Very happy to be able to write about some good news – the recovery of Salmaan’s Taseer’s son Shahbaz Taseer, kidnapped nearly five years ago. 

The best news coming out of Pakistan this week was about the recovery on Tuesday of Shahbaz Taseer, the abducted son of slain Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer. The businessman, in his early thirties, had been kidnapped in August 2011 as he drove to his office in Lahore.

The family had already been under tremendous strain since Salmaan Taseer’s assassination in January 2011 at the hands of his official bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri for alleged blasphemy. Qadri, who threw down the murder weapon and surrendered to the other guards, had been booked for murder and convicted. He was hanged on February 29, 2016.

The news of the hanging elicited anger among religious conservatives for whom Qadri had become a poster-boy. But Pakistan’s progressive groups welcomed the move, some unconditionally exuberant and others with reservations about the issue of capital punishment.

There was, however, agreement among progressives that the execution symbolised Pakistan’s move away from the culture of impunity that prevails particularly whenever a crime is committed in the name of religion. This was the first time that the courts had upheld punishment for a blasphemy murderer.

Shahbaz’s younger brother Shehryar Taseer tweeted: “MumtazQadri being hanged is a victory to #Pakistan. NOT the #Taseer family. The safe return of my brother is the only victory my family wants”
 

Some reservations
In an analysis published on the progressive blog Pak Tea House the day before Taseer was recovered, Imran Ahmed Khan wrote about the need for an honest dialogue in Pakistan to introspect about who committed blasphemy after all: “Taseer, who asked for an end to the misuse of the law? Or Qadri, who violated the law and took it in his own hands to protect the same law?”

The joy at Taseer’s recovery is tempered by the continuing absence of another high-profile kidnap victim, Ali Haider Gilani the son of former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, abducted from Multan in May, 2013, outside a Pakistan People’s Party office before the general elections that year.
Gilani has congratulated the Taseer family on their good news and called for the security agencies to also take measures to recover his son about whom there is no news.

After Taseer’s abduction, there was speculation that the action was due to a business rivalry or an unpaid debt. As often happens with kidnap victims in Pakistan where criminal mafias have links with militant groups, the original kidnappers were believed to have sold or passed him on to another group. At various points, there were reports that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan had demanded Rs 500 million to Rs 2 billion for his release, that a group in Waziristan negotiating the release of Qadri and other prisoners held him, and that he had been killed in a drone strike.

News about his recovery began filtering out on March 8, barely a week after Qadri’s hanging. His family has undergone nearly five years of uncertainty and trauma. He had been married barely a year earlier. His wife Maheen Taseer, as well as his siblings and mother Aamna captured the imagination of many with their tweets remembering him and praying for his release.

Mysterious conclusion
At session of the Pakistan Senate that morning, People’s Party Senator Sherry Rehman, a friend of Taseer’s mother Aamna, asked the Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan about the rumour. Briefing Senate about Pakistan’s counter-terrorism National Action Plan, Khan confirmed the news, which Rehman promptly tweeted.

In the absence of any comment from his family as yet, the circumstances around Taseer’s recovery remain as mysterious as his abduction.

The Pakistan military’s Inter-Services Public Relations issued a press release saying that the intelligence agencies recovered Shahbaz Taseer from Kuchlak district, some 25 kilometres north of Quetta, Balochistan. The area still has a heavy population of Afghan refugees and is known for its Taliban sympathies.

Aitzaz Goraya, the head of the Counter-Terrorism Department, Balochistan, told reporters that on a tip-off, intelligence forces and police went to a compound in Kuchlak that they surrounded and raided it. “We didn’t find anyone,” said Goraya. “A single person was there and he told us my name is Shahbaz and my father’s name is Salmaan Taseer.”

However, according to other reports, the kidnappers, under pressure from the military offensive, abandoned the place where they had held Shahbaz Taseer leaving him free to go. He walked to a small roadside restaurant, Saleem Hotel at Kuchlak.

The restaurant owner told reporters that a man in grey shalwar kurta, with an overgrown beard and long hair, ordered food and tea. He then asked to use a phone, but the establishment didn’t have one. The man paid his bill of Rs.350 and went out to find a phone. Shortly afterwards, security personnel arrived and took him away.

Shahbaz Taseer was taken to the Civil and Military Hospital in Quetta for a full medical checkup and found to be in good health and stable.

Major General Asim Bajwa released the first photos of Shahbaz Sharif after his recovering.

This tweet by Sherry Rehman captured the emotions of many:
 

 
 
Slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s daughter, rap singer Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari used emojis of a Pakistan flag and heart in her tweet.

