Terrorism alert: ‘Punjab is home to banned organisations’

Pakistan Punjab

Terrorism alert: ‘Punjab is home to banned organisations’

By Rana Tanveer
Published: December 30, 2011

In 2010, the province suffered 32 attacks, in which 257 people, including 24 policemen, were killed. DESIGN: NABEEL ABDUSAMAD.

LAHORE: The city witnessed two explosions in 2011 which left 13 people dead and 112 injured. More than 250 were killed in 18 terrorist activities in 2010.

In the first incident, on January 25, at Ghora Chowk, Urdu Bazar, a suicide bomber killed 10 people and injured 85. The second incident, on February 3, a bombing, killed three people and injured 27 near Haider Sayeen shrine.

Shahbaz Taseer, son of late Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer and US citizen Warren Weinstein were kidnapped for ransom during the year.

Shahbaz was abducted from Gulberg on August 27, while Weinstein was picked up from his Model Town residence.

Security officials have claimed that Al Qaeda operatives are behind both abductions.

The police have still no clue to the whereabouts of Amir Aftab Malik, son-in-law of Gen (retd) Tariq Majeed, who was kidnapped at gunpoint on August 25, 2010.

Some defence analysts hold the view that the operations in Tribal Areas have effected the network of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which had resulted in a lull in incidents of terrorism. They say there is no evidence to conclude that the terrorists have changed their policy permanently.

Prof Hasan Askari Rizvi said overall incidents of terrorism had decreased but noted that some high profile attacks had occurred. He said the reduction was due to the operations being conducted in Tribal Areas. Rizvi added that TTP apparently lacked training facilities as many suicide attackers had been arrested last year. He said recruitment of suicide bombers had likely been denied by the operations in Tribal Areas.

Rizvi said Aiman al Zawahri had claimed to be behind the kidnapping of Weinstein. He said it was evident that Al Qaeda and TTP were involved in these high profile kidnappings.

Rizvi noted that last year several banned organisations, like Sipah-i-Sahaba and Jamatud Dawa, were allowed to continue their activities. He said although these organisations were limited to the Punjab they could surprise and harm to the security establishment, which currently is patronising them.

He said because the Punjab was relatively more conservative and had more of an ‘anti-India’ element than other provinces, these banned organisations had settled here. He said intelligence agencies were using these organisations to put pressure on the US and the Pakistani government against drone attacks and granting Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India. He said these organisations were also opposed to the military for its role in the war on terror.

A Counter Terrorism Department police officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune that terrorists had suspended operations in the settled areas. He said it was evident from intelligence reports that many TTP leaders and operatives were alive and in regular contact. He said even Lahore was not free of TTP operatives.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30th, 2011.

Copyrighted © 2011 The Express Tribune News Network
URL: http://tribune.com.pk/?p=313987

Ahmadis: The lightning rod that attracts the most hatred

FEATURES

Ahmadis: The lightning rod that attracts the most hatred

October 28, 2011By Zofeen T. Ebrahim | DAWN.COM

Pakistani Ahmadis today live in constant fear and humiliation. So much so, the hatred has permeated into each and every slice of society and the oppressors have become more vocal and aggressive. - Illutration by Faraz Aamer Khan

A month after ten Ahmadi students were expelled from two schools in the village of Dharinwala, in Faisalabad district, all have been put back to school, not in there old ones, but in two schools in Hafizabad, thanks to Khalil Ahmad, father and grandfather of four students who were among those expelled.

“I managed to get all of them enrolled in two schools in the nearby city of Hafizabad,” he said talking to Dawn.com over phone from his village.

But it’s not been easy. Most parents of the expelled children are too poor, so Ahmed volunteered to pay for their admissions, their books and stationery. And that is not all. He, with the help of his two sons, makes sure they drop and pick all of them on a motorbike, doing turns.

In one school, the principal knows he has given admission to Ahmadi students but the educator believes faith should not come in the way of those seeking education. “In the other the principal has not been told,” Ahmed revealed.

