Archive for the ‘Pakistan’ Category
June 18, 2010
Outlook India, June 14, 2010
AP
Mourning after Grief-stricken Ahmadis
pakistan: the ahmadis
Wretched Of The Land
The attack on their mosques exposes the raw wound that is Ahmadi existence here
| Ahmadis In Pakistan |
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Ahmadis In India |
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| Population: 4 million |
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Population: Estimated to be from 60,000 to 1 million |
| Headquarters: Rabwah town, Punjab |
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Headquarters: Qadian in Gurdaspur district, Punjab, where the sect was established. The 2001 census counted roughly 20,000 Ahmadis in Qadian. |
| Status: Since 1974, declared non-Muslim |
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Why low numbers: Partition saw the bulk of Ahmadis becoming citizens of Pakistan |
| What they can’t do: Call themselves Muslim, offer prayers in mosques, quote Quranic verses in their newspaper, propagate their religion |
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Status: Several high court verdicts say they must be treated as Muslim |
| Threats from fundamentalists: They say it is ‘permissible to kill’ them. Some 2,000 died in riots in 1953, suffered untold misery in 1974. The attacks on them claimed nearly 100 lives. |
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What they can’t do: They don’t sit on the Muslim Personal Law Board, but are governed by Muslims |
As the international media frenetically reported the simultaneous terror attacks on the two mosques of the Ahmadi community in Lahore, Pakistani journalists countenanced an arrantly absurd situation—they were required to eschew the M-word under law. In their dispatches, as poignant as any, the two Ahmadi mosques became mere “places of worship”. Between the two nomenclatures—mosque and place of worship—lies the gulf separating Muslims from non-Muslims in Pakistan. The wishes of Ahmadis do not matter, their own definition of themselves as Muslim counts for nothing. The Constitution of Pakistan declares them as non-Muslim and proscribes the use of the word mosque to describe their places of worship. The defiant can flout the law at their own peril.
Tags:1974 campaing against Ahmadis, Ahmadis, discrimination against Ahmadis, Human rights, Pakistan, religious persecution of Ahmadis
Posted in Commentary, crime, Human rights, Pakistan, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
June 18, 2010
Black Friday, the May 28th massacre of Ahmadi worshipers while at Friday prayers, has been a dark reminder of the terrible conditions that Pakistan’s non-Sunni and non-Muslim communities live in. At least part of the problem is the Pakistani state’s institutionalization of legalized discrimination against Ahmadis and various other groups. These horrible and inhuman laws must go.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. We call on the Pakistani government to repeal these terrible laws, bring perpetrators of violence to justice, and take steps to separate religion from government.
Please sign our petition calling on the government to take these steps! Signing the petition takes only a few seconds and none of your personal information is saved. Please do this now, and please spread the word widely and ask others to sign the petition as well.
Tags:massacre of Ahmadi worshipers, Non-Muslims in Pakistan, Pakistan's religious minorites, Pakistani unjust laws
Posted in Human rights, Pakistan, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
June 14, 2010
In Lahore, Pakistan, reported the Washington Post on May 29, “Militants staged coordinated attacks … on two mosques of a minority Muslim sect, taking hostages and killing at least 80 people. … At least seven men armed with grenades, high-powered rifles and suicide vests stormed the mosques as Friday prayers ended.”
Nice, really nice, very civilized. It’s no wonder that decent Americans think that this is what the United States is fighting against — Islamic fanatics, homicidal maniacs, who kill their own kind over some esoteric piece of religious dogma, who want to kill Americans over some other imagined holy sin, because we’re “infidels”. How can we reason with such people? Where is the common humanity the naive pacifists and anti-war activists would like us to honor?
And then we come to the very last paragraph of the story: “Elsewhere in Pakistan on Friday, a suspected U.S. drone-fired missile struck a Taliban compound in the South Waziristan tribal area, killing eight, according to two officials in the region.”
Continues,
Tags:CIA, drone attacks as international crime, Pakistan, Predator drone attacks, terrorism, U.S. foreign policy, United States, William Blum
Posted in Commentary, crime, Pakistan, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war, war crimes | Leave a Comment »
June 13, 2010
Irish Sun, Friday 11th June, 2010
(IANS)
The toll in the US drone strike in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area has risen to 15 while 10 were wounded in the incident Friday, media reports said.
The drone fired four missiles at a house in Datta Khel area, killing four people on the spot, Xinhua quoted a news channel as saying.
The injured were rushed to a hospital as 11 people succumbed to injuries later, the private Geo News channel reported, citing local sources. Several others were in critical condition.
