Friends of Pakistan

Why my attackers failed but gave me strength

admin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 04:49:37 +0000

The wee hours of late Saturday brought a metamorphosis in my life. Not just that I was muffled, picked up, tortured, and humiliated. No absolutely not. Rather the torture has removed the remaining fear, if there was any in my heart and mind, and has instead given me the realization that we have to die fighting for this country.
My love for this country is based on some reasoning which is inspired by my firm belief that we can neither change our past nor our national identity. I learned this during my stay abroad for one and a half years when I went for studies, first in the US and then in UK. Lord Curzon’s words that “exile is a nursery of nationalism” always keep resounding in my ears.
Let us suppose I decide to settle abroad. I will again be Pakistani-British or Pakistani-American and the prefix ‘Pakistan’ cannot be dropped from my identity. It is always counted where you’re rooted in. So I have to stay attached and take care of my country wherever I am.
Having decided to live and die on this land, I have a dream to see Pakistan where brains, not batons reign supreme, where people can question the use of public money, where all institutions can be held accountable without any fear or favour, where our children love to live instead of fear to live, and where we are governed by the rule of law and not on the basis of personal loyalties.
The message of my captors for me was to become a status quo abiding person, not law abiding. They forced me through violence to accept their views and become a silent spectator to the rot without questioning what was happening to my beloved country.
I instead learned a different lesson from the torture and humiliation, to stand guard for this country, help the oppressed, keep questioning the high and mighty and continue the struggle to make this land livable and safe for the next generation.
The captors thought themselves to be heroes but emerged as villains and will go down in the history with same status. I feel pity for them. They were born innocent but forced to become sick minds. Instead of cursing them, I only pray for them because they don’t know we’re fighting for their betterment too.
My captors were probably not aware that I was also hit by a car in December 2004 that left me with compound fractures in my left leg. But I never bowed to those attackers either. Although I’ve forgiven my captors but not forgotten the perpetrators of this act that should be exposed and this mind-set be eliminated once and for all.
I believe in reporting with a moral force without any personal grudge against anybody or any institution. Whenever I write about anyone, the concerned people have always been approached for their version to balance my reporting. It is however a different story that those without answers to our questions try to propagate as if the stories are being planted and we are being bribed for doing this.
Such excuses are crafted by the individuals and institutions not inclined to revisit their conduct. But they don’t know that we, by virtue of our profession, have been tasked to unfold the truth, no matter who is affected by whatever way.
Some consider journalism as a shortcut to rise on the ladder to political power but we are here to protect the interest of people, neither our own nor of the rulers.
I have no words to thank so many of my well-wishers in Pakistan and abroad for consoling me and praying for me. I didn’t know many of them before. I was amazed to note how they struggled to reach me. Due to the flood of calls, I could not attend most of them. It was a silent majority that rose against the oppression of a tiny minority claiming to have monopoly on violence.
There was a mixed reaction to this incident. Those who didn’t know me gave me a new strength and conviction, emboldened me further and offered all-out help. People, who know me for years, were concerned about me and my family’s security. They think that I should think about my children. This is a question which comes to every parent’s mind. I would like to explain that the fight we are into is for my children and for the children of all Pakistanis.
We have to see the broader picture. Pakistani media is fighting the war for the future of this country. The country’s neighbours China and India, are emerging as superpowers but we, in spite of our immense capabilities, are on the decline. There are many who are even worried about its existence. The situation calls for internal accountability and restructuring the society but vested interests and pro-status quo forces seem to be strong, at least for the moment.
But we have to fight on and they don’t realize that a change is in progress, it is bound to come, sooner than later. I’m ready to pay any price for speaking up. Thomas Horaceman, who is considered the father of the public education system in US had said: “One should feel ashamed to die until one has done anything for humanity.” And I stand by his words.

Florida administration bans churchs plan of Quran burning

admin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 04:48:02 +0000

City officials in Gainesville, Florida, have denied a burning permit to a local church that wants to burn copies of the Quran on the upcoming anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Gainesville officials say book burnings like the one planned by the Dove World Outreach Center are prohibited under the city’s burning ordinance. Interim Fire Chief Gene Prince further warned Wednesday that the church would face a fine if it went ahead with the burnings.

The Dove World Outreach Center had announced the planned Quran burning last month on Facebook and urged other religious groups to join “in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the evil of Islam”.