Sadly, all during this episode, the government has remained a quiet bystander, as always.

It is not the first time that students have been expelled from an educational institution in Punjab because of their religious affiliations, remarked Bushra Gohar, a parliamentarian belonging to the secular Awami National Party. According to Gohar, her party members had condemned the expulsion of students belonging to the Ahmadiyya community each time on the floor of the house. “However, a protest or condemnation from the parties leading in the Punjab has not been forthcoming,” she said.

For far too long, Pakistani students belonging to this minority community have been facing various forms of discrimination based on their faith.

“This tidal wave against the Ahmadiyya education shows no sign of ebbing,” Saleemuddin, the spokesperson of the Ahmaddiya Jammat, told Dawn.com.

He said after 1984, when the government promulgated the anti Ahmadiyya ordinance, both the government and the clerics have been trying their utmost to punish them in various ways.

“Ahmadi lecturers were posted away to distant locations and some were not allowed to teach. Ahmadi principals and headmasters were replaced. Ahmadi students were deprived admission in professional colleges. They were refused accommodation in attached hostels. They suffered attacks by extremist elements on campuses.”

According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, the Islami Jamiat Talaba, the student wing of the Islami Jamiat has been tasked to cleanse the educational institutions, including universities and professional colleges of Ahmadi students.

Hasan Ahmed, who was among the 23 students who were expelled from Punjab Medical College, in Faisalabad, back in 2008, can never forget the stressful event and how “night after night, for over a month” he kept stressing over the events that turned his settled student life all topsy-turvy.

“I knew it happened to others, so was not completely caught unawares,” Hasan acknowledged. He is at present completing his house job in Lahore, keeping an “ultra busy schedule”.

Eventually all were re-instated in some college or another. “After months of waiting, just before exam, my friend was sent to Bahawalpur while I went off to a distant place of Rahimyar Khan in a college of lower merit,” narrated Hasan.

After a gargantuan effort, he was finally allowed to appear in exams from Lahore and then got admitted to Allama Iqbal Medical College, in Lahore.

“To be in a state of flux was the worst part of this episode specially since exams were approaching and I didn’t know which place I was to appear from,” said Hasan.

He expressed that till the identity of an Ahmadi remains undisclosed “he remains safe”.

But that is sadly not the case if you are living in Pakistan. People are culturally nosy and want to know your cast and sect. “Eventually they end up finding that you are an Ahmadi. Once they know, you can feel a change of attitude and it just takes a mischief maker to exploit others’ feelings against you,” said Hasan.

Till Hina Akram’s faith remained unknown to her teacher in Faislabad’s National Textile University, she was considered a star student. But after it became known she belonged to the Ahmadiyya community, she faced so much faith-based harassment that she had to quit studies.

“I was told to convert to Islam,” said Hina, who was studying in the sixth semester of her BSc.

“I was handed some anti-Ahmadiyya literature to read, offered a refuge in Muslim home. But when she told the teacher she was an Ahmadi by choice he called her an infidel and warned her of severe consequences.

“You will face such a fire of animosity in the campus that not even the vice chancellor will be able to help you,” he threatened her.

True to his word, a hate campaign was initiated and a social boycott began. Out of college, she is desperately trying to go abroad. Her fate remains in balance.

But it’s not just the education aspect where the anti-Ahmadiyya lobby is hitting, said Saleemuddin. Since 1984, some 208 faith-based killings have taken place. The persecution against the community has surged following the May 28, 2010 massacre of 94 members of the community in Lahore.

After the four million Ahmadis were officially declared non-Muslims in 1984 by the state, they cannot call themselves Muslims or go to mosques. They cannot be overheard praising Prophet Mohammad. To add insult to injury, every Pakistani who claims to be a Muslim and owns a passport has declared that he or she considers them to be non-Muslims and their leader an imposter prophet.