 
References:
http://scroll.in/article/804888/the-return-of-salmaan-taseers-abducted-son-gives-pakistan-another-ray-of-hope
 

The post Ray of Hope for Pakistan: The return of Shahbaz, Salman Taseer’s Son appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Anis Haroon, the well-known women’s rights and peace activist, relates a story about the time she visited Bangalore, India, in 1989 to attend a South Asian women’s conference. She was among the three Pakistani participants but the only one to have a ‘police-reporting visa’. This led to a memorable incident at the local police station, at a time when few Pakistanis were able to visit India and vice versa…

Pakistan-India relations had for years been marked by acrimony and tension at the best of times, punctuated by outright war at others, the most bitter of which was still a not too distant memory – 1971, when Bangladesh won its liberation from Pakistan with India’s help. But by 1989 there was a different atmosphere. The cold war was over. So was the Afghan war. Those were the heady days of the ‘restoration of democracy’ in Pakistan. Gone was Gen Zia-ul-Haq who had taken Pakistan in an altogether different direction than envisaged by earlier leaders. Gone were Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Indira Gandhi and their tense competitive relationship, particularly since 1971. A cautious thaw in Pakistan-India relations was discernible with the new generation of leadership symbolised by Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi, both of whom had recently come into power in their countries, holding out the promise of participatory democracy and better neighbourly relations.

But all the years of a lack of contact between Indians and Pakistanis had made the people of either country almost an alien species to each other – and it took a grumpy subinspector to bring home the ridiculousness of this enforced separation, when visas were difficult to obtain – and then only for those visiting relatives across the border. The eighties saw the formation of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation in 1984 and the rise of the NGOs. Many individuals and NGOs began to form regional alliances to discuss issues of mutual concern – the earliest such meetings were focused on safe ‘non-political’ issues like environment and women’s rights, and played a crucial role in bringing people together on these platforms, particularly Indians and Pakistanis.

It was in this context that Anis Haroon, in India to attend one of the first of such regional meetings, found herself outside a police station at the remote suburb of White Plains in Bangalore, armed with her ‘police-reporting’ visa and accompanied by a conference volunteer.

South India is another country for many North Indians and Pakistanis. The only common language is English and some Hindustani. The following conversation took place in a mixture of both, with some frustrated exclamations in mutually incomprehensible Urdu and Kannada escaping the protagonists from time to time.

"Hello, I’m a Pakistani," Anis announced, waving her green passport at the drowsy subinspector inside the police station.

Grunt. "So?"

"I’ve come to report," she persisted.

The policeman finally looked up, displeased at being disturbed. "Report what?"

"I have to report my arrival."

"Why?"

Nonplussed silence, then: "…Because I was told I must."

He seemed more alert suddenly. "Are you here illegally?"

"No."

"Have you lost your passport?"

"No…"

"Your ticket then?" Inspector a bit irritable by now.

"No but…"

"Have you lost your luggage? Has someone misbehaved with you?"

"No, no, no." Anis also somewhat irritated.

"Then WHAT are you reporting? Go away and stop wasting my time!"

With this bit of irrefutable logic, the man flapped Anis and her companion out of the police station and returned to his snooze.

Perturbed at not having the precious stamp attesting to her legal sojourn in India, they reluctantly began to turn back when the station house officer put-putted up on his motorbike. A superior officer! He would understand the complexities of Pakistan-India relationships and legal requirements! The two women explained the situation and the SHO went inside to confront his recalcitrant junior. After five minutes of loud arguments in Kannada, the visibly annoyed subinspector beckoned in the source of annoyance, who returned inside meekly to present her passport to him.

Grumbling loudly in Kannada, he scribbled something on the police reporting form, and gave back her green passport (thankfully duly stamped) and gestured her away. Safely outside, Anis Haroon looked at what he had written: "A Pakistani has come to this police station to report. But she has nooooothing to report."

Thankful to at least have the precious stamp attesting that she had ‘done the needful’, Anis returned to the conference where she recounted the story.

Later, Shoaib and Salima Hashmi made a skit out of it, which they played out in front of Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto – both reportedly laughed a great deal at the ridiculousness of the situation, which was actually a true story. But their personal response to the story notwithstanding, neither was able to do away with the visa requirement that Pakistanis and Indians visiting each other’s countries must report to the police within 24 hours of arrival and departure (although this condition is occasionally waived).

A child of 15 or a grandmother of 70 – unless they have the connections to obtain a waiver, all Indians and Pakistanis visiting each other’s country must present themselves to the police after arrival and then before departure. The logic of this requirement defies all reason.

The subinspector in Bangalore in 1989 hadn’t caught on yet because there were, at that point, so few visitors from Pakistan, but the only beneficiaries of this archaic and discriminatory requirement are the police, who make a nice extra packet every month by facilitating such reports.