“We only did it because we felt there needed to be an outcry against Islam, because Islam is presenting itself as a religion of peace,” explained Senior Dove World Pastor Terry Jones.

Despite the warning from officials, Jones, who has written a book called “Islam is of the Devil”, sent out an e-mail saying the church would still burn Qurans.

The Quran burning has been condemned by a number of Muslim and Christian groups.

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Latest-news/1033.htm

Zardari’s two years as presidentZardari’s two years as president

admin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 04:45:02 +0000

The fact that he is still in office is in itself an achievement. He has, so far–and it is important to add this caveat–survived at least two close shaves. One, during the movement for the restoration of the judiciary and, later, after the NRO decision.
Had the president stuck to his guns and not restored Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and other judges, the long march would have continued to Islamabad, with unforeseen consequences. He fought on grimly till the end, and then capitulated at the last minute.
During the hearing of the NRO case, there was wide speculation that Zardari would be disqualified from holding the office of president. It did not quite happen like that, but by asking the government to write to the Swiss authorities the Supreme Court seemed to initiate the process.
Prime Minister Gilani refused to carry out this order and thus began a struggle with the court that was speculated to end in the government’s ouster or, at least, of the president’s. As we know, this has also not happened.
The tactic chosen by Zardari to thwart this possible danger was to publicly attack the court and the army. In Pakistan’s context, this is often deemed suicidal. And maybe, he thought, that since the end is nigh, he might as well go out in a blaze of glory.
He also blatantly used the so-called Sindh card. Public demonstrations were organised in the province to send the message that if another PPP government and its leader were sent packing, there would be trouble. Ajrak and Sindhi cap campaigns were instigated to signal the rise of Sindhi nationalism.
It worked. The first impact was on the media. It got taken in, or genuinely believed that the end of the PPP government would mean the end of Pakistan. The result was a spate of editorials and reports raising alarm bells against any precipitate action against Mr Zardari or the PPP.
This seemed to affect the courts and the thrust towards an open confrontation slowed down. One example of this is that despite the non-implementation of the NRO decision for over eight months, no serious censure has been visited upon the government. And even on the petitions against the 18th Amendment, the Supreme Court seems to be moving cautiously, although it could have decided these in a week.
The time thus gained is being used well by Mr Zardari. If not before, he now understand clearly the power of the lawyers’ community. He knows that in future the bar associations’ response can impact any stance he takes on a possible negative decision by the courts. He has thus unleashed Babar Awan to divide the lawyers.
Part of this task is easy, because the PPP has its supporters in the bars organised under the People’s Lawyers Forum. But Awan has other tricks up his sleeve besides bagfuls of money for bar associations. The result is that the lawyers’ community appears to be more divided now than ever before. This adds another bit of pressure on the Supreme Court.
Does this mean that Mr Zardari has shown himself to be a clever politician? There is little doubt about that. He has survived so far and may well complete his tenure, although no one can, or should, make sweeping predictions about politics or politicians in our great country.
But his past handling of the meagre cards dealt to him in the 2008 elections do show immense tactical skills. He wound his way to the Presidency without the PPP having a majority either in the National Assembly or in any provincial assembly except Sindh.
It shows an ability to build political coalitions, and although the MQM is often restive and the PML-N sporadically goes on the offensive, the PPP is virtually a partner with all the political forces in the country. Thus, governments in the centre and the provinces are all coalitions, of which the ruling party is an important part.
Asif Zardari’s immense pragmatism, devoid of any moral or ideological content, allows him to sup with everyone, from Fazlur Rehman, to the Chaudhrys, to Asfandyar Wali and, not to forget, Nawaz Sharif and Altaf Hussain. All this shows a skilled tactical brain unencumbered by emotion or whatever values he holds dear.
This attitude has led to some major political successes. The agreement on the National Finance Commission award is an important achievement, although voices are beginning to be raised that the federal government has little money left to pay its bills.
The passage of the 18th Amendment is also a spectacular political triumph because putting together a national consensus on such a far-reaching change in the Constitution is never easy. Constitutional amendments have been passed before, but when the ruling party had an overwhelming majority. This time the PPP is a minority party everywhere but in Sindh.
While Mr Zardari’s political skills clearly need to be acknowledgment, it is also true that he has failed miserably to change his image or create trust about himself among the people. The international community also views him with suspicion and it is not a myth that part of the poor response to aid appeals for the flood-affected is also because of this.
This is a major failure. Whatever charges of corruption were placed at Mr Zardari’s door in the past, he had an opportunity to dry-clean his image once he became president. He has failed to do that. He continues to surround himself with dodgy people and his appointments of discredited people to ministerial positions or in state-owned entities have sullied his image even more.
As has the general conduct of the PPP hierarchy that is in power. Reports of corruption by the prime minister and his cabinet are endemic. Just as every match played by the Pakistan cricket team is looked at with suspicion, every deal, every agreement made by the federal government these days is viewed with distrust.
Mr Zardari could have turned this around by coming down hard on corrupt ministers and by the appointment of decent professional people to state-owned entities. But he did not do so. A particular failure in this regard is the PPP-dominated Sindh government, which has acquired a filthy reputation.
It is clear that lack of moral content, while a strength in pragmatic politics, is a catastrophe in governance.
The image that this government is corrupt cannot be a plus for Mr Zardari after two years in power. If to this is added the widespread feeling that politicians in general lack competence and understanding of governance, it shows the extent of his failure in this sphere.
His last two months in power have been particularly disastrous. With floods ravaging the country, he decided strangely to visit France and England. Even after coming back, he has not been able to energise the response of his government. These twin failures have become huge black marks against him.
He has three more years to go, and there is still time to make things better. Otherwise he will always be known as a smart politician who does not understand governance, or someone who is clever but not wise.

