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review cause Talking
out of chaos women’s
day While
neighbours grow War
for education Follow the
legal course on journalists’ killings
The missing Baloch who is dead The HRCP booklet, authored by Mohammed Hanif, aims to create a shared world between the reader and the writer, one that cannot be shared elsewhere than through the story, and it asks for meaningful response on the basis of ‘feeling’ and ‘empathy’ By Sarah Humayun The Baloch who
is not missing anymore, in the eponymous story from a slim pamphlet
authored by Mohammed Hanif for the HRCP, is dead. The ‘missing’ are
those whose bodies, dead or alive, have not yet been found. In the last
story, ‘Looking for Uncle Ali’, one of the relatives of a missing
Baloch is informed by his interlocutor with “military-style optimism”
that “We are not that bad. If we kill your uncle, you’ll find the body
somewhere”. Eleven years later, no
body has been found. In the meanwhile, his
family has had to wait ten years to get the FIR registered, and that only
after a high-profile Supreme Court case. Reading the story, I
made a list of people who have helped or threatened the Bangalzais in
their search for Ali. It includes: Colonel Zafar from Military
Intelligence; a Quetta High Court judge who says “These people are in
uniform, what can we do about them?”; the Quetta Corp Commander; Hafiz
Hussain Ahmed, “the source of their miseries”, who is nevertheless
moved enough to intervene twice on their behalf, and is served tea at the
ISI office; Brigadier Siddique (head of the ISI in Quetta); his
replacement; a General Zaki in Islamabad; Jam Yusuf (then Chief Minister
of Balochistan); the Intelligence Bureau chief; and former Governor Ovais
Ghani, who tells them: “If you continue your protests, I can’t
guarantee your safety”. What is the source of
the extraordinary power we see at work here? Simply, it consists in not
having to answer anyone. Military personnel turn ministers away from their
office, cannot be called in for meetings by chief ministers or governors,
do not answer requests for information from other government security
agencies or court summons, and cannot be arrested by the police even on
the orders of the highest court of the land. These stories are not
just about the missing but about those who miss them. They detail lives
that have been reduced to the struggle to establish whether their loved
ones are alive or, failing that, dead. Their kin speak in this volume
about the waste of their own lives. Farzana “gets angry when she talks
about herself… ‘I have my life. I have my needs. What kind of life is
this? I am spending my life at protest camps in the hope that they will
not kill my brother’.” Nasrullah Bangalzai
says, “I think the whole family has psychological problems. We are all
mentally sick”. This pamphlet raises
some urgent questions, and not because it makes unheard-of revelations.
Some of the accounts found here can be read in previously published HRCP
and Human Rights Watch reports which provide important facts and context
about enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Why, then, get a celebrated
novelist like Hanif to write them up as ‘stories’, a form shared by
journalism and fiction? In a brief introductory
note to the volume, the chairperson of the HRCP writes that “it was
after reading Mohammed Hanif’s account of his meeting with Qadeer Baloch
in Dawn that the idea of the book came to me”. It was ‘moving — and
disturbing — in a way statistics can never be’. Noting that Hanif
tells the story of the missing “with empathy and understanding”, it
hopes that “this publication will evoke similar feelings in those in a
position to meaningfully address the suffering of these families”. The book is intended to
go beyond providing information, or recognising and enumerating the wrong;
it aims to create a shared world between reader and writer, one that
cannot be shared elsewhere than through the story, and it asks for
meaningful response on the basis of ‘feeling’ and ‘empathy’.
Perhaps this is possible, if it is through the suffering of others that we
learn to understand our own. The first persons of
these stories, preserved in Hanif’s ironic, quietly enraged
second-person narration, are not telling stories of political
victimisation stretching back for generations and based on irreconcilable
political and economic injustice. Nor is the writer interested in
providing an analysis of their political affiliations, the rights or
wrongs of a cause. Baloch nationalism is
the missing story from this volume. But this has its advantage: the paring
away of political commentary helps bring to the fore a brutal dispute
about the right to engage in political activity, and sheds light on
precisely how it threatens and is thwarted by the state — the ensemble
of the ISI, MI, FC, police and government representatives, politicians in
office, and judges. Paradoxically, this
ensemble would not be able to act thus in the name of the ‘state’ if
it had to account for its actions. Perhaps the greatest service that the
pamphlet does is to dispel the impression that the story of the missing
persons is one of mere excesses by a few wayward soldiers. “Why do they
keep them in custody for years before killing them… if they want to kill
them, why don’t they just kill them?” This question, asked
repeatedly by the relatives of the missing, goes to the secret of the
power being mobilised to punish the Baloch. Denial of information about
abducted persons is not an accidental but essential feature of enforced
disappearances. Those acting in the name of the state are claiming the
power to make people they judge ‘anti-state’ vanish. And they reserve
the privilege of making their criteria invisible, too, for a discussion of
criteria would immediately open up the political and judicial questions
that enforced disappearances are meant to keep a lid on. The stories recount
unclaimed detention, refusal to bring charges or reveal whereabouts,
unauthorised inquiries about the abducted persons’ political
affiliations by intelligence men who drop in on the families and kindle
false hopes of release, torture, misleading threats and promises by
politicians and in some cases judges, and fabrication of cases by less
powerful security agencies against detained persons and sometimes against
family members. All this provides powerful clues about the overall
function that enforced disappearances serve in state action against
provincial nationalists. The intention is to waste lives, to embroil
political struggle in a repetitive and deadening confrontation with
brutality, fear and secrecy, and establish the ‘state’s’ power by
random, arbitrary and unaccountable action. Considerations of
reasons and legality would turn the discussion from faceless state versus
nebulous enemy to a political grievance pursued through a diversity of
methods, with differing rationales and degrees of legitimacy. A calculus
of strength would, at least to some extent, be changed to one of
justification and persuasion. It is worth asking:
exactly what does the state lose in the shift from establishing its
strength vis a vis those who challenge it, to engaging in compromise and
giving power away to keep it? If political negotiation can neutralise the
state’s will or ability to act against ‘enemies’, as is sometimes
claimed, then what kind of enemies are they? How are these enemies being
imagined and interpreted in public discourse? This pamphlet can, I
think, make a small contribution to asking such questions. Perhaps, the
line of reasoning from opposing provincial separatism to kidnapping and
killing people goes like this: to ask the ruled for their consent in being
ruled, to proceed according to norms of justification and restraint, is to
lose the appearance of having a ‘monopoly of force’. The Pakistani public
space, including elements in it that claim to be speaking for the cause of
a progressive society, is pervaded by assertions that the solution to the
fearful disorder that afflicts the country lies in empowering the state to
the point where it becomes an invincible bulwark against its enemies —
sub-nationalists, sectarian terrorists and militant extremists. This
discourse often positions itself on the side of democracy; but we may
question whether this conception of the state as a monolith that
monopolises all power and acts simultaneously on behalf of the people as
well as in what it considers to be their best interest, is one necessarily
cut out to service a procedural and representative democracy. Politics that advance
democracy invest not in the monolith of the ‘strong state’ but in
differential power relations between agents who are capable of engaging in
a reasonably (but not absolutely) norm-bound process of contestation. The narratives in this
pamphlet can, perhaps, be read as reports on Pakistan’s infatuation with
the idea of a strong state. To state the obvious, security, in a
democratic context, cannot be achieved through a monopoly of strength. The
striking personal testimony these stories offer should complicate rather
than clarify the ideas of security and nationhood that are currently being
advanced with such confidence as the basis of state action against various
enemies, all of whom have in common that they do not recognise the
legitimacy of the state, or recognise it only to the extent that the state
accommodates their ideologies. Whether and to what
extent the ‘state’ can in return wilfully divest them of the rights
possessed by citizens is not merely a question of observance of legality.