Continues >>
Tags:Pakistan, people killed and injured, United States, US drone strike, war
Posted in Commentary, Pakistan, Uncategorized, US policy, war | 1 Comment »
May 26, 2010
Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, May 25, 2010
The United States military is in the process of taking bids from private war contractors to secure and ship massive amounts of US military equipment through sensitive areas of Pakistan into Afghanistan where it will then be distributed to various US Forward Operating Bases and other facilities. According to the contract solicitation [PDF], “There will be an average of 5000” import shipments “transiting the Afghanistan and Pakistan ground lines of communication (GLOC) per month, along with 500 export shipments.” The solicitation states that, “This number may increase or decrease due to US military transportation requirements,” adding, “The contractor must maintain a constant capability to surge to any location within Afghanistan or Pakistan” within a 30-day period. Among the duties the contractor will perform is “intelligence, to include threat assessments throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Continues >>
Tags:Afghanistan and Pakistan, contractors, Jeremy Scahill, Kestral Logistics, NCL Holdings, United States military, US military equipment
Posted in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »
May 22, 2010
At least six people have been killed in a U.S. drone missile attack in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
At least six people have been killed in a U.S. drone missile attack in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, Pakistani intelligence officials said on Saturday.
But residents in the area said 12 people, including four women and two children, were killed. They said those killed were civilians and were from the same family.
The missiles struck a house around midnight in a village about 25 km (15 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, the officials said.
Six women and two children were also wounded in the attack and being treated at a hospital in Miranshah, one witness said.
More than 900 people have been killed in over 100 drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2008.
U.S. ally Pakistan officially objects to the drone strikes, saying they are a violation of its sovereignty, which complicates Pakistan’s efforts against militancy.
It was the fifth drone missile strike in northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, since a failed bid to set off a car bomb in New York’s Times Square on May 1.
Reuters
Tags:civilians killed, North Waziristan, Pakistan, U.S. drone missile
Posted in Pakistan, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »
May 21, 2010
STRASBOURG — The EU parliament on Thursday called on Pakistan to guarantee minority rights, claiming that its blasphemy laws could be used to murder members of political, racial and religious minorities.
In a resolution adopted in Strasbourg, the assembled Euro MPs expressed “deep concern” at the Pakistani blasphemy laws, calling for a “thoroughgoing review” of the legislation which is “open to misuse.”
The laws can carry the death sentence and are “often used to justify censorship, criminalisation, persecution and, in certain cases, the murder of members of political, racial and religious minorities,” the parliament said in a strongly-worded statement.
Continues >>
Tags:blasphemy laws, EU parliament's call, Pakistan, violence against religious minorities
Posted in Human rights, Pakistan, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 19, 2010
David Walsh, wsws.org, May 18, 2010
The New York Times reported May 15 that the US military was continuing “to rely on a secret network” of spies and paramilitary assassins in Afghanistan and Pakistan, two months after the newspaper first brought the unit to public attention.
At the time, in March 2010, the network, under the supervision of Michael Furlong, a longtime Pentagon dirty tricks operator, was routinely described by the media and military US officials as “off-the-books” or “unauthorized.” Much ado was made about a Defense Department criminal investigation into Furlong’s activities and the millions of dollars spent on the program he allegedly directed.
Continues >>
Tags:Afghanistan and Pakistan, David Walsh, network and Michael Furlong, United States, US military's secret network
Posted in Afghanistan, Commentary, crime, Pakistan, Uncategorized, USA | 1 Comment »
May 19, 2010
by Kathy Kelly and Josh Brollier, Voices For Creative Democracy, May 18, 2010
Islamabad—On May 12th, the day after a U.S. drone strike killed 24 people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, two men from the area agreed to tell us their perspective as eyewitnesses of previous drone strikes.
One is a journalist, Safdar Dawar, General Secretary of the Tribal Union of Journalists. Journalists are operating under very difficult circumstances in the area, pressured by both militant groups and the Pakistani government. Six of his colleagues have been killed while reporting in North and South Waziristan. The other man, who asked us not to disclose his name, is from Miranshah city, the epicenter of North Waziristan. He works with the locally based Waziristan Relief Agency, a group of people committed to helping the victims of drone attacks and military actions. “If people need blood or medicine or have to go to Peshawar or some other hospital,” said the social worker, “I’m known for helping them. I also try to arrange funds and contributions.”
Continues >>
Tags:drone attacks under Obama administration, journalist Safdar Dawar, Kathy Kelly and Josh Brollier, killings in Waziristan, North Waziristan, U.S. drone strike
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Pakistan, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, war | Leave a Comment »
May 16, 2010
By Kathy Kelly and Josh Brollier, ZNet, May 16, 2010
Kathy Kelly’s ZSpace Page
In May of 2009, under tremendous pressure from the United States, the Pakistani military began a large-scale military operation in the Swat District of Pakistan to confront militants in the region. The UNHCR said the operation led to one of the largest and fastest displacements it had ever seen. Within ten days, more than two million people fled their homes.
Continues >>
Tags:militants, Pakistan Human Rights Commission on military operations in Swat, Pakistani government under US pressure, Pakistani military attack on Swat, two million people fled
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, imperialism, Pakistan, Uncategorized, US policy, war | Leave a Comment »
Peace and Justice Post 
Cruel fate of Ahmadis in Pakistan
June 18, 2010Outlook India, June 14, 2010
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Tags:1974 campaing against Ahmadis, Ahmadis, discrimination against Ahmadis, Human rights, Pakistan, religious persecution of Ahmadis
Posted in Commentary, crime, Human rights, Pakistan, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »