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

Incitement goes unchecked as hatred is spewed at rallies

Pakistan

Incitement goes unchecked as hatred is spewed at rallies

By Saba Imtiaz
Published: October 7, 2011

KARACHI: The judge who sentenced former Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer’s assassin, Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, to death has been forced to go on leave after threats, banners and slogans at rallies proclaiming him a non-Muslim and an Ahmadi.

His court in Rawalpindi was also attacked by lawyers.

The irony is that the judge of an anti-terrorism court (ATC) is dealing with an ‘action’ of terrorism that is defined in the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA).

The law states that acts of terrorism include the “[incitement of] hatred and contempt on religious, sectarian or ethnic basis to stir up violence or cause internal disturbance”.

This basic definition has not stopped the ongoing campaign of inciting hatred.

But building a case against these individuals requires determining violations of the ATA, particularly incitement. While law enforcement and intelligence agencies are tasked with the job, their assessments are often based on their operatives’ views and biases.

For example, a Jamaat Ahmadiyya representative told The Express Tribune that when police officers entered the places of worship in Lahore after scores of Ahmadis were massacred in 2010, among their first few words were: “Saare hi marr gaye ho ya koi bacheya vi aye?” [Are all of you dead, or did someone survive?].

Former IG Sindh police Aftab Nabi says that the police should depute officers with different backgrounds to get a broader analysis. This, he says, would help overcome any limitations the officer has.

Despite this, law enforcement agencies have monitored people known for inflammatory speeches, such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s (LeJ) Malik Ishaq, who was recently detained under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) Act.

Secondly, provincial governments also allow and provide security to rallies where incitement occurs. Rallies in Lahore supporting Qadri continue to be held, highlighting state complicity.

In a United States Institute of Peace report on police reforms, author Hassan Abbas referenced analysis by Khaled Ahmed on the issue: “Throughout the 1990s one or two intelligence officers in each district of Pakistan were tasked to help out members of the state-supported militant groups if the police ‘create[d] any problems for them’.”

The report further adds, “In private discussions police officers routinely mention apprehending militants and criminals but quickly receiving ‘requests’ from intelligence agencies (civilian or military) to let them go. Although the intensity of such practices has decreased in the post-9/11 environment, even today the police hesitate to pursue militants and activists associated with groups generally known for their close relationship with the intelligence services.”

Criminal lawyer Zulfiqar Abbas Naqvi disagrees with the perception that the ATA is insufficient or that the courts and police don’t do their job. “The real issue is of evidence. People need to come forward and testify. They do have fears, but what they don’t realise is that they may be setting a murderer free who will later either shoot them or someone else. A man will be caught red-handed kidnapping someone but the victim will say in court, ‘I don’t recognise this person.’ What is the court supposed to do?”

A witness protection programme has been in the works in Sindh for several months now, but has not been implemented yet.

Naqvi says suspects have also become savvier. “Suspects in terrorism cases are often picked up by the intelligence agencies who detain them for one or two months. During this time, their organisations file writ after writ about the illegal detention and rile up the public. By the time the police make a formal arrest, the court will not accept their reasons for the delay. To avoid this, the police should make the initial arrest and then the agencies can interrogate the suspect. They could also amend the period of remand.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7th, 2011.

Copyrighted © 2011 The Express Tribune News Network
URL: http://tribune.com.pk/story/268509/incitement...at-rallies/

Indonesian leader unworried by radical Islam rise

April 27, 2011

Indonesian leader unworried by radical Islam rise

Updated on Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 12:40

Washington: Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono acknowledged that Islamic radicalism may be on the rise in his country but said he was not worried it would spiral out of control.

Speaking to US public television, Yudhoyono said that the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation offered proof that Islam was compatible with democracy and that radical groups had small membership.

“I can see to a certain degree there is an escalation of radicalism in many countries. Probably we could see also that kind of thing that happens in Indonesia,” Yudhoyono told ‘The Charlie Rose Show’ in an interview broadcast late Monday.

“But I believe that we could manage, we could control the activities of radical groups here in Indonesia by empowering religious leaders, by ensuring through education and other means that force of moderation is still in place,” he said.

“So it could be yes, but I’m not really worried about the so-called rise of radicalism,” he said when asked if radical Islam was rising in Indonesia.

Indonesia’s transition to democracy has won wide praise around the world, but rights groups say that violence against minorities has been escalating during Yudhoyono’s tenure.

Islamic fanatics in February brutally murdered three members of the Ahmadiyah movement, in one of the grisliest attacks on the minority Muslim sect whose freedoms were curtailed under a 2008 degree.

Around 2,000 people held a mass prayer in a show of solidarity with the 12 accused as they went on trial on Tuesday.

Yudhoyono said he was walking a fine line as he wanted to assure Indonesians that action against terrorism was not targeting Islam.

“I am really more than willing to speak loudly,” he said. “We actually conduct anti-terrorism campaigns very seriously in Indonesia, by all means.”

“But, of course, I have to maintain the climate of brotherhood here in Indonesia, because the majority of the population are Muslim, so I try to maintain their feelings, because sometimes the policy of the government is initially misinterpreted,” he said.

Bureau Report

URL: http://www.zeenews.com/news702558.html

As Terrorism Takes on a New Face, the President Needs to Find His Backbone

OPINION

As Terrorism Takes on a New Face, the President Needs to Find His Backbone

Bramantyo Prijosusilo | April 26, 2011

The recent arrests of suspected terrorists reveal that our new generation of extremists has little contact with the older generations, who were radicalized and trained through direct experience and contact with international networks.

These new terror suspects, the police say, have more or less radicalized themselves relatively independently from the traditional connections to conflict areas in Central Asia or the Philippines. This new generation of suspects consists of individuals who studied in universities who radicalized themselves through jihadi Web sites and discussion forums on the Internet, and through the study of jihadi books and videos that are disseminated in Indonesia through the Internet.

In other words, this new breed of suspected terrorists is the fruit of the labors of such Web sites as arrahmah.com, almuhajirun.net and other active sites of various shades of Islamist fundamentalism and extremism. The proliferation of such sites, from the pseudo-intellectual offerings of the one managed by Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and bizarrely obnoxious sites such as that of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), to the Web site of the state-sponsored Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) means that we have no shortage of online material needed to radicalize a young man or woman and make them hate this country and the democratic, pluralist society we are developing here.

The fact that so many sites and organizations can actively incite hatred against our republic and against different groups in our society, to the point that they blatantly support the use of violence against the state and against fellow members of our society, testifies of the weakness of our government and our laws.

As a nation we have had traumatic experiences with the use of rubber-band laws that in the past were employed by the government to silence critics and dissenters, so we are cautious not to give the government too many powers that they can use against critics.

But when people like Sobri Lubis from the FPI scream at an audience of a religious gathering, urging them to kill Ahmadiyah followers, declaring that their blood is halal and that he will take responsibility for their killing, there should be legal ways to hold him to account — especially after we have seen that Ahmadiyah followers have been brutally killed by a mob reportedly affiliated with the FPI.

Sadly, our president has not the courage that this nation expects from its leaders, and he has even let the Islamist mobs go so far as threatening to bring about a revolution while at the same time calling the head of state vile names. Not only did these people get away with slandering the president and inciting murder, when these people demonstrated in front of the palace they were actually invited to come in for a chat!

It appears that Islamist fundamentalism in our country works on two fronts. The first hides under a cloak of legitimacy and steers away from appearing directly involved in violence but it actively preaches hatred against democracy, secularism, pluralism and religious liberalism. This group maintains a respectable image and has exponents in respectable institutions such as the MUI. These people a few years back began their offensive against secularism, pluralism and liberalism, by, among other things, defining pluralism as “the belief that all religions are the same.”

This apparently intentional misreading of pluralism is one of the bases of the argument that the MUI uses to declare that because secularism, liberalism and pluralism are threatening the basic tenets of Islam (such as the belief in the superiority of Shariah law), they are evil.

These evils, the MUI says, would lead people to follow manmade laws instead of Shariah. In other words the MUI is saying that our Constitution and our state are wrong and evil and we should adopt religious law instead.