It will also decide whether the final arbiter of power is political
disputation or a show of naked strength.
cause I have met Ahsan
Jamil several times during my frequent visits to Karachi over the years. A
modest, lively, kind man and a close childhood friend of my friend Beena
Sarwar; when I met him once again a little over a year ago, he was
positively beaming. It was a cool summer
evening in Karachi and we were out on the porch at Beena’s house. Ahsan
was inviting her to come and checkout the new work he was doing. He could
give us a tour of the facility, he said, extending the invitation to me as
well. Over the past year, he
had been busy setting up an ambulance service in Karachi — one that
would serve the whole city with its over 18 million inhabitants. I was
amazed that this man, in his late forties, was finally doing what he had
always wanted. He had quit the family business and was happier than ever
heading the newly-formed Aman Foundation — a not-for-profit that aims to
provide ground-breaking health and education services to Pakistanis —
envisioned and funded by the entrepreneur Arif Naqvi and his family. The next morning Ahsan
came to collect us. Steering through the mad Karachi traffic, it wasn’t
long before he pointed to an ambulance, one of the Foundation’s brand
new fleet. Painted a distinctive cheerful yellow, the vehicle was parked
under a flyover. We were on our way to the headquarters of the ambulance
service, which was then situated in the north of the megapolis. As we
drove and Ahsan explained his passion, I saw several of these ambulances
deployed at different strategic points to quickly respond to those in
need. We pulled up in front of
a nondescript building, and walked through a long driveway into a neat
office, clean and well organised. Young women in crisp green uniforms and
headphones sat at their stations lined in a row along the wall. In front
of them were laminated sheets of paper outlining the protocols they needed
to follow with questions and directives when anybody called to report an
emergency. Some uniformed young men were busy in a glass-enclosed cubicle
in one corner, seeing to other operations. On one wall hung a huge
screen with a map of the city, featuring little red flags to mark the
locations of the ambulances. Every move they made could be followed. It
was quiet when we entered, but then the phone calls started coming in,
keeping most of the operators busy. Repeating their questions: where are
you precisely, can you give the name of a nearby street, no, please
ma’am, don’t turn the person who is hurt on his back, sit next to him,
talk to him, don’t worry, we’re on our way… While talking, they
simultaneously flipped their meticulously spiral-bound protocols and typed
in important information, like level of injury and exact location of the
accident or emergency illness. In a small cubicle in the corner of the
office, three young men, also in uniform, gave orders into their phones
and before you knew it the red flagged dots on the screen started to move:
ambulance drivers on their way. Ahsan stood in the room
clearly happy to bear witness to a smooth operation run by capable
employees who had only just started this new enterprise. In a poor country like
Pakistan, a rescue operation that rushes you to a hospital after an
unfortunate accident can’t be taken for granted. It is not something
your government naturally provides for. Life is cheap in general and
governments are distant bodies that can’t be relied on. Health services
are often poor, with government hospitals providing subsidised, but often
inadequate treatment. If you want better treatment, it will cost you.
There are many things in Pakistan that could be improved that are
screaming for help — education, health and housing are just a few of the
problems in a sea of need. So where does one start if one has the means to
help, to make things better? Arif Naqvi, a few years
senior to Ahsan at school in Karachi, had a dream long before he took off
to the Middle East to make his fortune as an entrepreneur. His fortune he
made — but he never lost his love for Karachi, the city he grew up in.
And now that he had the means, he was determined to do something to help
make things better. Over the years, during
the course of their lives, getting married, having children, and making
their way in the world, he and Ahsan occasionally ran into each other.
