Comment by Aziz Narejo
It is extremely disappointing to see that instead of pursuing vigorously the Benazir Bhutto murder case, the PPP government is making all out efforts to obstruct the investigation into the case and impede a fair trial. It was expected that the PPP government, immediately after coming to power, would order a robust investigation in the case and will forcefully go after the killers of its leader Benazir Bhutto. But as the news reports indicate, it is instead going after the upright investigation officers and the prosecutors who have worked hard to build a strong case. …
Read more : Indus Herald
by Aziz Narejo
Federal interior minister and president Zardari’s close associate, Rehman Malik is reported to have sprung into action to get the name of former military dictator, Pervez Musharraf deleted from the list of the accused in the assassination of former prime minister & PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.
According to some news reports, Rehman Malik has expressed his anger over the inclusion of former dictator’s name in the list of the accused and has inquired from the head of the Joint Investigation Team of FIA, as to who had given permission to the investigators to include Pervez Musharraf’s name in the list of the accused in the case. He is reported to be putting pressure on the head of the Joint Investigation Team of FIA to delete the ex-dictator’s name.
It may be recalled that the Federal Investigation Agency on Monday had submitted a fresh 57-page report in the Anti-Terrorism Court-III in Rawalpindi, declaring former president Pervez Musharraf as an accused in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case. …
Read more : Indus Herald
Governor Punjab Salman Taseer’s murder is a result of rising extremism and fanatisicm in the country. Shutting our eyes to problems of intolerance, extremism and fanaticism will not help the problem go away. In this episode of Reporter, Arshad Sharif tries to find out if the media, judiciary, lawyers and society at large also have a role in promoting extremist tendencies in Pakistan. The language of program is urdu/ Hindi.
Courtesy: DAWN NEWS TV (Reporter with Arshad Sharif)
The language of the discussion is urdu/ Hindi.
Courtesy: ARY News (11th hour with Waseem Baadaami, guest Faouzia Wahab)
via – Siasat – You Tube Link
Statistical ambiguity society
Just how some recent events of our surface politics offer an interesting study of the deep politics
By Dr Ahsan Wagha
It started with the worst ideological polarisation promoted by the military generals in the 1970s when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was forced to invite Saudi ambassador Riaz Al-Khatib to mediate between him and the opposition, a practice that was reverberated during the Musharraf-Nawaz conflict and has almost culminated into becoming one of the basic features of our foreign policy. The phenomenon can be investigated in the background of the history of Arab colonisation of this region.
In order to make sense of the atmosphere of fear, it is important to distance oneself from essentialist readings of Muslim culture as being inherently intolerant.
By Ammar Ali Jan
It is difficult to point out what is more painful to witness; the brutal murder of a Governor of the largest province of the country because he had dared to express dissent on a controversial law or the public celebration of this violent act by extremist forces, with complete impunity from the state. What is particularly shocking, however, is the muted response of secular political parties in the country in the wake of this assassination. Despite enjoying complete electoral hegemony over religious forces in Pakistan, mainstream parties are finding it increasingly difficult to speak out against discriminatory practices in our society, owing to the growing domination of religious forces in setting the contours of our cultural discourse.
[Please take the time to listen to this incredible speech by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. This speech in many ways demonstrates the future of the PPP and you can see his vision, leadership and direction. His courageous message challenging terrorists and violent extremists who are misusing and misinterpreting Islam for their own benefit gives us hope that Pakistan will yet be able to rid itself of violence and those who dishonor Islam and our nation.]