What utter audacity from a state-sponsored institution that is also considered by graft watchdogs to be one of the most corrupt institutions in the country! Critics have also pointed out that the unconstitutional and uncivilized prosecution of the Ahmadiyah Muslims was also driven by the theological support of a fatwa by the MUI.

If the MUI declared liberal Islam as haram, then Rizieq Shihab on his FPI Web site has added a dose of vitriol to the brewing hate stew. According to him, liberal Islam is more satanic than Satan himself! So it comes as no surprise if some young university graduates who, wanting to contribute in the worldwide jihad to establish an Islamic caliphate that implements the one and only true Islam, should also learn how to make a bomb “in your mother’s kitchen” and package it in a book to send to one of the pioneers of the liberal Islam network here, the Democratic Party politician Ulil Abshar-Abdalla. That a poorly trained policeman lost his hand in the explosion that followed is further evidence of just how ill-prepared we are to rise up to the challenge of this new generation of terrorists.

To stop this deeply disturbing development in the recruitment of terrorists in our country, the president should demonstrate at least a minimum of firmness. Who would believe that we are a nation that fought a war of independence against the might of the Japanese, the British and the Dutch, considering all the meetings it took before any kind of military decision was taken in response to the kidnapping of our sailors by Somali pirates?

All throughout society people are talking about how fearful President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is to take any position on any issue. Rumors are that he is held hostage by his political enemies and the skeletons in his cupboards. If this is true, he should be a patriot and step down, for this country deserves a president who can and will fight for the Constitution and protect its citizens. If it is not true then he should immediately make moves to erase the image of cowardice and rein in those who are attacking the foundations of our state, particularly as some of those are ministers in his cabinet.

The names that people have called the head of state, and the liberties taken in disregard of the Constitution, are attacks that cannot be left unpunished.

Bramantyo Prijosusilo is a writer, artist and broadcast journalist in East Java.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/as-terrorism.../437317

Extremist Intimidation Chills Pakistan Secular Society

Extremist Intimidation Chills Pakistan Secular Society

by Julie McCarthy

 Listen to the Story or Download. 07:46

Pakistani police guards carry the coffin of the assassinated governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, during the funeral procession in Lahore on Jan. 5. - Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

January 24, 2011

In Pakistan, a battle has been joined by those who want a tolerant Islamic state against those who want a fundamentalist religious regime.

The killing in Pakistan earlier this month of Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer has cheered the religious right while chilling secular Pakistanis and exposing deep fissures in the society.

The governor was gunned down in Islamabad by a bodyguard angered at his bid to relax the country’s blasphemy laws. The assassination of Taseer, an audacious advocate for modernism, revealed the conservative attitudes about Islam that are sweeping through Pakistan.

A Growing Rift

A growing and dangerous dichotomy is evident in the Old City of Lahore that teems with shop owners and vendors. Outdoor stalls sit cheek by jowl in the city of 6 million.

In the aftermath of the governor’s killing, Zafar Iqbol, 65, who owns a fabric shop in the Mehood Cloth Market, says he “fears for the future.”

“We feel utterly helpless,” he says. “The market here is under the dominion of elements who have affiliations with religious parties. They come along and they insist that we shut things down, and of course we’re afraid not to, so we do close things down and we lose our business.”

A few of the men who run the market traders association hoist themselves onto the counter of Iqbol’s stall and lean in to listen, causing the owner obvious discomfort.

Members of the Association to Protect the Dignity of the Holy Prophet, or Tahafuz-e-Namwoos Risalat, join the Sunni Itehad Council in a protest march to denounce the Pope. The Vatican called for the abolition of Pakistan's blasphemy laws after a Christian woman accused of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad was sentenced to death. - Julie McCarthy/NPR

While Iqbol mourns the loss of the governor, his unannounced visitors feel anything but sorrow. Mohammad Ilyas, the vice president of the traders association, says the slain governor maligned Islam when he said Pakistan’s strict laws on blasphemy had become a tool to oppress religious minorities.

“It was totally wrong on the part of the governor to say that the blasphemy laws of Pakistan should be changed. The governor not only criticized the law of the land, but he went out of his way to protect Asia Bibi,” a Christian woman who was sentenced to death last year on the charge of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad.

When asked whether Taseer deserved to die, Ilyas, 65, says, “Definitely, because he interfered with the religion of this country. If he hadn’t interfered, he would not have been killed.”

Making An Assassin A Hero

Banners draped in the streets of the Punjab capital, Lahore, call the governor’s confessed killer, Mumtaz Qadri, a hero. The 23-year-old police commando assigned to guard the governor said Taseer was an apostate for opposing Pakistan’s blasphemy law.

Evidence that fundamentalism is becoming mainstream was found in the young lawyers who showered the assassin with rose petals as he entered court in Islamabad one day after the shooting. It signaled that religious fundamentalism was not the purview of the poor Pakistani masses but reaches far into the educated class as well.

Demonstrations saluting Qadri have continued throughout the country, a disturbing signal for Washington, which is hoping for greater stability from its nuclear armed ally.

Supreme Court Bar Association President Asma Jahangir says each time democracy begins to take hold in Pakistan, the extreme right wages an offensive that is more lethal than the one before.

“And there is a reason behind it. They do not want a democratic dispensation here. It doesn’t suit them. They don’t figure in there. They get marginalized there. So the murder of the governor was a part of that larger plan as well,” she says.

Parliamentarian Sherry Rehman also is facing death threats for proposing amendments to the blasphemy law, as had the governor. Rehman says “sane” voices have been silenced.

Historian Mubarak Ali estimates that the religious right now makes up some 30 percent of Pakistani society and says radical clerics have been emboldened by the mainstream parties, including President Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan Peoples Party. - Julie McCarthy/NPR

“And none of them are seeking to offend sensibilities of any religion, let alone Muslims themselves,” she says.

Rehman’s Pakistan Peoples Party, the party of President Asif Ali Zardari, has disowned any reform of the blasphemy laws and has been conspicuously quiet amid the uproar. Historian Mubarak Ali says all of the mainstream parties have emboldened the religious right by kowtowing to the radical clerics who are roiling the streets.

“Instead of fighting, instead of challenging — they just surrendered,” he says. “And now these clerics, they are so powerful, they are so bold, that now they are threatening everybody.”

‘No Other Alternative’

Farid Piracha, the deputy secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s largest religious party, says “if there [were] justice in Pakistan,” there would be no eruptions on the streets.

The party’s Islamic revivalist message has pushed Pakistan toward conservatism while preaching the dangers of a perceived U.S. war on Islam.

The radical right is gathering strength in Pakistan conflating religious dogma with the policies of the United States. Piracha says they cannot be separated.

“There is damage of more than 30,000 innocent people during the so-called war against terrorism. So, one cannot believe that America is not against Islam. America’s total military actions are against the Muslim states,” he says.

U.S. drone attacks and the war in Afghanistan have provoked a popular outcry among Pakistanis, which radical Islamists exploit. Historian Ali says extremists have expanded their constituency by emerging as the only alternative voice in a country where millions feel under threat by everything from the faltering economy to the lack of security.

“They say that dictatorships didn’t give them anything. Democracy didn’t give them anything,” he says. “So, they are exhorted that Islam is going to solve their problems, give them dignity in the society and rule of law. Because there is no other alternative, they believed it.”

The extremists also benefit from the legacy of Zia al Haq, the 1980s dictator who undertook the Islamization of the schools that indoctrinated a generation in religious orthodoxy.

“As a result of this education,” Ali says, “they have very closed minds.”

Speaking Out

As religious passions stifle liberal voices, one group refuses to be repressed — the Ajoka Theater.

Ajoka Theater founder Madeeha Guahar on stage following a performance in Islamabad of a play about blasphemy. In the antisecular atmosphere following the Punjab governor’s assassination, the staging of the play is a rare example of secular society standing up against the intimidation of religious extremists. - Julie McCarthy/NPR

It’s been in the forefront of the struggle for a secular democratic Pakistan. This past week, it staged a disturbing production about blasphemy and dedicated it to the slain governor.

