Peace and Justice Post

The News International, November 21, 2007

Police baton-charge journalists rally in Karachi

180 media persons arrested, freed

By Shamim Bano

KARACHI: Police on Tuesday 20 November baton-charged a rally of journalists to prevent them from reaching the Governor House to protest against curbs on the media.

The brute use of force by the police led to the arrest of 180 journalists, including women, many of whom courted arrest outside the Karachi Press Club (KPC). The rally was organised by the Karachi Union of Journalists as part of the ongoing countrywide protests called by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) against the curbs on the media and the ban on Geo and ARYone world TV channels.

Barricades had been erected by the police all around the Press Club building to prevent protesters from proceeding to the Governor House. The media people took to the streets chanting “Hum Chheen Key Lengey Azadi” (we will snatch freedom), “Hum Nahi Mantey Zulm Key Zabtey” (we do not accept the rule of tyranny).

As they marched towards the Governor House to register their protest against the government’s curbs against the media, the police officials tried to forcibly prevent them and a clash between journalists and police personnel started. Police arrested about 25 senior journalists, including KPC President Sabihuddin Ghousi, KUJ President Shamim-ur-Rahman, KUJ Secretary Javed Chaudhry, KPC Treasurer Amir Latif, Ahfaz-ur-Rahman, Shakil Salawat, Moosa Kaleem, and others. Following the detention of their senior colleagues, around 200 journalists, including women, courted arrest.

Those who courted arrest included Editor Reporting The News Kamal Siddiqi and Director News Geo English Owais Tauhid, Secretary Association of TV Journalists Faisal Aziz and many others including Raja Tariq, Najeeb, Afzal Nadeem, Sabina Agha, AH Khanzada, Xari Jalil, Rahma Mohammad, Asra Pasha, Shehzad Anwer, Tariq Abul Hasan, Faheem Siddiqi, Zarar Khan, Nizam Siddiqi, Dodo Chandio, Arbab Chandio, Huma Imtiaz and Asif Mehmood.

The police brutally beat up President Association of Television Journalists (ATJ) Javed Saba, when he tried to pacify the journalists. The police shifted the journalists to five police stations: Docks, Frere, Darakhshan, Clifton and Civil Lines.

Keep reading . . .

Vanity Fair

The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.

by Joseph E. Stiglitz December 2007

The American economy can take a lot of abuse, but no economy is invincible. Illustration by Edward Sorel.

When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.

I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.

And it gets worse. After almost seven years of this president, the United States is less prepared than ever to face the future. We have not been educating enough engineers and scientists, people with the skills we will need to compete with China and India. We have not been investing in the kinds of basic research that made us the technological powerhouse of the late 20th century. And although the president now understands—or so he says—that we must begin to wean ourselves from oil and coal, we have on his watch become more deeply dependent on both.

Up to now, the conventional wisdom has been that Herbert Hoover, whose policies aggravated the Great Depression, is the odds-on claimant for the mantle “worst president” when it comes to stewardship of the American economy. Once Franklin Roosevelt assumed office and reversed Hoover’s policies, the country began to recover. The economic effects of Bush’s presidency are more insidious than those of Hoover, harder to reverse, and likely to be longer-lasting. There is no threat of America’s being displaced from its position as the world’s richest economy. But our grandchildren will still be living with, and struggling with, the economic consequences of Mr. Bush.

Continued . . .

Human Rights Watch,

Court Doubles Sentence for Victim, Bans Her Lawyer From the Case

(New York, November 17, 2007) – A court in Saudi Arabia doubled its sentence of lashings for a rape victim who had spoken out in public about her case and her efforts to seek justice, Human Rights Watch said today. The court also harassed her lawyer, banning him from the case and confiscating his professional license.

An official at the General Court of Qatif, which handed down the sentence on November 14, said the court had increased the woman’s sentence because of “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.” The court sentenced the rape victim to six months in prison and 200 lashes, more than double its October 2006 sentence after its earlier verdict was reviewed by Saudi Arabia’s highest court, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary.

Human Rights Watch called on King Abdullah to immediately void the verdict and drop all charges against the rape victim and to order the court to end its harassment of her lawyer.

Keep reading . . .

 Green Left

Tony Iltis 16 November 2007

While Pakistan’s dictator General Pervez Musharraf has justified his November 3 imposition of emergency rule with the supposed threat of Islamic terrorism, the brunt of the crackdown has been felt by students, trade unionists, the left, the mainstream opposition parties, civil society and the movement of advocates (lawyers) — who have been in the forefront of resistance to the regime since March.

This was illustrated on November 4 when over 100 activists were arrested at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s Lahore office while, at the same time, 25 Taliban militants were released as part of a prisoner exchange for 213 soldiers.

The state of emergency began with the pre-emptive arrest of hundreds of activists and advocates. The latter led mass protests after Musharraf sacked supreme court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in March, due to his upholding of judicial independence. These protests saw Chaudhry reinstated in July. The likelihood that the Supreme Court would rule against Musharraf being able to run for president while remain head of the military was the most likely reason for the declaration of the state of emergency that has seen Chaudhry and other Supreme Court judges placed under house arrest.

