[DAWN] IN the shadow of the Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. school massacre, the air of festivity that prevails at this time of year -- both in connection with Christmas and the Quaid's birth anniversary -- is conspicuously absent.
For although, for a very long time now, each year in Pakistain has borne witness to much spilling of innocent blood at the hands of violent krazed killers, this was one depredation too many, the cost it exacted too monstrous, and its timing too recent, to make the display of anything resembling good cheer seem appropriate.
Christmas celebrations yesterday were therefore low-key, almost sombre. Members of the Christian community had, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, announced its intention to tone down the day's commemorations. A number of them -- several dressed as Santa Claus -- had taken out a rally in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... to express solidarity with the rest of the country, holding placards saying "united we stand in grief and sorrow".
The question is, how far does the majority stand united with them in their time of grief and sorrow? After the bombing of the All Saints Church in Peshawar in September 2013, there was undoubtedly an outpouring of sympathy for the Christian community, but it was all too brief.
Three weeks later, Eid was celebrated across Pakistain with 'customary fervour'. Newspapers reported that transporters fleeced commuters by hiking fares, buyers at cattle markets were made to pay illegal exit fees, and outlawed outfits also collected animal hides.
In short, all was well with the world. There were no special prayers for the community, no indication that the recent loss of around 80 precious lives was remembered.
This year, among other incidents, has seen the horrific lynching of a Christian couple in Punjab on allegations of blasphemy, more evidence that laws pertaining to it disproportionately impact the minorities. Jinnah's Pakistain was to have been a very different place. If one thing is clear after so many years of bloodletting, it is that no Pak -- whether Christian, Hindu or Sikh -- should feel marginalised for his faith.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/26/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] IN the aftermath of the most heinous and horrible tragedy in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. at the Army Public School, Sartaj Aziz ...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in good jihadis and bad jihadis as a matter of national policy... , adviser on foreign affairs, rightly called the massacre of the students the '9/11 of Pakistain'.
However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... I do hope we do not enter into a frenzy of unjustified killings like the United States did after 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq, which we know was to appease the American public and was ineffective in countering terrorism.
Terrorism has nevertheless increased in the last decade, and today the world is facing threats far worse than Al Qaeda, such as the Lion of Islam group the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... . Unfortunately, our policymakers and government seem to be treading the same path of violence in vengeance as the US, and have decided to execute those on death row as a starting point.
The majority of those on death row in Pakistain have suffered serious miscarriage of justice during the trial process. Shafqat Hussain is one of those due to be executed at any time. In 2004, almost 10 years ago, Shafqat Hussain was convicted of murder and kidnapping in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... . He was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court. In the coming weeks, if all goes according to the government's plan, he will be hanged by the neck until dead. This will go some way, we are told, towards making up for the horror in Peshawar.
Let us begin with the first salient fact about Shafqat: he was just 14 years old at the time he was charged. Pakistain signed the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990.
The convention explicitly states that no "capital punishment ... shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below 18 years of age". Thus, if Pakistain goes ahead and kills him, this will be a violation of international law.
The same UN convention also makes clear -- as if it needed to be said -- that "no child shall be subjected to torture...." In upholding Shafqat's conviction, the high court relied exclusively on the fact that he had "confessed" to his crime.
Shafqat has always maintained it was the bitter fruit of nine days of brutal police torture. He says he was beaten, electrocuted, and had cigarettes stubbed out on his arm. Young, scared, and alone, Shafqat was willing to say he did anything: "they could make you say that a deer was an elephant."
Regardless of whether one believes Shafqat (his visible scars are eloquent proof of the cigarette burns), let us turn to the United Nations Convention Against Torture also signed by Pakistain.
This provides that when there is an assertion of torture the state "shall immediately make a preliminary inquiry into the facts". No such inquiry has ever been made. Pakistain will be in violation of another international law if Shafqat is executed without being heard.
Without the torture-confession, there is no evidence that Shafqat is guilty. It hardly seems necessary to cite authority for the principle that we should not execute the innocent.
Innocent children were killed in Peshawar but it will not expiate that crime to kill another innocent child.
Surely, at the very least, the president should allow Shafqat a fair hearing on clemency -- after all, Pakistain has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides that "anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence". To do otherwise would be to violate yet another international obligation.
But let us turn to our own law. Shafqat has spent more than half of his life in a cramped death cell in Karachi's Central Prison. Had he been sentenced to life in prison he would long since have been released. Thus, he has already served one sentence, albeit for a crime that lack of evidence shows he almost certainly did not commit.
Our own Shariat court has held that "[t]he current prison practice is already torture-oriented. ...Prisons are being used only for the purpose of awarding physical pain and punishment in addition to mental torture". Therefore, the judges opined, to execute someone after such pain and suffering would be double jeopardy.
Surely, then, civilised people can agree on two things: first, that Shafqat Hussain should be released immediately; and second, most obviously, that hanging him will not advance the cause of justice for the tragic victims of Peshawar.
What is practically required of us is a better system of governance where turbans do not operate with impunity and operational liberty that enables them to carry out attacks like the one in Peshawar. The death penalty is neither a deterrent nor symbolic of our resolve to fight terror.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[DAWN] SHOCKING though it is that it took savagery on the scale seen in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. last week to shake Pak society out of its stupor regarding the spread of violent extremism, there does now seem to be some introspection under way.
At the level of the state, the government has made a renewed pledge to fight this hydra-headed monster, and while the wisdom of some of the moves announced is being challenged, there is no doubt that such political consensus and will is urgently needed. At the societal level, too, several hard, ugly realities that have gone largely ignored by the majority are being confronted, even if reluctantly.