It’s a study in brutality, with white-robed clerics in league with black-clad followers haranguing their victims as they hang them.

“That this play was shown in Islamabad is an act of courage,” says audience member Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and essayist. “This is a country that stands at the very verge of religious fascism.”

Hoodbhoy says he fears for the theater company.

“I don’t know when they might be targeted,” he says.

The theater founder and director of the play, Madeeha Guahar, says Ajoka will continue performing and take the risk.

Copyright 2011 NPR
URL: www.npr.org/2011/01/24/...secular-society

26 shots that sent Pakistan over the edge

washingtonpost.com > Print Edition > Sunday Outlook

26 shots that sent Pakistan over the edge

Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, January 23, 2011

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN has reported from South Asia for more than a decade

At a fashionable plaza in this serene Pakistani capital, a few dozen people gather in the evenings at the spot where provincial governor Salman Taseer was gunned down on Jan. 4. More than the man, their candlelight vigils mourn the open debate and religious compassion that have been lost with the assassination of the outspoken liberal politician.

Fifteen miles away, in a working-class alley of Rawalpindi, thousands of people flock each day to the home of Mumtaz Qadri, the elite police guard who killed Taseer. Qadri is in jail now, but the site has become a shrine to what many Pakistanis see as his heroic act against a blasphemer who insulted their prophet. Someone has even put up posters of Qadri riding a white horse to heaven.

In the days since Taseer’s death, Pakistan has become a different country. The veneer of Western democracy has been ripped away, the liberal elite has been cowed into silence, and the civilian government has beaten a hasty retreat from morality, authority and law. Islamic extremist groups, once dismissed as unable to win more than a few seats in Parliament, are filling the streets, with bearded acolytes waving flags and chanting like giddy crowds at a post-game victory rally.

Suddenly, a crucial U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism seems incapable of stopping a tide of intolerant and violent Islam at home - raising doubts about Pakistan’s ability to play a constructive role in the war against the Taliban or to help the United States extricate its forces from Afghanistan, Pakistan’s northern neighbor.

Qadri, who happily confessed to murdering the politician he was assigned to protect, has little chance of being convicted. Instead of suffering ostracism, he was greeted with handshakes and garlands by courthouse lawyers, who offered to defend him pro bono. The provincial court system, notorious for freeing radical Islamic leaders, is unlikely to condemn a national religious hero.

“There is no justice in our country for the common man, but Qadri’s act against a blasphemer has made all Muslims feel stronger,” a shopkeeper in Rawalpindi told me. “They can punish him, but what will they do with a million Qadris who have been born now?”

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, whose ruling coalition recently recovered from near-collapse, has reassured the restive Muslim masses that not a word of Pakistan’s blasphemy law will be changed. One of the harshest such statutes in the Muslim world, it makes any purported slur against the prophet Muhammad - even a misinterpreted remark or a discarded Koran - grounds for execution.

Taseer had proposed softening the law. Another legislator who did the same has received death threats. The police, whose ranks produced the killer, seem duped or complicit. The army, caught between fighting the Taliban and courting public opinion, has remained prudently silent.

Pakistani commentators have expressed shock at the public lionization of Qadri and the demonization of Taseer, who did nothing worse than criticize the blasphemy law and commiserate with a Christian peasant woman who was sentenced to death under it. The atmosphere is so charged now that most clerics refused to officiate at Taseer’s funeral, and the Christian woman’s prison warden said he may not be able to protect her even from the guards.

For the past several years, a few voices have warned against the growth of religious hatred in Pakistan. Columnist Kamila Hyat described a “Talibanization of minds” creeping across the country, emboldening extremist groups and censoring debate. Physicist and activist Pervez Hoodbhuy decried the quashing of critical thought in Pakistani schools and the rote Koranic learning that shapes many young minds.

But in Friday sermons and at many levels of Pakistani society, one hears warnings about creeping Westernization, secular culture and forceful aggression against Islam by America and its allies. When Pope Benedict XVI called for a repeal of Pakistan’s blasphemy law this month, some Muslim clerics decried it as part of the foreign conspiracy and said the pope was inviting attacks on minority Christians in Pakistan.

Some observers here say it is unfair to tar millions of Pakistani Muslims as extremists just because they feel strongly enough about the sacred nature of the prophet Muhammad to justify killing someone who insults him. What is needed, they say, is stronger national leaders who will uphold the laws - against blasphemy and murder alike. “This is an Islamic republic, and people feel very strongly about the blasphemy issue,” said Hamid Mir, a leading television journalist here. “We have to respect that, but we also have to respect the law and the constitution, or we will be lost.”

Others argue that a mind-set that finds spiritual justification for shooting a government official 26 times will also accept the public flogging of drunks, the beheading of policemen and the stoning of unmarried lovers - all hallmarks of the Taliban forces that swept through Pakistan’s scenic Swat Valley two years ago.

Pakistan’s army, a close partner of the U.S. military, ultimately drove the Taliban out of Swat after cementing public opinion in its favor. Now Washington is prodding army leaders here to extend their campaign to other insurgent-infested tribal areas.

But public opinion in Pakistan today is not what it was a year ago, and no one wants to risk igniting popular wrath. Not the nuclear-armed security establishment, which still sees Islamic militants as a useful tool to harass arch-rival India. Not the weak, unpopular government, saddled by a secular past and still reeling from the slaying of its most charismatic leader, Benazir Bhutto, three years ago.

In recent days I have listened to Islamic activists rant about the sanctity of the prophet and the evil of those who offend him or dare to question any tents of Islam. They even have a label for such dangerous subversives, which translates roughly as “ought to be killed.”

But there is one conversation that haunts me in particular, an encounter I had with a young man on a flight between Islamabad and Karachi. He was neatly dressed and beardless, a recent science graduate on his way to a job interview. As I read through the morning papers and discarded them on the floor, I noticed him squirming.

“Madam, could you please pick up the papers?” he finally said. “The name of our prophet is on the front page, and it must not be on the ground.”

I complied, and we spoke cordially about our respective religions. But when I asked about Taseer’s murder, his tone changed. “They say he blasphemed against our prophet,” the young man said solemnly. “If this is true, then it would be my duty as a Muslim to kill him, too.”

Pamela Constable, a Washington Post foreign correspondent, is the author of the forthcoming “Playing With Fire: Why Pakistan’s Democracy Is Losing Ground to Islamic Extremists.”

©2011 The Washington Post Company
URL: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/.../AR2011012300278.html

The tipping point, terrorism and crimes against humanity

OPINION Thu, 10/07/2010 10:28 AM

The tipping point, terrorism and crimes against humanity

Jennie S. Bev, Palo Alto

It’s mind-boggling that the National Police have claimed they are one of the best police forces in the world in tackling terrorism and that the government has claimed it is an administration that governs a pluralistic country. Their claims are far from factual conditions. Otherwise many people wouldn’t be puzzled.

The Islam Defenders Front’s (FPI) acts of terror are rampant and have reached a point where religious minorities, including both non-Muslims and Muslims, have no place to stand and breathe. Recently, the places of worship and private residences of the Ahmadiyah Muslim sect have been ransacked, destroyed and burned. People have been abused physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Nothing the FPI does projects an image of peace, which is what Islam stands for. The FPI are more than religious extremists. And the Indonesian government has not acted properly to ensure they no longer perform acts of terrorism in the future.

The government must ensure that future acts of terrorism are eliminated, including those that may be perpetrated by the FPI on any civilian and any minority group. Only in this way could the country be called an integrated and pluralistic nation. Today, Indonesia is merely a segregated pluralistic country, or in other words, it looks pluralistic on the surface only.

To this day, a joint ministerial decree issued in 2008 banning Ahmadiyah members from practicing their faith in public or spreading its beliefs is still in force. In 2005, the MUI (Indonesian Ulemas Council) also issued an edict that said Ahmadiyah was heterical and blamesphemous.

Let me humbly remind the government that it allegedly “condoned” those brutal acts legally (through the joint decree) and morally (through the MUI’s edict). It might be true that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono previously expressed his sympathy to victims and asked the police to maintain security.