Ahsan had always done his bit to help others in his own way — helping a
poor cleaning woman’s daughter to get an education, donating to private
charity initiatives. Nothing extraordinary, just what most middleclass
Karachiites do as they go about their lives, very aware of those in less
fortunate positions than themselves. Meanwhile, Arif Naqvi
wanted to use his money to fulfil a dream: an enterprise unspoiled by
corruption or mismanagement, a project he could leave to somebody capable
and trustworthy. In August 2008, Ahsan joined hands with Arif to help him
set up and shape Aman Foundation. This was a life-changing moment for
both. Arif Naqvi’s Aman
Trust seeded Aman Foundation with USD 100 million to help achieve its
mission of championing “dignity and choice for the underserved in
Pakistan through sustainable, scalable, and systemic development in the
areas of health and education”, with a special focus on capacity
building and female empowerment. The money has to be
spent in less than a decade constructing a reliable and eventually
self-sustaining Foundation, with impactful social businesses fulfilling
its mission. Alongside the Aman
Ambulance project, which has already conducted more than 400,000
interventions in Pakistan including flood-relief, preparations were made
to launch a vocational training institute for boys and girls. It was an
enormous project set up in a refurbished former warehouse in Karachi’s
Korangi industrial area. Currently headed by the former regional CEO of
Philips, the Institute, called Amantech, provides students access to all
kinds of technical skills at a subsidised cost. State-of-the-art
classrooms equipped with all kinds of motor engines and machines to
provide students with critical hands-on, practical training. However, the
lure of attending an internationally accredited course with guaranteed
jobs abroad and at home tops it all. Scholarships are provided to
deserving students who despite the subsidy cannot afford to pay. So far,
over 200 students have been accommodated in various organisations in
Pakistan and abroad, I learnt. The grounds of the
school are vast. There will be a pool, a cricket field and all sorts of
other facilities for boys and girls. In the weekend, when the campus is
empty, other schools and organisations can make use of them. The ones who
can pay, will pay; those who can’t will be welcome without cost. In a
society where rich are often filthy rich and poor are extremely poor, this
is Ahsan’s way of distributing wealth in an equal way. Ahsan aims to make the
Aman ambulance service financially self-reliant in the long term, while
ensuring that those who don’t have the means to pay will not be left on
the street. This is a concept he has to hammer into the heads of his
fellow citizens. This is a concept that they are not used to, and for
that, there is mistrust. For Ahsan, it’s crucial to get the message
across. The practice now is that when an accident takes place — which is
often — the bystanders turn away as quickly as possible. One never knows
who will come after you and force you into testimony that will cost you in
the end. As a consequence, the bleeding, suffering person is often left
without any help. That’s one of the many ways lives are lost in this
city. He believes that with
fully equipped interiors and trained staff (often including doctors), it
would be a waste to use the vehicles merely for corpse transport. Ahsan has learnt along
the way. As he points out, many of the hospitals or rather so-called
hospitals in this city are nothing more than mere buildings with beds.
There have been many instances in which a nurse or doctor on the ambulance
has been summoned to deal with this unsolvable dilemma. A dilemma that, in
numerous cases, drove home the awareness that these state of the art
ambulances are a solution to only one aspect of the problem, which
formulates small speck of an inadequate system. To the Aman team, it was
soon clear that apart from the ambulance fleet it was essential to upgrade
health facilities throughout the city. This led to the idea of the
community health workers and telehealth programmes that have now
materialised. The Aman Community Health Program and Aman Telehealth ensure
that healthcare can reach the under-served, providing access especially to
women who are often confined to their homes. Since its inception in
2008 with the school feeding programme — Aman Ghar (1.7+ million meals
served to-date) — the Aman dream has come a long way.
However, it still has a long way to go, transforming millions of
lives along the way. With global organisations such as Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, British Asian Trust and Fundacion Real Madrid joining
hands with Aman Foundation, there is finally some positive news towards
collaborative growth for social projects coming out from Pakistan. Since I last met Ahsan,
Aman Foundation has launched various other initiatives that have been
making a difference in the lives of those ravaged the most by poverty,
unrest and conflict in the city. They include: Teach For Pakistan,
Amansports, BasicNeeds Pakistan and INJAZ Pakistan — all of which focus
on the promotion of education and health to the under-served of Pakistan. The writer is a
television documentary producer in Holland who has been visiting Pakistan
for over 20 years. Additional inputs by Beena Sarwar caption Professionals at work to
make a difference.
Almost the
entire commentaries on the possible peace talks with the proscribed
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are focused on what and why to talk but
the most important part of how talks are to be conducted and implemented
has not been concentrated upon. There is little
disagreement, at least in political circles, on that talks should be held
but the all important implementation stage of agreement, which was
neglected in the past deals that led to their failure and restart of
militancy in the country, should be focused more than anything else. Khalid Aziz, Ex-Chief
Secretary Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and a tribal affairs expert, opines the
country’s political leadership is trying to build a national consensus
on what to do but neglecting how it is to be done. “Talks will be held as
had already been. Hopefully, peace agreements would be signed as earlier
done in Waziristan, Bajaur and Swat etc. Focus, to my mind, should have
been on the implementation stage of agreements. It should be from the
reverse side. It’s at the implementation stage that the real problems
lie. So that stage needs more attention,” says Aziz. “Accusations of
violation of the pact by each side and differences would certainly come
up. These have been responsible for failure of earlier
militants-government pacts in the past. Answers to questions like who
would be guarantors and responsible for implementation of the Jirga
decisions, who will monitor the daily/minute details of progress on
execution of agreement, what powers will they have etc needs to be
discussed at length and consensus be built over them by all stakeholders.
I mean there should be an elaborate implementation plan and execution
structure already in place before any pact is signed,” he elaborates.
