WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Two U.S. Islamic organizations have condemned the recent violence against Christians in Pakistan and said the perpetrators must be brought to justice. In separate statements, the Washington-based Islamic Society of North America and the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago responded to the killing of eight Christians in the eastern Pakistani town of Gojra Aug. 1. The Christians, including four women and a child, were either shot or burned alive when a crowd attacked, setting fire to dozens of Christians' homes. Authorities said tensions were running high in the area, fueled by a false rumor spread by Muslim militants that a Quran, the sacred book of Islam, had been desecrated. The violence in Gojra followed the July 30 destruction of the Christian village of Korian in the Punjab province of Pakistan in a violent raid by thousands of Muslims. "Not only do we express our outrage at this behavior (in Gojra), we deplore those interpreters of Islam and leaders who use rhetoric that promotes a false sense of insecurity and paranoia in Muslim mobs," the Islamic society said in its statement.
(The Georgia Bulletin)
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Where are the Christians in politics?
Posted by
Staff Writerin Opinions
Wednesday, August 19. 2009
Charles Finney died AUGUST 16, 1875. An attorney, Finney saw so many Scripture references in Blackstone's Law Commentaries that he bought a Bible and came to faith.
Charles Finney's Revival Lectures, 1835, inspired George Williams to found the YMCA-Young Men's Christian Association-in 1844, and William Booth to found The Salvation Army in 1865. Charles Finney formed the Benevolent Empire, a network of Christian volunteer organizations to aid poor with healthcare and social needs, which in 1834 had a budget rivaling the Federal Government. Concerning the Kingdom of God, Charles Finney wrote "Every member must work or quit. No honorary members." While Charles Finney was president of Oberlin College, 1851-1866, it was a station on the Underground Railroad smuggling slaves to freedom and it granted the first college degree in the United States to a black woman, Mary Jane Patterson. Charles Finney wrote: "The time has come for Christians to vote for honest men, and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them...Politics are a part of a religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to their country as a part of their duty to God." Charles Finney concluded: "God will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics."Not only it it our God given right it is our DUTY TO GOD.
(The Herald Gazzette)
Staff Writerin Opinions
Wednesday, August 19. 2009
Charles Finney died AUGUST 16, 1875. An attorney, Finney saw so many Scripture references in Blackstone's Law Commentaries that he bought a Bible and came to faith.
Charles Finney's Revival Lectures, 1835, inspired George Williams to found the YMCA-Young Men's Christian Association-in 1844, and William Booth to found The Salvation Army in 1865. Charles Finney formed the Benevolent Empire, a network of Christian volunteer organizations to aid poor with healthcare and social needs, which in 1834 had a budget rivaling the Federal Government. Concerning the Kingdom of God, Charles Finney wrote "Every member must work or quit. No honorary members." While Charles Finney was president of Oberlin College, 1851-1866, it was a station on the Underground Railroad smuggling slaves to freedom and it granted the first college degree in the United States to a black woman, Mary Jane Patterson. Charles Finney wrote: "The time has come for Christians to vote for honest men, and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them...Politics are a part of a religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to their country as a part of their duty to God." Charles Finney concluded: "God will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics."Not only it it our God given right it is our DUTY TO GOD.
(The Herald Gazzette)
Hundreds of Pakistani Christians protest in US
WASHINGTON: Hundreds of Pakistani Christians demonstrated outside the embassy and the White House on the eve of the Independence Day, demanding an end to violence against minorities.This was one of the largest protest rallies outside the embassy, drawing Pakistani Christians from Philadelphia, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC.
The organisers purposely kept their American supporters out of the protest. ‘We are Pakistanis and we want our Pakistani brothers to understand that we are in pain,’ said Victor Gill, one of the organisers.
‘Our Muslim brothers must understand that this violence is tearing Pakistan apart and giving the country a bad name,’ said Fred Gill, another organiser.
Mani Alam and Thomas Bhatti, two other organisers, pointed out that the protesters also held a prayer meeting outside the embassy where the participants ‘prayed for Pakistan, for peace in Pakistan and for its prosperity and success.’
(Dawn)
Pakistani Christians hold vigil, protest over Gojra killings
WASHINGTON, Aug 15 (APP): Pakistani Christians living in Washington metro area held a vigil and protest demonstration over killings in Gojra violence earlier this month, demanding repeal of blasphemy laws and praying for peace and unity in the nation. Community activist Victor Gill led a one-minute silence in remembrance of Gojra violence victims at a demonstration here on Thursday. Pakistani-American Muslims also expressed solidarity with them for protection of rights of all citizens.
A Pakistan embassy spokesman, sent by Ambassador Husain Haqqani, assured peaceful demonstrators outside the embassy that Islamabad is committed to protecting the rights of all minorities as enshrined in the constitution. He said the government is investigating the incident to bring those responsible to justice.
The protestors carrying placards proceeded to the White House and prayed for peace in the world. They prayed for peace, progress and solidarity of Pakistan and restoration of peace and stability in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Prominent among the participants were Manny Alam, Thomas Bhatti, Alfreda Gill Earnest Gulab, Manzur Alam, Sam Mall, Rev. Safeer Alam, Rev Emmanuel Masih, Rev James Latif, Rev, Azhar Alam, Rev Javed Dean, Father Domonic Isaac, Rev Emmanuel Nasir and Rev Shahbaz Khan.
(APP)
A Pakistan embassy spokesman, sent by Ambassador Husain Haqqani, assured peaceful demonstrators outside the embassy that Islamabad is committed to protecting the rights of all minorities as enshrined in the constitution. He said the government is investigating the incident to bring those responsible to justice.
The protestors carrying placards proceeded to the White House and prayed for peace in the world. They prayed for peace, progress and solidarity of Pakistan and restoration of peace and stability in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Prominent among the participants were Manny Alam, Thomas Bhatti, Alfreda Gill Earnest Gulab, Manzur Alam, Sam Mall, Rev. Safeer Alam, Rev Emmanuel Masih, Rev James Latif, Rev, Azhar Alam, Rev Javed Dean, Father Domonic Isaac, Rev Emmanuel Nasir and Rev Shahbaz Khan.
(APP)
Pregnant Christian Woman Dragged Naked through Pakistani Police Station
Miscarries after Police Arrest Her for Theft without Evidence, Held Her Three Days
By Dan WoodingFounder of ASSIST Ministries
PUNJAB, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that a pregnant Christian woman miscarried on July 26 after police beat her and dragged her naked through their police station in the Gujrat District of Punjab, Pakistan. Police had arrested her and a Muslim woman after their employer accused them of theft, but police did not even touch the Muslim woman.
An ICC spokesperson said that the woman, Farzana Bibi, worked as a maid in the house of a wealthy Muslim. During a wedding held at the house, some jewelry was stolen from some of the landlord's female relatives. The police were called, and when they arrived at the scene they arrested two maids: Farzana and a Muslim woman named Rehana.
Nazir Masih, Farzana's husband, said, “Police registered a fake theft case against my wife and Rehana without any proof.”
Nazir went on to say that the police tortured his wife even though she told them she was pregnant. He told ICC, “Sub-Inspector Zulfiqar and Assistant Sub-Inspector Akhter subjected her to intense torture. They stripped off her clothes and dragged her naked around the compound of Cantonment Area Police Station in Kharian. They humiliated and tortured my wife, but did not do anything to Rehana.”
The ICC spokesperson said, “Although Farzana complained of severe pain, the police ignored her pleas and detained her for another two days. When her condition became critical, the police finally transferred her to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital in Kharian, where she miscarried.
“Nazir filed a report with the District Police Officer in Gujrat, detailing the abuse his wife received and her miscarriage. The District Office initiated an investigation after receiving the report, withdrawing the false accusations and suspending officers Zulfiqar and Akhter.
“The authorities have pledged to punish all those responsible. Please pray that God would comfort Farzana and Nazir and that justice would be carried out. Please also call your Pakistani embassy and ask them to defend the rights of Christians.”
Jeremy Sewall, ICC's Advocacy Director, said, “While we were not able to confirm whether Farzana was innocent of robbing her employers, it is absolutely unacceptable for police to humiliate her and abuse her so severely that she lost her child. The fact that the Muslim woman accused of the same thing was at least treated like a human being just proves again that if you are not a Muslim in Pakistan, you have no rights. The government should go beyond suspending the two officers guilty of this crime and try them for manslaughter.”
(Assist News Agency)
By Dan WoodingFounder of ASSIST Ministries
PUNJAB, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that a pregnant Christian woman miscarried on July 26 after police beat her and dragged her naked through their police station in the Gujrat District of Punjab, Pakistan. Police had arrested her and a Muslim woman after their employer accused them of theft, but police did not even touch the Muslim woman.
An ICC spokesperson said that the woman, Farzana Bibi, worked as a maid in the house of a wealthy Muslim. During a wedding held at the house, some jewelry was stolen from some of the landlord's female relatives. The police were called, and when they arrived at the scene they arrested two maids: Farzana and a Muslim woman named Rehana.
Nazir Masih, Farzana's husband, said, “Police registered a fake theft case against my wife and Rehana without any proof.”
Nazir went on to say that the police tortured his wife even though she told them she was pregnant. He told ICC, “Sub-Inspector Zulfiqar and Assistant Sub-Inspector Akhter subjected her to intense torture. They stripped off her clothes and dragged her naked around the compound of Cantonment Area Police Station in Kharian. They humiliated and tortured my wife, but did not do anything to Rehana.”
The ICC spokesperson said, “Although Farzana complained of severe pain, the police ignored her pleas and detained her for another two days. When her condition became critical, the police finally transferred her to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital in Kharian, where she miscarried.