However, by upholding the joint ministerial decree, the government became the perpetrator of so-called “legalized persecution.” It violated the 1945 Constitution (the right to worship), principles of democracy (the protection of minorities) and principles of human rights.

Of course, the government has not signed the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Otherwise, Indonesia would have to ratify and enforce the statute. Upon enforcement, crimes against humanity could be brought to ICC in the Netherlands.

The Rome Statue defines crimes against humanity as offenses that constitute a serious attack on human dignity or cause grave humiliation to one or more human beings.

Crimes against humanity are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part of a government policy

(although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or are part of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority.

Murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts may reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice.

Let me underscore this phrase: the wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Not performing sufficient measures to prevent attacks by the FPI falls under this definition.

At this point, we need to keep pressuring the government and Yudhoyono to use their consciences, maintain security and respect the Indonesian people’s sense of justice. International human rights watchdog organizations are working hard to pressure the government. And we, the people, are now waiting anxiously for a tipping point.

The “tipping point” is a theory popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, which refers to the moment of critical mass, threshold or a boiling point. Certain individuals or situations may trigger the boiling point for sociological change.

Considering the current state of frustration with and distrust of government by concerned citizens, it is not an exaggeration to predict that a tipping point for Indonesia is near. Such an occurrence might manifest itself in various forms, among which include the possibility of a revolution.

A revolution itself is a fundamental change in power that takes place in a short period of time. How and when it will take place is a big question mark.

It is simply a historical fact that change occurs periodically. Indonesia has endured far too long and is ripe for a major change where every citizen is equally protected. Things are boiling now and the tipping point is near.

The writer is an author and columnist based in northern California in the US and can be reached at www.jenniesbev.com

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/10/07/the-tipping...-against-humanity.html

Militants threat witnesses, police, judges to be silent in Pakistan

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Militants threat witnesses, police, judges to be silent in Pakistan

22:07, June 29, 2010

Militants groups in Pakistan are being proven so strong that they manage the acquittal of their colleagues from cases and proceedings against them in courts by threatening the families of judges, witnesses and police officers, local media reported on Tuesday.

According to reports, hundreds of militants have been successfully released from jails due to non-availability of witnesses and proofs enough to sentence them according to law.

Recently Pakistan’s Lahore High Court took a strict notice about the acquittal of a criminal from a lower court who was arrested red-handed with a grenade during a terrorism attack on a police training academy in March 2009.

In another case family of anti-terrorism judge Mohammad Asim Imam performing duty in Pakistan’s northwestern Malakand Division, received threats from the armed Taliban, who visited their residence few days back.

The judge is currently dealing with terrorism cases of Sufi Mohammad, Pakistani Taliban’s spiritually whip, arrested last year during the military operation in the area.

Taliban visited their place, left a message for the family and the judge to fall in line or be ready for the consequences. They also ordered the family cook to tell the judge that they were after him and would soon sort him out.

This is the first time since the completion of the military operation in Swat last year that a judge dealing with the anti- terrorism cases has received threats from the Taliban.

The family of anti-terrorism judge Imam lives in Peshawar, capital of the northwestern province Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where his wife works as senior research officer at the provincial assembly secretariat.

Immediately after the incident, the government has provided security to the family but they are still worried about the safety as they are living in the danger zone.

“This is a common practice in Pakistan, not only Taliban even small criminal groups use these tricks to get their friends free from the courts, when there is no proof or witness, the court will have to free them,” said Khalid Mahmood, a former police office in Punjab Province.

“Now in some cases, judges’ names are kept secret and they hear the case proceeding in jail with covered faces to avoid any recognition by the accused,” Khalid told Xinhua.

Source: Xinhua

Copyright by People's Daily Online, All Rights Reserved

URL: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7045822.html

Ahmedis’ assailants jailed on judicial remand

Ahmedis’ assailants jailed on judicial remand

Upadated on: 28 Jun 10 05:11 PM

Staff Report

LAHORE: Assailants of the Ahmedi places of worship in Lahore were presented in the anti-terrorism court Monday, where they were sentenced to be jailed on judicial remand.

The culprits were brought to the court again after a 10-day physical remand.

Both terrorists were caught by worshippers while they were attacking the Ahmedi place of worship at Model Town.

According to the police, Abdullah alias Mohammad belongs to Rahimyar Khan and was trained at Miranshah. He will be brought to court again on July 12 after a 14-day judicial remand.

The other bomber, 20-year-old Mooaz was from southern Punjab, and was earlier identified as Ameer Moavia.

Police also recovered explosive material from the culprits.

Gunmen attacked the Ahmedi places of worship in Model Town and Garhi Shahu on May 29.

Punjab police spokesman DIG Akram Naeem Bharoka told reporters that 79 people had died and 107 injured. However, a spokesman for the Jamaat-i-Ahmadiya Pakistan said that 95 people had lost their lives.

Deputy commissioner of Lahore Sajjad Bhutta said that the death toll at Garhi Shahu was higher because three attackers blew themselves up with suicide vests packed with explosives when police tried to enter the building.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said it had warned of threats against the Ahmadi community centre in Lahore for more than a year and demanded “foolproof security and protection” from the government.

It expressed concern over “the increasing sectarian dimension” of militancy in Pakistan, which it called “a big security threat to the entire society”.

Police arrested three suspects on information provided by Abdullah. Abdullah identified the two other men who blew themselves up in Garhi Shahu as Darwaish of Swat and Mansoor of Waziristan.

Abdullah also said that he and three others were sent for the two missions by Badar Mansoor, the head of the Punjabi Taliban group in Waziristan.

The DIG said that the arrest of the two bombers had revealed their network’s link with the TTP and police would be able to reach others. He said that militants were in the habit of forming new groups.

This was the worst attack in Pakistan since March 12 suicide attacks seconds apart killed 57 people in Lahore while targeting the Pakistani military.

Nine attacks have now killed more than 220 people in Lahore over the past year, a historical city, residence for the elite and home to many top officials of the Pakistan military and intelligence establishment. SAMAA

URL: www.samaa.tv/News21825-Ahmedis_assailants_to_be_presented_in_court.aspx

Setting their house in order

Tue 15 June, 2010

Editorials

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Setting their house in order

Hindustan Times
June 15, 2010
First Published: 22:03 IST(15/6/2010)
Last Updated: 22:06 IST(15/6/2010)

When the topic of terrorism-related threats is discussed, most of us think of Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The scene of activity is the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are visions of Predators stalking the region to search and kill. When this is not the scene, then it is the threat to the US from the likes of Times Square wannabe-bomber Faisal Shahzad, their mindsets and their mentors.

When an angered and frightened US speaks of retaliation to this, it speaks of the wrath of America the next time around. Pakistan’s rulers pretend anger and insult, and they let loose their leg men on the streets shouting ‘Death to America!’. The Americans are in a dilemma. They cannot attack their favourite ally and justify to Congress that they need to give more arms and financial assistance to it. Pakistan’s rulers feel they have a winning game — of threatening to lose the match and country if they are not given steroids. Pakistan’s battle is not only on its western frontiers; it is now in the Punjabi heartland.

Since the Lal Masjid episode in Islamabad in 2007, the murderous terrorist attacks on the Marriot Hotel, the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Special Service Group establishments as well as the police show the reach of the terrorists. The twin attacks on the Garhi Shahu and Model Town Ahmadiya masjids in Lahore on Friday, May 28, the attack on Jinnah Hospital on the night of May 31 and the June 9 attack on the Nato convoy outside Islamabad are manifestations of a virus that is radicalising Pakistani society faster and deeper than we realise — or Pakistan’s rulers care to admit. The recent ban on social websites YouTube and Facebook by the Pakistani government indicates its nervousness in dealing with radicals.

True, there is a section of Pakistani society that finds events like violence in the name of religion, or medieval practices foisted upon it by self-styled guardians of the faith, abhorrent. The other truth is that these hordes have muscle power, are financially well-endowed and — what has become increasingly evident — there is either benign neglect by the State or active connivance most of the time. One does not have to go too far back to the Zia years to see what has been happening to Punjabi society even in the post-Zia years.