Pakistani Ahmadis today live in constant fear and humiliation. So much so, the hatred has permeated into each and every slice of society and the oppressors have become more vocal and aggressive.

“The extremist elements are getting more and more powerful because of Saudi-US influence and the government’s policy of appeasement,” said I.A. Rehman, General Secretary Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

“The Ahmadis are already the worst persecuted minority in our country – and things for them appear to be growing worse as hatred and intolerance spread,” Kamila Hyat, a journalist and a rights activist echoed the same sentiments. “The lack of enforcement of laws to prevent the preaching of hatred adds to the problem,” she added.

Saleemuddin said by allowing the extremist clerics to hold anti-Ahmadiyya rallies and conferences, the government is adding fuel to this venom. “People are openly instigated to kill us in the name of Islam,” he said.

“Violence and the advance of bigotry, prejudice and hate against minorities have never really been met with the resolve needed to remove impunity from the social equation in Pakistan,” Sherry Rehman, a legislator belonging to the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, agreed.

Instead, she told Dawn.com what is seen is an “expansion in the space for religious and sectarian apartheids, which has led now to heinous acts of brutality and exclusion of many, particularly Ahmadis.”

She warned: “This is a dangerous trend that conflates national identity with religion.”

Perhaps that is one reason why Pervez Hoodbhoy expresses: “Today, when religion has become so central in matters of the state, they [Ahmadis] do not stand a chance in Pakistan of getting rights, respect, and dignity. The overdose of religion given to young Pakistanis in their schools and homes means that nothing matters more than which religion and sect you belong to. Ahmadis are the lightning rod that attracts more hatred than any other sect.”

For its part rights groups like the Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) say they have “repeatedly” raised the issue of “state tolerated persecution”.

“We are urging authorities to intervene in each case,” said Rehman. “But the situation is getting worse day by day.

Terming it “abhorrent and self defeating” when society allows “for the dehumanization of Ahmadis or Christians or the Shia for that matter, it is effectively cannibalizing itself,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director of HRW.

“The federal government expresses regret at incidents but has made clear its unwillingness to repeal or amend discriminatory laws,” said HRW spokesperson.

Given the current intolerance, the fate of the new generation of Pakistani Ahmadis looks “quite bleak” said Rehman.

Even Hoodbhoy said: “For years, Ahmadis, Hindus, and Christians have been desperately seeking to flee Pakistan. They would be foolish to want to stay,” said Hoodbhoy.

This fails to dampen young Hasan’s spirits. He thinks the future looks “brighter than ever before”.

“Even if the situation is made worse in Pakistan, this does not mean the future is not bright. It’s a matter of time before we start getting equal rights in this country.

Often when they get together, the young Ahmadis discuss the “bitter realities” they have to face as Pakistanis.

“But we don’t want to leave our country at the juncture that it is at,” said a patriotic Hasan. This is because the contribution of the Ahmadi community towards building of Pakistan has been immense,” he said with conviction.

He said recently their leader urged all Ahmadis of the world to “fast once a week and pray” especially for the prosperity of Pakistan.”

Zofeen T. Ebrahim is a freelance journalist.

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved
URL: www.dawn.com/2011/10/28/ahmadis...most-hatred.html

Ideology and intolerance

OPINION

Ideology and intolerance

October 8, 2011Irfan Husain

MOHAMMAD Ali Jinnah visualised the state of Pakistan as “a homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent”.

Sadly, he did not specify precisely which sect of Muslims he had in mind. Although a Shia himself, he did not have a sectarian bone in his body.

Indeed, he was secular to the core, and this was the philosophy he bequeathed to the state he had created virtually single-handedly. This was a bequest we tore up even before he was laid to rest.

So as we witness the ongoing massacre of Hazara Shias in Balochistan, we need to take a hard look at the monsters Pakistan has spawned over the years. Management gurus teach us that before we can solve a problem, we must first analyse it to gain a full understanding of the underlying causes.