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Bilawal breaks silence
By Eraj Zakaria
In one single stride, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party, has clinched the issue and made it abundantly clear that the young and upcoming leadership of the PPP will bear no truck with forces of obscurantism and bigotry. He emphatically points out that the supporters of Mumtaz Qadri were in fact blasphemers and not the slain Salmaan Taseer, whose body had been pumped with 27 bullets and consequently left to die in a pool of blood. Young Bilawal has single mindedly emphasised upon the entire West about the direction and bearing the PPP leadership intends to take in the immediate future. Bilawal’s statement has come at a time when eyebrows had begun to be raised regarding the PPP’s silence on the vital issue of Taseer’s assassination. He breaks the silence not only at an appropriate time, but also in an ambiance where his life and personal security could be at stake. Bilawal aptly diagnoses that Taseer’s assassins are the very forces who killed his mother, Benazir Bhutto, and later did not spare Taseer’s life. Bilawal rightly points out that Taseer’s murder is symptomatic of a typical mindset. It is not the act of an individual, but the collective disposition and fanaticism of a certain section of society. Bilawal’s resolve that the blood of the outspoken Salmaan Taseer would not go in vain, must be a matter of solace for the West which views Pakistan’s future as uncertain and rocky, though Bilawal emphasises his viewpoint at peril to his life. As it is, there is no dearth of hotheaded bigots. Regardless of one’s political disposition about Bilawal and irrespective of the fact whether one is at tangent or even diametrically opposed to his views, one has to grudgingly concede to Bilawal’s gumption and gusto. While Asif Ali Zardari has condemned Taseer’s assassination, he left it to Bilawal to take the lead in this matter, since he is the future torchbearer of the party. …
Read more : Daily Times
By Khalid Hashmani
A Sindhi Sham with focus on Sindhi Rights was graciously hosted by Mrs. Nasreen and Mr. Iqbal Tareen at their residence on Sunday, January 9, 2011. The main purpose of the get-together was to meet a visiting young Sindhi leader Mr. Nizam Nizamani and exchange views on Sindhi affairs. However, the discussion soon turned into taking a candid look at the state of Sindhi Rights and potential solutions for resolving issues faced by Sindhis. The discussion group included Mr. Sohail Ansari, Mrs. Ayesha Babar, Mr. Aleem Brohi, Mr. Khalid Hashmani, Mr. Nizam Nizamani, Mr. Zahid Makhdoom, Mr. Ali Nawaz Memon, Mrs. Nazli Siddiki, Mr. Shafique Siddiki, Mrs. Nasreen Tareen and Mr. Iqbal Tareen. The session lasted several hours and resulted in some tangible recommendations – mainly that all Sindhi groups and political parties should formulate a minimum tangible agenda on which every one is in agreement and diligently work together until those goals are achieved. A synopsis of the meeting, organized by the main topics discussed at the meeting is shared below with the hope that Sindhis all over the world will have similar sessions in the cities, towns, and villages where they live so that a unified campaign can emerge to further the cause of Sindhi Rights. …
Strengths and Weaknesses of Sindhis
Some of the participants were of the views that Sindhis are a much stronger and organized nation than perceived by some. They gave the example of total shut-down of Sindh for several days after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto as an evidence that Sindhis are much stronger and willing to show force. Another example provided was that Sindhi political parties were able to organize large gatherings attended by hundreds of thousands of people in Karachi, Sindh was a sign of emerging organization and strength of Sindhis. The fact that there were six (6) Sindhi television channels, several FM radio stations broadcasting in Sindhi, and scores of Sindhi newspapers and magazines demonstrates clearly that Sindhis are successfully protecting and advancing their culture and heritage.
The counter point of view was that the Sindhis were not organized and had neither leadership nor direction. The strong reaction of Sindhis after the state murder of Benazir Bhutto was rather an exception prompted by emotions, and not an evidence that the reaction was well-calculated, well-articulated. … They gave an example that in spite of hundreds of thousands of Sindhis living in the core central areas of Karachi, Sindhis do not have a single Sindhi-medium school. … Another example they gave was that many leaders of key political parties live in Qasimabad area of Hyderabad and yet the area has no civic services. There is no sanitation system. All garbage is simply piled up in front of houses on the main streets of Qasimabad. How are these leaders going to help us to achieve Sindhi Rights when they cannot even organize people of one small area to create a rudimentary system that keeps streets of Qasimabad clean and safe?