President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq had left in place not only the madrasa system of obscurantist education, but he had also mainstreamed this. So while the ISI diverted its experience and jihadi hordes from the Afghan front to the Kashmir one, Pakistan’s military rulers also created new terrorist outfits in the 1990s for specific action in Jammu and Kashmir. These were all Punjabi in origin and base. Recruitment has continued for the ‘jihad’ from various parts of Pakistan, notably from southern Punjab.

All these terrorist organisations have become interlinked and inter-dependent and an estimated 3,000-8,000 Punjab-based jihadis do service jointly alongside the Punjabi Taliban in Fata and Punjab. The Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP) are also suspected to be linked with al-Qaeda. Politicians being politicians, the Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif brothers have been flirting outrageously with the SSP in Punjab to queer the pitch for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Sheikh Akram, an opposition MP from Jhang, fears that there could be ten Swats in Punjab if the extremists are not checked.

So, today, we have a situation in which powerful terrorist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT), the JeM and others, along with Sunni sectarian outfits like the SSP and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), have recruits from the same village, district or area. Recruits for the mostly Punjabi Pakistani army also come from the same region and possibly from the same madrasas. Punjab is also the province that has many of Pakistan’s formidable troop concentrations against India — and it is here that all of Pakistan’s vital nuclear facilities are located.

Should Punjab get destabilised by Islamic radicals, this will have devastating consequences for Pakistan. Many wonder how the young and educated are getting affected by jihadi philosophy. Even today the curriculum established during the Zia years for the mainstream schools has not changed. In the Punjab University campus too, there is greater stress on Islamic tenets. The Daily Times, in its column ‘Campus Window’ (April 11, 2007), noted that while the world “heads towards modernisation and scientific knowledge, Punjab University, which is one of the oldest educational institutions in South Asia, is rapidly turning into a hub of Islamism”.

There are innumerable examples of attempts to introduce extreme religious ideologies in the discourse and in outward symbolism. These range from some very regressive and muscular moral policing on the campus to the downright ridiculous — like seeking to ban Alexander Pope’s poem ‘The Rape of the Lock’, as the title was considered vulgar.

Leading the campaign so far has been the students’ wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islami Jamaat Tulaba, a rabid Sunni organisation. Its monopoly is now being challenged by an equally rabid students’ organisation, the new Tulaba Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the students’ wing of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the mentor of the LeT. When two extreme organisations compete, the result can only be increased radicalisation, as each is competing against the other to establish its Islamic credentials.

What has been apparent for long to many of us here — but is clearly emerging now — is that Afghanistan will have a chance at peace only if the virus in Pakistan is eradicated. The next few months are going to be a major challenge for Pakistani Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, if the declared intention is to take military action against the SSP, the JeM and the LeJ. Pakistan must fight its own demons urgently and not selectively. This will depend upon how long Pakistan’s rulers remain in denial about the home-grown existential threat to them and their country.

(Vikram Sood is former Secretary, Research & Analysis Wing. The views expressed by the author are personal)

Copyright © 2010 HT Media Limited. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.hindustantimes.com/Setting-their-house-in-order/Article1-558213.aspx

Excerpts from “State of Human Rights in 2009”

---Human Rights Commission of Pakistan

Introduction

Dastardly terrorist attacks, resulting in the killing of innocent citizens and law-enforcement personnel across the country, throughout the year 2009, constituted the greatest threat to fundamental rights of the citizens. Coming under attack from the security forces in their bastions in Swat and South Waziristan, the militant groups became desperate; they did not spare mosques, bazaars, religious minorities and educational institutions in their obvious bid to paralyse the state and all civilian life. The acts of terrorism and the state’s response to it are discussed in the chapter on Law and order.
………

The sad fact, however, was that the parliament did not pay adequate attention to the vital issues, quite a few of which affected national security, except for an initiative it took to address the uprising in Balochistan towards the end of the year. However, the so-called relief package, too, was yet to be implemented. The matters related to militancy and IDPs drew little attention from the law-makers. During the entire year, they did little law-making, passing only four acts while most of the legislation was done through Presidential ordinances. [See the chapters on ‘Laws and Law-making’ and ‘Political participation’]

The parliament and the executive also failed to take notice of the issues causing distress to the masses, allowing the superior judiciary to expand its jurisdiction and pass verdicts on a variety of subjects, such as determination of the prices of sugar and petrol etc. The Judiciary, on its part, was found short on its promises of expeditious disposal of cases and eradication of corruption in the judicial system. More than 1.5 million cases were pending in the courts at the end of 2009. The chapter on ‘Administration of Justice’ provides details.

In fact, the administration of justice required more than additional judges in courts and higher salaries for the judges. The other two organs of the justice system, police and jails, also needed to be overhauled. Jails were over-crowded and poorly administered. The police was short of personnel. It was also thoroughly corrupt and poorly trained. To check the crime rate, it relied on shortcuts like extra legal killings of the accused in the so-called encounters.……

An outright disrespect for fundamental rights, both by the state and the communal elements, was also visible in the crimes and excesses perpetrated against religious minorities. While the gangsters went on rampage in Gojra against Christians and in Karachi against Shias and looted or destroyed the properties of innocent businessmen, the police force apparently looked the other way. A factory-owner in Muridke was brutally murdered by a mob in the presence of policemen who stood by helplessly. This is obviously due to a lack of professionalism in the police force and absence of an effective institutional mechanism to supervise its functioning, which could ensure public safety and protection of fundamental rights of the citizens.

The Gojra and Muridke incidents, and dozens of cases implicating Ahmedis, also highlighted the misuse of the blasphemy laws, which over the years have been exploited by fanatics and vested interests to perpetuate a reign of terror against the minorities. The government was again too timid to take on the obscurantist elements and make amendments in the law. It could not even enforce the law banning the misuse of loudspeakers that the miscreants employed with impunity to incite the people to violence in both the gory incidents.

The state’s abdication of its responsibilities towards the welfare of the masses could be seen in areas of social and human development. At the end of the year under review, more than 3.5 million children were working as labour in the country in sheer violation of the law and the Constitution. The chapters on Education, Children and Labour provide the details. Public education sector stood ruined as a result of neglect over past several decades. The government did not even care to regulate the private sector schools in order to bring them under some regulatory framework. The same was the state of public healthcare, public transport and housing for the low-income groups. In Punjab, the alleged instances of neglect by private hospitals in providing treatment to patients triggered public protest, but the provincial assembly did not even discuss this issue of public concern.

In recent years, environmental degradation emerged as an issue of survival for Pakistanis, especially owing to acute water shortage, but no serious longterm planning was in sight. The year 2009 witnessed mass protests on the shortage of electricity and natural gas and the emerging trend indicated that in the coming years the people could be up in arms on the issue of water shortage if this issue was not tackled on time.

The media, despite all its shortcomings, played a major role in raising the issues of public interest and highlighted the lackadaisical performance of the government. In doing so, it earned the ire of the rulers. The politicians, who had benefitted from the media in the past during the harsh military regimes, found it hard to stomach its criticism. The media remained under attack from both the state and non-state actors and faced restrictions on free reporting in Balochistan and the tribal region. [The chapter on ‘Freedom of expression’ gives the details]

These issues of public interest on 18 different subjects were monitored and documented by HRCP all along the year as per its tradition since 1990. This book provides an overview of the human rights situation in 2009 besides a digest of the commission.s activities and stands during this period.

Adnan Adil
Editor

Highlights

• Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
• The year 2009 saw increasing frequency of organised violent attacks on religious minorities while the government failed to take proactive measures to prevent such violence in Gojra and Karachi.
• More than 41 complaints of blasphemy were reported during the year.
• At least five members of the Ahmadi sect were murdered in target killings in 2009, raising to 100 the number of killings since the introduction of anti-Ahmadiyya laws by the Ziaul Haq government in 1984.
• In 2009, 15 incidents of sectarian violence took place in Balochistan in which 26 men were killed and two others injured.
• As the militancy surged in the northwestern parts of the country, enforced migration and displacement of thousands of people belonging to Christians, Sikhs and Hindu communities from Swat, Kohat and FATA was reported following threats by Islamist elements.
• A majority of Hindu women did not possess CNIC cards because of legal complications in registration of marriages.
• 37 Ahmadis were booked under the blasphemy laws during the year and fifty-seven Ahmadis were charged under Ahmadi-specific laws.
• Nearly 80 per cent of the minority population falls below the poverty line and it has usually been ignored during the various government support programmes.