“Nazir filed a report with the District Police Officer in Gujrat, detailing the abuse his wife received and her miscarriage. The District Office initiated an investigation after receiving the report, withdrawing the false accusations and suspending officers Zulfiqar and Akhter.
“The authorities have pledged to punish all those responsible. Please pray that God would comfort Farzana and Nazir and that justice would be carried out. Please also call your Pakistani embassy and ask them to defend the rights of Christians.”
Jeremy Sewall, ICC's Advocacy Director, said, “While we were not able to confirm whether Farzana was innocent of robbing her employers, it is absolutely unacceptable for police to humiliate her and abuse her so severely that she lost her child. The fact that the Muslim woman accused of the same thing was at least treated like a human being just proves again that if you are not a Muslim in Pakistan, you have no rights. The government should go beyond suspending the two officers guilty of this crime and try them for manslaughter.”
(Assist News Agency)
Time to learn from Gojra
This is the third week in a row that my blog talks about the Gojra massacre. After a mob of Muslims killed 7 people and burned over 50 houses on allegations of blasphemy in the Punjabi town, there have been a series of reports of religious persecution.In the case of Gojra, one of the earlier findings was that a group of masked men arrived from the neighbouring district of Jhang, which many believe is the hub of sectarian militant organisations such as the ‘banned’ Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. (Exactly how effective is a ban that allows these organisations to exist, especially given that we all seem to know their base?) The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan later confirmed that the massacre was engineered by the Sipah-e-Sahaba.
I have said it earlier, and reiterate now, that one of the things I found most terrifying about Gojra was that even if an external force had planned the attack on the minority group, it did not take long to incite hundreds of locals. The prayer leaders also happily jumped into the fray and helped the violence along by making inflammatory announcements from mosques urging people to ‘make mincemeat of the Christians.’
Once again, I am struck by the street power of this self-proclaimed army [of the Friends of the Prophet] after the killing of Ali Sher Haideri, a top leader of the Sipah-e-Sahaba. I also find it extremely disconcerting that everyone, from the most widely watched local private news channel to foreign news agencies, are relentlessly referring to the man as an allama. I thought allama is a title given to only the very highest scholars.
Haideri was shot to death along with one of his associates in Pir Jo Goth village of the Khairpur district in southern Sindh. Soon after, riots broke out in Khairpur and around 400 kilometres away from the site of the killing, here in Karachi. In Khairpur, protestors managed to shut down all shops and businesses or in effect, the entire city.
In Karachi, rioters burned buses, and shot in the air, injuring at least three people. Security forces quickly moved into the Naagan Chowrangi area, taking position on the rooftops of neighbouring buildings and the bridge. In the middle of the afternoon, there was cross firing between security officers and rioters on Naagan Chowrangi Bridge, which is packed with traffic at that time. For two hours, the people of the area were terrified. Those who were caught in traffic on the bridge abandoned their cars and motorcycles to lie flat on the roads as bullets flew around them. I don’t know about you, but it says something about the ‘banned’ Sipah-e-Sahaba’s influence in our metropolis to me.
Nice way to wake up from the August 14 weekend. Before the riots, one of the first things I saw on Monday morning was this front page story in The Daily Times. The Christian community has asked the Punjab government to secure an annual congregation in Sheikhupura district. The organisers for the three-day religious conference from September 4 to 6 have complained that locals are getting anonymous phone calls, threatening terror attacks. The callers threaten to reduce the congregation to ‘a pile of ashes as in the Gojra attack.’
Having been given ample warning, hopefully the provincial government will not leave the matter in the hands of the local government and administration, and will handle it directly. I can’t imagine they need another Gojra on their hands right now, where the local government and police did nothing to stop the assault on the Christian community.
Speaking of which, how can we point fingers at any terrorist groups, militant organisations, or anyone else, without first looking at the complicity of the state and the government? CNN reports that around 2,000 displaced Christians have been living in tents in Islamabad for the past three months. According to the report, the government kicked them off their land without any warning. The people believe it is because they are Christians. Government officials countered the allegation by saying they had been warned. But, I mean, really? Did they think no one would notice or hear about it? Two thousand people right in the middle of the federal capital in the middle of August, when the temperature is minimally a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Two people have already died of dehydration, starvation, poor health conditions – in other words, poverty.
Makes you wonder, when are the authorities going to learn?
(The Dawn Blog)
Islamabad to have model schools for Christians
The Pakistan government plans to build model schools for Christian children living in slums at least in the federal capital Islamabad, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Babar Awan said in the the National Assembly. The minister said the recent incidents had demonstrated the need for “more attention” to the children of minority communities. He referred to poor Christians living in the capital’s slums and said: “We will build model schools for them.” It was not immediately clear whether the plan would apply only to Islamabad, which is directly controlled by the federal government, or to other cities in the country as well.
(The Gulf Times)
(The Gulf Times)
Apology to Christians
Wednesday, August 19, 2009I totally agree with Naeem Sadiq's apology to the Christian community for the senseless killing rampage instigated by the local clerics in Gojra. At the same time I would like to add that these religious fanatics are friends of no one. The terror unleashed by these mullahs in our frontier province is no secret. Thousands of people lost their lives and livelihood due to these power-hungry fanatics. Men were killed for trimming their beards, women for venturing out of their homes, CD shops burnt, games banned, schools torched, all in the name of religion. The truth is such people only yearn for power and in doing so they will do whatever it takes -- be it going after a Christian, Hindu or even a Muslim.
Sheema ShinwariPeshawar
(The News International)Christian youth turn violent during protest
LAHORE: Christians staged a protest on Wednesday against the killing of eight of their community members by a Muslim mob, with some demonstrators smashing the windows of public buses.Television footage showed dozens of protesters in Lahore climbing onto vehicles and breaking their windows.Pakistan Christian Labour Party Chairman Ijaz Sindhu said some young people who broke away from the main crowd attacked four buses but caused no injuries to fleeing passengers.
A private TV channel reported that Christians staged a violent protest in Youhanabad. The demonstrators demanded the early arrest of those involved in the Gojra carnage. The channel said angry protesters, armed with sticks, gathered on Ferozepur Road and blocked the main road by burning tyres. The protesters chanted slogans against the government and pelted stones on the passing vehicles. Police were eventually able to pacify the protestors and disperse them from the scene.
Hundreds of Muslims attacked a Christian neighbourhood in Gojra city on Saturday after reports that a holy Quran had been desecrated.Eight Christians were killed. Authorities say an initial probe debunked the claims that theMuslim holy book was defiled, and government officials have said members of the banned Sunni group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and its Al Qaeda-linked offshoot Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was arrested as suspects in the attacks. The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said its fact-finding team has determined that the rioting had been planned and was not spontaneous. It said hard-line clerics made incendiary speeches.Christians - including both Protestants and Catholics - make up less than five percent of Pakistan’s 175 million people, according to the CIA World Factbook. ap/daily times monitor
(Daily Times)
Christians rally to demand justice for Gojra victims
ISLAMABAD: Hundredes of Christians on Tuesday staged a protest rally in front of Parliament House to condemn Gojra incidents and demand repeal of blasphemy laws. The protesters were wearing black ribbons on their heads and arms to observed International Minorities Day as Black Day. They were carrying banners, placards and pamphlets reading ‘why injustice to Christians’, ‘don’t misuse 295 B, C for personal grudge’, ‘protect our lives and properties’, and ‘stop exploitation in the name of religion’. The rally started from Shamsabad, Rawalpindi, under the aegis of Pakistan Masihi League (PML). It condemned violence against Christians in Gojra on August 1 that left some eight Christians dead and 20 houses burnt. The participants, sitting inside and over roofs of buses, vans and cars raised slogans for getting human rights on the basis of equality. A number of vibrant youngsters on motorbikes were also seen raising slogans at D-Chowk, where the rally culminated. They demanded of the government to ensure protection of lives and properties of Christians. A heavy contingent of police was deployed on Islamabad Expressway, Faisal Avenue and Jinnah Avenue to tackle any untoward incident. Addressing the rally, Father Anwar Pitras, Father David, Father Jan Anwar, Salamat Akhtar, Sohail Pervaiz, and others condemned Gojra violence and urged people to pray for the victims. They feared that if extremists were not curbed, they would start committing Gojra-like violence against Christians across Pakistan. mahtab bashir
(Daily Times)
(Daily Times)
Christians urged to unite with persecuted believers
The head of the World Evangelical Alliance’s Religious Liberty Commission, Godfrey Yogarajah, is urging Christians around the world to unite in prayer for persecuted believers.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians are expected to take part in the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on November 8, an initiative of the World Evangelical Alliance.
“Can we today pause our busy lives and think of those who are enduring persecution for the sake of the Gospel?” said Mr Yogarajah in an appeal to churches.
“Let us remember those who have not eaten for days because they are given nothing to eat, those languishing in prison … those who are facing death, even right at this moment, for refusing to denounce Christ.”
He pointed specifically to recent violence against Christians in the Indian state of Orissa, where dozens were killed by Islamic extremists, and the plight of believers in communist North Korea.
“In countries like North Korea, acts of persecution take place daily, but we often don’t see or hear of it,” he said.
Mr Yogarajah said it was important that persecuted believers feel “that they are neither forgotten nor abandoned”.
He said: “Let us unite in prayer for the persecuted church, in the spirit of oneness that Christ commanded, ‘For, if one suffers, we all suffer.’”
(Christian Today)
Hundreds of thousands of Christians are expected to take part in the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on November 8, an initiative of the World Evangelical Alliance.
“Can we today pause our busy lives and think of those who are enduring persecution for the sake of the Gospel?” said Mr Yogarajah in an appeal to churches.