Courtesy: Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, January 15, 2011.
By Wajid Shamsul Hasan
The ghastly assassination of Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer is a great loss for the Pakistani nation, Pakistan People’s Party, President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and the government. He was brave, courageous and daring—a great man who spoke for the rights of the people including minorities. He was totally committed to the high democratic ideals and the egalitarian vision of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and martyred Benazir Bhutto.
Salman was held in highest esteem by the people who respected his boldness to proclaim loud and clear that he believed in liberal and secular politics. He was targeted for elimination for having defended the rights of minorities against the black and discriminatory laws introduced by dictator General Ziaul Haq to terrorise the people into submission to his totalitarian rule. …
Read more : PakMission-UK
Mazhab kay jo byopari hein,
Woh sab se bari beemari hein.
Woh jin kay siwa sab kaafir hein,
Jo deen ka harf-e-akhir hein.
In jhootay aur makkaron say,
Mazhab kay theke-daron say,
Mein baaghi hoon mai baaghi hoon.
Jo Chahe mujh per Zulm Karo
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– Benazir Bhutto used to recite this poem. CLICK HERE to listen her recitation of the poem!
JI sees Taseer’s assassin in ‘seventh heaven’
By Shamim Bano, Karachi
In a shockingly blunt endorsement of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer’s assassination, Ameer Jamat-e-Islami in Sindh Asadullah Bhutto has declared that the assassin will directly go to the “seventh heaven”.
He said this after a press conference addressed by JI Ameer Munawar Hasan at Idara-e-Noor-e-Haq on Tuesday. The press conference ended abruptly when a JI spokesman Sarfaraz Ahmad broke the news of Taseer’s assassination to Munawar. “Is he alive?” was his first reaction.
“Whoever has killed him is a pious man and will go directly to heaven,” replied Bhutto to a question put forward by this correspondent.
He even went on to say that Taseer would not have got killed if the government had replaced him. “Aasia Bibi will suffer the same fate if the punishment awarded to her by the court for using derogatory remarks against Hazrat Mohammed Mustafa (PBUH) is not implemented,” he added.
Earlier, during the press conference, Syed Munawar Hasan said that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) should also clear its position in Sindh after parting ways with the government at the Centre. …
Read more : The News
Salmaan Taseer dedicated his personal fortune to the cause of publishing the unvarnished truth and the people’s right to know this truth. It would not have been possible for this paper’s editorial board to carry itself independently were it not for Salmaan Taseer’s personal commitment to not only this project but to the very freedoms of speech and expression.
“The sorrowful smell of the mist,
Lingering over the Indus,
Gentle waves of rice, dung and rind,
This is the salt cry of Sindh,
As I die let me feel,
The fragrance of tears”
— Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai.
“It was a Sindhi poet, Shah Abdul Latif, who captured the forlornness of his country in this haunting verse,” wrote Salmaan Taseer in the opening chapter of his 1979 book, Bhutto: A Political Biography. I have read these words many times but had never once thought that the forlornness might get deeper than the deepest depression one could feel. But the assassination of Salmaan Taseer has left many of us even more devastated and depressed than what Shah Latif could depict.
I do not mourn Salmaan Taseer alone but I also mourn those who have been killed before him on the perilous path of speaking their mind, and those who will be killed in the future on this journey. Ayesha Siddiqa, Kamran Shafi, Nadeem Farooq Paracha, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Sherry Rehman, and so many others are living on borrowed time. It is not a matter of if but when an indoctrinated bigot let loose by the deep state will get to them or, for that matter, any of us who decline to follow the rotten creed that it has been peddling for decades.