Administration of justice

Promotion of Ahmedi officer

Shaukat Ali Wahla, an Ahmedi employed at the Auqaf Department, was promoted as superintendent in BPS 16. In August 1996, the order of his promotion was recalled on the ground that the Punjab Waqf properties Ordinance did not allow the promotion of a non-Muslim as an officer. Wahla came to the Lahore High Court and it granted him relief on the ground that he had been penalised without being heard. Following the Court judgement, the Auqaf Department withdrew its impugned order and promoted Wahla to BPS 17 and also allowed him selection grade. In 2001, the department again started proceedings against him and to meet the requirement of giving him a hearing, issued him a show cause notice. In January 2002, the Department held that Wahla.s promotion as Superintendent was illegal and the order of his promotion was withdrawn. Wahla again appealed to the Lahore High Court and the court again held the order of the department illegal. In 2009, LHC held the recall illegal saying discrimination on the basis of religion was against Article 27(1) of the Constitution. Auqaf Department moved the SC against the LHC judgement.

Fundamental freedoms
Freedom of thought, conscience and religion

… It is the will of the people of Pakistan to establish an order … wherein shall be guaranteed fundamental rights, including equality of status, of opportunity and before law, social, economic and political justice, and freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship and association, subject to law and public morality
Constitution of Pakistan
Preamble

Subject to law, public order and morality (a) every citizen shall have the right to profess, practise and propagate his religion; and (b) every religious denomination and every sect thereof shall have the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions.
Article 20

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 1

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 18

No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have a religion or belief of his choice.

No one shall be subject to discrimination by any state, institution, group of persons, or person on the grounds of religion or other belief.

UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of
Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief
Articles 1(2) and 2(1)

In an xenophobic atmosphere, created and promoted by conservative clerics and a section of the media religious minorities are viewed with suspicion and mistrust. They are seen as constantly conspiring against Islam, Muslims and Pakistan in cahoot with the infidel foreign powers, especially the West. An imaginary combine of Hunud-o-Yahud-o-Nasara (Hindus, Jews and Christians) is supposed to be conspiring against Pakistani Muslims all the time in collaboration with the local minorities. This world view propagated on a large scale, coupled with an unfavourable legal regime, has made life difficult for the non-Muslim citizens. They cannot freely practise their religion and present their point of view without risking their life, honour and property as is evident from attacks on them.

The year 2009 saw an increase in violent attacks on religious minorities while the government failed to take effective preventive measures. The growing intolerance of religious minorities. rights, increased frequency of vigilante actions against them and attacks on non-Muslims over allegations of blasphemy and desecration of religious scriptures caused serious hardships to them. As the Pakistan army and paramilitary forces conducted military operations against the Taliban networks in Swat and other tribal areas including South Waziristan, the militants struck with vengeance, in other parts of the country, at non-Muslim minorities, as well as the Muslim minority Shia sect.

The systematic manner in which the Christian colony in Gojra and the shops in Bolton Market in Karachi were burnt down indicated the involvement of organized and trained militants. It was widely believed that indigenous militant organizations (already banned) were behind these attacks. That these organizations had close connections with the Taliban militants and al-Qeada was no secret. The role of main religio-political parties was mostly inimical to religious minorities. These parties did not condemn the violence against the minorities and often advanced conspiracy theories about foreign hands being behind violence against minorities. In some cases, the seminaries closely connected with religio-political parties were used to foment trouble against the minority communities. On the other hand, the government response, mostly in the form of belated announcements of financial compensation and some attempts at encouraging reconciliation at the local level, had usually been insufficient and reactive.

Freedom of Religion

Ahmadis

As the most vulnerable community in Pakistan the Ahmadis continued to face discrimination and violence throughout the year. The blasphemy laws were widely used against them as five Ahmedi citizens were murdered in target killings in 2009, raising to 100 their casualties since the introduction of anti-Ahmadiya laws by the Ziaul Haq regime in 1984.

Cases on religious grounds and blasphemy victims

The blasphemy law proved to be a major contributor to the minorities. woes during the year as the Gojra carnage demonstrated. In 2009, a total of 41 complaints of blasphemy were registered by police. Some 37 Ahmedis were booked under blasphemy laws and 57 Ahmedis were charged under Ahmedi-specific laws. However, many cases were registered against Muslims as the rival sects of Islam increasingly used the blasphemy law against each other, as may be seen in the account given below:

January 2: The Sargodha police booked two men, Mushtaq Ahmed and Muhammad Ali, on the charges of erasing kalma from the wall of a village mosque.

January 12: A man named Liaquat, was arrested by the police for allegedly burning the Quran in Panwan village near Manawala, Sheikhupura district.

January 17: Chichawatni police booked two men, Pir Syed Athar Shah Naqvi and Syed Ismail Shah, on the charge of committing blasphemy in their speeches on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Hazrat Ali. A cleric belonging to Sunni-Deobandi sect, Mufti Muhammad Usman, had filed a complaint against the two men belonging to the Sunni-Barelvi sect. Two days later, the workers of Jamaat Ahle Sunnat and the Anjuman Tajiran Chichawatni staged a protest demonstration outside the office of the district police officer in Sahiwal against wrongly implicating Pir Athar Shah. The sessions judge at Khanewal dismissed the bail application of the accused and the police arrested one of them.

January 19: A petition was moved in the Lahore High Court against Qurban Ali, the principal of a private education trust in Lahore, for allegedly committing blasphemy by writing a book, titled ‘Hero and Role Model’ in which he listed his six top heroes of the world including Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and himself. Muhammad Younas, Khateeb at a mosque moved the police for the registration of a case. On 18 February, an additional sessions judge, ordered police to register a case against the accused on blasphemy charges.

January 28: Five Ahmedis, including four children, were charged with blasphemy under section 295-C in Chak 172-TDA, in Layyah district. However, the police foiled an attempt by the members of a banned organisation to torch the houses of the people belonging to the Ahmediya community. The four children remained behind the bars for six months.

January 30: Businesses were closed down and protest demonstrations were staged in Mandi Bhauddin (Punjab) against the alleged defiling of the Quran a day earlier.

January 31: Ahsan Tahami, a librarian at the Quaid-e-Azam Library, Lahore, was booked for uttering blasphemous words in a discussion. He fled his home along with his family and went into hiding.

February 5: Muntazirul Haq Shahjehan, a police officer and station house officer (SHO) at Raja Jang police station, was booked on blasphemy charges on the complaint of a local journalist.

February 6: Several political and religious parties staged a demonstration in Quetta against alleged desecration of Holy Quran in Zhob and urged the government to probe the incident.

February 9: Muazaffarabd police registered a case against the sellers of a book allegedly containing blasphemy material. The accused got pre-arrest bail from a court.

February 16: The District and Sessions Judge, Jhelum, heard a case relating to blasphemy charges against one, Khalid Naqash, who had written a book titled, ‘Quran aur Hum’. It was alleged that the book contained blasphemous content about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Another man, Muhammad Afzal, who had written the preamble of the book, was also arrested along with the author.

February 18: Clerics in Raiwind called upon the government to register a case and punish those responsible for alleged desecration of Holy Quran in a private hospital at Syeda Waheeda Memorial Nursing College, Raiwind Road Lahore, run by Fatima Memorial Hospital Lahore. It was alleged that some Christian students had placed Quran in shoe boxes. As the clerics protest mounted, the college administration closed down the institution for fear of unrest and violence.

March 1: The Kasur police arrested two Christian men, Wilayat Masih and Mushtaq Masih, on blasphemy charges in Malloki village. The accused were charged that they had covered the grave of a Christian relative with a cloth inscribed with Quranic verses.

