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Negligence or complicity?

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Naveen Naqvi - Aug. 04 (Opinion) - The lesson is clear; the blasphemy law not only violates fundamental principles of justice, it distorts law into an instrument of sectarian witch-hunts and also of collective and individual reprisal. Its victims have ranged from an innocent Hafiz who was burned to death by a frenzied mob, to Pakistan’s most renowned social engineer Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan who suffered years of harassment, death threats and litigation for unsubstantiated allegations of blasphemy

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Redefining Success

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Changing Up Pakistan - By Kalsoom - Jul. 29 (Opinion) - There were a series of notable arrests this past weekend in Pakistan. On Sunday, media outlets reported that Shah Abdul Aziz, a former MP with the MMA, was detained in connection with the murder of Piotr Stanczak, a Polish engineer decapitated by Taliban militants in February. The AFP reported, “On July 16, Pakistani police arrested another man, Atta Ullah Khan, in connection with the killing and on Sunday arrested three other people suspected of links to Stanczak’s murder and of plotting militant attacks in Islamabad.” Speaking in a court in Rawalpindi, Attaullah said the Polish engineer was killed on the orders of Aziz, “after negotiations for the release of captured Taliban members broke down.”

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Tribesman or gunman, who are we really dealing with?

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Mail - By Richard Pendlebury - Jul. 28 (Opinion) - The Taliban must be talked to, says David Miliband. He believes that the moderates among the movement can be separated from the 'hardliners' in order to bring peace to Afghanistan. But who is the typical Taliban today?

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The Taliban and music

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Zubeida Mustafa - Aug. 05 (Opinion) - In her latest book, The Case for God, Karen Armstrong describes music as ‘the limit of reason.’ She finds it inseparable from religious expression when religion is at ‘its best.’ We do not get the best demonstration of this connection in the Taliban brand of Islam. The faith practised by the Sufis, however, shows an intrinsic link between the two.

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Fear and shame of Gojra

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Times (Pakistan) - Aug. 03 (Editorial) - As usual a “banned organisation” — Federal Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti says it was Sipah Sahaba — came in from outside the town and took over and used acid and petrol bombs to destroy property and kill Christian women and children, while the local government and police simply did nothing. The federal government has taken serious note by sending in the Rangers and the Punjab government has ordered an inquiry into what really transpired. Compensation for the destroyed property has already been announced.

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Pakistan: Condemning Gojra Riots

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Global Voices - By Sana Saleem - Aug. 05 (News Analysis) - Last Saturday riots broke out in the Gojra town of Pakistan over alleged desecration of the Holy Quran and houses of the local Christian community were set on fire leaving 7 burnt alive and 18 severely injured. The widespread communal violence has been condemned severely by the Pakistani blogosphere.

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Taliban Resume Attacks in Swat Valley

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Matthew Rosenberg, Zahid Hussain - Jul. 27 (News Report) - Taliban militants driven from the Swat Valley by Pakistan's army in recent months are again infiltrating the region's towns and villages, kidnapping and beheading perceived enemies and ambushing soldiers, as hundreds of thousands of refugees return home.

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Today, I too am a minority

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Nadeem F. Paracha - Aug. 04 (Opinion) - why is the Pakistani media referring to the recent attack by Muslims on the Christian community in the Gojra area as ‘communal riots?’ They were not riots, but an attack. An assault by an arrogant majority on a low-lying minority.

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Where the Mullahs Are the Upper Crust

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Sabrina Tavernise - Aug. 02 (News Analysis) - The turmoil in the Swat Valley has raised a chilling prospect for Pakistan — that the Taliban’s Islamic takeover in the once-peaceful area was turning into a social revolution, with mullahs leading peasants in the seizure of property from rich landlords who had fled in fear of their lives. The most worrisome question has been whether the revolution would spread from Swat to the much more populous and strategic province next door, Punjab.

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Hate Engulfs Christian Minority in Pakistan

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Sabrina Tavernise - Aug. 03 (News Report) - More than 100 Christian houses were burned and looted on Saturday in a rampage that lasted about eight hours by a crowd the authorities estimate was as large as 20,000 strong. In addition to the seven members of the Hameed family who were killed, about 20 people were wounded.

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Pakistan's Christians protest lack of protection after deadly rampage

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Issam Ahmed - Aug. 04 (News Report) - Lahore, Pakistan - After an anti-Christian rampage left eight people dead in the town of Gojra over the weekend, Pakistani authorities arrested 100 people and offered $6,000 in compensation to victims' families in an effort to reassure the country's

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As Violence Hurts Business, Pakistanis Debate U.S. Help

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Joshua Partlow, Haq Nawaz Khan - Jul. 28 (News Report) - Government statistics show that large-scale manufacturing has contracted 7.6 percent across Pakistan in the past year, while a survey by the Industrialists Association of Peshawar found a 37 percent plunge in the industrial sector here. Business associations estimate that the number of industrial jobs, the main economic lifeline, has already fallen from more than 100,000 to about 25,000. Factories that ran round-the-clock now scrape by with a single shift.

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'They Want to Destroy Christians'

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Joshua Partlow - Aug. 03 (News Report) - Killing has become commonplace in Pakistan. But this attack startled the country both for its ferocity and for its stark message to religious minorities. Many saw the violence as further evidence of the growing power of the Taliban and allied Islamist militant groups in Punjab province, home to about half of Pakistan's population.

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Lessons from the Lawyers' Movement

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ali Wyne - Jul. 31 (Opinion) - There was widespread agreement within and outside of Pakistan that Iftikhar Chaudhry's reinstatement as chief justice marked the beginning - albeit fragile and uncertain - of the country's democratization. In reality, however, it reaffirmed the need for (at least) three basic principles to inform Pakistan's political development. First, the rule of law is little more than a rhetorical construct if leaders violate it to maintain power and opponents support it to achieve power. Second, tactics matter. The lawyers' movement helped to bring Zardari to power by opposing Pervez Musharraf; now it is boosting Nawaz Sharif's clout by opposing Zardari. If it does not recalibrate, it may well continue to elevate the very opposition figures who will undermine the rule of law once they acquire power. Third, the divides that must exist for representative institutions to emerge - whether between leaders and opponents, or bureaucrats and activists - lose their meaning if those on either side are rewarded for subordinating principle to ambition.

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Taliban Leader in Pakistan Is Reportedly Killed in Strike

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Pir Zubair Shah, Ismail Khan, Sabrina Tavernise - Aug. 07 (News Report) - American officials said they were growing increasingly confident that Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban leader who has been blamed for a wave of violence across Pakistan, was dead.

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Feingold Set to Oppose Further Troop Boost for Afghanistan

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackerman - Aug. 05 (News Report) - “I don’t think the case has been effectively made for continuing to send more and more troops into Afghanistan,” Feingold said in a Wednesday interview. “I am very unhappy with the answers I’ve received about the issue of whether constantly increasing troops is helping the situation in Pakistan or making it worse. I suspect it could be making things worse.” Feingold fears that increasing troops in Afghanistan might lead insurgents to cross the border into Pakistan, which is engaged in its own fight against a distinct but affiliated insurgency,

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As Swat's exiles journey home, gunfire suggests problems may not be over

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Declan Walsh - Jul. 27 (Special Report) - Small comforts carry big hopes in the Swat region of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. The misery of war could be nearing an end now; and, after 12 weeks of battles between the Pakistan army and the Taliban, exiled residents are flooding home.

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New Reconciliation Strategy Advocated To Bring Taliban Groups Into Kabul Fold

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Radio Free Europe - By Ron Synovitz - Jul. 30 (News Report) - U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke has said the Taliban members who could be brought into the political process in Afghanistan are those who joined the insurgency out of pragmatism rather than for militant ideological reasons.

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Returning Home – An Interview with an IDP

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Teeth Maestro - By Faris Kasim - Aug. 02 (Interview) - What will you do back at home? Is there employment available? It will be difficult, I’m sure we will have trouble even feeding our children but it is better than living here like beggars.

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Afghan, Pakistani conflicts spilling into Central Asian states?

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Abdujalil Abdurasulov - Jul. 31 (News Report) - A spate of militant clashes in Tajikistan may indicate that the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan are spilling beyond their borders – a top concern for neighboring Central Asian nations and Russia.

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Shadow diplomacy

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Frontline (India) - By Vijay Prashad - Jul. 28 (Special Report) - Most analysts of U.S. foreign policy in South Asia agree that there is pressure from within Islamabad and New Delhi to reopen the discussions. For Pakistan, the situation is fairly transparent. Instability along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and the leakage of jehadi ambitions towards Islamabad have shifted the government’s priorities away from India: no longer the easy thought that it is from New Delhi that all of Pakistan’s problems hail.

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Swat — it’s too early to declare victory

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Zahid Hussain - Jul. 27 (Special Report) - Police and civilian administration personnel have started returning to their posts and electricity supply has been restored. The life is slowly returning to normal in the biggest town of the Swat Valley which was a centre of fighting until a few weeks ago. But the situation is far from stable. People are still wary of the situation.

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Why Pakistan Balks at the U.S. Afghanistan Offensive

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Omar Waraich - Jul. 29 (News Analysis) - Pakistan is not betting on a U.S. victory in Afghanistan, nor is it going out of its way to help achieve one. Instead, say analysts and former top officials in Islamabad, Pakistan views the conflict in Afghanistan through the lens of its own national interests and its conflict with India — and it will act accordingly, prioritizing securing its own interests in Afghanistan's future. And that could be bad news for a U.S.-led military campaign that depends on Pakistan's help for thwarting the Afghan insurgency.

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Pakistan’s Human Debacle

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Morton Abramowitz - Aug. 06 (Opinion) - The Pakistan military’s offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley has been hailed as a success despite the exodus of some two million men, women and children. Information is sparse because the area is still closed to the outside world, but

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Armageddon at the Top of the World: Not!

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Tomdispatch.com - By Juan Cole - Jul. 28 (Special Report) - Despite being among the poorest people in the world, the inhabitants of the craggy northwest of what is now Pakistan have managed to throw a series of frights into distant Western capitals for more than a century. That's certainly one for the record books.

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