“I think administrative support is more vital than political support for
the Tribal Jirga holding talks.” The Zardari-led Pakistan
People’s Party (PPP), the federal government and the Pakistan army have
neither supported nor rejected the talks. Their official policy statement
is also yet to come on the Tribal Jirga and the guarantors proposed by
Taliban. With militants
continuously attacking the military personnel and installations (they
released another video of beheading of six Pakistani soldiers recently),
the Army may be reluctant to accept talks for the fear that it may be
construed as weakness on its part. Aziz urges the inclusion
of Pakistan Army, the federal government, the KP government and all
political and religious parties and other stakeholders in the process. Though Taliban have
asked Nawaz Sharif, Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Syed Munawar Hasan to become
guarantors for the government and army, it is still not clear whether they
themselves would give authority to the Tribal Jirga or appoint their own
men for talks? And whether they would be acceptable to the government and
Army? Aziz says Taliban should
be talked to as to who would be their guarantors but, “I think, they
would try to solve the issue through tribal customs and prefer tribal
guarantors.” Will the Tribal Jirga
have the guts to give independent decision against the TTP if it genuinely
considers it on the wrong or will it pursue a policy of appeasement vis-à-vis
them? Afrasiab Khattak, the
president of the KP ANP, sounds optimistic that the peace talks would
succeed. “There is national consensus on three points: one, that
terrorism and extremism is a problem that must be addressed quickly; two,
that dialogue is the first priority and other options would follow later;
three, that the problem would be tackled within the framework of law,
constitution, security and sovereignty of the country,” he says. The Central vice-Amir of
JUI, Maulana Gul Naseeb Khan, is also hopeful. “We have organised the
APC that was attended by almost the entire political and religious
leadership from the opposition and the ruling sides. The basic
responsibility of the peace talks rests with Tribal Jirga. Maulana Fazlur
Rahman and KP Governor Engineer Shaukatullah will serve as a bridge
between the Jirga and the parties in the conflict.” Khan says the Jirga
will be extended in future and all parties will be included and taken
along if needed. “We have shown our
mettle in the past. We had held successful dialogue with the militants
during the MMA government. There was no operation, no terrorism when we
were in power during 2002-2007,” Khan claims. Asked whether the Tribal
Jirga will be given authority by Taliban and whether the Jirga will be in
a position to take independent decisions, Khattak says, “We should not
go into details at this point. All problems will be solved as the process
goes on. It is a continuous process. The Tribal Jirga is there and it
already has started its activities and talked to the governor whose office
would be a coordination office.” Gul Naseeb Khan says
waak or authority by both the contending sides is must for empowering the
Jirga to decide on the problem. Khattak argues violence
and terrorism is too big a problem to be solved overnight. “The present
status quo, no doubt, is unviable. It has to be wrapped up. For this, all
political parties and institution should sit together to chalk out its
workable alternative.” Will the federal
government and the security establishment own the talks process with
Taliban? Khattak says he could give assurance from the government side but
cannot say anything on behalf of Taliban. “The government and state
institutions are sincere in talks. They will abide by the decisions if the
talks are given political ownership by the national leadership. Our party
leader Asafandyar Wali Khan will meet President Zardari, PM Ashraf and
Army chief General Kayani and take them into confidence” There is no backup plan
as to what is to be done if talks fail to bring about peace in the
country. When asked as to what is to be done if talks fail, Khattak says
dialogue should be given a fair chance. “But if state’s writ is
consistently challenged and its law and sovereignty is not accepted, then
the state has the right to resort to other options and respond
accordingly.” Urgent steps The Tribal Jirga formed
by the JUI has members from all the tribal agencies. But as its members
were nominated by the JUI chief and may be his party men, they may be
biased towards a certain viewpoint. Unless the Jirga is expanded by
including members from other parties (and this should be done quickly), it
won’t get the respect and backing from the Pakistani society it needs. There is obviously a
communication gap between the stakeholders. There is a need to hold a
national conference of all stakeholders. The present policy of leaving
things to ‘the other’ by both civilian and military institutions
should be given up. The national leadership
should take up the responsibility instead of being in the background. If
Nawaz Sharif, Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Munawar Hasan and other
politicians claim they are national leaders and if they think Fata is part
of Pakistan and it needs to be brought under the state writ, then they
should lead from the front. A combined delegation
consisting of members of the PML-N, the JI, the JUI (F and S) and other
political parties, and teachers from Deobandi Madaris, military and civil
establishment, judiciary, journalists, civil society etc should be formed,
empowered and facilitated to start the dialogue process. It should ask the
parties in the conflict to stop attacks and halt operations. If any side
ignores its request and continues with its intransigence, it should inform
the nation and unite the entire nation against it. This joint Jirga should
seek authority from both the sides. It will then listen to the demands and
statements of both the sides separately. tahir_katlang@yahoo.com caption Everyone wants peace,
but how?
Guards of women’s honour The Qisas and Diyat laws need to be reviewed to protect women from violence and discriminatory cultural practices By Sameera Rashid The level of
violence against women is frighteningly high in Pakistan. Women are
killed, maimed, brutally tortured, raped and persecuted to perpetuate
patriarchal societal norms and, now, in these precarious times, to
vindicate ideology of religious fanatics. When violence against
women is justified in the name of socially approved traditions and
religious laws, unwittingly, it serves to legitimise those societal
values, structures and institutions that are the source of violence
against women. It is important to see how social customs and Qisas and
Diyat laws mutually work to obstruct provision of justice to women in the
cases of honour killings. According to Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 943 women became victim of honour
crimes in 2011. Honour killings are perpetrated by close relatives, or
clan members. The family honour, a notion rooted in sexual purity of a
woman, can be sullied from a mere glance of a female to an unrelated male,
from the decision of a woman to marry on her own , from seeking of a
divorce by a woman and from suspicion of an extramarital relationship. The centuries-old
tradition of killing women in the name of honour has not been eliminated
because penal provisions have been legislated, whether in common law
tradition or Islamic, that have considered transgression of a social norm
by women as a mitigating factor for a premeditated murder. The 1860
British penal code introduced the concepts of chastity, modesty and the
penal provision of “grave and sudden provocation”, which reduced a
charge of murder to one of manslaughter, was applied to honour killings. After independence, a
debate began to frame the laws of Pakistan according to the principles of
Islam, but the laws framed by the British colonial rulers were adopted
under the Adoption of Laws Act 1949. When Federal Shariat Court was
established in 1980, laws were challenged for being repugnant to Quran and
Sunnah and in case of Federation of Pakistan vs Gul Hassan, the Supreme
Court Shariat Appellate Bench directed that penal sections of Pakistan
Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, dealing with murder and bodily
hurt, must be brought in conformity to Islam. Thus, Qisas and Diyat were
introduced in 1990. The Qisas and Diyat laws
are based on precepts of equal retribution and compensation. The basic
principle of justice, in Islamic laws, as well as secular laws, is
proportionality or equal treatment — scales of justice should have
balance. So, the principle of Qisas: an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose
and a tooth for a tooth, a wound for a wound; and diyat: compensation for
the victim or the heirs of the victim has been enjoined in the Holy Quran.
Many Islamic jurists opine that the rationale behind making diyat part of
Islamic model of justice had been to end the cycle of violence and
vendetta that could be perpetuated by the retributive model of justice.
Therefore, to establish reconciliation between the families of victim and
the offender, the practice of compensatory payment was enshrined in the
Islamic laws. Additionally, voluntary nature of reconciliation served
another purpose too: offender might atone for his sins. Notwithstanding the
philosophical premise of the Qisas and Diyat laws, they can lead to
miscarriage of justice for victims of honour killings for three reasons.