March 11: Police booked 25 people on blasphemy charges and arrested four of them in Chak 33 in Kanganpur area, Kasur district. The accused belonged to Ahl-e-Hadith sect and the complainant to Sunni-Barelvi sect.

March 12: Police registered a case under section 295 and 295-A of the PPC against unidentified people for writing blasphemous words on street walls of Umerkot and Mirwah Gorchani on March 10. Hundreds of people protested against the alleged blasphemy, attacked petrol pumps and shops and blocked main highways.

March 23: Police booked four Muslim men for attacking a religious congregation of a different sect and allegedly uttering blasphemous words against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in Pattoki, Kasur district. Two of the accused, Rana Naeem and Rana Zahoor, were arrested.

March 27: One Irfan was arrested by the police on the charge of burning a Quran in Mohallah Sabri Colony, Okara.

April 4: Anees Mallah, (25) who was facing blasphemy charges, was found dead in Sanghar jail. He had been moved there only a day earlier from Mirpur Khas, where he had spent almost a year in prison. Anees’s lawyer said he was subjected to torture, shot and afterwards slaughtered brutally in the jail by some jail inmates. His elder brother, Ghulam Rasool Mallah, said Anees was wrongly implicated in a blasphemy case in March 2008 and murdered inside the jail. He said even medico-legal officers were afraid to issue a report about the cause of the death. He said on March 21 2008, his brother’s motorbike had crashed into a gate erected for a Milad function which angered the organisers and they implicated him in a blasphemy case.

April 7: Lahore High Court’s Bahawalpur bench rejected a bail plea of Haider Zaman, accused of blasphemy, and sent him to prison. A mob of baton-wielding students of local seminaries surrounded the court during the hearing and chanted slogans asking the court to award death sentence to the accused. Afterwards, on 30 June, a threemember bench of the Supreme Court also rejected his bail plea and ordered the Bahawalnagar trial court to complete the hearing within three months.

April 8: Police registered a case against a Muslim woman, Ameera Bibi, on blasphemy charges, under sections 290-A and 295-C of PPC, on the direction of a court in Chowk Azam, Layyah district for saying derogatory remarks against God and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). A local man, Shabbir Shah, was the complainant.

April 10: An additional district and sessions judge at Kamalia (Punjab) ordered the city police to register a case against two Shia clerics, Imran Rizvi and Asif Raza Alvi, on blasphemy charges on the complaint of clerics from a rival Sunni sect.

April 13: Police booked and arrested Bilal Tahir Khawaja, owner of a football manufacturing factory, on blasphemy charge under section 295-A for printing holy Islamic names on footballs. No lawyer represented the accused in the court as Daska lawyers association assured the complainant clerics that the bar would not provide legal assistance to the accused.

April 14: Clerics belonging to Tehreek-e-Tahfuzz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat (Movement for the protection of sanctity of Prophet (PBUH), moved Lahore High Court to get a blasphemy case registered against the owner of a textile mills in Faisalabad. The petitioners alleged the factory had printed the name of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on bed sheets and thus committed blasphemy.

April 21: The Supreme Court (Shariat Appellate Bench) rejected an appeal against a Federal Shariat Court (FSC) ruling that death is the only punishment that the Islamic law provides for blasphemy. The appeal had been filed by Bishop Dani L. Tasleem 18 years ago after the FSC gave the judgment in exercise of its powers to determine if the existing laws conformed to Sharia. The appellant could not pursue the petition as he had died.

April 25: Twelve Christian families in Chak 190/AL village of Sahiwal left their homes in a bid to save their lives on receiving life threats from other Christians and Muslims — who alleged that these families had committed blasphemy by throwing ink on the Holy Quran. The village had a huge Christian population. Unidentified people had broken into Harappa Government Community Model Girls Primary School in the village. In the morning, students found on the ground a page of the Holy Quran smeared with black ink and gum. The words on the blackboard led to the assumption that a Christian was responsible for what had happened.

May 9: The Pasrur Police registered a case against a Shia cleric who was accused of saying something derogatory about the companions of the Prophet (PBUH) during a speech.

May 30: A mob staged a protest demonstration in Sukkur against a doctor belonging to Hindu faith. A medical representative, Asghar Channa, complained that assistant professor Pawan Kumar of Ghulam Muhammad Medical College had allegedly uttered blasphemous words against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The protesters dispersed after the police assured them that a case would be registered against the accused. Afterwards, the police registered a case on blasphemy charges against him. On 23 June, a Sukkur magistrate ordered the police to present the challan against the accused.

June 27: Bashir Ahmed, imprisoned in Dera Ghazi Khan Jail and facing trial on the charges of saying disrespectful words against the companions of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), was slaughtered by another prisoner with a sharp razor inside the jail.

July 1: A young man, Imran Masih, was captured by a mob and tortured on the charge of burning the Quran and Islamic books in Faisalabad. Police arrested the man and registered a case against him.

July 9: The Talagang police in Chakwal district registered a case on blasphemy charges, under sections 295-A and 295-C, against a man, Pir Muhammad Ishaq, who allegedly claimed to be God and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

July 18: FIA Karachi arrested a man, Murad, resident of Gizri, on the complaint of journalist Ansar Abbasi who allegedly received hate mails from him. The accused was also charged with publishing blasphemous material against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on a website.

July 26: Workers belonging to Sunni Tehreek staged a protest demonstration and blocked the main Sheikhupura highway in Khararianwala area in Faisalabad district to pressurise the local police for registering a case against 32 Ahmedis, of 194 RB village, on the charge of writing Quranic verses on the outer walls of their houses. The Police registered a case under sections 295-A and 295-C.

July 27: The Sambrial police registered a case under section 295-B, against a man named Maqsood Ahmed, on the charges of desecrating the Quran in Chak Ikhtiar near Sambrial in Sialkot district. The next day, a civil judge sent the accused on 14-day judicial remand.

July 28: Police arrested a man, Amir Haider, on the charge of sending a message allegedly derogatory against the companions of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

August 5: A mob surrounded the house of a middle aged woman, Akhtari Malkani, in a katchi abadi in Sanghar, Sindh on the charge that she had desecrated the Quran. Police took the woman into custody to save her from the mob and assured protesters that if evidence was found it would register a case against her. Angry protesters, demanding the custody of the woman, threw stones at the police station and burnt tyres on the road. Police shot in the air to disperse the crowd. Afterwards, the complainant, Siddique Arain, a shopkeeper, who had some monetary dispute with the accused, disappeared when the police contacted him to file a complaint against Ms Malkani. The woman told the police she had thrown an account book on the ground, not the Quran as the complainant initially accused her, provoking the protests. A 10 member committee headed by the Sanghar Taluka Nazim, absolved the woman of the blasphemy charge after initial investigation and interviews with the witnesses.

September 4: A couple was booked and arrested in Jamber village in Phoolnagar, Kasur district, on the charge of declaring their 10-month-old son Imam Mehdi. More than 500 villagers protested against Abdullah and his wife, Shazia, and blocked the main highway demanding a blasphemy case be registered under 295-C against them.

September 11: A mob torched a local Catholic church in Jaithikey-Sambrial, in Sambrial Tehsil of Daska district over alleged desecration of the Holy Quran in the village. A Christian young man, Robert Fanish Masih, 25, was accused of snatching a chapter of the Holy Quran from a local girl and throwing it into a drain. After the alleged incident, local Muslims armed with bricks, stones and sticks attacked the church. They set it ablaze by sprinkling petrol and kerosene oil on it. As no person was present in the church, no casualty took place. Meanwhile, the agitators led by local clerics took out rallies demanding immediate arrest of the accused persons. All the shops and markets remained closed in the village and its surrounding areas while thousands of scared villagers locked themselves up in their homes. The Christian community left the troubled area immediately to save their lives. One day later, the police arrested the accused who was found dead on 15 September in Sialkot Jail. When his family took his body for burial in the native village, a mob attacked the funeral procession, snatched the body and dragged it on the road. He was finally buried in Sialkot district.

