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inquiry
Yeh Woh Alternative
medicines
conflict
Call
for segregation
Sceptic’s
Diary
inquiry By Zohra Yusuf Those questioning
the recent visit of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearances have perhaps chosen to turn a blind eye to the harsh reality
of this gross human rights violation in Pakistan. And this reality is
tragically reflected in the fact that two of the disappeared whose cases the
Working Group had been following ended up dead. Muzaffar Bhutto, belonging
to a Sindhi nationalist party, was first picked up in 2005, freed in 2006 and
again made to ‘disappear’ in February 2011. His body was found on the
outskirts of Hyderabad in May this year. The Working Group had written to the
government as recently as March 2012 asking for progress in this case. The other case is that of
Siddique Eido, an activist of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP),
who was picked up reportedly by men from the Frontier Constabulary from Pasni
in December 2010; his body was recovered from Ormara in April 2011. The ‘ghairat brigade’
and the usual lot of conspiracy theorists — comprising some TV talk show
hosts and regrettably parliamentarians — have not only misunderstood the
objective of the mission but have shown a callous disregard for the families
who have been running from pillar to post to get their loved ones back.
Moreover, they have overlooked the fact that Pakistan, if it is to be
considered a civilised member of the global community, has to meet certain
international obligations — unless it wants to live in the kind of
isolation preferred by countries such as North Korea. Intervention by
international organisations in matters related to human rights is no longer
considered as ‘interference’ in the internal matters of a country.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar did try to defend the Working Group’s
visit but her own party MNAs continued to raise objections. Earlier, an
effort by Senator Farhatullah Babar to introduce a bill requiring Pakistan to
sign the Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearance failed. The Working Group visiting
Pakistan from September 10-20, 2012, was represented by the Chair of the
Mission Professor Olivier de Frouville and Dr Osman El-Hajje. Their itinerary
in Pakistan was fairly comprehensive, covering all the four provincial
capitals as well as Islamabad. They met, apart from concerned government
representatives, members of civil society and family members of those
forcibly disappeared. Strangely, the Chief Justice of Pakistan who has been
hearing cases concerning disappearances chose not to meet the mission, citing
the matter being sub judice as the reason. Surely, he could have chosen to
apprise the mission of developments that would have helped in better
understanding of the complexities involved. The Working Group can, in any
case, do little to influence the judicial outcome of the cases being heard.
Similarly, the IG of Frontier Corps in Balochistan did not find time to meet
the mission members. The UN Mission did manage
to meet the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the cases of Missing Persons.
However, the Judicial Commission, originally set up in 2010, suffers from
several drawbacks, the most serious one being that members of affected
families have little confidence in its deliberations. Most have stopped
sending complaints to the commission or appearing before it. It has refrained
from investigating the role of security and intelligence agencies. Moreover,
the figures released by the Judicial Commission are also questionable. The Working Group will now
submit its report to the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council in March
2013. Prior to this, the government of Pakistan will be given a draft report
for its comments and feedback. However, Pakistan will find
it very hard to justify the practice of enforced disappearances which has
remained unchecked at the hands of security agencies. Spread over 45
articles, Article 5 of the International Convention for the Protection of All
Persons from Enforced Disappearance categorically states the liability of
countries: “The widespread or
systematic practice of enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against
humanity as defined in applicable international law and shall attract the
consequences provided for under such applicable international law.” Those who opposed the
Working Group’s visit or are indifferent to the fate of the forcibly
disappeared do not, perhaps, fully comprehend the distress of the missing or
their families. First of all, the missing person is practically denied an
identity or existence as security agencies keep denying his custody.
