The language of the program is urdu (Hindi).
Courtesy: GEO TV (Apas ki baat with Najam Sethi and Muneeb Farooq – 26th April 2011)
The language of the program is urdu (Hindi).
Courtesy: GEO TV (Apas ki baat with Najam Sethi and Muneeb Farooq – 26th April 2011)
– Opposition leader alleges agencies involved in politics
He said he usually avoid criticising agencies but they were responsible for alliances and sit-in.
Leader of the opposition in the National Assembly Ch. Nisar Ali said politicians without a single seat in assembly were staging sit-in on someone’s prodding.
He said he usually didn’t criticise agencies but they were responsible for alliances and sit-in. He demanded the prime minister should direct agencies to work in their legal framework. …
Read more : via Siasat.pk, – Dunya TV News
London – (Press release) : “World Sindhi Congress (WSC), Baloch Human Rights Council (BHRC) UK and International Voice for Missing Baloch Persons (IVFMBP) have announced a joint protest rally against the abductions and killings of Sindhi and Baloch people.
Heinous crimes by agencies on Sindhi and Baloch people are widespread and increasing day by day. Recently, on 21st April Sirai Qurban Khuhwar, and Roplo Choliani, prominent workers of Jeay Sindh were first wounded in firing by agencies on their car and then their bodies were set on fire by pouring petrol on them. In last four months alone more than one hundred mutilated bodies of Baloch political leaders and activists have been thrown. WSC requests human rights activists and peace loving people to join in the protest rally to raise their voice against killings, abductions and torture and show solidarity with the genuine cause of Sindhi and Baloch people. The rally will be held in front of 10 Downing Street on 1st May 2011 from 2 – 4pm. At the end of the rally a memorandum will be presented to British Prime Minster Rt. Hon. David Cameron to request him to press upon government to stop these gross violations of human rights against the people of Sindh and Balochistan people.
Presidential Spokesperson, Farhatullah Babar says that apparently no law exists to hold intelligence agencies accountable in Pakistan and parliament should draft such laws. This depicts a very sorry state of affairs and seriously undermines the concept of across the board accountability of all institutions in a democratic dispensation. In this episode of Reporter, Arshad Sharif tries to find out how and who will bring the intelligence agencies of the country under rule of law.
Courtesy: DAWN News (Program “Reporter” with Arshad Sharif) – You Tube
SINDH: KARACHI – The worst victims of the last year’s flood have been the women of the province as the government and other relief agencies did not give them priority while their issues still remain largely unaddressed.
This was pointed out by speakers at a dialogue held on women rights hosted by women wing of Sindhi Association of North America. SANA vice-president Noor Nisa Ghanghro presided over the session, which was attended by a large number of political and women rights’ activists.
The speakers emphasised that all poverty-alleviation programmes must address the gender poverty issue while particularly focusing on rural women
Expressing grave concern over a recent report from the flood-hit areas of Sindh that over a million rural women were suffering from blood anaemia, they demanded that the authorities concerned should take the issue seriously and immediately help the womenfolk of the province. …
Read more : Pakistan Today
Admiral Mullen’s Secret Deal
How the Pentagon Supervised Raymond Davis’ Release and How the CIA Took Its Revenge
By SHAUKAT QADIR
[Please note : The writer is a retired brigadier and a former president of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute.]
On February 23, at a beach resort, Gen Ashfaq Kiyani, Pakistan army’s chief assisted by a two star officer met with Admiral Mike Mullen, US Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, assisted by Gen. David Petraeus, and three other high ranking officials, to find a military-diplomatic solution to untangle this web that CIA operatives had spun around both governments. This has been a fairly consistent tradition. On every occasion when relations between Pakistan and the United States have soured (a not infrequent occurrence) the militaries have remained in contact and, invariably, have found a way forward.
The day after this meeting, a military officer posted at the US Embassy in Islamabad travelled to Lahore and met Davis in Kot Lakpat jail. Within 48 hours of this meeting, almost 50 individuals associated with the Tehreek-eTaliban Pakistan (TTP), including Pashtuns, Punjabis, and some foreigners (nationalities unknown, though one of them is said to be an Aryan) who had been in contact with Davis were arrested. Presumably, Davis ‘sang’, though probably to only a limited degree, on instructions.
