in this regard. Saleem said the members of the peace committee would help the families get water, gas and electricity connections restored.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2014.

Mosque versus state

Pervez Hoodbhoy

Updated about 11 hours ago

The writer teaches physics in Lahore and Islamabad.

THE mosque in Pakistan is now no longer just a religious institution. Instead it has morphed into a deeply political one that seeks to radically transform culture and society. Actively assisted by the state in this mission in earlier decades, the mosque is a powerful actor over which the state now exercises little authority. Some have been captured by those who fight the government and military. An eviscerated, embattled state finds it easier to drop bombs on the TTP in tribal Waziristan than to rein in its urban supporters, or to dismiss from state payroll those mosque leaders belonging to militant groups.

Very few Pakistanis have dared to criticise the country’s increasingly powerful mosque establishment although they do not spare the Pakistan Army and the country’s political leaders for their many shortcomings. For example, following the Army Public School massacre, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s promise to regulate the madressahs was immediately criticised as undoable. Had he instead suggested that Pakistan’s mosques be brought under state control as in Saudi Arabia, Iran and several Muslim countries, it would have been dismissed as belonging to even beyond the undoable.

The state’s timidity was vividly exposed in its handling of the 2007 bloody insurrection, launched from inside Islamabad’s central mosque, Lal Masjid, barely a mile from the heart of Pakistan’s government. It was a defining point in Pakistan’s history. The story of the Lal Masjid insurrection, its bloody ending, and subsequent rebound is so critical to understanding the limitations of Pakistan’s fight against terrorism that it deserves to be told once again.

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Very few Pakistanis have dared to criticise the country’s increasingly powerful mosque establishment.

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In early January 2007, the two head clerics of the Lal Masjid demanded the immediate rebuilding of eight illegally constructed mosques knocked down by the civic authorities. Days later, an immediate enforcement of Sharia in Islamabad was demanded. Armed vigilante groups from Jamia Hafsa and nearby madressahs kidnapped ordinary citizens and policemen, threatened shopkeepers, burned CDs and videos, and repeated the demands of tribal militants fighting the Pakistan Army.

At a meeting held in Lal Masjid on April 6, 2007, it was reported that 100 guest religious leaders from across the country pledged to die for the cause of Islam and Sharia. On April 12, in an illegal FM broadcast from the mosque’s own radio station, the clerics issued a threat to the government: “There will be suicide blasts in every nook and cranny of the country. We have weapons, grenades and we are expert in manufacturing bombs. We are not afraid of death….”

The brothers Abdul Aziz and Abdur Rashid Ghazi, who headed the Lal Masjid, had attracted a core of militant organisations around them, including the pioneer of suicide bombings in the region, Jaish-e-Mohammad. Their goal was to change Pakistan’s culture. On April 12, 2007, Rashid Ghazi, a former student of Quaid-i-Azam University, broadcast the following chilling message to our female students:

“The government should abolish co-education. Quaid-i-Azam University has become a brothel. Its female professors and students roam in objectionable dresses. They will have to hide themselves in hijab otherwise they will be punished according to Islam…. Our female students have not issued the threat of throwing acid on the uncovered faces of women. However, such a threat could be used for creating the fear of Islam among sinful women. There is no harm in it.”

For months, unhindered by Gen Musharraf’s government, Lal Masjid operated a parallel government. Its minions received the Saudi Arabian ambassador on the mosque premises, and negotiated with the Chinese ambassador for the release of his country’s kidnapped nationals. The showdown came in July 2007. Copious TV coverage showed armed madressah students with gas masks firing away into the dense smoke. The final push left 10 of Pakistan’s crack SSG commandos dead, together with scores of madressah students. A tidal wave of suicide attacks — as promised by the cleric brothers — duly followed.

Amazingly Pakistan’s civilian courts exonerated Abdul Aziz and Umme Hassan (his wife, who headed Jamia Hafsa). Ignoring TV footage, the court ruled that possession of heavy weaponry by the accused could not be proven. Today Abdul Aziz remains firmly ensconced in Lal Masjid and hundreds pray behind him. He has threatened to unleash a force of 8,000 students from nearby madressahs if he is again arrested. At the behest of the then chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, the destroyed Jamia Hafsa was awarded 20 kanals of choice land in sector H-11 of Islamabad for rebuilding. The land tycoon, Malik Riaz, lavishly reconstructed the damaged mosque.

How many other Abdul Aziz’s does Pakistan have? Clerics who propagate Taliban and Daesh (Islamic State) views to their followers and who, like Aziz, are unmoved by the Peshawar massacre? No one knows even the number of mosques in Pakistan, where they are located, and, most importantly, what their khutbas (sermons) contain. This must change if Pakistan is to make any progress towards containing religious violence.

The first baby step towards bringing an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 mosques under state control requires tasking local authorities at the district and tehsil level with documentation: mosque locations, sizes, religious affiliation, and known sources of funding. The second is to monitor Friday sermons, a possibility offered by modern technology. Many worshippers have mobile phones capable of recording audio. A sermon, once recorded, could be uploaded to a website operated by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Readers wishing to see how this might be done should visit http://imams.mashalbooks.org/ where sermons from scores of mosques in rural Punjab have been recorded, transcribed, and categorised for full and free public access.

A crisis is said to be a terrible thing to waste. Before the horror of the Peshawar atrocity fades from our collective memory let the state act decisively — albeit in small steps — to restore its right to regulate religious activities within its boundaries. Else the people of Pakistan shall continue to suffer terribly.

The writer teaches physics in Lahore and Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2015