As Dr Mubashir Hasan (founding member of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission) notes, even when the rulers try to end this requirement, the bureaucracy stands in their way – he cites the specific example of Nawaz Sharif and Vajpayee during that historic bus trip in 1999 when the senior civil servants in attendance shot down this proposal made by the two prime ministers during their meeting.

With the composite dialogue dragging on and on, showing no results, surely this is something both governments can agree on – something that a grumpy police officer in Bangalore recognised years ago – that Pakistanis and Indians legally visiting each other’s countries have nothing to report. n

Courtesy: www.chowk.com

Archived from Communalism Combat, August-September 2007, Anniversary Issue (14th), Year 14    No.125, India at 60 Free Spaces, Neighbours

The post Pakistan: Report what? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Why did the members of the Meerwala Jatoi Panchayat (Council) pass their abominable decree that a young woman be raped in revenge for a crime allegedly committed by her younger brother — and what made them think they would get away with it? For this is what would have happened, had the news not made it to a local newspaper, from where it was picked up nationwide, and then worldwide, causing widespread outrage.
 

Firstly, the council of tribal elders which passed this ‘decree’ obviously felt secure in the knowledge that the government would take no action against it. Jirgas or panchayats (assembly of tribal elders) are allowed to operate not only in the tribal areas where they have some sort of legal sanction (and where the ‘sentences’ passed have included execution, flogging, burning down of houses, and fines), but also in settled areas where they obviously function outside the law. Even these jirgas have begun to pass sentences like public flogging, besides settling property disputes and other matters. Last July, a jirga in village Johke Sharif, district Thatta, pronounced that the sister of a minor boy who had accidentally shot dead his friend, should be given to the dead boy’s father. The fact that the girl was also a minor drew no attention from the government.

It is no coincidence that the rise of religious extremism over the last couple of decades (encouraged by successive governments for the sake of political expediency) has received the greatest support from the tribal areas. In many cases, the punishments awarded by tribal jirgas are assumed to also have religious sanction, even if they have nothing to do with Islam and are rooted in tribal traditions and customs.

Secondly, the Panchayat’s decree that the ‘punishment’ be carried out by four men resonates of the aberrations in the Pakistani law that were introduced by General Ziaul Haq in his attempts to ‘Islamise’ the country. The Zina laws (Hudood Ordinance) introduced in 1979 require the presence of four witnesses to the act of rape or adultery before the crime can be established. The confusion in people’s minds about what is allowed in Islam and what is not; has only been exacerbated by politicizing religion and the severity of these so–called Islamic laws.

The Zina laws obliterate the distinction between adultery and rape and criminalize a private offence, adultery (sexual relations between two consenting adults not married to each other), while making rape a matter for private complaint, in which the onus of proof lies on the victim.

Even the Federal Shariat Court has questioned the religious nature of the so–called Islamic punishments imposed on the penal system during Zia’s time. In 1981, the punishment of stoning to death was challenged as being un–Islamic, and was in fact removed. The decision was later reversed under political pressure. The demand to review these laws continues to be made, not just by civil society and rights groups.

The government-constituted, high powered Commission of Inquiry for Women in its report of 1997 "is convinced that all the Hudood laws were conceived and drafted in haste. They are not in conformity with Islam." These laws have "only resulted in gross miscarriages of justice and operate against the underprivileged sections of society. Their detrimental effect outweighs any advantage they may have. They contribute towards the exploitation of women not only by imprisoning them but also by exposing them to the brutality of the police and unscrupulous elements of society."

Prominent writer Zahida Hina reinforces this argument in a recent column noting that these amendments have given dacoits, landlords, tribal chiefs and their protégés, and unscrupulous elements in the police force, the freedom to dishonour women without fear of punishment. (‘Jan ki Aman’, Jang, Karachi, July 10, 2002).

Girls as young as thirteen complaining of rape are instead found guilty of adultery (zina), as the medical reports find evidence of sexual intercourse, and declare them as being ‘used to such activity’ – as in the case of the young Kohli girl who was raped in Hyderabad recently by an elected
councillor.

As illegal as jirga sentences are the fatwas (diktats) that incite violence. Yet, how many clerics have been booked under the law for such incitements? None – except Hafiz Abdul Latif, Pesh Imam of the Jaranwala mosque who on July 5, 2002, issued a ‘fatwa’ against Faraz Javed, who had objected to the Pesh Imam making a political sermon while leading the Friday prayers. Javed was saved from being lynched by his American citizenship. The police moved swiftly to arrest those who had besieged his house, proving that where the state wills it, it can be effective.

Less lucky was Zahid Shah, a mentally challenged young man in Chak Jhumra village, who was accused of blasphemy by a cleric and stoned to death by an enraged mob.