Within the same period, a large number of Americans, estimated at between 30 to 45, who had been residing in rented accommodations (like Davis and his associates who had killed a motorcyclist while unsuccessfully attempting to rescue Davis) outside the Embassy/Consulate premises in Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi, and Quetta left for the US. It is safe to conclude that these were either CIA, Black ops, or associated personnel from security agencies like Xe.
The intelligence business is broadly divided into two categories: human intelligence, known as HUMINT and electronic intelligence, known as ELINT. The latter has numerous subdivisions: SIGINT (Signals intelligence, also known as COMINT; communication intelligence), Imagery intelligence etc. It appears, therefore, that the deal struck between the military leadership included a shut down of CIA’s HUMINT operations in Pakistan, retaining only ELINT, Davis would ‘sing’, within limits, of course, and only then could Blood Money be negotiated for his release. And the US would be bled in that final deal also so as to ensure the safety and the future of the immediate families of both Davis’s victims.
At the height of the debate on the question of Raymond Davis’ immunity from trial for murder, this writer emphasized that Pakistan could not release him without a trial. A trial took duly place and, in accordance with prevalent law in Pakistan, the next of kin of the deceased young men, pardoned Davis in return for ‘Blood Money’. However outlandish this law might seem to those peoples whose countries have their based on Anglo-Saxon principles, such is the law in Pakistan and so there was nothing underhand in what transpired.
Amongst analysts and journalists there were basically two opposing responses to his release, though there was (and is) an occasional sane voice to be heard, throughout the saga. One category of people had been arguing since Davis’ arrest that he should be granted immunity since Pakistan, given its precarious economy, weak government, and the prevalent security situation, could not afford to fall afoul of the US. For this factionhis release through the judicial system was the next best outcome of the disastrous mistake that had been committed in arresting him!
The opposing view was that it is time and more, that Pakistan asserts its sovereignty and national pride to ensure that Davis is awarded no less than his due: the death penalty. It is ironic that the bulk of those who held this view are all supporters of the imposition of Islamic laws including those on blasphemy, Blood Money (the law that ensured Davis’ pardon), and a host of other issues and, even after Davis’ release under these laws, any attempt to get rid of such laws would be opposed by them, tooth and nail.
While the accusations leveled by the prosecution that the families of Faizan and Faheem, the two men killed by Davis, were coerced into accepting the deal offered to them in exchange for their pardoning Davis, is a pack of nonsense, since the entire family was under the active protection of the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, there is absolutely no doubt that the ISI (and, therefore, GHQ) assisted in brokering the deal. In fact, I would be very surprised if both families had not been continuously advised by fairly senior-level representatives of the ISI as to what and how much they should ask for. ….
Read more : Counterpunch
London, UK, 19 march 2011: Press Release – A delegation of World Sindhi Congress (WSC) comprising of Dr Hidayat Bhutto and Dr Lakhu Luhano participated in the 16th session of UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. WSC delegation made statements at events organised by Interfaith International and RADDHO (Rencontre Africcaine Pour La Defense des Droits de L’Homme).
The delegation also met with numerous ECOSOC NGOs, human rights defenders from South Asia region and from nations oppressed by Pakistan and with the office of UN’s Special Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances. In these meetings, the delegation had detailed discussions about the worsening situation of human rights for people of Sindh.
In his statement, Dr Hidayat Bhutto presented detailed views about the worsening human rights situation in Sindh. He mentioned the recent killings of Sindhi political leaders Zulfiqar Kolachi, Yonus Khaskheley and Haji Khan Noonari. He said that the disappearances of political activists continue to occur in Sindh where currently 39 Sindhi people are missing believed to be kidnapped by the agencies. He informed the international community about the second-time disappearance of one of the most prominent Sindhi leader, Muzaffar Bhutto, in daylight by the agencies. He requested the UN and the international community to press upon the agencies for the release of all kidnapped Sindhi and Baloch people. Dr Bhutto mentioned that the agencies are illegally settling people from Punjab and Pakhtunkhwa to colonise Sindh and enhance religious extremism. He detailed how Sindhi people are being systematically denied their social, cultural, political, educational and lingual rights by the Pakistani establishment. He said that the international community to be aware of these issues and requested to support people of Sindh in their struggle for their genuine historical and human rights including right to self-determination.
