We all have blood on our hands!

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Oh Lahore!

On May 28^th 2010, I was away from the TV and computer the whole day, a rare feat in this increasingly connected world. I came home around 10.00 pm and was inundated with images and sounds of what is called the worst ever assault on Ahmadis – a persecuted religious minority in Pakistan – during Friday prayers. While everyone from the Prime Minister Gilani to US State Department condemned the incident, no one is willing to look at the real cause of the carnage.

Ahmadis are the most persecuted minority in Pakistan. Although the other minorities do not enjoy perfect conditions in the country, Ahmadis are especially ill-treated, with constitution and penal code supporting those who perpetuate offenses against them. Following a violent campaign, led by the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1974 against Ahmadis, constitutional amendments were introduced by the elected government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Ahmadis were declared non Musilms. Ten years later, military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq (May he rot in hell for all eternity) promulgated the anti Ahmadi Ordinance XX in April 1984. The ordinance prohibited Ahmadis from preaching or professing their beliefs, it forbids Ahmadis to call themselves Muslim or to ‘pose’ as Muslims. They were forbidden from calling their places of worship mosques. They were also barred by law from worshipping in non-Ahmadi mosques or public prayer rooms, performing the Azaan (Msulim call to prayers), using the traditional Islamic greeting in public, publicly quoting from the holy book Quraan, preaching in public, seeking converts, or producing, publishing, and disseminating their religious materials. These acts are punishable by imprisonment of up to three years. In short, the ordinance was in violation of Article 14, 16, 19, 20, 22, 25 and 28 of the 1973 Constitution and denied them basic civic rights. For Ahmadis, living in Pakistan is just as bad, if not worse than Jews living under Nazi rule.

It is not just the state institution and right wing political parties that are out for a witch hunt of Ahmadis/Qadiyanis, it is all of us who are responsible for the persecution of Ahmadis/Qadiyanis. Popular talk show host Aamir Liaquat Hussain instigated violence against the community in September 2008, which resulted in death of 3 Ahmadis. MQM, the political party he belonged to, publicly condemned him and kicked him out of the party, but the TV channel he worked for never uttered a word of apology and he continues to spew his venom to this date. Hamid Mir, another popular talk show host on the same channel and a public opinion maker, expressed his intense hatred for Qadiyanis in his leaked tapes which probably have triggered right wing terrorist into taking upon themselves to kill as many Ahmadis as they can. What was that TV channel and state’s response to that? That man is still on TV, dishing out his maligned version of truth day in, day out. Do they have blood on their hands? I say yes.

The judges in our court are obviously sympathetic towards the alleged terrorists and most of the terrorists who were captured and brought to courts were released citing lack of evidence. I am sure like all other previous terrorists who were released, the courts in Pakistan will also release the one who was caught by the people yesterday, even though he was caught red handed killing people. Punjab’s law ministers openly consorts with supposedly banned terrorists outfits, the Chief minister of Punjab is retweeting film song lyrics on twitter after 22 hours of this incident instead of making sure that people who did this are nabbed. While Jamaat-e-Isalami blamed it on USA and Blackwater, Shahbaz Sharif blamed it on enemies of Islam and Pakistan and Commissioner of Lahore Khusro Parvez blamed it all on RAW a couple of hours after the incident without any intelligence report, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks. A text message sent to journalists said this: "This is a final warning to the [Ahmedi community] to leave Pakistan or prepare for death at the hands of the Prophet Muhammad's devotees." It was signed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Punjab wing of al-Qaeda, the latter a hitherto unknown group. Do all those who live in denial have blood on their hands? I say yes.

The common people are just as bad as our right wing and centre of right political parties; our talk show hosts and mullah sympathizers. In a public forum pkpolitics, many people were justifying the killing spree of Qadiyanis by repeatedly calling them wajib-ul-qatl (must be killed category of apostates) because they act and behave like Muslims. A friend, who works for education ministry in Punjab called and said that most of her junior colleagues were celebrating the death of many Qadiyanis, and these people work for the ministry of education! Do they all have blood on their hands? I say yes.

Every identity card and passport holder in Pakistan – including me – who filled out the form declaring themselves true apostles of the faith have denounced the basic citizenship rights of Ahmadis/Qadiyanis. Do we all have blood on our hands? I hang my head in utter shame and say, yes we all have their blood on our hands.