But given the deep state of denial we prefer to stay in, we shy away from making the logical connection between cause and effect. When elaborating on his ‘two-nation theory’, Mr Jinnah was of the view that Muslims could not live side by side with Hindus in a united India as we were a different nation in terms of values and cultural norms.

This notion led to the partition of India in 1947, and even though millions of Muslims did not — or could not — make their way to the new state, Pakistan was born in a cataclysm of blood and fire. Almost immediately, the hard-line vision of Islam, espoused by Maulana Maududi and his Jamaat-i-Islami, became the ideology of large numbers of right-wing intellectuals and clerics.

However, it wasn’t until Zia seized power in 1977 that this literal strand of Islam became the official ideology of the state.

Some of the hard-line Sunni groups like the Sipah-i-Sahaba came into being in Zia’s period, declaring Shias to be ‘wajib-ul qatal’, or deserving of death. Needless to say, these killers were permitted to thrive by Zia.

Step by step, the notion of separateness at the heart of Partition has fostered a feeling of ‘us against them’. Taken to its illogical extreme by hard-line ideologues and their brainwashed followers, this translates into the belief that those not following their particular school of Islamic thought become ‘wajib-ul qatal’.

Massacres and individual murders resulting from rabid intolerance bearing the spurious stamp of religious orthodoxy are too numerous to cite here. But the recent episodes of the cold-blooded slaughter of Hazara Shias in Balochistan should open the eyes of those wishing to negotiate with the terrorists responsible for these acts.

Another hard-line, anti-Shia group, the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, was quick to claim responsibility for these murders, and yet the state has done nothing to bring this organisation to book.

According to a Human Rights Watch press release, “In Balochistan, some Sunni extremist groups are widely viewed as allies of the Pakistani military, its intelligence agencies and the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which are responsible for security there.

Instead of perpetrating abuses in Balochistan against its political opponents, the military should be safeguarding the lives of members of vulnerable communities under attack from extremist groups”.

But it’s not just in Pakistan that Hazara Shias have been targeted: in Afghanistan, thousands have been killed by the Taliban.

Being a visible ethnic group, they are especially vulnerable to an increasingly vicious and violent Sunni majority. In a blog on this newspaper’s website, Murtaza Haider has cited a revealing doctoral thesis by Syed Ejaz Hussain. According to his research, 90 per cent of all those arrested for committing terrorist attacks in Pakistan between 1990 and 2009 were Sunni Deobandis.

And it’s not just Shias who are being targeted, or Christians, Hindus and Ahmedis: as we have seen time and again, suicide attacks against mosques and Sufi shrines have killed thousands of Sunnis as well. While there are a growing number of extremist groups, they are all united in their intolerance, and their contempt for democratic values and common decency.

Despite the evil these killers represent, there are growing voices in Pakistan demanding that the government negotiate with them. A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban was quoted recently as saying his group would talk to the government provided it broke off its relationship with the United States and imposed Sharia law in the country.

For a criminal gang to make such demands is preposterous; but for sane, educated Pakistanis to advocate talks with such people is even worse. Instead of insisting that we lock up these terrorists and try them, we are being asked to treat them as a political entity with valid demands.

If we are to ever defeat the hydra-headed monster we have created, our defence establishment will have to acknowledge its huge error in thinking that it could use these killers to further its agenda in Afghanistan and Kashmir. This has provided them with legitimacy, support and impunity. Unless the Pakistani state repudiates all links with extremism in all its forms, outfits like the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi will continue to murder at will within Pakistan, while the Lashkar-e-Taiba creates mayhem in our neighbourhood.

Quite apart from the collapse of the writ of the state caused by the depredations of these groups, and the innocent lives sacrificed at the altar of misplaced expediency, Pakistan has become a pariah in the international community. Increasingly, the use of terrorism as an instrument of policy is making us a scary country with a powerful death wish.

But while we struggle to cope with the rising tide of extremism, we need to step back and examine how and why we arrived at this abyss.