Secondly, torture is more likely to be inflicted than not while the due
process of law is circumvented leading to a denial of justice. The family
members live in a perpetual state of fear and their emotions swing between
hope and despair. In the case of the Adiala 11 (picked up by security
agencies after being released from prison), a mother died after seeing the
condition of her son in the court. Earlier, another son’s body had been
dumped by the roadside. The killing of Muzaffar
Bhutto and Siddique Eido, cited at the beginning of this article, is
symptomatic of a trend that started in Balochistan during the military regime
of Parvez Musharraf when the Baloch nationalists rose to protest the
injustices against the province. The military operation that led to the
killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti only radicalised the Baloch youth and voices for
independence began to be raised. This was a turning point in Balochistan and,
apart from displacement of people belonging to the Bugti tribe, cases of
enforced disappearances began to grow dramatically. Since then the issue of
enforced disappearances in Balochistan prompted HRCP to file a case in the
Supreme Court in February 2007 and to send five fact-finding missions to the
province between 2006 and 2012. Since the start of the
insurgency in Balochistan, the country’s military leadership has seen the
issue from the narrow perspective of ‘national interest’. Those demanding
rights, if not self-determination, are labelled as anti-state and dealt with
summarily — that is, picked up, sent home after torture and threats or
killed and dumped. Similar treatment is being seen in Sindh, though not on a
scale close to that of Balochistan. Most in Sindh have been lucky to return
home alive, although traumatised. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the military
authorities have acknowledged the existence of ‘internment centres’ where
suspects of militancy are kept. Those fighting for the
cases of the disappeared do so under threatening conditions. HRCP lost two of
its activists who were working on the issue of enforced disappearances in
Balochistan. Shortly after meeting the UN Working Group in Quetta, Nasrullah
Baloch, an active campaigner belonging to the Voice of Mission Baloch People
reported receiving threats from an unheard of organisation. Pakistan will
have a lot to answer for when the Working Group presents its report. The writer is chairperson
of the HRCP
Take a disaster or
a life-and-death issue of any kind. It could be a natural calamity, a
man-made tragedy, a government-initiated fiasco, an unintended casualty, or a
case of plain misfortune. The reaction of Pakistanis remains consistent: The president ‘takes
notice’ immediately before flying off to Riyadh or Washington, the prime
minister announces compensation package for the affected and orders YouTube
and Facebook to be shut down, the interior minister orders two dozen
enquiries and promises to hang the culprits upside down in Islamabad’s D
Ground, the various governors and chief ministers condemn unknown elements
and sympathise with bereaved families, the army spokesman reminds the nation
that the armed forces are prepared for any eventuality, the Supreme Court
takes suo moto action, the lawyers go on strike, a few hundred hot-blooded
people march on the nearest US diplomatic mission or torch an Israeli (in the
past it used to be Indian) flag. And the majority of population goes about
its chicken tikka and daal fry routine. We have been doing this for
as long as we or anyone else can remember. The mere fact that we keep getting
killed, maimed and thrown on the mean streets of poverty and destitution, on
a daily basis, is enough to warrant a review of our survival strategy. But we
are not persuaded. Nothing seems to move us, no one seems capable to lead us,
and no one is willing to follow a new path. The banality of thought and
action that pours from the top, is seeping through cracks and inundating our
private lives, our homes, our livelihood, our children’s future … and
it’s costing us our loved ones’ lives. Majority of deaths reported
every day, all over Pakistan, are attributed to avoidable reasons — the
patient dying of neglect or mistake, the survivors of earthquake and floods
who succumb to disease and depression during the so-called relief period, the
bus passengers who keep getting shot because of their faith identity, the
people going about their routines and getting blown up in pieces for no fault
of theirs, a whole metropolis and a large part of tribal area getting used to
loot and murder as a part of daily life … and hundreds of men, women and
children who burnt to death in a dungeon as their relatives watched
helplessly from across iron bars that blocked exit points. We take a tragedy, mourn it
half way, protest against it halfway, and another tragedy befalls us and we
start the routine all over again. Quite often though, it isn’t another
tragedy that distracts us but something as utterly remote from our daily
existence as an ambassador writing a letter to a foreign government and a
prime minister not writing a letter to a foreign government. It is rich for a nation
that loses its sons and daughters to unnatural causes on a daily basis, a
nation that is routinely humiliated by its own leaders and outsiders, a
nation that is denied basic human rights and has accepted to be treated as
below humans … to protest against a cheap film that ridicules their
beliefs. It is posh for this nation to worry about the outcome of a court
case which may send a second pretend-prime minister home. And it is extreme
luxury for a nation that does not believe in life and humanity to even
consider it has any religious or political beliefs that need to be protected. If watching hundreds of
people slow roast in an inferno caused by a general indifference to the life
of common Pakistanis, fails to alert us to the reality, nothing else will.