However, I have a feeling that Salmaan Taseer would not have wanted to be remembered with melancholy. His illustrious father, Dr M D Taseer, once said:
“Parwana jal kay dil ki muradon ko pa gaya, Aur shama reh gayi rukh-e-zeba liay huay” (Translation: The light-loving moth has died caressing the candle flame. The candle thus remains alone in all its elegance).
It is nearly impossible to accurately translate the above Urdu verse, which my father, Malik Rahat Ali, had quoted while writing Dr M D Taseer’s obituary for Edward’s College, Peshawar’s magazine Tajjali (light) in 1951. The obituary was titled ‘Aik raushan dimagh tha, na raha’ (an enlightened mind is no more). It is amazing how references to light and progressive thought keep popping up when discussing the Taseers and in the work of the Taseers themselves. Pakistan, and the liberal thought within Pakistan, is the candle that Salmaan and M D Taseer loved to the extent that to see it remain alight, they would dedicate their lives to it.
When thinking of Salmaan Taseer, two images come to mind. One is of a political activist and the second is of a patron of progressive and liberal thought. Perhaps senior members of the Indo-Pakistani leftist movement will recall that Dr M D Taseer, along with Abdullah Malik and Rajindra Singh Bedi had pioneered a liberal publishing house called Sangham Publishers in 1947, before the partition. I would not be wrong in assuming that the Daily Times and its media affiliates came into being due to Salmaan Taseer’s desire to follow in his father’s footsteps. …
Read more : Daily Times
By Dr. Ahmed H. Makhdoom, Singapore
Salman Taaseer is killed! So…? Nawab Akbar Bugti is murdered! Did anybody care? Benazir Bhutto is gunned down! Who are the killers? … Who bothers? There are countless innocent Balochs becoming victims of target killing! Any justice for them?
Continue reading Sindh Needs to Stand Up against the Religious Extremism!
Bhutto Lives! – by Mohammad Ali Mahar, Austin, TX
There are some who are born with a personal charm. Others have the privilege of being born with a golden spoons in their mouths. Then there are those who achieve the best of the best education in the best of the educational institutions. A few people attain the highest of the high positions. Very few have a combination of the above. He was among the rare breed of men to have them all. He was certainly no ordinary man. He was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
While interviewing Henry Kissinger, Oriana Fallaci asked who was the greatest leader ever Mr. Kissinger had the privilege of meeting (Interview with History). He rebounded the question to Oriana. Oriana was a great admirer of Indira Gandhi. She had recently done her interview. So, she presented Indira’s name. Kissinger did not agree. Shah of Iran. No. Castro. No. Tito. No. Shah Faisal. No. Nixon. Certainly not.
Then finally, reluctantly, she uttered Bhutto’s name. Oriana in a way hated Bhutto. Bhutto had her abducted from Karachi Airport – while she was on her way to interview Shah of Iran – to present his side of the story in reply to Mrs. Gandhi’s interview after the fall of Dhaka. Kissinger’s face brightened. He told Oriana that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was the greatest leader he had ever met. He told Oriana that it was not just the oratorical qualities, not just the education, not even the political upbringing that were necessary ingredients for a leader. It was the combination of all those plus the statesmanship that was required of a great leader. With a smile on his face, he told Oriana that only Bhutto had all those traits. He told Oriana Fallaci that in his opinion Bhutto was the greatest of the leaders of the world.
In 1963, young Bhutto visited the United Sates of America as Foreign Minister of Pakistan. His schedule included a meeting with President J. F. Kennedy. At the end of the meeting, Mr. Kennedy was so impressed by this
young fellow that he told him that had Bhutto been an American, he would have been on Mr. Kennedy’s cabinet. To which Bhutto spontaneously replied, “Beware Mr. President. If I were an American, I would not be in your cabinet, I would be in your place”.
Kennedy liked the reply so much that before his death, he told everyone he met of the courage and wit of this young Pakistani minister.
Bhutto was sent to gallows 20 years ago. Some say that he died that day. I don’t believe that. Bhutto was Hussain’s follower. Hussain and his follower never die.