Clerics issuing such fatwas have been emboldened by the amendments to the ‘blasphemy laws’ of the Pakistan Penal Code, particularly since the life imprisonment option in Section 295–C of the PPC lapsed in 1991, leaving a mandatory punishment of death for those convicted under it. Before 1980, when the PPC began being amended by General Zia to include sterner punishments for religious offences, only four or five cases were registered for such offences. Since then, the severity of the new laws has "provided a handle to the unscrupulous to settle their own scores," notes the HRCP.

Thirdly, women in this society are largely considered as lesser beings, at the same time family property and repositories of the family honour; rape for revenge is a common phenomenon, particularly in the southern Punjab and upper Sindh region.

Over the years, violence against women has increased in number of incidents —-in the form of ‘honour killings’ and other forms of brutalities and also worsened in its form. In the first week of July 02 alone, several cases were reported: the burning with acid of a young woman, resulting in the loss of one of her eyes as well as injuries to her suckling infant, at a remote village near Layyah in the Punjab; the rape of the young peasant girl in Hyderabad mentioned above; the stripping naked and parading of two women in a Khairpur village…

Last year, more cases of mutilation, acid burning and other heinous crimes, including incidents of ‘stove burnings’, domestic violence and rape, were reported than before, while every second woman in the country suffered some form of violence, in the form of verbal, physical or sexual abuse, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (State of Human Rights in Pakistan, 2001). HRCP estimates that in the year 2001, one woman was raped every sixth hour in the Punjab, and a woman gang–raped every fourth day.

Where is the outrage for all this violence against women, which so many in this society condone in one way or another? Certainly the self-appointed custodians of our morality are noticeably silent on the matter, which only encourages this mindset illustrated so clearly by the Meerwala case.

Lastly, the complacency of the Meerwala Jatoi panchayat stemmed also from the social system: the family of the raped woman is poor and ‘low caste’ (Tattlas). The rape of Mukhtaran Bibi appears to be part of an attempt to cover up yet another heinous crime, the sexual assault on Abdul Shakoor, her young brother who is between eleven and fourteen years old, by three members of the Mastoi clan on June 22. After the culprits realised that he was not going to hide the incident, they took him to their kinsman, Abdul Khaliq, to seek his help. Khaliq was already trying to pressurize his neighbour, Ghulam Farid (Shakoor and Mukhtaran’s father) to give up his two acres of land. "He confined the boy to a room of his house and also pushed his 25 year old sister, Naseem, inside…After locking the door, he ran to inform the tribesmen than he had found the boy engaged in a sexual act with the woman". (Sadiq Jafri, ‘The land of shame’, The News on Sunday, Encore, July 7, 2002).

When he went to the police to get his son freed, Ghulam Farid’s poverty and low social status again came into play. Instead of filing a case against the kidnappers/sodomisers, the police took young Shakoor into custody and demanded money for his release.

What followed next also started out routinely. A panchayat was gathered by Khaliq. It would have been normal, if illegal, for such a council to decree that a woman from Ghulam Farid’s family approach them to seek mercy for the accused boy. Or even that Farid give a daughter in marriage to the Mastoi family. Instead, the jirga pronounced the sentence of ‘rape for honour’ on the eldest daughter of Ghulam Farid – who was falsely assured by some members of the panchayat that the ‘sentence’ would not be carried out.

These issues must be addressed in order to go beyond the outrage and breast-beating that has followed this horrific incident. Stoning, flogging or hanging the culprits to death in public in order to ‘set an example’ as many, including the victims, have suggested, will only amount to amputating a diseased limb while allowing the illness to continue festering within the body. Such punishments were administered during Ziaul Haq’s time, when the screams of the convict were amplified for the watching crowd. The result was only to further brutalise society and contribute to a culture of violence. The culprits must be punished, but in accordance with law – and the affected family must be tended to with sensitivity and care, not made to sit on the ground outside the court waiting for hours for their case to be heard, as is currently happening.

As for Mukhtaran Bibi, the compensatory cheque of five lakh rupees may go a long way towards easing her family’s financial hardships, but compared to what they have undergone, it is an insult. The barrage of high profile visitors who have ensured media coverage for their visits has not been able to prevent the family facing the brunt of the pressure even now. They feel so threatened that they have left their own house and gone to live elsewhere.

The government must take action against illegal rulings, whether these are made by tribal chiefs or religious leaders. It must ensure that no one takes the law into their own hands, pass or execute ‘sentences’. And, finally, it needs to ensure that its functionaries will no longer participate in such activities.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2002 Year 8  No. 79, Neighbours 2

The post Gang-rape in Pakistan appeared first on SabrangIndia.