And the reality is: there are thousands of factories spread all over the
country where similar incidents are waiting to happen. Murderers are
operating freely, picking their targets with impunity. Lack of knowledge,
skills and ethics in every profession is claiming ever more lives. The
official patronage of financial corruption is translating into dead bodies in
our courtyards. And only we have a motive to put a stop to it. The derogatory film, the
infighting within state institutions, the race to buy candidates for the
upcoming elections, the foreign relations … these are all important issues
but nothing is more important than ensuring that right to live honourably is
valued in this country. Nothing matters in a society where human life
doesn’t. Political philosophies, religious sensitivities, and intricacies
of international relations come later; first we have to fight for our lives
because dead people can’t run campaigns, however noble the cause. masudalam@yahoo.com
By Shahzada
Irfan Ahmed Nasreen, 32, is a
chronic patient of hypothyroidism. She has to treat this deficiency of
thyroid hormone with a medicine, Thyroxin, for the rest of her life; any
suspension in the treatment may have disastrous effects on her health. Over the last few months,
life has become too difficult for her — the medicine she uses is not
available in the market. It takes her days to locate a pharmacist who can
sell the product at an inflated cost. Last time she was lucky enough to buy
the pack of 100 tablets for Rs500, before that for Rs300, but now it is not
available for even Rs800. The maximum retail price printed on the bottle is
Rs50. Nasreen’s is just one
case in point; there are countless patients at the risk of health
deterioration and even death due to non-availability of essential medicines
in the country. These include vancocin injections, Inderal, xanax, lexotanil,
ativan, betnesol Nasal-drops, polyfax, hydryllin DM etc. The major reasons
identified so far are the non-availability of raw materials such as
ephedrine, reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to avail ephedrine quotas,
pending upward price revision issues, change in companies’ priorities and
so on. Nadeem Iqbal, a leading
pharmacist and member drug court, Lahore, says Multinational Companies (MNCs)
halt or decrease production of medicines on many grounds and non-availability
of raw materials is just one of these. The shortage of cough, cold and flu
syrups is definitely due to the non-availability of ephedrine. He refers to
the freeze on release of ephedrine quota by the Narcotics Control Board (NCB)
following allegations of corruption in its allocation by the Ministry of
Health in 2010. The only way left for
companies to overcome this problem, he says, is to change the formulations of
their products and apply for new formulations which do not have ephedrine as
an ingredient. But this process takes time, causing shortage of medicines and
their black marketing. On medicines such as
Thyroxine and Numercazole, Nadeem Iqbal points out that their shortage is
perennial and merely because of pricing issues. These are low-priced items
and less lucrative for MNCs as well as many local companies so they curtail
the production. He says only the Federal Health Ministry can revise the
prices but it has to take decisions in the best interest of the general
public. “Companies apply on hardship basis in the wake of rising raw
material cost, operational and input costs and are compensated if they can
prove their point.” However, there are
allegations against pharmaceutical companies that they always eye huge
profits and public interest comes much later. Prof Dr Khalid Jameel, Head
of Rehabilitation Department, Mayo Hospital Lahore, says Declopen is a
medicine recommended for epilepsy patients and children suffering from
disabilities. “They cannot simply survive without it. It is short in supply
in the market but is constantly being smuggled into the country via India,”
he adds. “Why can’t the supply be ensured if the demand is there? It
seems there are profiteers who want to make huge profits from sale of
smuggled medicines.” He discloses that another
medicine Mestenon has disappeared from the market. This medicine cures
patients of a particular muscular disease and if it is not administered
timely and regularly the patient might die. It’s the same disease which
confined Bollywood star Amitabh Bachan to bed for months. He contracted it
due to the injury he suffered during the shoot of film Coolie. Dr Khalid laments
pharmaceutical companies are hardly concerned whether all the medicines on
their product list are available in the market as per demand. “They focus
mainly on profit-making and manufacture medicines offering high margins.” He suggests that the
federal authority, which registers drugs, should also ensure their
availability in the market and verify whether the reasons cited for shortage
are genuine or fake. Sometimes, he says, companies hold back supplies of
medicines to introduce a new product in the market with similar properties
but higher prices. “I can easily recall that old generation lithium
medicines used to be highly effective anti-depressants but were dirt-cheap.
Today they are extinct and people are forced to buy branded medicines which
cost as high as Rs200 per tablet.” The same is the case with vaccines whose
different brands have a huge cost difference. An official in the Federal
Health Ministry tells TNS registration of medicines has been done under the
provisions of The Drug Act, 1976. It empowers governments to force companies
to produce essential drugs in required quantities. The registration board,
set up for this purpose, satisfies itself regarding safety, efficacy, quality
and economy of the drug being registered. Right now, he says, there is
confusion as the Drug Regulatory Authority (DRA) formed after 18th Amendment
is not fully functional and has become a victim of conspiracies. It is
proposed the pricing issue should also be dealt with by DRA. Muhammad Asad, Chairman
Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association (PPMA) and Chief
Executive Global Pharmaceuticals, tells TNS the situation will improve soon
as the government has revised prices of some medicines rationally.