First is judicial exception: if a victim’s killer is a parent,
grandparent, or a spouse survived by children born within marriage, then
certain constraints are placed on the implementation of qisas and tazir
under section 302(b) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which reduces
duration of imprisonment and in most of the cases, ends up in compromise
between the heirs of victims and killers. This leads to second
anomaly. As the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance essentially places the choice of
prosecution wholly in the hands of the victim or her heirs, rather than
the government, so, often, victims have no aggrieved party that can
contest their case. The reason is simple: male relatives murder their
female folk to redeem their honour with the consent of next kin of the
victim; and these heirs generally forgive the killers. For instance, a
brother killing his sister would be forgiven by the heirs of the victim,
which could be a mother, father or brothers of the victim. Therefore, the
state whose role is to protect the life and liberty of people becomes a
non-entity because of privatisation of legal process and justice. And, finally, the
tradition of considering threats to honour and provocation as mitigating
factors in honour killings remain intact under Qisas and Diyat laws. As
the conduct of a woman, killed in the name of honour, is seen to
contravene socio-cultural norms, the perception skews the outcome of the
possible sentence in favour of the killer whose motivation to kill is not
considered ‘premeditated’ by many judges. Thus, honour killings are
implicitly accepted under Qisas and Diyat Ordinance. That said, the Qisas and
Diyat laws need to be reviewed in Pakistan. It must be understood that
justice can be privatised in an ideal society where state intervenes
vigorously to protect women from violence and discriminatory cultural
practices. Holding up half the sky The most visible women are
there for all the wrong reasons. Their struggles should be made meaningful by translation
into structural changes in policies and practices By Dr Narmeen Hamid International
Women’s Day has rolled round again. Besides the usual gimmickry, it may
be used as a day for quiet reflection and for finding a way forward. Where
do Pakistani women stand today? One way of answering that question is to
gauge the level of visibility of women on the public consciousness radar
and relate that to public policies. The most visible women
are the ones who are there for all the wrong reasons. Malala, for being
shot, Mukhtaran for being raped, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and her cast of
characters for highlighting the cruelty of acid burning, Benazir Bhutto
for being killed. Yet these are all women who are symbols of courage,
resistance and strength. Their struggles should not be in vain, but
instead made meaningful by translation into structural changes in policies
and practices. Revamping of the police and justice systems, legislation
for the right to education, a zero-tolerance counter-terrorism strategy,
and women protection laws which are implemented in letter and spirit,
would be a way to honour the courage of these women. Then there are women
like Veena Malik and Meera. They feature high on the visibility index,
because they scandalize and titillate. But they too have a place in
society and a right to exist as individuals. Their antics should be
channelised to start constructive debates on regulation of the media and
entertainment industries, to come up with policies that are liberal and
allow artistic freedom of expression, yet do not infringe on religious and
cultural sensitivities and norms. Next are the vast
majority of the women of Pakistan. The teachers, the health workers, the
maids, the farm workers, the home based workers, the doctors, the
musicians, the journalists, the entrepreneurs, the sportswomen and the
housewives. They quietly go about their business, facing heavy odds as
much within their homes as outside, yet they create hardly a blip on the
radar. Without them in the background, the wheels of life would creak to a
stop. Each one of them is a star. Amongst this galaxy are
some like the group of young women from the Shimshal village near Hunza,
who scaled three 6000 metre peaks of the Karakorum range, or the bunch of
school girls from Lahore who won the NASA space settlement design contest
in Delhi. They are our real heroines, the ones we should celebrate and
showcase to the world as the image of Pakistan. And they should not be
treated as just one-off miracles, they and the million other unsung
heroines like them should be nurtured, supported and multiplied. Right at the bottom of
the heap are the women who are invisible because they are simply
‘missing’. Pakistan is among those countries where there is a negative
sex ratio, meaning there are less women than men in the population. This
is in large part due to the several forms of gender discrimination
beginning from before birth to death, and the high mortality rates of girl
children and mothers. An alert for those making health and gender
policies. Girls are missing from
schools. A lower number comes for enrolment and a progressively higher
number continues to drop out. Yet those who make it, show their mettle and
potential by consistently showing fantastic results in board examinations.
Thought is needed to ensure girls come to school and stay there, which
will mean thinking about transport, security, boundary walls, teachers,
toilets, incentives and the full implementation of article 25 A which
guarantees free and compulsory education to all children. Women are missing from
the labour market. Only about 25 per cent form a part of the formal labour
force, yet they carry a double, often triple burden of work in the
informal and ‘care’ economy, for which there is no acknowledgment or
reward. This is again a point to be discussed amongst policy makers to
bring more women into the formal economy, ensuring they have rights,
securities and minimum wages. A further point in the
context of employment that needs consideration is that the proportion of
women who are employed is higher among the illiterate women or those with
primary education than among those who are highly educated. This means
that higher education for women is not translating into gainful employment
and a contribution to the economy and national development. What are the
factors at play here, needs to be analysed and policies adapted to provide
conducive and enabling environments for women to work. And lastly women are
missing from the public space, which is shrinking every passing day.
Parks, roads, play grounds, markets, public transport, theatres, all
become less women friendly each day. Would you allow your daughter to
bicycle on the street today, would you allow her to go on a bus alone,
would you let her play in a public playground? The answer is no.
Cross-cutting policies are needed to make sure women feel secure in these
public spaces and can enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities as men. Mao Zedong famously said
“women hold up half the sky”. If that is true, then with so many women
missing, can men alone hold up the sky in Pakistan? Elections are round
the corner, political parties are brushing up their manifestoes. Let the
International Women’s Day this year be a wake up call to these parties
to include policies that will ensure that our sky does not fall.
While neighbours grow While China and
India — our neighbouring countries — continue to grow speedily,
Pakistan’s economy steadily weakened because of inept leadership and
gross mismanagement. China’s rise has been
so rapid that it has led some top analysts to conclude that as the US
continued to weaken, in the coming decades Beijing’s moment to lead the
world seemed imminent. Stephen King, HSBC’s Chief Global Economist, in a
report released by the Bank on January 9, 2013, said: “We are moving
away from a US or Europe-led world to a world led by China.” HSBC’s Emerging Market
Index for the last quarter of 2012 tells investors to think of the global
economy in terms of “two separate narratives”. The first is the “old
world” consisting of the US and Europe, which continue to experience an
ongoing de-leveraging. The second is the “new world” consisting of the
“structurally dynamic” emerging markets in general, but China in
particular. HSBC projects that
“China will make its biggest-ever contribution to global growth in
2014.” Part of this is attributed to a slight improvement in China’s
economy, which is expected to grow by 8.6% in 2013, up from 7.8% in 2012.