Continued . . .

Monthly Review, November 19, 2007
by Hisham Bustani

The situation of the Arab Left is similar to “the phenomenon of the transformation of the Left” on the global scale and a reflection of it. The reason is simple: the Arab Left, as a general rule though with some exceptions, was never a “Left” in the dialectical materialist sense. It has always been a reserved, conservative entity, “reactionary” rather than proactive, “importing” theory rather than producing it, adhering to the “letter of the text” (mainly the text of the Soviet policy!) rather than being an innovative critical thinker.

Below I attempt to dissect the main weaknesses of the Arab Left, as well as the obstacles it faced, and discuss whether there really was an Arab Left at all. This is of special importance since, coming from a Marxist position itself, criticism will help in evolving a revolutionary Left again in the Arab region and the world.

Under the British and French occupation, the division of al-Mashreq al-Arabi (the Arab East, divided by colonialists into the states we know today as Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq) took place for many objective reasons:

Continued . . .

On August the 1, 1969, Time magazine quoted Generalissimo Francisco Franco saying, “Conscious of my responsibility before God and history and taking into account the qualities to be found in the person of Prince Juan Carlos of Borbón, who has been perfectly trained to take up the high mission to which he might be called, I have decided to propose him to the nation as my successor.” With this statement began the formal relationship between Spain’s present king and the country’s fascist dictator.

In November 2007 at the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago de Chile, the King of Spain, Juan Carlos, pointed his finger at Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and asked him, “Why don’t you shut up?” after Chávez had called José María Aznar, Spain’s former prime minister, a fascist, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the current Spanish prime minister, was trying to defend Aznar.

This scene from the Ibero-American Summit has now travelled the globe through every mainstream news media channel, however it has been used once again as an opportunity to attack Hugo Chavez for his rudeness and out of line commentary, when in fact not only is it a fairly accurate statement, but it also should be used as an opportunity by political analysts worldwide to bring out the extent to which fascist factions are still very much alive in Spain’s political reality.

Keep reading . . .

Published on Sunday, November 18, 2007 by The Toronto Star

by Haroon Siddiqui

Those who were most gung-ho about the invasion and occupation of Iraq have been the least helpful in mopping up the mess there. Those least enthusiastic have ended up bearing the greatest burden.

The United States and Britain have accepted only a handful of the 4.2 million displaced Iraqis. Ditto Kuwait, which was the most bellicose of America’s pro-war Arab allies. Ditto Saudi Arabia, that other staunch American ally. It has shut its border with Iraq, and plans to fortify it with a $2 billion fence.

Stephen Harper, who as leader of the opposition agitated for Canada to join the war, has been silent as prime minister about admitting Iraqi refugees to Canada.

On the other hand, Syria and Jordan, which strongly opposed the war, have accepted 2 million Iraqi refugees, and done so gracefully.

Keep reading . . . 

From The Times

November 20, 2007

Zahid Hussain in Islamabad

Pakistan’s neutered Supreme Court dismissed the main challenges to the reelection of Pervez Musharraf as President yesterday, taking him a step closer to quitting as army chief and restoring civilian rule.

Stripped of hostile judges by General Musharraf under a state of emergency, because he feared that it would rule he was ineligible for another five-year term, the new-look court took just over two hours to throw out the cases.

General Musharraf has promised to hang up his uniform, one of the key demands of the opposition and the international community, as soon as his victory in last month’s presidential election is validated. The final legal challenge is expected to be considered, and dismissed, on Thursday.

Keep reading . . .

Counterpunch, November 19, 2007

Hang the Judges and Lawyers Out to Dry

By CHINA HAND

The United States has been oddly silent on the central, precipitating factor in Pakistan’s crisis: Musharraf’s use of the State of Emergency to move against the Supreme Court that was poised to disallow his election to another term as president.

The most likely interpretation is that the U.S. will disregard the illegality of Musharraf’s bid for another term as president if he takes office as a civilian and lifts the State of Emergency prior to parliamentary elections.

It looks like that’s what’s going on. And that probably means the judiciary gets hung out to dry.

In John Negroponte’s statement before leaving Pakistan there wasn’t a word about restoring the Supreme Court, releasing the lawyers and judges from jail, or maintaining an independent judiciary.

Keep reading . . .

The Times of India, 19 Nov 2007

Chidanand Rajghatta

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration has given Pakistan’s military dictator Pervez Musharraf a wide berth despite a “tough” public stance against the imposition of Emergency.

US Special Envoy John Negroponte was all praise for Musharraf as he left Islamabad in the face of the dictator’s defiant stand in rejecting calls to lift Emergency, broadly sticking to Washington’s game plan of a introducing a quasi-civilian government.

In short, there appears to be no change in the US masterplan of inducting a Musharraf-Benazir government, notwithstanding the dictators crackdown on democracy and the acrimonious drama between the two principals.

Keep reading . . .