October 30: Police registered a blasphemy case against Qaisar Ali Haideri, the author of a book, on the complaint of Mumtaz Ahmed Dar in Kotla Arab Ali, Gujrat district. On 11 November, hundreds of people brought out a procession against the police for not arresting the accused.

November 1: Police arrested a man, Sadiq Abbas, and registered a case against him on the charge of burning dozens of copies of Quran in a mosque in Chak 302 JB, Noorpur in Toba Tek Singh district.

November 11: Gojra Additional District and Sessions Judge handed down death sentence and fined Rs100,000 to a blasphemy accused, Muhammad Aslam of Shahabad Colony, on the charge of using blasphemous language publicly on Oct 5, 2008. The court allowed the convict to file an appeal against the sentence before the Lahore High Court within a week.

Damages to and acquisition of places of worship

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In June, an Ahmediya graveyard in Pir Mahal, Toba Tek Singh, was attacked and desecrated by rioters following which the authorities cancelled the land allotment order issued to the Ahmedis 20 years ago.

During 2009, in Lahore, Ahmedi worship places in Model Town repeatedly received threats from the conservative religious groups and hate campaigns were conducted against the community through wall-chalking, posters and pamphlets.

Violence against Ahmedis

January 19: An Ahmedi, Saeed Ahmad, was killed in Kotri (Sindh).

February 20: Mubashir Ahmed was shot dead in Karachi.

February 25: A murder attempt was made on Muhammad Iqbal Abid, an Ahmedi religious teacher in Vehari.

March 14: Shiraz Bajwa and his wife Noreen Bajwa, both doctors, were brutally murdered in Multan.

April 1: Bashir Ahmed, Advocate, President of the local Ahmadiyya community, Achini Payan, near Peshawar, was abducted and had not been recovered till Dec 31 2009.

May 8: A well known Ahmedi trader, Mian Laiq Ahmad, was attacked in Faisalabad by three armed men while sitting in his car. The armed men blocked the road to his house and shot him dead.

May 9: Rashid Karim, a well-known Ahmedi in Faisalabad, was abducted and released after five months on the payment of a heavy ransom.

June 24: Two Ahmedis, Khalid Rasheed and Zafar Iqbal, were shot dead in Quetta.

July 6: Rana Ata-ul-Karim was murdered in Multan.

August 6: An Ahmedi, Rana Ata-ul Karim, was shot dead after his wife was harassed by three Muslim extremists in Multan.

August 7: Two Ahmedis were assaulted for their faith in Nankana Sahab near Lahore.

August 12: Javed Ahmed escaped a murder attempt in Kunri (Sindh).

September 11: Zulfiquar Mansur was abducted in Quetta and a month later his dead body was found on the roadside on the city.s outskirts.

September 26: Ahmed Farooqi was shot dead in Uch Sharif, Bahawalpur.

November 25: Dr Pervaiz Zareef of Bhati Gate, Lahore narrowly escaped an attempt on his life.

November 26: Rana Saleem Ahmad, the Deputy Amir of Jamaat Ahmediya Sanghar, was shot at and killed.

Activities inciting religious intolerance were ignored rather than punished, often leading to serious consequences

Major incidents of violence against religious minorities

The Layyah incident

On January 28, a case under Section 295-C of the Penal Code was registered against five men belonging to the Ahmediya community at Kot Sultan police station of Layyah district where around half a dozen Ahmediya families lived.

Four of the accused were boys studying at matriculation level. They were accused of writing the name of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on the walls of a mosque’s toilet in village 172/TDA. Although the accused denied the allegation made against them, they were arrested and detained. The fifth accused was a labourer.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) fact-finding mission sent to Layyah on February 1, 2009, a few days prior to the lodging of the FIR, a resident of Chak 173/TDA named Muhammad Safdar saw the name of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) written on the mosque’s toilet. He told the prayer leader, Qari Muhammad Saeed, about the writing. According to Masood Ahmed, representative of the Ahmadiyya community in Layyah, six Ahmadi families had been living in village 172/TDA for over 50 years and had had no dispute or enmity with any other community member.

The nazim of the area was asked to probe the matter. It was learnt that four students from the Ahmediya community, namely, Mohammad Irfan, Tahir Imran, Tahir Mehmood and Naseeb Ahmed, used to offer prayers in the mosque and also used its toilets. After the investigation, the Ahmedis were stopped from offering prayers in the mosque, and it was said the villagers believed that the Ahmedis, being the only non-Muslims coming to the mosque, must have committed the sacrilege.

After the registration of the case with the police, the Ahmediya community voluntarily handed over all those nominated in the FIR to the police. The students assured the authorities that they had not written the Prophet’s name in the mosque’s toilets nor had committed any other crime. The students told the authorities that their matriculation examination was due to begin on March 4 and requested to be released.

However, the accused were transferred from Kot Sultan police station, around 20 kilometers from the village, to Saddar police station in Layyah city. The HRCP team went to the police station and requested permission to talk to the accused, but the SHO turned down the request and said he was only responsible for the custody of the accused as it was not his police station.s case. However, the police and villagers conceded that there was no witness or evidence of the Ahmadis’ involvement in the alleged blasphemy and as required by law, no investigation was carried out by the SP investigation prior to the arrest of the accused. The bail applications of the boys were rejected quite a few times and they had to take their examination while in confinement. Eventually, they were granted bail after six months of their arrest.
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Recommendations 

1. A transparent and fair investigation must be carried out soon after any attacks on minorities in order to enforce justice and ensure that innocent people are not victimized.
2. The prevailing blasphemy law is arbitrary and should be repealed. The allegations of blasphemy or defiling of religious scriptures, irrespective of their veracity, do not warrant vigilante attacks. Nor do they absolve the government of its primary duty to protect all citizens. Effective prosecution of offenders would serve as a deterrent to future attacks, while a lack of it would encourage impunity. The federal government must take action to ensure that laws on the statute books are not abused to harass or ostracize citizens.
3. Workshops should be held for school teachers and administrators to sensitise them to the issue of religious tolerance as they play a key role in building the school.s atmosphere and exercise considerable influence over their pupils. The government should adopt a policy of promoting extra-curricular activities to promote religious understanding and tolerance in schools. For example, Muslim students may be taken to places of worship of other religions like churches and temples to familiarize themselves with religious practices and customs of minority groups.
4. A strict check must be kept on the dissemination of literature and audio-visual material promoting hatred against any religious communities or sects.
5. Special steps are needed to check the persecution of Ahmadis.

Appendix - II
HRCP stands

Freedom of belief and religion

February 12: Five Ahmadis detained on charges of blasphemy in Layyah district have been held virtually without any proof or witnesses, HRCP has said.

The commission, which had sent a fact-finding team to Layyah district last week, said its findings concluded that an investigation, mandated by law prior to the registration of a blasphemy case, was also not held.

The HRCP team learned that a prayer leader in the village had allowed Ahmadi students from a nearby tuition centre to offer prayers in his mosque. The students were later threatened by a government schoolteacher and never went to the mosque again. Around 10 days later, some villagers claimed finding blasphemous writings in the mosque’s toilet.

In the First Information Report (FIR), the complainant said: “Since these Ahmadis are the only non-Muslims coming to the mosque, therefore they must have committed the offence”. The ‘argument’ was heard time and again during the HRCP team’s interviews with the mosque administration, some villagers and the local police.

The police and villagers conceded that there were no witnesses or evidence of the Ahmadis’ involvement. The HRCP team found elements belonging to banned extremist organisations and a relative of the National Assembly member from the area had pressurised the police to register a case. “It is clear that a local politician has also used his influence” to book the Ahmadis, the Commission’s report said.

HRCP said the complainant and his extremist supporters are adamant that the Ahmadis should be punished on the basis of presumption.

HRCP has demanded a prompt and transparent investigation into the matter to ensure that innocent people are not victimised. It has also demanded the government ensure that the Ahmadiyya community in the village is not harassed or ostracised. The Commission has also asked the government to take prompt measures to rule out misuse of the blasphemy law.