Although this is more robust than 5.4% growth rate of the emerging markets
as a whole, it is still a slower rate of growth than China experienced in
the pre-financial crisis era. While the Chinese rise
has taken the spotlight, few have taken notice of the rise of India, which
has been able to avoid attention all these years through shrewd
“camouflaging.” At US$4.8 trillion, India gross domestic product
(GDP), in terms of purchasing power parity, has already surpassed
Japan’s US$4.5 trillion to rank third in the world. The US comes first
at $15.6 trillion, followed by China at $12.3 trillion. India is fast overcoming
its poverty as the size of India’s economy has grown to $1.8 trillion
against $250 billion in 1992-1993. In 1995, with an annual income of
200,000 to one million rupees ($1= 53 rupees) there were 4.6 million
middle class households in India, the figure is projected to grow to 60
million by 2015. Despite various
shortcomings, Pakistan’s economy is still the 27th largest in the world
in terms of purchasing power parity and the 47th largest in terms of GDP.
But, according to a UN human development report, political and economic
instability are being further fed by the poverty of over 50% of the
population. With the rupee having depreciated over 50% since 2007 to
February, 2013 ($1 = Rs 99 approx.), the country remains struck in a
low-income, low-growth trap, with GDP growth having averaged 2.9% between
2008 and 2012. Due to continuous and
ever-growing budget deficit, Pakistan’s total debt and liabilities now
stand at Rs. 16 trillion. State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has warned that the
fiscal deficit of 8.5% in FY 2012 is not sustainable and could push the
country towards a debt trap as the public debt-to-GDP ratio has reached
62.6%. The SBP’s annual report for FY 12, released on January 30th,
2013, sees the fiscal deficit for FY-13 much higher than the target set by
the government. While the government
hopes to achieve a fiscal deficit of 4.7% of GDP, the SBP thinks a rate of
6-7% to be more realistic. During the next four months, the government
will have to pay Rs. 960 billion as interest on domestic and foreign
debts. The Asian Development Bank has underlined that Islamabad would have
to bring down its budget deficit for achieving macro-economic stability.
One of the major reasons for the continuing budget deficits is the
authorities’ reluctance to control expenditure. Islamabad figures
amongst those few countries who have been preparing their annual budget
estimates on the basis of uncertain foreign inflows. Consequently,
Pakistan’s national budget for 2011-2012 proved to be a total farce,
complete fiction, based on wishful estimates. As per budget estimates, a
sum of Rs. 70 billion was expected from privatisation; US$800 million was
to come through the auction of 3G licenses; Etisalat was expected to pay
US$800 million on the privatisation proceeds of yesteryears, an amount of
Rs. 40 billion was to come in through Eurobonds, but none of these amounts
were received. The incumbent PPP-led government has proven itself to be
one of the fiscally irresponsible regimes, breaking all records of
borrowing. Meanwhile, the country’s foreign exchange reserves with the
SBP have depleted to $8 billion. At a time when Pakistan
finds itself sandwiched between two economic giants India and China, the
need for the country’s economic recovery becomes more pronounced and
crucial because economy is the most vital element of national power which
keeps the other moving. However, it bodes well
for the country that the economists believe that Pakistan has a great
potential to be an economic powerhouse. According to them, the key to
realising Pakistan’s true potential is contingent upon having strong
governance structures, world-class infrastructure and improved security
and law and order situation. A regime that attaches
high value to the rule of law, coupled with merit, crisp economic growth
strategies, qualified and committed leadership at all levels, Pakistan
could easily start its march towards progress and prosperity and achieve
double digit growth, year after year. George W. Bush had come
to power, determined to confront the challenges from a rising China. But
after 9/11, Washington’s focus on war on terror greatly relieved
Beijing. The aftermath of 9/11, which saw the US sucked deep into
Afghanistan and Iraq, gave China much needed time and space to strengthen
itself. This leads one to the conclusion that while wars weaken countries
peace leads to growth and prosperity. The nominal GDP of China
stood at US$ 499 trillion and per capita income $ 3,263 trillion at the
close of 2010 against a GDP of $ 18 billion and per capita income of $ 50
billion in 1949; while over 400 million people have come out of the
poverty trap during the last 30 years. According to Beijing, China’s
poverty rate had fallen from 53% in 1981 to 2.5% in 2005. Four
Modernisation Programmes (launched in 1979 for developing key sectors of
agriculture, industry, defence, science and technology) and the industrial
reforms of 1985 have largely contributed to China’s rapid progress,
development and advancement. In the past 30 years,
China’s trade has registered over hundred fold rise, increasing from $
20.6 billion to over $ 2.6 trillion. Fuelled by decades of large trade
surplus, China’s trade surplus for 2012 hit a four year high.