Foremost is the one that is also perhaps the most ironic: that religion and the pulpit have been hijacked by groups and individuals intent on spreading mischief and sowing divisions; society itself has been infected by deep-rooted extremism that is exacerbating already dangerous divisions.
This may not necessarily lead individual citizens to resort to physical violence, but it certainly constitutes the bed from which the seeds of intolerance and bigotry take nourishment; the fact that krazed killer views are rife in society explains why it has taken Paks so long to recognise the problem, despite suffering years of witnessing innocents being slaughtered.
Like all societal malaises, the path to redemption is fraught with challenges, but some measures are readily apparent. These should apply immediately to the misuse of mosques in general, and in particular to the Friday sermons in which views that are divisionary and that often amount to outright hate-speech or incitement to violence are disseminated.
These must be curtailed. One solution can lie in crowd-sourcing: citizens can be encouraged to report violations, with the state then stepping in to investigate and apply the law.
All mosques and their khateebs should be registered with the government, and the merits of requiring religious figures to apply for a licence to deliver the Friday sermon, which goes out over loudspeakers, can be considered.
It is already the case that the Friday congregations can only take place in some, and not all, places of worship; the oversight net can be tightened by the law requiring that all sermons be recorded and the records kept in order and be readily available.
To stem the tide of extremism in society, extraordinary measures are needed. Perhaps even more than the state, it is the people themselves that need to step up to the challenge.
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[DAWN] On an assurance by Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif that only "jet black terrorists" who have committed violent crimes will be tried by the proposed special trial courts, reluctant parties like the MQM, ANP and PPP agreed to support the move.
Addressing some of the reservations expressed by politicians, Gen Sharif explained that the military had its own legal system with certain checks and balances which guard against misuse of authority by the officers. Moreover, the army chief added, "the proposed military courts will only take the cases approved by the federal government".
Military authorities use the term, jet black terrorists, for hardened criminals.
Sharing with Dawn proceedings of Wednesday's marathon meeting of parliamentary parties, a participant who didn't want to be quoted said that during an initial part of the sitting, the MQM expressed its discomfort over the prospect of military courts. The PPP and ANP, too, opposed the proposal.
Senator Aitzaz Ahsan of PPP argued that such courts had no place in a working constitutional democracy. Moreover, he said, the PPP had always opposed formation of such courts as the arrangement had no place in the constitution.
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À la guerre comme à la guerre (In war, as in war) – A French maxim
The dispute between the Arabs and Jews is an “agrarian dispute,” over the question of who puts who in the ground first – Attributed to Yisrael Galili (1911-1986), head of National Staff of the Hagana, and an iconic figure in the Labor Party
Over the last two decades, Israel has inexorably painted itself into a perilous corner. By blunder after debacle, it has allowed itself to be corralled into a political cul-de-sac that threatens to undermine its very ability to survive as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
...There is an increasingly ominous sense that Israel is powerless to contend with the threat of Palestinian unilateralism, and at a loss as to how to counter Palestinian diplomatic offensives – or rebuff the maelstrom of international censure should it dare to do so.
...However, despite the undisputed gravity of the situation, despair need not be warranted – if the Israeli leadership can find the necessary intellectual integrity, moral courage and political foresight.
#1
This is a brilliant article. I'd highly recommend reading the whole thing. His proposed policy solution is the first one I've heard that actually sounds like it could work.
The most pressing measure is to make it clear to the Palestinians – and to their supporters – that if it is independence they demand, then independent they will have to be.
Thus, Israel must convey unequivocally that it will cease, forthwith, to provide every service and all merchandise that it provides them today. In other words, no water, electricity, fuel, postal services, communications, port facilities, tax collection or remittances will be supplied by Israel.
This will vividly expose the futility of the Palestinians’ endeavor for statehood, which almost two decades after the Oslo accords and massive investment has not produced anything but an untenable, divided entity crippled by corruption and cronyism, with a dysfunctional polity, an illegitimate president, an unelected prime minister, and a feeble economy that, with its minuscule private sector and bloated public one, is unsustainable without the largesse of its alleged “oppressor.”
Humanitarian response to ‘humanitarian crisis’
There is little doubt that such a unilateral initiative by Israel would inflict considerable hardship on large sectors of the Palestinian population – engendering inevitable accusations that it is precipitating a “humanitarian crisis.”
To counter these charges Israel must provide a “humanitarian response” and offer individual nonbelligerent Palestinian breadwinners generous relocation grants to help them build a better life for themselves and their families elsewhere, free of the incompetence and corruption of the cruel cliques that have led them astray for decades.
The only thing I'm disappointed in is that he doesn't make concrete places for the relocation. Egypt would be an obvious possibility, since Sisi has already offered, but psychologically, I'd say that funding relocations to such places as Norway, Sweden, Britain, Belgium, Germany, and France would be the most useful, politically/public relations wise. The Palestinians would line up to relocate, of course. And those countries would either have to put up or shut up, either admit thousands (millions) of Palestinians, or to admit their blatant hypocrisy on the whole issue.
#2
Oh I support statehood for those areas because it
a) would be an embarrasign feckup.
b) would enable all sorts of retaliation
c) others who rather like Isreal getting the attention would have to step in instead.
in short, let incompetent people get the independence and responsibility they deserve.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DAWN] IN the aftermath of the most heinous and horrible tragedy in 
[DAWN] SHOCKING though it is that it took savagery on the scale seen in 
[DAWN] On an assurance by Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif that only "jet black terrorists" who have committed violent crimes will be tried by the proposed special trial courts, reluctant parties like the MQM, ANP and PPP agreed to support the move.