Clearly, it did not happen overnight. Looking back, we can see that the demand for separate electorates for Muslims in British India over 100 years ago was a major historical fork in the road. By conceding to this demand from a group of Muslim aristocrats as part of their divide-and-rule policy, the British tried to ensure that the two major religious communities would not unite against them.

However, we do not have the luxury of blaming our predicament on past imperial policies. The British are long gone, and the barbarians are poised to capture the state. We still have a choice, but if we don’t act quickly, we risk joining the ranks of failed states like Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved
URL: www.dawn.com/2011/10/08/ideology-and-intolerance.html

Culture of bigotry

Columnist

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Culture of bigotry

   By Huma Yusuf

   Sunday, 13 Jun, 2010

The day someone like Sharif is awaiting an ulema board’s verdict on whether or not he committed blasphemy is the day that the government should brainstorm and implement non-military means to curb bigotry. The calls for a thorough reform of the education system and curriculum and the repeal of Article 2 are endless, but they continue to fall on deaf ears. — File Photo.

What kind of sick democracy do we live in, where the declaration of equality of all citizens of the state can be deemed unconstitutional? This twisted logic was deployed by the JUI-F in its criticism of Nawaz Sharif’s comments describing Ahmadis as ‘brothers and sisters’ who are an ‘asset to the country’.

Among several other absurd reactions to Sharif’s statement, the JUI-F’s reasoning should serve as yet another wake-up call to the government that urgent social, political and legal measures must be put in place to fight the culture of bigotry and discrimination that is flourishing in Pakistan.

The JUI-F argued that Sharif was violating the constitution, which identifies Ahmadis as a minority community (never mind the fact that in a democracy, minorities enjoy an equal citizenship status and can be equal assets to the state).

This, however, was not the worst critique Sharif had to endure: the Wafaqul Madaris al Arabia accused Nawaz Sharif of defying religion and siding with ‘traitors’; ulema gathered at a seminar accused Nawaz Sharif of kowtowing to the US with his conciliatory remarks about Ahmadis; the ulema board of the Jamia Naeemia Madressah was convened to deliberate whether or not Sharif committed blasphemy by referring to non-Muslims as our ‘brethren’; and across the Pakistani blogosphere, which is supposedly populated by the nation’s educated elite and middle-class progressives, the question of whether Sharif is a kafir continues to be debated.

The irony of the backlash against Sharif cannot be lost on anyone. Since the Taliban launched an onslaught against the Pakistani state, the PML-N has refrained from condemning terrorism and extremist ideology in a forthright manner. Rather than explicitly blame the Taliban for the suicide bombings that have rocked the country, PML-N stalwarts have consistently pinned responsibility on a ‘foreign hand’.

Infamously, in February, the PML-N’s Rana Sanaullah consorted with leaders of the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba during the Jhang by-elections. And in March, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif caused a firestorm by suggesting that the Taliban ought to have spared Punjab on the premise that the provincial government and the militants enjoyed an ideological affinity.

In other words, the PML-N has made every effort not to enter into a confrontation with the forces of extremism. In fact, in the wake of the May 28 attacks on the Ahmadis in Lahore, Shahbaz Sharif’s adviser, Zaeem Qadri, conceded that the provincial government had not made an effort to clamp down on bigoted and anti-Ahmadi posturing for fear of an ‘adverse reaction’.

Qadri’s defensive position is a throwback to Mian Muhammad Khan Daultana, the chief minister of the Punjab in 1953 who refused to take on the religious parties as they waged an anti-Ahmadi campaign, fearing a ‘head-on clash’. Daultana’s inaction became the subject of the now iconic judicial inquiry headed by Justices Muhammad Munir and M.R. Kiyani.

As Sharif makes every effort to clarify and retract his statements, he should probably re-read the Munir Report, the most eloquent defence of secularism which cautioned against trying to define what a Muslim is — thereby bringing a religious matter into the realm of the state — over 50 years ago.