Consequently, China’s foreign exchange reserves, already the world’s
largest, swelled to $3.31 trillion at the end of year 2012. Thirty years ago,
foreign direct investment in China was virtually non-existent. In 2008, it
grew to $ 92.4 billion, ranking China at the first place among all
developing nations. China has invested over 1.90 trillion dollars in the
US Treasury Bonds to enable the world’s leading economy to tide over her
economic problems. China has also remained
throughout conscious about the development of the third world countries as
well and, in the past 30 years, it has invested over $ 150 billion in 170
countries across the globe. As US prepares to end its combat role in
Afghanistan, China has invested over $3 billion in Afghanistan and it
appears to be well set to establish itself as a credible power on the
Hindu Kush. Following its economic
growth and advancement, the Chinese society has become more confident,
open and dynamic. Presently, there are some 2,000 newspapers, over 9,000
magazines and around 300 TV channels in China. With 700 million mobile
phones subscribers, 300 million internet users and 180 million bloggers,
no doubt, the Chinese lead the world today in texting, blogging and
surfing the web. In the last 30 years, 1.39 million Chinese studied in 109
countries. In a span of just one year — calendar year 2008 — some 45
million Chinese travelled overseas as tourists. Alauddin Masood is a
freelance columnist based at Islamabad. E-mail: alauddinmasood@gmail.com
Faced with the challenge of militancy, the ANP is confronting a daunting task to promote education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa By Javed Aziz Khan Amid bombings of
schools by the militants in Fata and all over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the
Awami National Party (ANP) includes education as one of the top priorities
in its manifesto for the general elections to be held in coming months. After ruling the Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province for five years in coalition with the Pakistan
People’s Party, the ANP takes credit for raising enrolment level at
schools and establishing more universities and colleges in the province
than the previous governments. Besides, the ANP claims to have remained
committed to improve literacy rate in the remotest districts as well as in
towns that were struck hard by militancy. The ANP leadership also
claims it has allocated more share in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa budget for
education than any other province. The facts, however, do
not completely tally with their claims. The KP and Fata are still the most
illiterate parts of the country, with not a single girl passing
matriculation examination from the entire Tor Ghar district while only few
did their matriculation from another remote town, Kohistan. The KP
government had a tough time since schools in one or the other part of the
province continued to be bombed on every other day. Over 400 schools were
bombed alone in Swat district, as per media reports, discouraging
students, especially girls, to attend schools. An attack on Malala
Yousafzai in Swat last year was an attempt to further discourage girls
from attending school as well as silence one of the most effective voice
in support of girls’ education. The act, however, instead of
discouraging girl students further encouraged them. The world acknowledged
the sacrifice and services of Malala Yousafzai, nominating her for the
Nobel Peace Prize, besides announcement of innumerable other international
awards for the 15-year-old legend. “After countering
terrorism, education will be the topmost priority of the ANP once it comes
in to power after the coming general elections. We will establish more
universities, colleges and schools and will ensure further increase in
enrolment of children,” Arbab Mohammad Tahir, the general secretary of
the ANP Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, tells TNS. Tahir says the manifesto will be
formally announced by the party president once the election schedule is
announced. The think-tank of the
ANP, comprising intellectuals, academicians, researchers and technocrats,
has sent a number of proposals and suggestions to be included in the ANP
manifesto for the coming general elections. The think-tank has also
suggested the ANP government to pass a bill regarding free compulsory
education to every child in its last one week of the rule. The KP
Information Minister, Mian Iftikhar, during a recent meeting with
officials of the UNESCO had promised the bill will be passed during the
last session of the KP assembly. “The education has
three main issues, 1) accessibility, 2) quality and 3) governance. There
must be a network of primary schools at every village level or in every
street in bigger towns. Similarly, there must be one girls’ and one
boys’ high school where students could easily go and get education
without any problem of distance,” says Dr Khadim Hussain, a noted
intellectual who heads the Bacha Khan Trust Education Foundation. The
trust has set up 14 schools all over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to promote quality
education and is planning to establish schools in almost every big town. Dr Khadim Hussain wants
the curriculum to be changed. He wants nature-friendly and human-friendly
topics to replace the subjects that are promoting sectarianism and
extremism. He says apart from the text, the quality of the books should
also be improved so it can attract the student. “We have proposed the
formation of a Special Task Force to launch a crash programme in the
education sector for which the share of education in budget needs to be
increased to at least 4 per cent or even more. There must be more funds
for improving the capacity of the teachers, conducting refresher courses
and trainings for teachers. We have also suggested to de-bureaucratise the
education department so important decisions could be taken at local level
by the institutional heads to improve the quality of education. The
recruitment of teachers must be done on merit,” says Dr Khadim Hussain. The ANP has doubled the
public sector universities in the province since coming into power in the
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2008. “Nine new universities and five sub-campuses
of the already existing universities are established by the ANP in the KP.
Besides, 76 new colleges and over 400 high and higher secondary schools
were set up during the last five years,” says Arbab Tahir. Chief Minister KP Ameer
Haider Hoti recently announced a monthly stipend of Rs1500 for girls who
were encouraged by their parents to attend schools in the remotest
districts of Torghar and Kohistan, in Hazara division. The stipend of Rs1500 is
being given to the parents who encourage girls to attend primary schools
in Torghar and Kohistan districts, while Rs2000 would be given to the
girls admitted from 5th to 10th grade. At the colleges,
universities and higher schools, the ANP-led government has launched a
project to distribute laptops among the shining students. Around 23,147
laptops will be distributed through the scheme among the students who
would achieve 70 per cent or above marks in their last semester.
Similarly, those students who would secure 60 per cent marks during their
annual examination will also be eligible for laptops. Besides, top 40
position holders of the government institutions from each board of
intermediate and secondary education and board of technical education
would also get laptops. “The ANP is committed
to education for all. To improve access to education, the ANP plans to
allocate a minimum of 6 per cent of GDP to education, besides working to
eliminate multiple systems of education that protect and perpetuate class
and feudal interests,” says Bushra Gohar, the central vice-president of
the ANP in National Assembly and a staunch human rights activist. She
informs her party will work on a single system which meets international
standards. “We will build a monitored and accountable network of primary
and secondary schools in areas that are easily accessible to children,
especially girls. Besides, basic facilities in existing primary and
secondary schools will be ensured.” “Our target is that
there should be not more than 40 students in one class,” says Khadim
Hussain, who believes the universities must be autonomous and run by
researchers in their specific fields. Each district will be provided
opportunity to establish its own university providing quality education
while merit-based research fellowships will be awarded to MS and PhD
students in public universities Bushra Gohar says the
ANP will be looking to upgrade all the high schools to higher secondary
schools (12 years of education) while all primary and secondary schools
will be governed through elected parents-teachers associations, giving
them financial freedom for infrastructure development and academic audit
to ensure participation of parents in achievement of academic excellence. “We have suggested the
party to review and purify curriculum from hate literature and
glorification of wars so as to make it more creative and skills oriented.