Email: shafqatmd@gmail.com:

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/10-09-2010/opinion/4107.htm

Police reforms are critical now

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 05:28:28 +0000

The mob-lynching of two boys in Sialkot on Aug 15, and that too in the presence of the police, was a display of virtual complicity of representatives of the state in a crime committed by roguish non-state elements. And the police were there, as the videos show, when the corpses of teenage brothers Mughees and Muneeb were dragged in the streets of the city and then strung upside down from a pole. The perpetrators and their abetters assumed the role of mediaeval judges in the most backward societies of the world while the supposed custodians of law watched as spectators.

Pakistan Police Torture

Such was the insane rage of the mob that day that street justice was meted out to the victims although they had no criminal history. The mob beat them to death because Mughees and Muneeb were rumoured to have been involved in a bloody shootout that morning.
But what unfolded in Sialkot on Aug 15 was the product of a mindset Pakistanis have developed over the years.
Our television-viewer has long become inured to images of brutalisation. Suicide bombings, attacks on mosques, even horrific killings, such victims being set on fire by mobs or adversaries, are something we have learnt to live with.
In the early nineties a man in Gujranwala was burnt alive by a frenzied mob because he was mistakenly suspected of having committing a sacrilegious act. The victim was a quack, or “atai”-which is a word unfamiliar to illiterate ears. The brutality started with a name-caller shouting “Attai!” The mob heard “Isai!” (Christian), and that in turn implied sacrilege.
However, the Sialkot tragedy was unprecedented. It was for the first time that the television-viewer saw the victims suffering a slow agonising death in full view of policemen, and that in the holy month of Ramazan.
In societies more developed than ours, the police stop crimes taking place, rather than be complicit in them. In those societies the police do so with the full cooperation of the public. Since public cooperation is indispensable for an effective policing, as it is in the maintenance of law and order, many countries have community policing in place. An effective anticrime strategy cannot even exist without the police receiving active public support.
The need for such cooperation is underscored in Pakistan’s criminal procedure code. Under it, the police can ask for assistance from the public or individuals in the prevention and suppression of crime. On the other hand, the code entitles a private citizen to apprehend someone committing a crime, provided he or she hands the suspect over to the police without delay.
But under no circumstances do private individuals or groups have the right to resort to violence against a captured suspect. The use of coercive powers in the prevention of crime is the exclusive preserve of the state-machinery, represented by the police force in this instance. In their turn, the police may not use excessive or illegal force on the suspect.
Pakistan is not only a place where law enforces use firearms against armed criminals. But it is a country of fake police-encounters, and of custodial killings in which the victim is either shot from a close range or dies from bodily torture. The torture at times involves broken limbs.
There should be police accountability at the operational level and effective institutional oversight. The absence of accountability and institutional oversight has always been an area of concern in Pakistan. This gap is more glaring at the district level. Even the Police Act promulgated with much fanfare by the previous government, under the Police Order of 2002, failed to address these critical issues. The Police Order envisaged public-safety commissions at the district level. These commissions, chaired by members of civil society, were put in place in Punjab that year.
Although the civil courts were empowered to summon any person, including the head-of-the-district police, district police officers refused to present themselves at enquiries and hearings, and instead sent their subordinates. In one case, a DPO not only ignored written notices issued by the chairman of a safety commission but had an FIR registered against the persistent official.
Therefore, unless there is an effective system of institutional oversight, we can expect more grisly images from Pakistan making their way to YouTube.
A particular cause of worry in these days of terrorism and rampant crime is the high acquittal rate in the courts, resulting from poor investigation and scanty evidence. The courts themselves have complained of bad investigation and faulty evidence. Sometimes this deficiency has enabled high-profile suspects of terrorism to be released or even acquitted.
The quality of investigation and the sequential consistency in its different key variables needs closer focus, coupled with effective monitoring and supervision.
At the same time, the working conditions of police personnel and their work environment are a major factor in poor performance by the police. Long working hours, multiple overlapping duties and unrelieved stress would render any organisation or force ineffective.
The police seldom get credit for gallantry in dangerous situations. In the anti-terror war the police force in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bore the major brunt of terrorist attacks. Lately, despite the crunch, the government, especially in Punjab, has made some efforts to meet some of the demands of the force. There has been a substantial increase in allocations for the police. The pay package has improved.
The Pakistani government and society need to reflect on all these issues before we can produce an effective strategy for permanent maintenance of law and order. From mere use of force, the emphasis should be shifted to methods of policing and encouragement of better conduct and behaviour.
Modern training needs particular attention. Training of the traditional kind has focused on the enforcement and regulatory side, with little attention to, say, issues of how police personnel should be behaving with the public in the way they do in advanced countries.
Given the worsening crime situation and the terrorism, and the creeping social implosion, the police-staff even require stress-management and behavioural therapy. Any modern police force employs psychologists in its staff. There is no reason why the Pakistani police force should not have them if the staff is to have a healthy frame of mind, which is critical for an effective performance and a state of readiness to tackle difficult problems.
Pakistanis’ attitude regarding the role of the police must progress from the traditional one because crime is assuming an increasingly complex form in the world, ranging from the street to cyberspace.

The writer is a former federal interior secretary and former home secretary of Punjab. Email: tmahmud-pk@hotmail.com

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/09-09-2010/opinion/3804.htm

Round and roundRound and round

admin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 05:22:47 +0000

What is happening at the National Accountability Bureau has strong elements of classic farce about it, but it seems unlikely that there is going to be a happy ending. The Supreme Court had taken a sword to the upper echelons of NAB and declared its prosecutor general to be unlawfully posted to his job and directed that he leave post-haste. The prime minister, ever one to uphold the law of the land, agreed and said that Irfan Qadir should clear his desk forthwith and that he, the prime minister, would see to it that a new prosecutor general would be appointed soon after Eid. The ex-PG, having none of this, turned up for work as per usual. He declared that he was not leaving unless it was at the signed direction from the president who appointed him in the first place, and that he would be derelict in his duty if he did otherwise. The prime minister riposted, saying that ‘all facilities’ were to be withdrawn from Irfan Qadir. All facilities? Use of the wastepaper-basket perhaps? The office bathroom? This is not made clear in the PM’s statement. Yet another spanner was tossed into the works by presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar who said that there was no need for the president to make any further written order as the Supreme Court had delivered its judgment which the PM had accepted.
The latest statement from the PM’s office on the matter is to the effect that they are awaiting the summary of the case before making a further move – and on whose desk does the summary sit? Why none other than the Svengali of this production, the federal law minister himself. Thus we have arrived at a position where a man has been fired, he refuses to accept his dismissal, his powerful friends are moving to protect him because he is useful to them where he is and the prime minister is ignored by all and sundry. This tricorn tussle has yet to get to the drop scene, and it is far from clear who is going to be the victor. Will the PM get the loan of a backbone and the resolve to impose his will? Can the law minister circumvent the PM and keep his placeman at his post? Will the Supreme Court lose patience and clap the lot of them in irons for making a fool of it? All will be revealed in the final act, but we now announce an interval for Eid.

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/09-09-2010/editorial/3801.htm