Category: Civil Society

Karachi, Feb. 12: Saturday morning saw enthusiasts from across the spectrum – fiction lovers, political aficionados and history fans, all congregating in Carlton Hotel and filling up the main garden for the event launch even before the sessions kicked off.

And the audience wasn’t disappointed. Keynote speaker, historian and writer William Dalrymple, proved to be an engrossing presenter, discussing his upcoming work, The Return of a King, on the first Afghan war held in 1839. Dalrymple shared an excerpt on how 18,000 troops sent by the British marched off to Kandahar with only one managing to come back home alive.

The author also shed some light into the sheer effort that goes into writing a historical book, saying that he had spent hours sifting through documents in the state archives in Lahore’s Anarkali.
“That place is not being used by anyone,” said Dalrymple.

Some well-placed one-liners earned hearty laughs from the crowd, but the speech took a graver tone when he described the brutal way the troops were killed by the Afghans, drawing gasps from the audience.

Dalrymple also knew how to keep the mood upbeat: “From this, Bush and Blair can get history lessons,” he joked. “Americans know that their game is over but politicians deny. It is the last stage for America. Next it will be China,” he said, as he left the stage to a loud round of applause.

The podium was shared by US Ambassador Cameron Munter’s wife, Dr Marilyn Wyatt, who started off by sharing her personal reading experiences. Referring to how reading was an essential activity for her, she added: “Imagine how life is for those for whom reading does not exist”.

Wyatt said that the US embassy, in collaboration with the Oxford University Press (OUP), had set up a stall for a campaign, ‘Donate a book so a child can read,’ at the festival. The embassy also plans to set up libraries in ten schools around the city.

Country Director for the British Council, David Martin, also placed fiction outside of the subcontinent in the spotlight, highlighting that this was a ‘special year’ as the 200th anniversary of literature icon Charles Dickens was being commemorated.

Founding member of the KLF, Asif Farrukhi, emphasised the inclusionary vision of the festival. Referring to a poem by Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, he quoted the line “the eagerness to see things from all sides,” saying it symbolised the spirit of the festival.

Most importantly, perhaps, was a focus on diversity, which was visible in the wide range of genres and languages visible in the session titles and who’s who list of participants. Ameena Saiyid, managing director of OUP, said that sessions in English, Seraiki, Sindhi, French and German would be held to highlight the vibrant nature of linguistics on display. In October, she added, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa would have its own literary event to look forward to when a children’s literature festival will be held in Peshawar.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 12th, 2012.

Karachi, Feb. 7: Acknowledging corruption and malpractice in the registration and pricing of drugs at federal level since the creation of Pakistan, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) on Monday insisted on establishment of a federal authority to regulate medicines in the country.

PMA office-bearers at a news conference at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) said that after the recent drug-related deaths in Punjab, no doctor knew what they were prescribing to their patients in the name of medicines available in the county, and claimed that the entire population of the country was in danger.

“Over 57,000 drugs have been registered in Pakistan, of which 6,000 in the last two years alone. There is no other country in the world where such a large number of drugs have been registered. We the doctors believe that we don’t need such a large number of drugs in the country,” the PMA Central President, Prof Tipu Sultan, said.

He acknowledged that medicines were approved and registered by taking money in Pakistan at the federal level, but said like every civilized country, Pakistan, too, needed to have a central drug regulatory authority which should be less corrupt.

Prof Sultan claimed that medicine markets and pharmacies were full of counterfeits and spurious medicines in the country and added that over 50 percent medicines being sold in pharmacies in the smaller cities of the country were spurious.

“In order to regulate all these issues, we call for a strong, competent and honest central drug regulatory authority instead of having such authorities at the provincial level,” he said and claimed that creation of provincial drug regulatory authorities would create many problems.

“Availability, pricing and inter-provincial smuggling of drugs would be some of the major issues if medicines are to be regulated at the provincial level,” he claimed.

To a query, the PMA president said they were in favour of provincial autonomy but believed that some subjects like medical education and its regulatory body, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) and the Drug Regulatory Authority were established at the federal level.

PMA Secretary-General, Dr Mirza Ali Azhar, said on the occasion that after the 18th Constitutional Amendment, the government had failed to develop and maintain the procedure for registration, testing and verification of newly introduced drugs in the market.

“Because of this negligence, all provinces are facing a situation which is causing immense problems and difficulties for both patients and physicians, resulting in loss of precious lives,” he maintained.

He demanded immediate withdrawal of all the drugs that did not meet the criteria of the World Health Organization (WHO) and development of a strong mechanism to deal with natural and manmade emergencies like the Lahore drug deaths.

The PMA office-bearers also deplored that there was no scientific lab competent enough in the country to analyze drugs, compelling the authorities to send the suspicious drugs to the London School of Pharmacy for testing.