conflict By Arif Jamal The designation of
the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO) by the United
States seems to have shaken the group to its core. The designation comes
immediately in the wake of the death of Badruddin Haqqani in a CIA drone
attack. Although the death of Badruddin Haqqani is more a symbolic one, it is
not likely to dent the terror and financial structure the group has built in
the Af/Pak region and the Middle East. However, the FTO
designation by the United States will partly cripple the financial structure
of the group, particularly in the Middle East. Consequently, the Haqqani
network will have less room to maneuver, both in Pakistan and in the Middle
East, but more in the Middle East. According to a Fata-based journalist,
“There is no shortage of people who can replace Badruddin Haqqani but there
are no countries that can replace the lost countries as a consequent of the
FTO designation.” Although the Haqqani
network is considered part of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, it keeps
its identity intact within the Taliban movement. It also has independent ties
with other militant groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the al Qaeda.
According to a Pakistani newspaper description, “The network is, literally,
a bit like a crime family. Lots of cousins and uncles dominate the top tiers
of leadership, specialising in different roles, skills, regions and
formations,” (Wajahat S. Khan, “Analysis: Netting Pakistan via Haqqani
network,” The Tribune, September 8, 2012). Although his brother,
Sirajuddin, was considered senior to him in the network hierarchy, Badruddin
was more involved in kidnappings and money extortion and operations in
Afghanistan. He was in-charge of day-to-day operational preparatory details
such as recruiting and training suicide bombers for southeastern Afghanistan
including Kabul, says an official based in the tribal areas. The Haqqani network is
known to have wide range of legitimate and not so legitimate business
interests in Pakistan and some Middle Eastern countries as well. There is no
immediate threat to their business interests in Pakistan as Pakistan is
determined not to abandon them. The reason is that the Haqqani network is the
only Taliban sub-group which is ready to play Pakistan’s game in
Afghanistan. The mainstream Taliban movement became disillusioned with
Pakistan in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In case the Taliban
returned to power in Afghanistan, they are not likely to have excellent
relations with Pakistan. For this reason, Pakistan would like to see and help
the Haqqani network come into power if the Karzai government fails to stay in
power at some point in future. Although it had become
quite clear more than a month ago that the United States was about to take
action against the Haqqani network, Pakistan did not take any action. Neither
were the Haqqanis worried. According to a Pakistani official, “They felt
fairly assured about their business and financial interests in Pakistan.
However, they have taken some preliminary steps to secure their interests and
accounts in some Middle East countries.” Pakistan believes that the
FTO designation in the wake of Badruddin Haqqani’s death is meant to send a
clearer message to Pakistan. It is commonly believed in Pakistan that high
profile actions against the Haqqani network are basically aimed at entrapping
Pakistan. “[The United States] could have taken these steps a long time ago
but did not. The reason was that [the United States] wanted to work with
Pakistan. Now, it makes a lot easier for the United States to designate
Pakistan a state sponsoring terrorism,” a civilian official working on
terrorism-related matters said. Some officials predict that
bad days are ahead for the Pakistan-US relations in the wake of the FTO
designation of the Haqqani network. “Frankly speaking, any decision by the
US to declare the Haqqani network a terror group will not be a good sign for
future Pakistan-US relations. Any such decision will take the relationship
back to square one, ruining the improvement seen in ties between the two
countries during the last couple of months,” (The Tribune, September 7). The FTO designation is
likely to make any talks between the United States and the Haqqani network
more difficult if not impossible. The two US actions have dimmed any hopes of
talks between the United States and the network. According to a Pakistani
official, there was a section in the network which was supportive of the
talks with the Americans and the Afghan government but the hopes have been
dashed. The public statements of the Haqqani network also show that the group
is ready to carry out reprisals. The Haqqani network commanders said that the
FTO designation is likely to endanger a peaceful settlement of the Afghan
conflict before the end of 2014. A Haqqani network commander has reportedly
said that “the United States is not sincere in talks. They are on the one
hand claiming to look for a political solution to the Afghan issue while on
the other they are declaring us terrorists,” (Daily Times, September 8). If the United States has
hardened its position, the Haqqani network has also hardened its position.