Dr Lakhu Luhano in his statement said that the Pakistani state is practicing a systematic policy of fanning, patronising, training and funding the violent religious extremism not only for their regional strategic extension but also to suppers, subjugate and colonise Sindhi and Baloch people. This policy has huge and serious implications for regional and global security and peace and for viability and continuance of tolerant Sindhi nation and society. He requested the international community for an immediate, effective and urgent action before it becomes too late. He warned the price for the entire humankind of the spread of this disaster would be unimaginable.
The other delegates at the events extended their support to Sindhi people in their struggle for their human rights including right to self-determination.
Release of Raymond Davis: Ghairat Brigade Activated Against the System. US Revives Ties with Pakistan. Government Retreating to its Shell?
By Aijaz Ahmed
Excerpt:
” … the ‘ghairat (honor) brigade’ is activated to grab the advantage and cash in the public anger against the democratic system in the country and some sections of the traditional anti democracy elements in the agencies are said to be providing behind the scene support to keep pressure on the federal and the provincial governments and the United States.” ….
Read more : Indus Herald
HYDERABAD, Feb 25: A woman has appealed to the Chief Justice of Supreme Court and the Chief Justice Sindh High Court to take notice of the disappearance of her husband and help her to know his whereabouts.
She also sought assistance of international human rights organisations, nationalist leaders, writers and intellectuals in finding out where he was being kept and urged them to protest over his detention.
Saima Bhutto – wife of Muzaffar Bhutto, General Secretary of the Jeay Sindh Mutahedda Mahaz (JSMM) – has alleged that her husband was arrested by secret agencies at the New Saeedabad Toll Plaza when he was going to Hyderabad in his car on Thursday night.
She said at a press conference on Friday that her husband struggled for liberation of Sindh under the leadership of JSMM Chairman Shafi Mohammd Burfat. ….
Read more : DAWN
More » http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/26/jsmm-leader-picked-up-wife.html
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that the bodies of two disappeared persons have been found in a remote area. The bodies bore bullet wounds and marks of torture. Both victims were abducted from Karachi, Sindh province at different times but their bodies were found together 500 kilometers near the Gwader district, Balochistan province. Both the bodies were lying side by side in an abandoned place. It was witnessed that both were abducted by persons in uniformed and in plain clothes that identified themselves to the onlookers as being from the state security agencies.
Disappearances in Balochistan have become the routine work of the Frontier Corps (FC) and state intelligence agencies. Since last year the law enforcement authorities have introduced a new trend in which they kill the disappeared person extra judicially so as to destroy any possible evidence of their involvement. …
Read more : AHRC
PAKISTAN: A student leader abducted and four bodies of disappeared persons are found
Case: AHRC-UAC-032-2011 – The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a student leader from Balochistan was abducted from the check post of the Frontier Corps in Quetta while he was returning from an interview for internship at Pakistan Telecommunications, a public sector company. In the campaign of killings of disappeared persons four more bodies of disappeared were found with bullet and torture marks. No a day goes by in Balochistan province without agitation and ‘shutter-down’ strikes in protest of killings and abductions allegedly by the law enforcement agencies. …
Read more : AHRC
– Message of Solidarity by the Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians to The Egyptian National Association for Change (Canada).
by Omar Latif, Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians
The Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians congratulates the Egyptian people on their success in ousting the dictator Hosni Mubarak and salutes their heroic and historic struggle against dictatorship and for freedom, democracy and social justice.
Backed and supported by the US and other western countries the Egyptian regime, like many other Arab regimes – as indeed most of the governments in Pakistan – have served the interests of the rich internally and that of imperialism regionally.
The Egyptian armed services, just like those of Pakistan, receive well over a billion dollars annually from the United States, most of which ends up in the pockets of senior officers. The ties and cooperation between the security agencies of the US with those of Egypt – as with the security forces of Pakistan – are even closer. Along with you, we hope, these relationships will end.