On the occasion, they demanded that no president or prime minister or any government official should go abroad for medical treatment.

Pakistani liberals derided host Maya Khan’s behavior on Twitter and Facebook, comparing it to the kind of moral policing practiced by the Taliban, and started an online petition asking Samaa TV to end this ”irresponsible programming” and apologize.

The company responded Saturday in a letter sent to reporters saying it had decided to fire Khan and her team and cancel her show because she refused to issue an unconditional apology for the Jan. 17 program.

Samaa TV’s decision marked an unusual victory for Pakistan’s beleaguered liberal minority, which has become more marginalized as the country has shifted to the right and whose members have been killed by extremists for standing up for what they believe.

Critics of the program also praised the company’s decision as a positive example of self-regulation by Pakistan’s freewheeling TV industry, which was liberalized in 2000 and has mushroomed from one state-run channel to more than 80 independent ones.

Some shows have been praised for serving the public good by holding powerful officials to account, but many others have been criticized for doing anything that will get ratings, including pandering to populist sentiments at the expense of privacy and sometimes truth.

”Samaa management has set a good example that some others need to follow,” said prominent human rights activist and journalist Hussain Naqi.

During the program in question, Khan and around a dozen other men and women chased down young couples in a seaside park in the southern city of Karachi. Several couples raced away from the group. One young man put on a motorcycle helmet to hide his identity, while his female friend covered her face with a veil.

Khan finally accosted one couple sitting on a bench and pestered them with questions about whether they were married and whether their parents knew they were there. The man said the couple was engaged and asked Khan to shut off her cameras and microphone. She lied and said they were off.

”What is the difference between this kind of media vigilantism and that demonstrated by the Taliban?” said Mahnaz Rahman, a director at the Aurat Foundation, an organization that fights for women’s rights in Pakistan.

Following Khan’s program, one headline in a local paper called the host and the other women who appeared on the show ”Vigil-aunties,” referring to the South Asian term ”aunty” for a bossy older woman.

A petition posted online that criticized Khan’s behavior as ”highly intrusive, invasive and potentially irresponsible” and demanded an official apology attracted more than 5,000 signatures.

Khan reportedly rejected the criticism at first but eventually issued on apology on TV to anyone she may have offended, saying ”it was not my objective to make you cry or hurt you.”

This fell short of the apology that Khan’s bosses demanded, according to a letter written by the chairman of Samaa TV, Zafar Siddiqi. It said Khan and her team would receive termination notices on Jan. 30 and her show would be canceled.

Siddiqi said the company did not ”absolve such behavior irrespective of ratings the show was getting.”

Scores of Pakistanis on Twitter praised Samaa TV’s decision.

”Journalists must never forget the dividing line between public interest & private freedom,” tweeted Najam Sethi, a prominent Pakistani journalist.

 

New York, Jan 23 – Pakistan’s fledgling democratic government, under increasing pressure from the military, appeased extremist groups, ignored army abuses, and failed to hold those responsible for serious abuses accountable in 2011, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2012. Targeted killings and other attacks on civilians by the Taliban and sectarian and ethnic militant groups, as well as killings of journalists, were commonplace during the year.

Security deteriorated dramatically throughout the country as the result of suicide bombings by the Taliban and affiliated groups, which targeted civilians and public spaces, including marketplaces and religious processions. There was a dramatic increase in targeted killings in the southwestern province of Balochistan, while 800 people were killed in often politically motivated violence in Karachi. Law enforcement authorities made little attempt to resolve enforced disappearances of terrorism suspects and opponents of the military.

“The past year was disastrous for human rights in Pakistan,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Bombs killed hundreds of civilians, advocates of religious tolerance were assassinated, and the military undermined democratic institutions. From Karachi to Quetta, Pakistan is teetering on the edge of becoming a military-run Potemkin democracy.”

In its 676-page report, Human Rights Watch assessed progress on human rights during the past year in more than 90 countries, including popular uprisings in the Arab world that few would have imagined. Given the violent forces resisting the “Arab Spring,” the international community has an important role to play in assisting the formation of rights-respecting democracies in the region, Human Rights Watch said in the report.

In Pakistan, persecution and discrimination under cover of law against religious minorities and other vulnerable groups reached a zenith in 2011, Human Rights Watch said. Freedom of belief and expression came under severe threat as Islamist militant groups murdered Punjab’s governor, Salmaan Taseer, and the federal minorities’ minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, over their public support for amending the country’s often abused blasphemy law. The government notably failed to provide protection to people threatened by extremists or hold the extremists accountable. Taseer’s self-confessed killer, Mumtaz Qadri, was convicted of murder, but the presiding judge had to flee the country amid fears for his safety.