The US Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl may be the first casualty of the escalation of
tension between the United States and the Haqqani network. A Haqqani network
commander has reportedly said that the FTO designation “will also bring
hardship for US Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl” who is in the custody of the
network (Daily Times, September 8).” In Pakistan, this is being
interpreted as a serious threat to his life. The decision to designate the
Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organisation will put an end to any
talk the two may have been holding, directly or indirectly. This is a clear
signal that the Americans are weighing to declare a full war on the Haqqani
network. The writer is a US-based
journalist and author of ‘Shadow War — The Untold Story of Jihad in
Kashmir’
Call
for segregation By Mohammad
Awais Twelve-year-old
Arsalan ran away from his bleak life in a Faisalabad village to the big city
of Lahore. He got a job of a dish washer at a roadside restaurant in the
city, where he happily earned his meals. One day, he was severely beaten up
by the restaurant owner for a minor act of negligence. Arsalan (not real name)
made another attempt to escape — and reached Minar-e-Pakistan, where he
mingled with drug addicts and juvenile criminals. No wonder that soon he
landed up in the juvenile ward (or ‘mundakhana’) of the Lahore jail with
40 cases of street crimes, including mobile and bike snatching. A social worker spotted
Arsalan in jail and took upon him the task of getting him released, on bail. Currently, there are 800 to
900 child prisoners in Punjab jails and about 3000 prisoners across the
country. The conditions inside jails are deplorable. Juvenile criminals are
usually disciplined in jails to become better citizens. Therefore, to prevent
them from becoming hardened criminals, adult and juvenile criminals are
segregated. The United States
introduced a separate justice system for juveniles over 110 years ago in
1899. The system acknowledges that child criminals can be guided to right
path with a little effort. However, in Pakistan, the
Juvenile Justice System Ordinance was introduced in 2000. Twelve years on,
its effectiveness is still questioned. Punjab has two borstal
prisons — one in Faisalabad and another in Bahawalpur. Imtiaz Cheema, an
official of Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc),
who often visits the mundakhanas says adult and child prisoners are kept
together — “I have seen children sit behind bars, crossed-legged, with
their identification cards hanging around their neck, looking like hardened
criminals,” adding that the purpose of separate wards is to create an
environment where children can be reformed. Further, “Girls and boys are
kept together in jails,” he said. “Rimsha Masih, accused in
blasphemy case, was kept in the female ward of the Adiala Jail despite being
a juvenile because prison facilities for girl prisoners simply do not
exist,” he added. Section 3 of the Juvenile
Justice System Ordinance titled, ‘Legal Assistance’, iterates that every
child criminal has the right to legal assistance at the expense of the state. Section 4 titled
‘Juvenile Courts’ says provincial governments shall in consultation with
chief justices of high courts may notify establishment of one or more
juvenile courts through the official gazette. “The absence of free
legal aid and exclusive courts are the main problems being faced by juvenile
suspects,” said Akbar Ali Shah, the official of an NGO working on child
rights issues in Peshawar. Shah said, “Our data
shows 95 per cent of children are proven innocent after trial. Exclusive
courts must be set up for juvenile criminals to avoid problems.” Imtiaz Soomro, who has
pursued cases of several juvenile prisoners in Adiala Jail, said free legal
aid was the right of every accused child. He said during his visits to the
Adiala Jail about a year ago, he received complaints from children of being
sexually abused. “An official inquiry was conducted but their allegations
proved wrong. But, you see, in the inhuman and oppressive atmosphere in jail,
nothing can be ruled out.” But, Punjab Inspector
General (Prisons) Mian Farooq Nazeer said during his 22-year-long service, no
such incident has been reported to him. Soomro said though the
current judicial policy instructs magistrates to visit prisons to pursue
cases of child prisoners, still by no means should this be viewed as an
alternative to exclusive courts for child criminals. Talking to TNS, IG Nazeer
said vocational training courses were arranged for juveniles in borstal jails
of Faisalabad and Bahawalpur, along with informal and formal education.
“Dozens of juvenile prisoners have sought employment in factories of
Faisalabad after acquiring skills in jail,” he said. In the juvenile jail of
Faisalabad, he said, “indoor game facilities exist but due to shortage of
the space outdoor games could not be offered”. The inspector general said
the juvenile prisoners wear uniform that are different from those worn by
adult prisoners. “We considered the proposal on the jail staff abandoning
uniform and wearing plain clothes but it was rejected for security
reasons,” concluded the IG.