The Saudi monarchy – the most reactionary, despotic and US-dependent of the Arab regimes – has also played a significant role in aiding and abetting undemocratic and unjust regimes in the region – including those of Pakistan.
Courtesy: SAMAA TV (News Beat with Meher Bokhari, 18 January, 2011)
via – ZemTV – YouTube Link
Courtesy: ARY News, via – Siasat – You Tube Link
Army and country – George Fulton
At first glance, the WikiLeaks revelations about the Pakistani army aren’t exactly, er, revelatory. So General Kayani and the intelligence agencies call the shots in Pakistan. Nothing new there, you may be thinking. Everyone knows that. Any foreigner arriving in Pakistan is soon pulled aside and told a couple of pithy lines about the army. One being that the three As run Pakistan — Allah, America and the Army. The other is that whilst most countries have an army, the Pakistani army has a country.
But reading the cables starkly in black and white, one is reminded how truly prevailing the army is to Pakistan’s society and long-term survival. The very institution that is supposedly designed to protect us is bringing Pakistan to its knees.
Let’s take parliamentary democracy. In theory we have one of those, with elected leaders to do our bidding, but WikiLeaks reminds us otherwise. Zardari wants to implement stiff sanctions on terrorist financing and close down terrorist training camps, but he can’t. Why? The unelected and unaccountable military and intelligence agencies won’t allow it. We are also told that Kayani planned to pressure President Zardari to resign and replace him with Asfandyar Wali Khan. Er, on whose authority? Sorry, old chum, but I thought that decision fell to the Pakistani people at the ballot box, not a man who wears spaghetti on his shoulders.
The cables also reveal the army’s support of the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t the faujis’ raison d’etre, it’s primary reason to exist, the first line in their handbook if you will, to protect us from enemies foreign and domestic? Or perhaps it’s to make cornflakes that taste of cardboard?
But the reason for the army’s support for the militants is of course our hatred of India. Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Afghan Taliban, despite their continuous killing of our own citizens, are apparently a vital part of our national security. Read that sentence again and it sounds like something from “Monty Python”. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Yes let’s threaten India by funding and supporting people who attack India and, er, ourselves. Good job.
In addition, the army’s paranoia and cold war thinking has stopped successive civilian governments from making any constructive attempts at long-term peace with India. An economic powerhouse that could bring thousands of jobs to Pakistan remains a foe, thanks to the faujis.
For too long the military/intelligence nexus has been immune to any sort of accountability or criticism. We can judge the judiciary, pillory the politicians and mock the media. But the army receives a free reign. The generals/admirals/air marshals — who can be as corrupt and venal as the political class — rarely receive similar press coverage, despite the fact that the army is the biggest private landowner in Pakistan. They run businesses, residential areas, schools and hospitals but somehow they largely avoid scrutiny. Funny that. …
Read more : The Express Tribune
– Pakistani media publish fake WikiLeaks cables attacking India
Comments alleged to be from WikiLeaks US embassy cables say Indian generals are genocidal and New Delhi backs militants
– Declan Walsh in Islamabad
They read like the most extraordinary revelations. Citing the WikiLeaks cables, major Pakistani newspapers this morning carried stories that purported to detail eye-popping American assessments of India‘s military and civilian leaders.
According to the reports, US diplomats described senior Indian generals as vain, egotistical and genocidal; they said India’s government is secretly allied with Hindu fundamentalists; and they claimed Indian spies are covertly supporting Islamist militants in Pakistan‘s tribal belt and Balochistan.
“Enough evidence of Indian involvement in Waziristan, Balochistan,” read the front-page story in the News; an almost identical story appeared in the Urdu-language Jang, Pakistan’s bestselling daily.
If accurate, the disclosures would confirm the worst fears of Pakistani nationalist hawks and threaten relations between Washington and New Delhi. But they are not accurate.
An extensive search of the WikiLeaks database by the Guardian by date, name and keyword failed to locate any of the incendiary allegations. It suggests this is the first case of WikiLeaks being exploited for propaganda purposes.