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Courtesy → : The above article was originally posted by Mohammad Ali Mahar on SANAlist on April 4, 2000. After 11 years, here it is once again, as a tribute to a great leader who lives in our hearts even though his body is buried at Garhi Khuda Bux, Larkano, Sindh.
Benazir Bhutto wrote extensively about reconciliation between the Islamic world and the west. Unfortunately, she did not live to see it materialise. But even before that she had started a rapprochement with Mian Nawaz Sharif and had outlined a roadmap for it too
I write these lines on the evening of December 27, 2010 at exactly the same time when Benazir Bhutto breathed her last, three years ago. Her martyrdom remains one of those immense tragedies where one cannot forget the place where one was or the thoughts that crossed one’s mind upon receiving the tragic news. ….
Read more : Daily Times
A committee and a half – By Kamran Shafi
The committee set up to fix responsibility for the hosing down of the site of Benazir Bhutto’s dastardly assassination is something to behold: a federal secretary, a provincial additional secretary and the vice chief of general staff of the Pakistan Army.
What a committee indeed, with a real general on it whose presence must strike the fear of God into the other members, one of whom is reportedly best buddies with the general being investigated! Only a very unique government of a very unique country could have set up such a committee.
A Tribute to Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. Singer and Lyrics: Ms. Dilshad Mirza.
Courtesy: ARY News, via – Siasat – You Tube Link
Last photo taken moments before SHE was assassinated. Notice the utter spiritual look on HER face as SHE knew…
Courtesy: Express TV (programme Insaf Do – 24th December 2010 – Benazir Bhutto Assasination Investigations)
via – ZemTV – You Tube Link
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Musharraf was hostile when he telephoned Benazir: Siegel
* BB’s confidante says Musharraf offered to drop charges if she quit politics for 10 years
* Former premier emailed him asking whom to hold accountable after October 18 incident
LAHORE: Former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf was hostile and had a confrontational discussion with former premier Benazir Bhutto before her return to Pakistan, a private TV channel quoted Benazir’s close friend and adviser Mark Siegel on Friday.
Continue reading Musharraf was hostile when he telephoned Benazir: Siegel
Courtesy: Express TV (Point Blank With M. Lucman, 22 Dec. 2010)
via- ZemTV – You Tube Link
Panel of journalists discussing Conversation Saif-ur-Rehman Justice Qayum, Shehbaz Shareef and others about buying Lahore Hight Court’s judges against Asif Zardari in programme Sawal Yeh Hai with Dr. Danish. How much the Pakistani judiciary is corrupt, its not even easy to imagine!?
Courtesy: ARY News (Sawal Yeh Hai with Dr. Danish, Novermber 21, 2010)
Shahbaz Sharif’s Conversation with the Judge of Lahore High Court (LHC) to buy Justice.
Shabaz Sharif (SS) is saying that Nawaz Sharif (NS) ( Mian Saheb) asking MEHARBANI for Chaudhry Serwar. Qauum Said…..Mian Saheb ( Nawaz Shareef ) Nay Kaha Hay To Gul Qatum Ho Gaee Aae.
Courtesy: ARY News (Sawal yeh Hai with Dr. Danish, November 19, 2010)
Via – Siasat -> YouTube Link
A sitting Judge i.e. Malik Muhammad Qayyum [2nd Government of Nawaz Sharif]discussing the “Sentence and Punishment” against Zardari and Benazir Bhutto with Senator Saif ur Rehman. Faisal Raza Abdi presents in Sawal Yeh Hai with Dr. Danish. November 19, 2010 programme.
Courtesy: ARY News (Sawal Yeh Hai with Dr. Danish, guest Faisal Raza Abdi and Saif ur Rehman)
Courtesy: GEO TV ( Jawab deyh – 7th november 2010, Guest speaker Syed Mehdi)
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