PS: The only public figure and politician who ever publicly supported the basic citizenship rights of Ahmadis is MQM’s Altaf Hussain.

All images via Time by Arif Ali / AFP / Getty Images

The sorry state of journalism in Pakistan

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Media was a booming industry in Pakistan for most of the noughties. Tv channels and radio stations sprang up from every little corner of the country, the people running popular talk shows on TV declared themselves defenders of freedom of expression and everyone who was part of the media industry in whichever way was busy patting each others’ back because the “Media was responsible for reporting the truth”. In addition, it was also considered the main actor in upholding the sanctity of freedom of speech and defender of civil liberties of the people of this land. Two separate incidents that happened last week put any illusion of the impartiality and professionalism of Pakistani journalists to rest.

The first case is that of so called Hamid Mir Tapes. To recap the story, a recorded phone conversation of a popular talk show host Hamid Mir with an alleged terrorist was surfaced. In the tapes, Mir was provoking the terrorist to interrogate one of the captives Khalid Khuwaja (a former ISI official) for his alleged links with CIA and Qadiani leaders. Mir also used foul language against a religious minority (Qadianis/Ahmadis) in the tapes. When the tapes became public, Mir came up with multiple responses. First of all, he denied ever uttering the words and sent out a misspelled press release. Then he said that he had similar conversation with a PPP leader and not with the terrorist. He then sent a court notice to Daily Times for publishing the text of that conversation. It is but understandable that Mir would try to defend himself, what I found appalling was that no journalist body condemned the incident. Even if the tapes turn out to be fake (I personally think the tapes are not fake, most TV watching Pakistanis hear his voice three times a week for past so many years, they cannot all mistake it) they should have condemned anyone instigating violence posing as a journalist, esp against a person in captivity of terrorists and a persecuted religious minority but PFUJ decided to stay neutral in the instance.

Hamid Mir, with your friendly neighborhood terrorist

Mubashir Lucman, another talk show host, said it in his program that some people are jealous of Mir’s popularity, hence they are trying to malign his name. Ansar Abbasi says that Mir may be a loose cannon but he means well in another show. I guess Mir meant well when he used offensive language against Qadianis. Talat Hussien was at pains to point out that anyone recording a private telephone conversation is actually indulging in an illegal activity. If a journalist had recorded conversation of a politician, it would have been justified but now that one of their own was found guilty, he came up with illegality of recording the telephone conversation! A man (Khalid Khuwaja) was killed, perhaps because of that conversation and that man(Mir) still goes on air every day, giving his sanctimonious opinion on everything under the sun! This can only happen in Pakistan.

The other incident happened last Thursday when a civil society group decided to call a press conference against ban on select websites (Facebook, Wikipedia, flickr and youtube among others) in Pakistan from May 19^th 2010 onwards. After they are done reading the statement, the members of press attacked the panelists. One senior journalist from an Urdu Newspaper was really angry and asked the members of civil society if they know that they are in contempt of court? Another responsible journalist passed the judgment that "speakers at the press conference were unable to effectively convey their point of view to media personnel." I was standing at the back chatting with a correspondent of a foreign news agency, when another angry journalist who narrated the whole press release to someone on phone and was getting questions from that person asked the panel how they can be against a ban that is the wish of every Muslim (I am willing to bet good money that the gentleman must be a fan of both Katrina Kaif and Megan Fox Pages on facebook). When members of the panel pointed out that they are only speaking against violation of civil liberties, most journalists mocked them and abruptly ended the press conference by leaving the room. It must be noted that a group of angry pro facebook ban protester was chanting “death to facbook” outside the press club and it was a seriously scary scene. When the press conference ended, I met a couple of former colleagues and was catching up with them when one of reporters who works for a big News channel said how sad is it that a former Jamati (they thought one of the panel members was a former member of Islami Jamiat Talba – student wing of the ultra right wing Jamat-e-Islami) is now speaking for a Jew website (just because facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is Jewish, the whole site becomes a “Jew website”). The other journalist came up with the suggestion that they should report him to the angry mob outside and they will take care of him. When I sensed that things are gonna get ugly, I left immediately with a friend (We were escorted by a male colleague who thought it was not safe for two young women to go out and face that angry mob).