The controversial claims, published in four Pakistani national papers, were credited to the Online Agency, an Islamabad-based news service that has frequently run pro-army stories in the past. No journalist is bylined.
Shaheen Sehbai, group editor at the News, described the story as “agencies’ copy” and said he would investigate its origins. …
Read more : Guardian.co.uk
– – – – – –
More details about Fake WikiLeaks : BBC urdu
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court highlighted on Thursday a thorny issue when it asked about laws that governed the country’s spy agencies, but was informed by none other than the chief law officer that there were none.
“Is there any law governing intelligence agencies,” wondered Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the head of a three-judge bench hearing a joint petition filed by Attiqur Rehman and others against the alleged kidnapping of Dr Niaz Ahmed, Mazharul Haq, Shafiqur Rehman, Mohammad Aamir, Abdul Majid, Abdul Basit, Abdul Saboor, Shafique Ahmed, Said Arab, Gul Roze and Tehseenullah from Adiyala jail in June after their acquittal on terrorism charges.
The court raised the question while referring to a reply submitted on Wednesday by Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq on behalf of two premier intelligence agencies — Inter-Services Intelligence and the Military Intelligence. …
Read more : DAWN
More details : BBC urdu
The bullet-ridden body of journalist Lala Hameed Baloch, who disappeared last month in the Pakistan province of Balochistan, has been found with a note saying: “Eid present for the Baloch people.” …
Read more : Guardian.co.uk
Courtesy: SAMAA TV (NewsBeat with Meher Bukhari, 12 November, 2010)
Via – ZemTV/ JustinTV – YouTube Link
Nor is Talat alone in suffering from this forked tongue affliction. The Quilliam Foundation, a UK anti-extremist think tank, recently held a function in Islamabad. The event gathered together some of Pakistan’s media elite, youth activists, reformed terrorists and foreign journalists. One of the speakers at the event was Hamid Mir. I have it on good authority that Mr Mir was the voice of rational moderation that day. He talked unequivocally of his disgust with the intelligence agencies, he explicitly condemned the Taliban as anti-Islam forces and passionately argued — in English — that the only future for Pakistan was democracy and that it should be protected at all costs. Yes, I am talking about Hamid Mir, host of “Capital Talk”. Version 2.0 of Hamid Mir had transformed, becoming the personification of enlightened moderation. But then he was speaking in English and not to his usual Geo constituents.
Of course the reason that the Hamid Mirs and Talat Hussains of this world can get away with this duplicity is due to the linguistic Berlin Wall that the establishment likes to retain. Project an urbane, liberal image to the West with your (mostly) rational, logical and relatively free English media, and feed the wider public bile, conspiracy theories and irrational, simplistic nonsense in Urdu, thus ensuring that a suitably malleable, impressionable public can be whipped up when said establishment is fed up with the present government.
Do you remember when AQ Khan was forced to apologise to the nation for giving away nuclear secrets for personal gain? In what language did the disgraced scientist speak to his countrymen? English, of course. The establishment didn’t want the father of the bomb discredited as a money-grubbing chancer in the eyes of the public. Change the language and you change the audience. …
Read more : The Express Tribune
Who Was Behind Umar Cheema’s Torture?
There is a lot to be said for journalistic instinct.
The moment one heard the shameful story of the abduction, humiliation and beating of The News’ Islamabad-based investigative reporter Umar Cheema, something sounded too pat. …
Read more >> CAFE PYALA
Video of girl’s flogging as Taliban hand out Justice, plz click here
by A.Latif Khuhro, latifk@hotmail.com
Roots of Such behaviors are multifaceted including jihalat to petro-dollars. Nizam Adl is approved by ANP government which is probably representative of NWFP people. They strongly are arguing in favor of that. Even amir-ul- momnin Imam of revolution Nawaz Sharif has endorsed that and has given his blessing for that
What ever is happening in Sawat PPP is not responsible for that. Story is long and recently U.S. has categorically blamed one agency for that. There is beautiful video on PBS – front line which shows how real rulers of Pakistan are dealing with that. I wish I had exact web address for that.