After asking a gathering of ulema to offer their definitions of a Muslim, and finding that consensus was impossible, the justices wrote, “If we attempt our own definition as each learned divine has done and that definition differs from that given by all others, we unanimously go out of the fold of Islam. And if we adopt the definition given by any one of the ulema, we remain Muslims according to the view of that alim but kafirs according to the definition of everyone else.”

This is exactly the lesson that Sharif learned in the past few days. Despite all his party’s attempts to curry favour with rightwing and extremist forces, he ‘went out of the fold’ by making even the most insipid remarks in support of the Ahmadi community. By refusing to learn from history, the PML-N has repeated it. The tigers of Punjab are now cowering in a corner, licking their wounds, while talk of a military operation in their home province circulates on the international stage. It seems the monster of militancy and bigotry has grown so wild that it has come to threaten its benefactors.

But those who have been critical of the PML-N’s apathy towards extremism should not feel smug. The backlash against Sharif — a powerful politician with Saudi backing and rightwing credentials — underscores just how cheaply accusations of blasphemy (and, by extension, incitements to violence) can be come by in Pakistan.

In our newly established culture of 24/7 news reporting, people accuse and abuse with impunity — a fact that is increasingly exploited by the religious right. And any society in which an accusation that is not backed by evidence can carry so much weight if dressed in the trimmings of religious purity is doomed to endless cycles of violence, hate and regression.

The day someone like Sharif is awaiting an ulema board’s verdict on whether or not he committed blasphemy is the day that the government should brainstorm and implement non-military means to curb bigotry. The calls for a thorough reform of the education system and curriculum and the repeal of Article 2 are endless, but they continue to fall on deaf ears.

Perhaps, then, as a stop-gap measure, the government should try a different tack, one that is less daunting than education and constitutional reform.

Last year, after dismissing the human rights implications of the legislation, the government passed the Anti-Terrorism Amendment Ordinance (2009), which significantly shifted the burden of proof onto those accused of being involved in terrorist activities. In a similar vein, the government should consider legislation that shifts the burden of proof of blasphemy onto the accuser, and doles out strict penalties against those who make false accusations.

huma.yusuf@gmail. com

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved

URL: www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-...lture-of-bigotry-360-hh-11

Religious freedom

---Daily Dawn, Pakistan

Religious freedom
  Dawn Editorial
  Sunday, 02 May, 2010

This year’s report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, released on Thursday, puts Pakistan on the list of 13 “countries of particular concern” that are serious violators of religious freedom.

The country has escaped being ranked amongst the worst offenders which include Saudi Arabia, China, Myanmar and North Korea. Nevertheless, this indictment should cause serious concern. Abuse of the right to religious freedom is rampant as evidenced by the rise in religiously motivated crimes against minorities. There is on the one side growing intolerance fuelled in recent years by attacks organised by proscribed terrorist organisations such as the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan. On the other, as the societal mindset shifts towards the right, there is a growing lack of understanding of the rights of people of other faiths.

Reversing this trend requires steps at multiple levels. First, extremist organisations guilty of inciting religious hatred must be stamped out. Their leaders and members need to be identified and brought to trial, and the sources of their funding severed. Beyond that, awareness must be spread about the constitutional right to religious freedom and the minority communities’ status as equal citizens.

As the report notes: “Serious religious freedom concerns persist in Pakistan, where religiously discriminatory legislation has fostered an atmosphere of intolerance…. A number of Pakistan’s laws abridge freedom of religion or belief. Anti-Ahmadi legislation results in discrimination against individual Ahmadis and effectively criminalises various practices of their faith. Blasphemy laws have been used to silence members of religious minorities and dissenters within the majority Muslim community, and frequently result in imprisonment on account of religion or belief and/or vigilante violence.… The government’s response to sectarian and religiously motivated violence continues to be inadequate, despite increased security operations against extremists.” These shortcomings must be addressed on a priority basis.

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved
URL : www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-conte...edom-250-hh-09