Extremist groups exploited the government’s passivity by intimidating minorities and with an upsurge in blasphemy allegations and cases, Human Rights Watch said. Religious minorities, Muslims, children, and mentally disabled people have all been charged under the blasphemy law, which violates the right to freedom of conscience and religion under international law.

“Government appeasement of extremist groups who fomented Taseer and Bhatti’s murders has led to a rash of blasphemy allegations and well-justified fear for those who question the use of the blasphemy law,” Adams said. “The Pakistan government needs to summon the courage to stand up to extremists and hold those responsible for violence and threats to account.”

Journalists, particularly those covering counterterrorism issues or who are perceived to be taking public positions against the military, faced unprecedented threats. At least ten journalists were killed in Pakistan during the year. A climate of fear pervaded efforts by the media to cover the military, and militant groups with the result that journalists rarely report on human rights abuses by the military in counterterrorism operations. The Taliban and other armed groups regularly threatened media outlets over their coverage.

Saleeem Shahzad, a reporter for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online and for Adnkronos International, the Italian news agency, disappeared from central Islamabad on the evening of May 29. He had received repeated and direct threats from the military’s abusive Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. Shahzad’s body, bearing visible signs of torture, was discovered two days later near Mandi Bahauddin, 130 kilometers southeast of the capital.

Following an international and domestic furor caused by the killing, a judicial commission was formed within days to investigate allegations of ISI complicity. In August, Human Rights Watch testified before the commission. The commission released its findings in January 2012, but failed to identify the perpetrators or exhaustively investigate the role of the ISI, which remains the principal suspect.

Despite widespread allegations of ISI and military involvement in coercion, abduction, torture, and killings of perceived opponents, including journalists, no military personnel have ever been held accountable for such abuses.

“Unless Shahzad’s murderers are identified and held accountable, media freedoms will decline even further in Pakistan as journalists operate in fear for their lives,” Adams said. “The government needs to bring charges wherever the trail leads, including to the ISI.”

The southern port city of Karachi experienced an exceptionally high level of violence during the year, with 800 people killed, Human Rights Watch said. The killings were carried out by armed groups backed by all the political parties with a presence in the city. The Muttaheda Qaumi Movement (MQM), Karachi’s largest political party, with heavily armed cadres and a well-documented history of human rights abuse and political violence, was widely viewed as the major perpetrator of targeted killings. The Awami National Party and ruling Pakistan People’s Party-backed Aman (Peace) Committee killed MQM activists.

Relations between Pakistan and the United States, long Pakistan’s most significant ally and its largest donor of humanitarian and military assistance, deteriorated markedly in 2011. Factors fueling the diplomatic crisis included the killing of two men by a CIA contractor at a Lahore traffic junction; the withholding of US$800 million in military aid to Pakistan; Pakistan’s alleged support for militants from the “Haqqani network,” a group that US officials accused of targeting the US Embassy and NATO troops in Afghanistan; the alleged harboring by Pakistan of Osama bin Laden and his killing by the US; and the November 26 killing during military operations of 24 Pakistani troops on the Afghan border by NATO forces.

The United States carried out about 75 aerial drone strikes during 2011 on suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. These strikes resulted in claims of large numbers of civilian casualties, but lack of access to the conflict areas has prevented independent verification.

“Little is known about who is killed in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan and under what circumstances,” Adams said. “So long as the US resists public accountability for CIA drone strikes, the agency should not be conducting targeted killings.”

In November, Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, was forced by the Pakistani military to resign his position after allegations that he was responsible for a secret memo delivered to senior US military officials seeking support for Pakistani civilian control of national security policy. Haqqani is now blocked from leaving Pakistan and has publicly expressed fear for his life. His lawyer, the prominent human rights defender and former UN human rights envoy Asma Jahangir, has expressed similar concerns and raised serious reservations about a lack of due process in the legal proceedings against Haqqani.

“The military has gained increasing control of state institutions to the detriment of the rights of the Pakistani people,” Adams said. “Civilian officials are now afraid to oppose the military on any key issues, making it increasingly difficult for the government tackle past and present rights violations by the military.”

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 — Online protests on Wednesday quickly cut into Congressional support for online antipiracy measures as lawmakers abandoned and rethought their backing for legislation that pitted new media interests against some of the most powerful old-line commercial interests in Washington.

A freshman senator, Marco Rubio of Florida, a rising Republican star, was first Wednesday morning with his announcement that he would no longer back antipiracy legislation he had co-sponsored. Senator John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who heads the campaign operation for his party, quickly followed suit and urged Congress to take more time to study the measure, which had been set for a test vote next week.