Minutes after I left the press conference, the mob entered the premises (most probably on call of the journalists who could not stand someone speaking for the right of freedom of speech) and manhandled the panelist who was still there. A detailed account of that incident can be read here. Like Farieha mentioned in her post, almost all major news channel cameras were there but not one of them reported the incident. Many journalists openly expressed disgust at the views held by the panelists and they were just not ready to listen to anything at all. Karachi Press Club, which was once considered the bastion of freedom of speech, could not tolerate a few harmless individuals who wanted to question why access to information for which they pay is denied to them. This is how we treat dissenting voices in Pakistan, but harassing the living day lights out of them.

PS: I know I am very late in reporting this incident but I could not access blogspot since Thursday.

This is so not fair

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I hate the Tory government already.

David Cameroon had the cheek to replace this man

Former foreign secretary David Miliband

with this fella!!!!!

Current Foreign Secretary William Hague

I wonder what Hillary has to say about this transition?




The only reason anyone ever watched those press briefings was David Miliband's handsome mug with that awfully cute British accent.

But there is a silver lining .... Hopefully, the coalition will die its natural death soon and there would be a Labour government again, with Miliband as the PM.

How to "Fatima-Bhutto-ize" a news story

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So one national newspaper published a story on Pakistan’s porn industry and all hell broke loose, at least on twitter. Everyone had an opinion about the article. Some thought it was pure fiction and some thought that the text was politically incorrect. Some called it masala journalism and some said that it is not journalism at all. In short, the report was thoroughly discussed, something that the perhaps both the writer and editor aimed for and achieved.

One commenter on the newspaper did not agree with the article and he said:

I think this article is a fake, as a connoisseur of porn I would have seen some of the porn that they claim to have made. The quality of Pakistani porn does not reflect the kind of technological advancements the writer has mentioned. It is a sad day when a national news paper lies about porn, isn’t anything sacred anymore!

Another commenter had issues with the English of the article. The writer has used the phrase “loud smile” somewhere in the text and she only wanted to ask the writer of this article one thing:

What, sir, is a ‘loud smile’?

The writer has not responded till the last time I checked.

Like every other discussion in the country the debate turned to religion and of course Taliban. There were some puritanical hearts who lamented the fact that while people are obsessed with Talibaan they are ignoring a bigger threat to the sanctity of Pakistani society – porn.

Dishoom on twitter was shocked and awed by the news. According to him, he “religiously googled” about the porn in Pakistan but failed. He searched for "Andheri Raat", one of the best sellers according to the news report, but even that did not yield desired results. Now he has been appealing to all and sundry to help him find the porn mentioned in that news report. His exact words:

APPEAL: Please tell us where we can find this Pakistani Porn, which is being reported in our national dailies or someone please refer me to this supposed website and blog. Google search has failed me.

Naheed Mustafa thought that the article was in bad taste and said, “Pakistani porn industry sound like high school drama club!” She marveled how the writer can talk about the supposed professionalism of the industry when he quoted one of the actresses that she was raped, sold and eventually ended in porn industry. She also wondered which editor Okayed the report.

The writer was not too happy with people doubting his investigative skills, so he responded with:

Duty of a reporter is always to tell readers what is going on in the society. We raise problems to the point of discussion. It is the job of the authorities to find out where it is going on. We are not bound to disclose exact location of either Taliban or those who are running porn industry….You can find movies mentioned in the article in Rambo Plaza….

Personally, I have no major issues with the story, other than the fact there is no Rambo Plaza in Karachi (I think the writer wanted to mention Rainbow Centre). If the story is correct and the writer did interview some people for it, he should have come up with better fake names, after all, a director named "Tina" can only invite ridicule. I think the writer had seen too many 70s and 80s Bollywood movies where vamp was always named either Mona or Tina and was inspired by it. The writer also got a bit carried away and blurred the line between fact and fiction. One cannot even blame the poor soul for it. If Fatima Bhutto can be praised all over the world for passing pure conjecture as memoirs he thought he could get away with it as well. He is guilty of Fatima Bhutto-izing the story at best.

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