Sceptic’s Diary By Waqqas Mir If YouTube, and all
it makes possible, was among the list of heroes in the Arab Spring or
Iran’s elections, today a single YouTube video has made the site a villain
of the highest order. Democratisation of technology, quite clearly, has
costs. If anything, this tells us that technologies may be morally neutral
but their use doesn’t always have this characteristic. The reaction in the Muslim
world to the blasphemous film posted on YouTube has seen fires ignited by
resentment — literally and metaphorically. The reactions that we have
seen were, quite sadly, predictable. The violence is premised on powerful
emotions but this doesn’t make violence the rational response. It is no
doubt important to assert how sensitive Muslims throughout the world are to
speech disrespecting the person of the Holy Prophet. However, it must also be
recognised that this sensitivity is and has often been used to perpetuate a
discourse that has as much to do with politics as with religion. Protests would have been
legitimate as long as they were peaceful. Destruction of public and private
property cannot be justified regardless of how many Pakistani columnists
stress the love that Muslims feel for their religion. The need of the hour
isn’t to focus on what is being said but on what is not being said. Attacking US consulates and
American citizens is not about religion — it has been and will always be
about politics of hate. It is the hatred that gleefully receives any
controversial statements about Islam since it allows the religious and
political right in the Muslim world to throw their weight around. The US government,
including the White House, expressly denounced the blasphemous film. Law
enforcement officials detained the film-maker for questioning. But no right
wing leader in the Muslim world wants you to hear the facts — since the
facts will take away the “fun” in destruction. Calls for banning YouTube
are just as silly. The trouble-makers in the Muslim world do not want the
people on the streets to know that the internet is not an instrumentality
that coerces you to watch things. You have the option of avoiding, quite
easily, the material that you find offensive. Even better, platforms like
YouTube allow you to make videos that can carry a response and can indeed go
viral — therefore spreading your message and countering any offensive/hate
speech with more speech. But why paint facts when it
is more convenient to burn American flags since that is what you have wanted
to do all along? Here is some irony: people
who love burning the US flag and think they are being real rebels can burn
the US flag in USA as well. The right to burn the American flag is speech
protected by the US constitution. Those expecting the US
government to punish such conduct also need to understand certain things. The
White House, in a rare move, asked Google to take down the video — a
request that the company refused to comply with. Lest anyone think that this
is an American conspiracy to injure Muslim sentiments, let us not forget that
the Jews in the US have often had to watch as neo-Nazis marched through their
neighborhoods. That was speech offensive to sentiments too. But why mention
facts if your agenda is political? What political leaders like
Imran Khan do not tell you when discussing the allegedly discriminatory
“Western” attitude towards Muslims is this: whereas some countries in
Europe have criminalised Holocaust denial (to protect the sentiments of the
Jewish people), the US does not criminalise any such speech. You can
celebrate the Holocaust in that country and still get away with such speech.
That is what Imran Khan lies about when he says “the West” should treat
Jews and Muslims alike. Here is my response: stop
pretending that “the West” is a monolithic entity with a single policy.
The US is treating Jews and Muslims alike — the government condemns speech
offending religious sentiments but under the First Amendment it won’t
punish it unless it meets strict tests. Now will Mr. Khan and the vocal right
tell this to violent mobs or will they add fuel to the fire? Did I say this
was political? There is a plethora of
websites that defame Islam and its personalities. Thousands of people
everyday leave comments on the websites of newspapers and blogs that reflect
nothing but hatred for and defamation of Islam. Will our response be to
counter this with more, and rational, speech or should we now burn some
American flags everyday since each day many instances of speech we find
offensive go unpunished. Imagine the amusement of
anyone who hates Islam and has a cell phone. That person can insult our
religion and its personalities everyday, record his speech on his phone
camera and upload it while sending the entire Muslim world into a frenzy of
mindless violence. And if your response is to ban YouTube or Google then how
on earth do you expect to set the record straight? There will be no shortage
of people, especially media folks, who will justify such violence. But their
agendas are clear; hide the facts and push up the ratings. The US government
had nothing to do with this blasphemous film — the same way many of us
don’t have anything to do with fake blasphemy cases targeting minorities or
the beheadings of foreign citizens. The embassies, shops and cars burnt by
mobs had nothing to do with this blasphemous film either. While we shut out
rationality and ban access to platforms that can facilitate a proper
response, some idiot with a cell phone camera is laughing away at the power
that he now has. So is the right wing leader in the Muslim world who has a
fetish for torching the American flag. There has to be a more
rational way to solve this — and there is. All we need to do is ask some
questions. The writer is a Barrister
and has a Masters degree from Harvard Law School. He is a practicing lawyer
and currently also an Adjunct Professor of Jurisprudence at LUMS. He can be
reached at wmir.rma@gmail.com or on Twitter @wordoflaw.
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