By Wednesday afternoon, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and one of the Senate bill’s original co-sponsors, called it “simply not ready for prime time” and withdrew his support.

Their decisions came after some Web pages shut down Wednesday to protest two separate bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act. The Stop Online Piracy Act was written by Representative Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Senator Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, drafted the Protect Intellectual Property Act.

Protests organized in the real world drew far less attention. A rally convened in Midtown Manhattan outside the offices of Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand, who co-sponsored some of the proposed legislation, drew a few hundred protesters.

Members of Congress, many of whom are grappling with the issues posed by the explosion in new media and social Web sites, appeared caught off guard by the enmity toward what had been a relatively obscure piece of legislation to many of them. The Senate’s high-tech expertise was mocked in 2006 after the chairman of the Commerce Committee, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, called the Internet “not a big truck” but a “series of tubes” — an observation enshrined in the Net Hall of Shame.

In reaction to the pending legislation, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia went dark. Google’s home page had a black banner across it that led to information blasting the bills.

Such new-media lobbying was having an impact.

“As a senator from Florida, a state with a large presence of artists, creators and businesses connected to the creation of intellectual property, I have a strong interest in stopping online piracy that costs Florida jobs,” Mr. Rubio wrote on his Facebook page. “However, we must do this while simultaneously promoting an open, dynamic Internet environment that is ripe for innovation and promotes new technologies.”

Mr. Rubio has outsize influence for a junior senator entering his second year in Congress. He is considered a top contender for the vice presidential ticket of his party’s White House nominee this year, and is being groomed by the Republican leadership to be the face of his party with Hispanics and beyond.

Mr. Cornyn posted on his Facebook page that it was “better to get this done right rather than fast and wrong. Stealing content is theft, plain and simple, but concerns about unintended damage to the Internet and innovation in the tech sector require a more thoughtful balance, which will take more time.”

The moves on Capitol Hill came after the White House over the weekend also backed off the legislative effort.

“While we believe that online piracy by foreign Web sites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet,” White House officials said.

With the growing reservations, a bill that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously and without controversy may be in serious trouble. Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader and Democrat of Nevada, has scheduled a procedural vote on the Leahy version for early next week, but unless negotiators can alter it to satisfy the outraged online world, no one expects it to get 60 votes.

“I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor,” Mr. Rubio wrote on Facebook. “Instead, we should take more time to address the concerns raised by all sides, and come up with new legislation that addresses Internet piracy while protecting free and open access to the Internet.”

Indeed, a senior Senate Republican leadership aide said the Senate version of the bill was dead in its current form, and bipartisan negotiations had begun to revise it considerably. Senators from both parties want to address the Internet piracy issue, but they acknowledged that concerns raised by Google and its online partners would have to be addressed.

At issue is how the bills deal with “DNS filtering.” Web site addresses are converted by the Internet’s domain name server system from typed words into computer language to bring a user to a specific Web site.

The Congressional bills would allow the Justice Department to seek injunctions to prevent domestic Internet service providers from translating the names of suspected pirate sites; the legislation would also require search engines such as Google not to display suspected sites on search results. In effect, the bills would make search engines the enforcers of a law they oppose.

Congressional negotiators are looking at radical revisions to the DNS provisions, but lawmakers may decide the resulting legislation is too neutered to pursue, aides from both parties say.

Support for the legislation on Capitol Hill eroded throughout the day. Another Republican co-sponsor of the Senate bill, Roy Blunt of Missouri, withdrew his support in the early afternoon. Other senators who issued concerns about the legislation as written included Republican Senators Mark Kirk of Illinois and Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, had said on Tuesday that he would vote against the measure.

Mr. DeMint called the proposed legislation “misguided bills that will cause more harm than good.”

“In seeking to protect intellectual property rights, we must ensure that we do not undermine free speech, threaten economic growth, or impose burdensome regulations,” he said in a statement.

The media industry has been pushing for a legislative response to online piracy for some time. Groups like the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, as well as giants like News Corporation, are practiced at old-time lobbying — hiring big-name Washington personalities like the former senator Christopher J. Dodd and contributing to campaign funds.

Mr. Dodd, who is now chairman and chief executive of the motion picture association, forcefully denounced the shutdowns in a statement issued on Tuesday.

“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging,” he said.

In the Tea Party era of grass-roots muscle, though, the old school was taken to school, Congressional aides and media lobbyists agree.

“The problem for the content industry is they just don’t know how to mobilize people,” said John P. Feehery, a former Republican leadership aide and executive at the motion picture lobby. “They have a small group of content makers, a few unions, whereas the Internet world, the social media world especially, has a tremendous reach. They can reach people in ways we never dreamed of before.

“This has been a real learning experience for the content world,” Mr. Feehery added.