“Let us remember those who have not eaten for days because they are given nothing to eat, those languishing in prison … those who are facing death, even right at this moment, for refusing to denounce Christ.”
He pointed specifically to recent violence against Christians in the Indian state of Orissa, where dozens were killed by Islamic extremists, and the plight of believers in communist North Korea.
“In countries like North Korea, acts of persecution take place daily, but we often don’t see or hear of it,” he said.
Mr Yogarajah said it was important that persecuted believers feel “that they are neither forgotten nor abandoned”.
He said: “Let us unite in prayer for the persecuted church, in the spirit of oneness that Christ commanded, ‘For, if one suffers, we all suffer.’”
(Christian Today)
Extremists threaten Sheikhupura Christian moot
LAHORE: The Christian community on Sunday asked the Punjab government to provide security for an annual Christian congregation at Maryamabad, in Sheikhupura district, following threats of terror attacks from unidentified persons. The Christian community has informed the government that residents of Chak No 3 RB, Maryamabad, had received threatening phone calls from unidentified persons, who warned of attacking the congregation and “reducing it to a pile of ashes in a manner similar to the Gojra attacks” on Christians earlier this month. Organisers of three-day religious conference – from September 4 to 6 – said they had informed local police about the threats, which had expressed its inability to secure such a large gathering of people due to limited resources. The community has, therefore, appealed to the prime minister, the Punjab chief minister and the Punjab inspector general of police to take notice of the security threat and demanded the government deal with extremist threats to the community sternly. The general secretary of leading Christian organisation RIK, Pastor Murqas Sharif, said the government should ensure foolproof security at the religious conference and also appealed to Muslim clerics to play their role to defuse extremist feelings towards religious minorities in the country. aaj kal report
(Daily Times)
(Daily Times)
A Christian Who Doesn't Serve is a Contradiction -- A Christian Devotional
By Rick Warren at PurposeDriven.com
“Now you belong to him . . . in order that you might be useful in the service of God” (Romans 7:4 TEV).Your call to salvation included your call to service. They are the same. Regardless of your job or career, you are called to full-time Christian service. A “non-serving Christian” is a contradiction in terms.The Bible says, “He saved us and called us to be his own people, not because of what we have done, but because of his own purpose” (2 Timothy 1:9 TEV).Peter adds, “You were chosen to tell about the excellent qualities of God, who called you” (1 Peter 2:9 GWT).You are called to serve God. Growing up, you may have thought that being called by God was something only missionaries, pastors, nuns, and other full-time church workers experienced, but the Bible says every Christians is called to service (Ephesians 4:4–14; see also Romans 1:6–7; 8:28–30; 1 Corinthians 1:2, 9, 26; 7:17; Philippians 3:14; 1 Peter 2:9; 2 Peter 1:3).Anytime you use your God-given abilities to help others, you are fulfilling your calling. The Bible says, “Now you belong to him . . . in order that you might be useful in the service of God” (Romans 7:4 TEV).How much of the time are you being useful in the service of God? In some churches in China, they welcome new believers by saying, “Jesus now has a new pair of eyes to see with, new ears to listen with, new hands to help with, and a new heart to love others with.”
You can learn more about what God wants for you by reading The Purpose Driven Life.
“Now you belong to him . . . in order that you might be useful in the service of God” (Romans 7:4 TEV).Your call to salvation included your call to service. They are the same. Regardless of your job or career, you are called to full-time Christian service. A “non-serving Christian” is a contradiction in terms.The Bible says, “He saved us and called us to be his own people, not because of what we have done, but because of his own purpose” (2 Timothy 1:9 TEV).Peter adds, “You were chosen to tell about the excellent qualities of God, who called you” (1 Peter 2:9 GWT).You are called to serve God. Growing up, you may have thought that being called by God was something only missionaries, pastors, nuns, and other full-time church workers experienced, but the Bible says every Christians is called to service (Ephesians 4:4–14; see also Romans 1:6–7; 8:28–30; 1 Corinthians 1:2, 9, 26; 7:17; Philippians 3:14; 1 Peter 2:9; 2 Peter 1:3).Anytime you use your God-given abilities to help others, you are fulfilling your calling. The Bible says, “Now you belong to him . . . in order that you might be useful in the service of God” (Romans 7:4 TEV).How much of the time are you being useful in the service of God? In some churches in China, they welcome new believers by saying, “Jesus now has a new pair of eyes to see with, new ears to listen with, new hands to help with, and a new heart to love others with.”
You can learn more about what God wants for you by reading The Purpose Driven Life.
Time to repeal the law
By Anees Jillani
Wednesday, 19 Aug, 2009 08:52 AM PST
The attack on the Christian community in Gojra is now being condemned by everybody. There was hardly anyone to defend the helpless victims at the time of attack.
However, now that the issue has been taken up by the higher functionaries, all feel comfortable in opposing it. The blasphemy law is not directly related to the incident as it could have taken place even without the law but it is an opportune time to get Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code either repealed, or at least drastically amended.
The government, however, appears reluctant to do anything with it, except to pay lip service to the call for its repeal. It is nothing short of ironical that the PPP is very vocal while opposing such draconian laws when in opposition but fails to do anything when in power. We have all experienced this in the two tenures of Benazir Bhutto, and have again been witnessing it since March last year.
Section 295-C is a legacy of Gen Ziaul Haq, just as the Hudood Ordinances are. There is hardly anybody left in the country who has anything nice to say about Gen Zia or his 11-year rule. However, his legacy is allowed to continue whether in the shape of the Afghan Mujihideen, the Kalashnikov and heroin culture, the thousands of madressahs, the influence of religious forces in our polity, the Hudood Ordinances, the blasphemy law, etc.
The present PPP government may be helpless in fighting the Kalashnikov and heroin cultures but the least it can do is to amend the blasphemy law, and repeal the Hudood Ordinances. Section 295-C was inserted in October 1986, following a controversial remark made by Asma Jehangir in Islamabad. The insertion makes the death penalty mandatory for making any derogatory remarks with regard to the Holy Prophet (PBUH).
The original amendment had the option of life imprisonment in the case of such an offence; however, this was deleted through an order of the Federal Shariat Court. The law is criticised for this mandatory provision, and for failing to provide a mechanism for filing such cases. Resultantly, the law is constantly being misused by unscrupulous elements to blackmail their opponents and get the latter into trouble. They have succeeded in their aims to a large extent.
The Hudood Ordinances are no different. A total of five ordinances were introduced in February 1979 dealing with property offences, zina, qazf, prohibition on drinking, and whipping. These laws should be seen in the context of the period during which they were introduced. The country was going through one of the worst dictatorial periods in its history and Gen Zia was using almost every trick of the trade to divert public attention from the imminent execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The introduction of the Hudood laws were brought in to show the military regime’s resolve to introduce an Islamic system if it was given sufficient time by the masses. Like other legislation, these laws failed to curb the offences they were directed against and social vices persist. The Hudood laws are obviously not the remedy to the ills afflicting almost every society in the world, and all we have seen so far are thousands of innocent men and women languishing in prisons all over Pakistan, charged under these confusingly drafted laws.
The co-chairman of the PPP is the president of the country, and the party, along with its allies, the ANP and MQM, has a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament, and the government is led by a PPP leader. What is then stopping the PPP from repealing all the five Hudood laws, and amending the blasphemy law? If, for some bizarre reason, the party is shy of taking up the matter in parliament, it can simply repeal them using the president’s power to legislate through an ordinance which remains in force for 120 days at a time, and which period can continuously be extended. The Nawaz Sharif government kept extending the ordinance dealing with diyat for more than four years in such a fashion, and the Supreme Court upheld this manner of extension.
It is all a question of showing the political resolve to undertake such a step. It is easy to make speeches and indulge in rhetoric, but legislative work entails a little bit of thinking and hard work. The first Benazir Bhutto government was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in August 1990, and one of the charges against it was the complete absence of any legislation; in 20 months of its rule the government only passed the Finance Act 1989 which was indispensable for the passage of the annual federal budget. One hopes that the record of the present regime will prove somewhat better than past PPP dispensations in this respect.
At the moment, although the current government has no enemies in the country, there is little admiration from friends for its performance.
The writer is an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. aJ@Jillani.org
(Dawn)
Wednesday, 19 Aug, 2009 08:52 AM PST
The attack on the Christian community in Gojra is now being condemned by everybody. There was hardly anyone to defend the helpless victims at the time of attack.
However, now that the issue has been taken up by the higher functionaries, all feel comfortable in opposing it. The blasphemy law is not directly related to the incident as it could have taken place even without the law but it is an opportune time to get Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code either repealed, or at least drastically amended.
The government, however, appears reluctant to do anything with it, except to pay lip service to the call for its repeal. It is nothing short of ironical that the PPP is very vocal while opposing such draconian laws when in opposition but fails to do anything when in power. We have all experienced this in the two tenures of Benazir Bhutto, and have again been witnessing it since March last year.
Section 295-C is a legacy of Gen Ziaul Haq, just as the Hudood Ordinances are. There is hardly anybody left in the country who has anything nice to say about Gen Zia or his 11-year rule. However, his legacy is allowed to continue whether in the shape of the Afghan Mujihideen, the Kalashnikov and heroin culture, the thousands of madressahs, the influence of religious forces in our polity, the Hudood Ordinances, the blasphemy law, etc.
The present PPP government may be helpless in fighting the Kalashnikov and heroin cultures but the least it can do is to amend the blasphemy law, and repeal the Hudood Ordinances. Section 295-C was inserted in October 1986, following a controversial remark made by Asma Jehangir in Islamabad. The insertion makes the death penalty mandatory for making any derogatory remarks with regard to the Holy Prophet (PBUH).