Civic, cultural, peace and environmental education will be made part and
parcel of all schools curricula,” says Bushra Gohar. The ANP is looking for
curricula that will incorporate local history and indigenous creative,
aesthetic, social, political and cultural icons and legends. Teachers’
trainings will be based on research-oriented modern concept of child
education. Assessment and evaluation (examination) will be rationalised
and computerised. Mother tongue education along with research oriented
second language and foreign language (English, Arabic, Persian, etc) will
be taught in public and private education systems. Other targets of the
party include recruitment, evaluation and promotion of teaching faculty on
merit. Teaching of soft and hard skills and modern and traditional skills
will be diligently pursued. Regulation of private educational system will
be rationally and objectively implemented. Quality teachers training will
be institutionalised and promotions linked to training certification. The author can be
contacted at javedaziz1@gmail.com
Follow
the legal course on journalists’ killings Pakistan
remained one of the deadliest nations in the world for the journalist with
90 journalists killed in the country since 2000. The situation appears
unlikely to change as in the first 9 weeks of this year six journalists
have been killed in the country – four in Balochistan while one each in
Karachi and tribal area. On January 10, 2013, a
suicide bomber exploded himself outside a billiard club at Alamdar Road,
Quetta. The news of the incident reached media houses in Quetta in a
minute and journalists rushed to the scene to report the incident live and
take photographs. The journalists there were preparing to start their work
when a second bomb went off killing more than a hundred people including
three journalists — Imran Shaikh, a cameraman for Samaa News, Mohammad
Iqbal, a photographer with News Network International (NNI) and Saifur
Rehman, reporter of Samaa TV. Three other journalists were injured in the
blast. On February 25, 2013,
Khushnood Ali Sheikh, chief reporter of state-run news agency Associated
Press of Pakistan (APP) in Karachi, was killed in a ‘hit and run’ by a
car near his house. He had refused to pay Rs50,000 extortion money and
moved to Islamabad six months back. On February 27,
unidentified attackers shot dead Miranshah’s senior journalist Malik
Mumtaz who worked for Geo TV and The News. Only three days after the
murder of Malik Mumtaz, once again ‘unidentified’ attackers killed
Mahmood Afridi, president of Qallat Press Club in Balochistan. On average one
journalist was killed every 28 days during the last six years more than in
any other country. According to federal Union of Journalists and Inter
Media Pakistan, cases of harassment and intimidation of journalists has
been very high in the last one decade or so. Over 2000 journalists in
Pakistan experienced harassment, intimidation, kidnap, arrest, detention,
assault and injury since year 2000. Government of Pakistan
endorses the situation but the worst part of the problem is the scale of
impunity against journalists in Pakistan. The one common thing in killing
of all these 90 except Wall Street Journal’s journalist Daniel Pearl is
that perpetrators have never been found, prosecuted or punished. “The
biggest problem is not the various kinds of threats that exist but the
fact that there is impunity,” says Adnan Rehmat, executive director of
Intermedia Pakistan. “It is a fact that neither any union nor any media
representative organisation or others invoked the legal process. Unless
you punish criminals, you allow a de-facto license to continue to threaten
journalists. The killer will not come up and say I have done it. You have
to invoke the legal system,” he says. It is crucial to
understand the key characteristics that can put journalists in trouble.
The pattern of journalists’ killings in Pakistan shows male TV
journalists, reporter working in conflict areas and those without any
training. “These are all preventable things; all that is required is
safety protocol by media houses. They need to enforce mandatory training
on security issues. They need to adopt preventive measures to reduce the
risk,” says Adnan. But unfortunately, neither is that happening at the
end of media organisations and journalists’ organisations nor at the
government level. The cases of murder of journalists are hardly being
investigated. The authorities have conducted investigations against
killing of two journalists Hayatullah Dawar and Saleem Shahzad but the
results of these investigations have nothing to say. In Pakistan the
process for justice does not even begin in most of the cases of murdered
journalists. Most of the journalists killed in Pakistan were not full time
journalists as media houses do not hire full time journalists in most
parts of the country, especially in troubled areas and they also came from
poor backgrounds. Media houses never owned them while poor families could
not invoke the lengthy and expensive legal process. Out of 90 journalists
killed since January 2000 we were able to find the killers of only one
journalist ‑Daniel Pearl. Critics of
journalists’ unions question their performance in the larger issue of
impunity. They say what is stopping unions and press clubs in different
regions from instituting class action cases? None of the journalists’
unions has invoked legal process so far. We can protest for 50 years but
nothing would happen unless we pursue the legal course. Pervez Shaukat,
President of PFUJ, tells TNS that murder cases cannot be pursued by
unions. “We can only play secondary role in such cases. It is up to the
families of the journalists killed to deal with the cases. We do not have
legal rights to do so. We have always helped the families in getting the
case registered and most of these cases are in lower courts,” he says. It is true that the
environment has become too tough for journalists in Pakistan but we need
to understand the situation. “We need to get rid of this culture of
breaking news. Three journalists in Quetta got killed this January when
they reached a bomb blast site within few minutes of the blast and a
second blast took place, killing the three. We need to learn to say no. No
story is worth human life,” says Shaukat, adding that media houses do
not cooperate with PFUJ. “They are not even ready to get insurance of
their employees. We have requested government for that,” he says that
PFUJ has also requested UN human rights agency to look into the matter and
send a representative to Pakistan. “It has agreed to send a
representative to Pakistan in near future.” Bob Dietz, coordinator
of Committee to Protect Journalists Asia Program, who is in Pakistan to
attend a conference on issues of security of journalists, tells TNS that
the real underlying problem in Pakistan is either the unwillingness or
inability of government to provide security to its citizens. “The number
of journalists killed every year is the same every year. The largest was
12 in recent years. This is reflection of larger problem in country.
Putting that into context is important. What amplifies the problem is that
there is no serious effort on the part of government to bring killers of
journalists to justice,” he says. “Journalists cry that
nothing happens and in a week or so they move on because they think they
can do nothing about it,” he says. “Training is useful but not the
answer to problems. Most of the journalists killed were on dangerous
assignments just like the soldiers you send to war, and run the risk of
being killed. But just as you train soldiers for war and give them proper
equipment, journalists should be trained in the same manner and given
security gears.” Government would
definitely have to act. Rehman Malik, Interior Minister though tells TNS
that his government is very serious about providing security to
journalists and media houses. “We pass on information to media houses
and journalists as soon as we get information about threats to them,” he
says that government is planning to set up a committee under him that
would pursue all the cases of murdered journalists. But interestingly, in
March 2012, Pakistan, along with India and Brazil, raised objections to a
comprehensive Unesco proposal to protect the press and combat impunity in
journalist murders. A delegation of
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) also visited Pakistan under
leadership of Christopher Warren, ex president of IFJ. It has met
politicians and government agencies on the issue of security of
journalists in Pakistan. “There has been for too long at the government
level, not only this government but the governments in past several years,
a lack of concern,” Warren tells TNS. |
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