The original amendment had the option of life imprisonment in the case of such an offence; however, this was deleted through an order of the Federal Shariat Court. The law is criticised for this mandatory provision, and for failing to provide a mechanism for filing such cases. Resultantly, the law is constantly being misused by unscrupulous elements to blackmail their opponents and get the latter into trouble. They have succeeded in their aims to a large extent.
The Hudood Ordinances are no different. A total of five ordinances were introduced in February 1979 dealing with property offences, zina, qazf, prohibition on drinking, and whipping. These laws should be seen in the context of the period during which they were introduced. The country was going through one of the worst dictatorial periods in its history and Gen Zia was using almost every trick of the trade to divert public attention from the imminent execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The introduction of the Hudood laws were brought in to show the military regime’s resolve to introduce an Islamic system if it was given sufficient time by the masses. Like other legislation, these laws failed to curb the offences they were directed against and social vices persist. The Hudood laws are obviously not the remedy to the ills afflicting almost every society in the world, and all we have seen so far are thousands of innocent men and women languishing in prisons all over Pakistan, charged under these confusingly drafted laws.
The co-chairman of the PPP is the president of the country, and the party, along with its allies, the ANP and MQM, has a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament, and the government is led by a PPP leader. What is then stopping the PPP from repealing all the five Hudood laws, and amending the blasphemy law? If, for some bizarre reason, the party is shy of taking up the matter in parliament, it can simply repeal them using the president’s power to legislate through an ordinance which remains in force for 120 days at a time, and which period can continuously be extended. The Nawaz Sharif government kept extending the ordinance dealing with diyat for more than four years in such a fashion, and the Supreme Court upheld this manner of extension.
It is all a question of showing the political resolve to undertake such a step. It is easy to make speeches and indulge in rhetoric, but legislative work entails a little bit of thinking and hard work. The first Benazir Bhutto government was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in August 1990, and one of the charges against it was the complete absence of any legislation; in 20 months of its rule the government only passed the Finance Act 1989 which was indispensable for the passage of the annual federal budget. One hopes that the record of the present regime will prove somewhat better than past PPP dispensations in this respect.
At the moment, although the current government has no enemies in the country, there is little admiration from friends for its performance.
The writer is an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. aJ@Jillani.org
(Dawn)
Monday, August 17, 2009
Pakistani Christians Forced into Refugee Camps
By Joseph Keenan
CP South and Southeast Asia Correspondent
Far away from Gojra, where a Muslim mob recently killed eight Christians, in the heart of Islamabad, about 2,000 Pakistani Christians are “forced to live in a refugee camp.”
Their only crime is that they are Christians. Among the displaced Christians, two have already died due to poor hygiene.
The displaced Christians told CNN correspondents, who visited them recently, that the government had kicked them off their land without warning only because they are Christian. However, the government has told a different story, saying that they were given plenty of warning. Moreover, the government said they will take care of this problem, which they claim they are well aware of.
“We are constitutionally bound to protect the life and property of the minorities and to look after the interests of the minorities in this country," Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister of minority affairs and a Pakistani Christian, said, according to CNN. “Because they played a role in the founding, they are equal citizens of the country. Yes, there is a problem, but we are trying to solve those problems.”
However, Pakistan Christian Post (PCP) reported that Christians in the country, led by editor Dr. Nazir S. Bhatti, said Shahbaz Bhatti has done nothing for Christians in the country. They have demanded the resignation of Bhatti.
“We urge government to force Shahbaz Bhatti to resign from ministry as he failed to present an effective Resolution in National assembly on August 13, to ensure our rights,” says a public statement, which was released before Pakistan Independence Day on Aug. 14.
“Twenty million Christians are living like slaves in Islamic Republic of Pakistan: Where is freedom for Christians? 62nd Pakistan Day on August 14, 2009, was day to remember our Martyrs burnt alive by fundamental Muslims.”
The minority Christians have often complained that they are being mistreated in the country.
The 2,000 displaced Christians have ended up living in tents for the past three months in the middle of nowhere and in the scorching heat (110 degrees).
People are dying of poverty in this camp regardless of any religious strife, CNN reported. Two have died since the group settled here, and children lay totally exposed to the sun, suffering slowly.
There is a growing fear that Typhoid will come to this camp. Dr. Rixwan Taj, who accompanied the correspondents, said “the conditions are ripe.”
"I think there's a danger here, especially with some of the younger children, that they could just die from dehydration or from all kinds of infections."
“I am very surprised, really because this is the center of Islamabad, just right in the center. And every facility is not but 10 minutes from here,” he added.
Christians, who make up only 5 percent of the Pakistan population, were recently attacked by Muslim extremists following an allegation that a Christian family had desecrated the Quran. Although there was no evidence of the Islamic holy book being destroyed by Christians, hundreds of Christian homes were burned in several villages in Punjab Province in July and August. Dozens of Christians were killed in the attack.
On Aug. 1, a mob of more than 2,000 Muslims burned the homes of Christians using a hard-to-extinguish chemical. Several of those killed in the attacks were burned alive.
(The Christian Post)
CP South and Southeast Asia Correspondent
Far away from Gojra, where a Muslim mob recently killed eight Christians, in the heart of Islamabad, about 2,000 Pakistani Christians are “forced to live in a refugee camp.”
Their only crime is that they are Christians. Among the displaced Christians, two have already died due to poor hygiene.
The displaced Christians told CNN correspondents, who visited them recently, that the government had kicked them off their land without warning only because they are Christian. However, the government has told a different story, saying that they were given plenty of warning. Moreover, the government said they will take care of this problem, which they claim they are well aware of.
“We are constitutionally bound to protect the life and property of the minorities and to look after the interests of the minorities in this country," Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister of minority affairs and a Pakistani Christian, said, according to CNN. “Because they played a role in the founding, they are equal citizens of the country. Yes, there is a problem, but we are trying to solve those problems.”
However, Pakistan Christian Post (PCP) reported that Christians in the country, led by editor Dr. Nazir S. Bhatti, said Shahbaz Bhatti has done nothing for Christians in the country. They have demanded the resignation of Bhatti.
“We urge government to force Shahbaz Bhatti to resign from ministry as he failed to present an effective Resolution in National assembly on August 13, to ensure our rights,” says a public statement, which was released before Pakistan Independence Day on Aug. 14.
“Twenty million Christians are living like slaves in Islamic Republic of Pakistan: Where is freedom for Christians? 62nd Pakistan Day on August 14, 2009, was day to remember our Martyrs burnt alive by fundamental Muslims.”
The minority Christians have often complained that they are being mistreated in the country.
The 2,000 displaced Christians have ended up living in tents for the past three months in the middle of nowhere and in the scorching heat (110 degrees).
People are dying of poverty in this camp regardless of any religious strife, CNN reported. Two have died since the group settled here, and children lay totally exposed to the sun, suffering slowly.
There is a growing fear that Typhoid will come to this camp. Dr. Rixwan Taj, who accompanied the correspondents, said “the conditions are ripe.”
"I think there's a danger here, especially with some of the younger children, that they could just die from dehydration or from all kinds of infections."
“I am very surprised, really because this is the center of Islamabad, just right in the center. And every facility is not but 10 minutes from here,” he added.
Christians, who make up only 5 percent of the Pakistan population, were recently attacked by Muslim extremists following an allegation that a Christian family had desecrated the Quran. Although there was no evidence of the Islamic holy book being destroyed by Christians, hundreds of Christian homes were burned in several villages in Punjab Province in July and August. Dozens of Christians were killed in the attack.
On Aug. 1, a mob of more than 2,000 Muslims burned the homes of Christians using a hard-to-extinguish chemical. Several of those killed in the attacks were burned alive.
(The Christian Post)
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Pope deplores Pakistan Christian killings
VATICAN CITY (CNS): Pope Benedict XVI deplored the killing of eight Christians in Pakistan by a Muslim mob and urged the minority Christian community not to be deterred by the attack.The Christians, including four women and a child, were either shot or burned alive on August 1 when a crowd attacked the eastern Pakistani town of Gojra, setting fire to dozens of Christian homes.
Authorities said tensions were running high in the area, fuelled by a false rumour that a Quran, the sacred book of Islam, had been desecrated.
A telegram sent in the Pope's name said the pontiff was "deeply grieved to learn of the senseless attack" on the Christian community.
Noting the "tragic deaths" and the immense destruction in the neighbourhood, he sent condolences to the families of the victims and expressed solidarity with the survivors.
"In the name of God he appeals to everyone to renounce the way of violence, which causes so much suffering, and to embrace the way of peace," it said.
The telegram, sent to Bishop Joseph Coutts of Faisalabad, asked the bishop to "encourage the whole diocesan community, and all Christians in Pakistan, not to be deterred in their efforts to help build a society which, with a profound sense of trust in religious and human values, is marked by mutual respect among all its members."
Pakistan has been beset by political and social tensions, including attempts by Muslim militants to impose an intolerant version of Islam. A number of attacks on Christians have occurred in recent years, prompting Catholic leaders to call for constitutional amendments to protect religious minorities.
The latest violence followed several days of rising tensions in the area of Gojra when rumours of the desecration of a Quran were spread by Muslim militants. Pakistani Government officials said they had debunked the rumour, but that "anti-state elements" had continued to foment hostilities.
About 95 per cent of Pakistan's 160 million people are Muslim. Less than two per cent are Christian.
(Catholic Leader)
Defeat extremist forces: Zardari
Islamabad (PTI): Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday called on the people to defeat the forces preaching extremism and violence in the name of religion, saying this trend poses the greatest threat to the security and stability of the country.
"The mindset that increasingly preaches extremism, violence and militancy in the name of religion, and which has been on the rise in the country, is a direct negation of the values for which this country was created," Mr. Zardari said in his message on the eve of Pakistan's Independence Day.
"It is a mindset that poses the greatest threat to the security and stability of the country that was founded on this day... Let us therefore resolve to defeat this pernicious mindset that has promoted suicide bombings, beheading innocent people, torturing women and forcibly closing academies of learning," he said.
Mr. Zardari cited the recent burning of houses and acts of vandalism against the minority Christian community at Gojra in Punjab province as "a manifestation of this mindset". Eight Christians were killed in the recent sectarian violence, sparking protests across the country.
(The Hindu)
"The mindset that increasingly preaches extremism, violence and militancy in the name of religion, and which has been on the rise in the country, is a direct negation of the values for which this country was created," Mr. Zardari said in his message on the eve of Pakistan's Independence Day.
"It is a mindset that poses the greatest threat to the security and stability of the country that was founded on this day... Let us therefore resolve to defeat this pernicious mindset that has promoted suicide bombings, beheading innocent people, torturing women and forcibly closing academies of learning," he said.
Mr. Zardari cited the recent burning of houses and acts of vandalism against the minority Christian community at Gojra in Punjab province as "a manifestation of this mindset". Eight Christians were killed in the recent sectarian violence, sparking protests across the country.
(The Hindu)
Pakistani Christians protest before UN
Pakistani Christians have vowed to leave no stone unturned in the search for justice blotted out by the recent anti-Christian riots in Gojra.On Wednesday, Christians staged a demonstration before the UN headquarters in New York, condemning the unrelenting violence on Christians and impunity in Pakistan.Nazir S Bhatti, President of Pakistan Christian Congress, addressing the protesters demanded the government of Pakistan to curb violence against Christians and also for the repeal of blasphemy laws.Bhatti appealed to Ban-Ki Moon, Secretary General of UN to press upon Pakistan to repeal blasphemy law and award refugee status to Pakistani Christians.On behalf of the Pakistan Christian Association in North America and leaders of the Christian Community in New York, James Cyprian submitted a memorandum to the UN Secretary General.It demanded Pakistan to secure the life and property of Christians as well as the repeal of blasphemy laws and those detained under it, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan.Hundreds of Muslims stormed a Christian neighborhood in the eastern city of Gojra on August 1, burning dozens of houses after reports surfaced that some Christians had desecrated a Quran.Six Christians were burnt alive, while two were killed by gunshots, according to reports.Christians make up less than three percent of Pakistan’s population of 176 million people and are among the country’s poorest and most oppressed communities.
(Christian Today)
(Christian Today)
Vatican nuncio fears more anti-Christian violence in Pakistan
By John ThavisCatholic News ServiceVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The blasphemy law in Pakistan, often used by Muslim extremists to foment violence, hangs like "the sword of Damocles" over Christians and members of other minority religions, a Vatican official said.Archbishop Adolfo Yllana, the Vatican's apostolic nuncio in Pakistan, said he feared that worsening tensions between the Muslim majority and Christians could lead to additional violence. He was meeting in mid-August with top Pakistani officials to discuss the tense interreligious situation.Archbishop Yllana made the comments in an interview Aug. 12 with the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, following an attack on a Christian community Aug. 1 that left eight people dead. A mob of Muslims set fire to Christian homes after a false rumor spread that a Quran, the sacred book of Islam, had been desecrated.Pakistan's blasphemy law severely punishes vaguely defined insults to the prophet Mohammed or the Quran."In practice, the law against blasphemy has become an easy instrument to accuse Christians of any type of illegality. It's enough, for example, that a Christian doesn't pay a debt for him to be accused of blasphemy -- and from there, it's a short step to violence," Archbishop Yllana said."I'm afraid that unless there is a change there will be more violence. Above the heads of Christians and followers of other religious minorities hangs the sword of Damocles, represented by the blasphemy law," he said. Church leaders in Pakistan have appealed for the abrogation of the law.The archbishop said in recent years there had been a worsening of relations between Muslims and all religious minorities in Pakistan. Acts of violence and intolerance against religious minorities are common and are often unreported by the media, he said.He blamed some Muslim clerics for inciting the violence."In the mosques of some cities the imams use megaphones to broadcast diatribes against the minorities. The (Muslim) faithful get worked up and become violent," he said.He said the rising tensions demonstrate that interreligious dialogue in Pakistan has not been effective at the grass-roots level."In Pakistan we need to bring dialogue to the people. The mentality has to change, and a culture of tolerance has to be spread. This is an essential condition, and without it Pakistan risks falling into a spiral of violence," he said.Up to now, he said, dialogue has remained at the level of religious leaders. But at the local level, many Pakistanis have little respect for someone whose religious beliefs are different from their own. In some areas of the country, he said, Christians are still seen as "impure."Education is the key to a much-needed cultural transformation toward reconciliation and peace, he said.END
Pakistan: The Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP), including its activities and status (January 2003 - July 2005)
Formerly known as the Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba (OutlookIndia.com 1 June 2005), the Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP), also known as the Army of the Friends of the Prophet (CDI 9 July 2004) or Guardians of the Friends of the Prophet (AP 27 Jan. 2003), is a "radical" (BBC 7 Oct. 2003a), "sectarian" group (CDI 9 July 2004; FAS 1 May 2003) with "strongholds" in the central province of Punjab (including towns such as Sargodha, Bahawalpur, Jhang, Multan and Muzaffargarh), and in the city of Karachi (CDI 9 July 2004; BBC 7 Oct. 2003a).
The Sunni cleric Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi founded what became the SSP in the early 1980s in an attempt to deter the increasing influence of the Iranian Shia revolution in Pakistan (ibid.). Jhangvi was assassinated in 1990, at which time Maulana Azam Tariq became the new leader of the SSP (ibid.). Tariq continued to be the leader of the SSP until his death on 6 October 2003, at the hands of gunmen who fired bullets into the vehicle he was travelling in with four others (ibid. 6 Oct. 2003; Times 7 Oct. 2003; AFP 30 Jan. 2005). On 15 November 2003, Allama Sajid Naqvi, a Shiite Muslim and leader of Tehreek-i-Islami Pakistan, was arrested in Rawalpindi in connection with the murder of Tariq (Windsor Star 17 Nov. 2003; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 17 Nov. 2003; Gulf News 18 Nov. 2003). No information about the status of the case against Naqvi could be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.
In October 2004, Dawn identified Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi, Ali Sher Haideri and Khadim Dhiloon as among the "top leaders" of the SSP (8 Oct. 2004b). In July 2005, Dawn again identified Maulana Ali Sher Hyderi [Haideri] as a leader of the SSP (21 July 2005). Additional information on the leadership of the SSP could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.
The SSP has also operated as a political party that has held seats in the Pakistan National Assembly (CDI 9 July 2004). The Herald reported that the SSP is an "umbrella" political group that supports the Jaish-e-Mohammad ("Army of Mohammad") as its "jihadi" branch and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi as its "domestic militant" branch (Feb. 2002, 35; see also OutlookIndia.com 1 June 2005; UPI 4 Mar. 2004; CDI 9 July 2004). OutlookIndia.com, an online, New Delhi-based independent magazine that is focused on South Asian geopolitics, identified Lashkar-e-Jhangvi as "a member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People" (1 June 2005). However, in February 2003, Tariq denied any link with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, claiming that "'[s]ome members of Sipah-e-Sahaba opposed our peaceful struggle for the enforcement of Islamic laws, and formed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 1996'," while emphasizing that "'Sipah-e-Sahaba has nothing to do with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi'" (The News 2 Feb. 2003; see also CDI 9 July 2004).
The Center for Defense Information (CDI) reported that the SSP also has "close links" with Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), which is "a terrorist organization active in Jammu and Kashmir" and based in Pakistan (9 July 2004).
In its April 2005 report, the International Crisis Group (ICG) stated that "[m]any leading activists [of the SSP] began their political careers in anti-Ahmadi organisations" (18 Apr. 2005, 9). According to the ICG, Ahmadis are Pakistan's "most repressed religious community" who were designated non-Muslims through a 1974 Constitutional amendment (18 Apr. 2005, 4-5). Earlier reports indicate that "[m]any Taliban leaders received instruction in extremism at religious schools in Pakistan run by the SSP" (Knight Ridder 21 Jan. 2002; see also AFP 7 Oct. 2003). As at October 2003, the SSP was still operating "hundreds of seminaries and religious schools mostly in poverty-ridden parts of the Punjab" (ibid.). Moreover, the Associated Press (AP) reported in January 2003 that the SSP "backed Afghanistan's radical Islamic Taliban militia" (27 Jan. 2003). Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that in October 2003, Tariq "publicly showed his sympathy for Afghanistan's former hardline Islamic Taliban regime" (7 Oct. 2003).
The SSP follows the Deobandi stream of Sunni Islam, is "[v]iolently anti-Shi'a" (FAS 1 May 2003; ICG 18 Apr. 2005, 3) and wants Pakistan to be officially declared a Sunni Muslim state (Terrorism Knowledge Base June 2005; CDI 9 July 2004; BBC 7 Oct. 2003a; AFP 7 Oct. 2003). The ICG reported in April 2005 that the SSP is Pakistan's first anti-Shiite militant group (18 Apr. 2005, 3). According to CDI, the SSP aims to restore the Khilafat (Caliphate) system, while protecting Sunnis and their Shariat (Islamic laws). SSP members declare that Shias are non-Muslims and must be violently converted or suppressed.... The organization boasts 500 offices and branches in all 34 districts of Punjab. It also has approximately 100,000 registered workers in Pakistan and 17 branches in foreign countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Canada and the United Kingdom (9 July 2004).
Reports have described the SSP as a violent group (AFP 18 Nov. 2003a) that is "responsible for most [of the] anti-Shia acts of terror" in Pakistan (ICG 18 Apr. 2005, 3). The violence, which is taking place "in retaliation for the political and religious assertiveness of the Shias of Pakistan following the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979" (OutlookIndia.com 1 June 2005), has led to numerous reports of the murder of Shiite militants and ordinary Shiite citizens (ICG 18 Apr. 2005, 24; Terrorism Knowledge Base June 2005; CDI 9 July 2004; The News 8 May 2005; ibid. 8 Mar. 2004; Dawn 21 May 2005; ibid. 8 Oct. 2004a; ibid. 8 Oct. 2004b; AFP 7 Oct. 2004; ibid. 7 Oct. 2003; Times 7 Oct. 2003; BBC 15 Apr. 2005; ibid. 7 Oct. 2003b; AP 10 Oct. 2003; Xinhua 19 Nov. 2003).
Activities of the SSP have ranged from "organizing political rallies calling for Shi'as to be declared non-Muslims [and] assassinating prominent Shi'a leaders" (FAS 1 May 2003; see also UPI 4 Mar. 2004) to the "indiscriminate" killing of Shiites, including attacks on Shiite mosques (Terrorism Knowledge Base June 2005; see also CDI 9 July 2004). The SSP has consistently maintained that, despite accusations to the contrary, it has not been involved in violence (BBC 7 Oct. 2003b; see also Terrorism Knowledge Base June 2005) and that it is a "legitimate political group" (ibid.; see also CDI 9 July 2004). The Research Directorate was able to find only a few reports that refer to political activities carried out by the SSP (Gulf News 25 Apr. 2004; Dawn 8 Oct. 2004b; ibid. 19 Aug. 2004).
The Research Directorate also found two reports that refer to attacks carried out against members, leaders and activists of the SSP (ibid. 8 Oct. 2004b; The News 16 Sept. 2004).
On 14 August 2001, the Pakistani government banned several groups considered responsible for sectarian violence and placed the SSP under its watch (Dawn 12 Jan. 2002; The Nation 19 Nov. 2003). For five months following the government's decision there was no significant reduction in the level of sectarian violence in the country, and, as a result, President Pervez Musharraf banned the SSP on 12 January 2002 (CDI 9 July 2004; Dawn 12 Jan. 2002; The Herald Sept. 2003). In April 2005, the United States listed the SSP as a "terrorist organization" (US Federal News 27 Apr. 2005).
In April 2003, Tariq re-established the SSP under a new name, Millat-e-Islamia (AFP 30 Jan. 2005; CDI 9 July 2004; The Herald Sept. 2003; The News 19 Nov. 2003; Dawn 20 Nov. 2003; PPI 18 Nov. 2003; AFP 18 Nov. 2003b; Times 7 Oct. 2003). Despite the January 2002 ban, the SSP continued to "draw huge amounts of money from its foreign patrons" under its new name (The Herald Sept. 2003).
In November 2003, the Millat-e-Islamia, along with two other groups, was officially banned by the government (AFP 18 Nov. 2003a; PPI 18 Nov. 2003; The Nation 19 Nov. 2003; Xinhua 19 Nov. 2003; The News 19 Nov. 2003) under the 1997 Anti-Terrorist Act (Dawn 20 Nov. 2003).
In July 2005, the government launched a country-wide crackdown against militants (ibid. 21 July 2005). Many SSP members, including SSP leader Maulana Ali Sher Hyderi, were arrested (ibid.).
This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.
References
Agence France Presse (AFP). 30 January 2005. "Two Sunnis Killed in Sectarian Attack in Southern Pakistan." (Dialog)_____. 7 October 2004. "More on at Least 33 People Killed, More than 70 Injured in Pakistan Bombings." (Dialog)_____. 18 November 2003a. "AFP: Pakistan's Religious Parties Reject Government Ban on Renamed Militant Groups." (FBIS-NES-2003-1118 19 Nov. 2003/WNC)_____. 18 November 2003b. "AFP: Pakistan Closes Over 130 Militant Offices in New Anti-Extremist Drive." (FBIS-NES-2003-1118 19 Nov. 2003/WNC)_____. 7 October 2003. Rana Jawad. "Assassinated Sunni Muslim Hardliner Had Many Foes." (Dialog)
Associated Press (AP). 10 October 2003. Khalid Tanveer. "Security Tight Across Pakistan, Authorities Keep Wary Eye on Potential Violence." (Dialog)_____. 27 January 2003. "Pakistani Islamic Militant Group Challenges Government Ban." (Dialog)
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 15 April 2005. "Pakistan Shrine Bomb – Men Held." [Accessed 21 July 2005]_____. 7 October 2003a. "Pakistan's Militant Islamic Groups." [Accessed 26 Nov. 2003]_____. 7 October 2003b. "Pakistan Riots after Militant Killed." [Accessed 26 Nov. 2003]_____. 6 October 2003. "Pakistani Sunni Militant Killed." [Accessed 26 Nov. 2003]
Center for Defense Information (CDI). 9 July 2004. "In the Spotlight: Sipah-I-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)." [Accessed 20 July 2005]
Dawn [Karachi]. 21 July 2005. "Hunt Intensified; 200 Held: Prominent SSP Leader Arrested in Khairpur." [Accessed 21 July 2005]_____. 21 May 2005. "Karachi: Judgment in Mosque Blast Cases on 28th." [Accessed 21 July 2005]_____. 8 October 2004a. "Vehari: 15 TJP, SSP Men Held in Mailsi." [Accessed 21 July 2005]_____. 8 October 2004b. "Massive Car Bomb Blast Kills 39 in Multan." [Accessed 21 July 2005]_____. 19 August 2004. "Gujranwala: Five 'SSP Activists' Arrested." [Accessed 21 July 2005]_____. 20 November 2003. "US Welcomes Crackdown." [Accessed 26 Nov. 2003]_____. 12 January 2002. "Text of President Musharraf's Address to the Nation." [Accessed 26 Nov. 2003]
Federation of American Scientists (FAS). 1 May 2003. "Sipah-I-Sahaba/Pakistan (SSP)." Para States – Scope Note. [Accessed 26 Nov. 2003]
Gulf News [Dubai]. 25 April 2004. "Banned Party Decides to Boycott By-election in Jhang." (Dialog)_____. 18 November 2003. Abdullah Iqbal. "More Groups Face Ban as Massive Crackdown Starts." (Dialog)
The Herald [Karachi]. September 2003. Mubashir Zaidi. "Back to the Drawing Board." [Accessed 26 Nov. 2003]_____. February 2002. Azmat Abbas. "Tightening the Noose."
International Crisis Group (ICG). 18 April 2005. Asia Report No. 95. The State of Sectarianism in Pakistan. [Accessed 20 July 2005]
Knight Ridder [Washington]. 21 January 2002. Michael Dorgan. "Pakistan's Future May Depend on Ability to Quash Religious Militants." (NEXIS)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 17 November 2003. "Terror/Iraq Briefing: Shiite Leader Held in Killing." (Dialog)
The Nation [Islamabad]. 19 November 2003. Husain Haqqani. "Pakistan: Author Insists Ban on Militant Outfits Imposed Under Foreign Pressure." (FBIS-NES-2003-1119 20 Nov. 2003/WNC)
The News [Islamabad]. 8 May 2005. "Pakistan: Police Arrest 'Alleged Terrorist' Involved in Religious Terrorism." (WNC)_____. 16 September 2004. "Pakistan: Police Arrest 2 Sectarian Terrorists Involved in Killing 20 Persons." (Dialog)_____. 8 March 2004. "Police Detain 30 in Connection with 2 Mar Attack on Shiite Mourners in Quetta." (FBIS-NES-2004-0308 9 Mar. 2004/WNC)_____. 19 November 2003. "Pakistan: MMA Leader Terms Ban on Renamed Militant Outfits Attempt to Please US." (FBIS-NES-2003-1119 20 Nov. 2003/WNC)_____. 2 February 2003. "Pakistan: Sipah-i-Sahaba Chief Denies Link with Lashkar-i-Jhangvi." (FBIS-NES-2003-0202 3 Feb. 2002/WNC)
OutlookIndia.com. 1 June 2005. "The Ghosts of Gilgit." (Dialog)
Pakistan Press International (PPI). 18 November 2003. "Terrorism (UK Welcomers Crackdown Against Religious Outfits)." (Dialog)
Terrorism Knowledge Base. June 2005. "Sipah-e-Sahaba/Pakistan (SSP)." [Accessed 20 July 2005]
Times [London]. 7 October 2003. Zahid Hussain. "Pakistan MP Shot Dead as Extremists Take Their Revenge." (Dialog)
United Press International (UPI). 4 March 2004. "U.S.: Terrorist al-Zarqawi Busy in Iraq." (Dialog)
US Federal News. 27 April 2005. "State Department Identifies 40 Foreign Terrorist Organizations." (Dialog)
Windsor Star. 17 November 2003. "World Report: Pakistan: Crackdown in Pakistan Nets Shiite Muslim Leader." (Dialog)
Xinhua News Agency. 19 November 2003. Rong Shoujun. "Xinhua 'Roundup': Pakistan Cracks Down on Renamed 'Extremist Groups.'" (FBIS-CHI-2003-1119 20 Nov. 2003/WNC)
Additional Sources Consulted
Internet sites, including: Amnesty International (AI), Asian Affairs, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004, European Country of Origin Information Network (ECOI), Freedom in the World 2004, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN).
(http://www.unhcr.org)
The Sunni cleric Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi founded what became the SSP in the early 1980s in an attempt to deter the increasing influence of the Iranian Shia revolution in Pakistan (ibid.). Jhangvi was assassinated in 1990, at which time Maulana Azam Tariq became the new leader of the SSP (ibid.). Tariq continued to be the leader of the SSP until his death on 6 October 2003, at the hands of gunmen who fired bullets into the vehicle he was travelling in with four others (ibid. 6 Oct. 2003; Times 7 Oct. 2003; AFP 30 Jan. 2005). On 15 November 2003, Allama Sajid Naqvi, a Shiite Muslim and leader of Tehreek-i-Islami Pakistan, was arrested in Rawalpindi in connection with the murder of Tariq (Windsor Star 17 Nov. 2003; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 17 Nov. 2003; Gulf News 18 Nov. 2003). No information about the status of the case against Naqvi could be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.
In October 2004, Dawn identified Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi, Ali Sher Haideri and Khadim Dhiloon as among the "top leaders" of the SSP (8 Oct. 2004b). In July 2005, Dawn again identified Maulana Ali Sher Hyderi [Haideri] as a leader of the SSP (21 July 2005). Additional information on the leadership of the SSP could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.
The SSP has also operated as a political party that has held seats in the Pakistan National Assembly (CDI 9 July 2004). The Herald reported that the SSP is an "umbrella" political group that supports the Jaish-e-Mohammad ("Army of Mohammad") as its "jihadi" branch and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi as its "domestic militant" branch (Feb. 2002, 35; see also OutlookIndia.com 1 June 2005; UPI 4 Mar. 2004; CDI 9 July 2004). OutlookIndia.com, an online, New Delhi-based independent magazine that is focused on South Asian geopolitics, identified Lashkar-e-Jhangvi as "a member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People" (1 June 2005). However, in February 2003, Tariq denied any link with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, claiming that "'[s]ome members of Sipah-e-Sahaba opposed our peaceful struggle for the enforcement of Islamic laws, and formed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 1996'," while emphasizing that "'Sipah-e-Sahaba has nothing to do with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi'" (The News 2 Feb. 2003; see also CDI 9 July 2004).
The Center for Defense Information (CDI) reported that the SSP also has "close links" with Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), which is "a terrorist organization active in Jammu and Kashmir" and based in Pakistan (9 July 2004).
In its April 2005 report, the International Crisis Group (ICG) stated that "[m]any leading activists [of the SSP] began their political careers in anti-Ahmadi organisations" (18 Apr. 2005, 9). According to the ICG, Ahmadis are Pakistan's "most repressed religious community" who were designated non-Muslims through a 1974 Constitutional amendment (18 Apr. 2005, 4-5). Earlier reports indicate that "[m]any Taliban leaders received instruction in extremism at religious schools in Pakistan run by the SSP" (Knight Ridder 21 Jan. 2002; see also AFP 7 Oct. 2003). As at October 2003, the SSP was still operating "hundreds of seminaries and religious schools mostly in poverty-ridden parts of the Punjab" (ibid.). Moreover, the Associated Press (AP) reported in January 2003 that the SSP "backed Afghanistan's radical Islamic Taliban militia" (27 Jan. 2003). Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that in October 2003, Tariq "publicly showed his sympathy for Afghanistan's former hardline Islamic Taliban regime" (7 Oct. 2003).
The SSP follows the Deobandi stream of Sunni Islam, is "[v]iolently anti-Shi'a" (FAS 1 May 2003; ICG 18 Apr. 2005, 3) and wants Pakistan to be officially declared a Sunni Muslim state (Terrorism Knowledge Base June 2005; CDI 9 July 2004; BBC 7 Oct. 2003a; AFP 7 Oct. 2003). The ICG reported in April 2005 that the SSP is Pakistan's first anti-Shiite militant group (18 Apr. 2005, 3). According to CDI, the SSP aims to restore the Khilafat (Caliphate) system, while protecting Sunnis and their Shariat (Islamic laws). SSP members declare that Shias are non-Muslims and must be violently converted or suppressed.... The organization boasts 500 offices and branches in all 34 districts of Punjab. It also has approximately 100,000 registered workers in Pakistan and 17 branches in foreign countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Canada and the United Kingdom (9 July 2004).
Reports have described the SSP as a violent group (AFP 18 Nov. 2003a) that is "responsible for most [of the] anti-Shia acts of terror" in Pakistan (ICG 18 Apr. 2005, 3). The violence, which is taking place "in retaliation for the political and religious assertiveness of the Shias of Pakistan following the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979" (OutlookIndia.com 1 June 2005), has led to numerous reports of the murder of Shiite militants and ordinary Shiite citizens (ICG 18 Apr. 2005, 24; Terrorism Knowledge Base June 2005; CDI 9 July 2004; The News 8 May 2005; ibid. 8 Mar. 2004; Dawn 21 May 2005; ibid. 8 Oct. 2004a; ibid. 8 Oct. 2004b; AFP 7 Oct. 2004; ibid. 7 Oct. 2003; Times 7 Oct. 2003; BBC 15 Apr. 2005; ibid. 7 Oct. 2003b; AP 10 Oct. 2003; Xinhua 19 Nov. 2003).
Activities of the SSP have ranged from "organizing political rallies calling for Shi'as to be declared non-Muslims [and] assassinating prominent Shi'a leaders" (FAS 1 May 2003; see also UPI 4 Mar. 2004) to the "indiscriminate" killing of Shiites, including attacks on Shiite mosques (Terrorism Knowledge Base June 2005; see also CDI 9 July 2004). The SSP has consistently maintained that, despite accusations to the contrary, it has not been involved in violence (BBC 7 Oct. 2003b; see also Terrorism Knowledge Base June 2005) and that it is a "legitimate political group" (ibid.; see also CDI 9 July 2004). The Research Directorate was able to find only a few reports that refer to political activities carried out by the SSP (Gulf News 25 Apr. 2004; Dawn 8 Oct. 2004b; ibid. 19 Aug. 2004).
The Research Directorate also found two reports that refer to attacks carried out against members, leaders and activists of the SSP (ibid. 8 Oct. 2004b; The News 16 Sept. 2004).
On 14 August 2001, the Pakistani government banned several groups considered responsible for sectarian violence and placed the SSP under its watch (Dawn 12 Jan. 2002; The Nation 19 Nov. 2003). For five months following the government's decision there was no significant reduction in the level of sectarian violence in the country, and, as a result, President Pervez Musharraf banned the SSP on 12 January 2002 (CDI 9 July 2004; Dawn 12 Jan. 2002; The Herald Sept. 2003). In April 2005, the United States listed the SSP as a "terrorist organization" (US Federal News 27 Apr. 2005).
In April 2003, Tariq re-established the SSP under a new name, Millat-e-Islamia (AFP 30 Jan. 2005; CDI 9 July 2004; The Herald Sept. 2003; The News 19 Nov. 2003; Dawn 20 Nov. 2003; PPI 18 Nov. 2003; AFP 18 Nov. 2003b; Times 7 Oct. 2003). Despite the January 2002 ban, the SSP continued to "draw huge amounts of money from its foreign patrons" under its new name (The Herald Sept. 2003).
In November 2003, the Millat-e-Islamia, along with two other groups, was officially banned by the government (AFP 18 Nov. 2003a; PPI 18 Nov. 2003; The Nation 19 Nov. 2003; Xinhua 19 Nov. 2003; The News 19 Nov. 2003) under the 1997 Anti-Terrorist Act (Dawn 20 Nov. 2003).
In July 2005, the government launched a country-wide crackdown against militants (ibid. 21 July 2005). Many SSP members, including SSP leader Maulana Ali Sher Hyderi, were arrested (ibid.).
This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.
References
Agence France Presse (AFP). 30 January 2005. "Two Sunnis Killed in Sectarian Attack in Southern Pakistan." (Dialog)_____. 7 October 2004. "More on at Least 33 People Killed, More than 70 Injured in Pakistan Bombings." (Dialog)_____. 18 November 2003a. "AFP: Pakistan's Religious Parties Reject Government Ban on Renamed Militant Groups." (FBIS-NES-2003-1118 19 Nov. 2003/WNC)_____. 18 November 2003b. "AFP: Pakistan Closes Over 130 Militant Offices in New Anti-Extremist Drive." (FBIS-NES-2003-1118 19 Nov. 2003/WNC)_____. 7 October 2003. Rana Jawad. "Assassinated Sunni Muslim Hardliner Had Many Foes." (Dialog)
Associated Press (AP). 10 October 2003. Khalid Tanveer. "Security Tight Across Pakistan, Authorities Keep Wary Eye on Potential Violence." (Dialog)_____. 27 January 2003. "Pakistani Islamic Militant Group Challenges Government Ban." (Dialog)
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 15 April 2005. "Pakistan Shrine Bomb – Men Held."
Center for Defense Information (CDI). 9 July 2004. "In the Spotlight: Sipah-I-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)."
Dawn [Karachi]. 21 July 2005. "Hunt Intensified; 200 Held: Prominent SSP Leader Arrested in Khairpur."
Federation of American Scientists (FAS). 1 May 2003. "Sipah-I-Sahaba/Pakistan (SSP)." Para States – Scope Note.
Gulf News [Dubai]. 25 April 2004. "Banned Party Decides to Boycott By-election in Jhang." (Dialog)_____. 18 November 2003. Abdullah Iqbal. "More Groups Face Ban as Massive Crackdown Starts." (Dialog)
The Herald [Karachi]. September 2003. Mubashir Zaidi. "Back to the Drawing Board."
International Crisis Group (ICG). 18 April 2005. Asia Report No. 95. The State of Sectarianism in Pakistan.
Knight Ridder [Washington]. 21 January 2002. Michael Dorgan. "Pakistan's Future May Depend on Ability to Quash Religious Militants." (NEXIS)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 17 November 2003. "Terror/Iraq Briefing: Shiite Leader Held in Killing." (Dialog)
The Nation [Islamabad]. 19 November 2003. Husain Haqqani. "Pakistan: Author Insists Ban on Militant Outfits Imposed Under Foreign Pressure." (FBIS-NES-2003-1119 20 Nov. 2003/WNC)
The News [Islamabad]. 8 May 2005. "Pakistan: Police Arrest 'Alleged Terrorist' Involved in Religious Terrorism." (WNC)_____. 16 September 2004. "Pakistan: Police Arrest 2 Sectarian Terrorists Involved in Killing 20 Persons." (Dialog)_____. 8 March 2004. "Police Detain 30 in Connection with 2 Mar Attack on Shiite Mourners in Quetta." (FBIS-NES-2004-0308 9 Mar. 2004/WNC)_____. 19 November 2003. "Pakistan: MMA Leader Terms Ban on Renamed Militant Outfits Attempt to Please US." (FBIS-NES-2003-1119 20 Nov. 2003/WNC)_____. 2 February 2003. "Pakistan: Sipah-i-Sahaba Chief Denies Link with Lashkar-i-Jhangvi." (FBIS-NES-2003-0202 3 Feb. 2002/WNC)
OutlookIndia.com. 1 June 2005. "The Ghosts of Gilgit." (Dialog)
Pakistan Press International (PPI). 18 November 2003. "Terrorism (UK Welcomers Crackdown Against Religious Outfits)." (Dialog)
Terrorism Knowledge Base. June 2005. "Sipah-e-Sahaba/Pakistan (SSP)."
Times [London]. 7 October 2003. Zahid Hussain. "Pakistan MP Shot Dead as Extremists Take Their Revenge." (Dialog)
United Press International (UPI). 4 March 2004. "U.S.: Terrorist al-Zarqawi Busy in Iraq." (Dialog)
US Federal News. 27 April 2005. "State Department Identifies 40 Foreign Terrorist Organizations." (Dialog)
Windsor Star. 17 November 2003. "World Report: Pakistan: Crackdown in Pakistan Nets Shiite Muslim Leader." (Dialog)
Xinhua News Agency. 19 November 2003. Rong Shoujun. "Xinhua 'Roundup': Pakistan Cracks Down on Renamed 'Extremist Groups.'" (FBIS-CHI-2003-1119 20 Nov. 2003/WNC)
Additional Sources Consulted
Internet sites, including: Amnesty International (AI), Asian Affairs, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004, European Country of Origin Information Network (ECOI), Freedom in the World 2004, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN).
(http://www.unhcr.org)
MUSHARRAF'S BAN: An Analysis
by B.Raman
"Don't blame the common man if he does not take the government's orders seriously. What happened to the deweaponization ? The paramilitary forces looked on helplessly when the TNSM activists drove past the check points with guns mounted on their vehicles. Why should the common citizens believe this government when it says that it would take concrete steps against religious extremists and then buckles under such pressures, and withdraws plans to bring about procedural amendments in the controversial blasphemy law?
"Mere tough talk will not convince the people. Action speaks louder than words. How will the government liberate the 'great majority of moderate Pakistanis' held hostage by a minority of religious extremists when it cannot liberate itself from the extremists? People remain unconvinced. They say that the establishment has not divorced its religious allies altogether. This is just a separation. There will be a re-union once the situation cools down in Afghanistan. It will continue to need the support of the religious extremist groups for as long as Kashmir issue remains unresolved.
"Notwithstanding their present hibernation, the Jihadi outfits would continue to operate, along the holy war in Kashmir. They would continue to push political goals in Pakistan as well.
"The government says the extremists stand exposed and that it plans to unveil an action plan against them in the next three weeks or so. The taste of the pudding is in eating it. Time will tell how sincere is the administration in taking on religious extremism."
So wrote Mr. M. Ismail Khan, a Pakistani analyst, in the "Dawn" of Karachi on November 29, 2001, in response to the repeated reiteration by Gen.Pervez Musharraf, since September 11, 2001, of his determination to eradicate extremist and terrorist activities from Pakistani soil. The comments were provoked by the action of the military junta in not preventing the crossing- over of thousands of heavily-armed jehadis from the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan into Afghanistan, at the height of the US air strikes against the Taliban to join the Taliban in its so-called jehad against the US. Thousands of them got killed by the US air strikes and in the fighting with the Northern Alliance.
If many in Pakistan itself have thus been doubting the sincerity of Musharraf in wanting to make a total break from extremism and terrorism, India is totally justified in adopting a cautious approach to his telecast of January 12 and in wanting to see credible action on the ground against terrorists operating against India before appropriately reciprocating to his speech and the follow-up action.
In pursuance of Musharraf's telecast announcement of January 12, 2002, Lt.Gen. (retd) Moinuddin Haider, Pakistan's Interior Minister, issued a notification on January 15, 2002, formally banning the following five organisations under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, which was got enacted by the then Prime Minister, Mr.Nawaz Sharif, and under which Sharif himself was got prosecuted and jailed by Musharraf after capturing power on October 12, 1999: the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LET), the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JEM), the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), the Tehreek-e-Jafferia Pakistan (TJP) and the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM). All of them, except the Shia TJP, have a strong Deobandi-Wahabi orientation. On the other hand, the Sunni Tehreek, which is of Barelvi orientation, was placed only under observation and not banned.
According to the notification, Section 11E of the Act provides that where any organisation is proscribed, the required measures against it will include: its offices, if any, shall be sealed; its accounts, if any, shall be frozen; all literature, posters, banners, or printing, electronic and digital or other material shall be seized.
It said: "Publications, printing or dissemination of any press statements, press conferences of public utterances by or on behalf of or in support of a proscribed organisation shall also be prohibited".
"The proscribed organisation shall submit all accounts of its income and expenditure for its political and social welfare activities and disclose all funding sources to the competent authority designated by the government. The provincial governments have been directed by the federal government to take immediate action. The Interior Ministry has also asked the provincial governments to furnish a report in this regard."
Of the five banned organisations, the TJP and the SSP are registered as political parties under the relevant Pakistani law and had been contesting elections. Registered political parties cannot be banned without the concurrence of the Supreme Court. The military junta got over this requirement under the pretext that since these two organisations had contested the 1997 elections under different names and had subsequently changed their names, they should have got themselves freshly registered as political parties, which they had not done.
The TJP had contested the 1997 elections as the Tehreek-e-Fiquah-e-Jafferia Pakistan and the SSP as the Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan. The TJP and the SSP came into existence after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. The TJP was formed at the instance of the Iranian Intelligence to protect the interests of the Shias and was funded by the latter. It extended its activities to the Shia majority areas of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Northern Areas--NA (Gilgit and Baltistan) and started a movement for constituting these Shia majority areas into a separate province of Pakistan to be called the Karakoram province.
In 1988, there was a violent uprising of the Shias in Gilgit, which was ruthlessly suppressed by Musharraf, who was given the task of dealing with the revolt by Zia-ul-Haq. Musharraf had a large number of Sunni Pashtun tribesmen from the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) led by Osama bin Laden brought into Gilgit. They carried out a massacre of the Shias in the NA as well as the adjoining NWFP areas. It is believed by many in Pakistan that the crash of the aircraft in which Zia was travelling from Bahawalpur in August 1988 resulting in his death was caused by a Shia airman from Gilgit sympathetic to the TJP in retaliation for this massacre.
To keep the Shias of Gilgit under control, Musharraf encouraged the the SSP, which had come into existence in the Punjab in the early 1980s at the instance of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to extend its activities amongst the Sunni population of Gilgit and to politically organise them against the the TJP. Since then, there have frequently been clashes between the TJP and the SSP followers in Gilgit, the latest outbreak of such violent incidents having taken place in June, 2001, before Musharraf's visit to India for the summit talks with Mr.A.B.Vajpayee, the Indian Prime Minister.
The SSP, which, as stated above, originally came into existence in the Punjab province of Pakistan and spread from there to Sindh, was funded and used by the ISI and the Saudi intelligence for dealing with the Shias in Pakistan and for assisting the Sunni Balochis in the areas of Iran adjoining Pakistan's Balochistan province. The SSP acted in concert with the Iraqi-funded Mujahideen-e-Khalq in fomenting an anti-Teheran revolt amongst the Sunnis of Iran. The revolt was ultimately crushed by the Iranian authorities.
Towards the end of the 1980s, the SSP, much to the discomfiture of the ISI, started demanding that Pakistan should be proclaimed a Sunni Republic and the Shias declared non-Muslims. This led to violent clashes between the two organisations. The SSP and its militant wing called the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) carried out a massacre of the Shias in Punjab and Sindh. In Karachi, many Shia doctors and other intellectuals were massacred by the SSP. The SSP also carried out murderous attacks on Iranian nationals residing in Pakistan, including an Iranian diplomat in charge of the Iranian Cultural Centre in Lahore, and some Iranian military officers who had come to Pakistan for training.
To protect the Shias, the TJP formed its own militant wing called the Sipah Mohammad (SM).
In 1996, the ISI had used the trained cadres of the SSP from the Punjab and Sindh for helping the Taliban in the capture of Jalalabad and Kabul. Hundreds of SSP cadres took part in the successful Taliban assault on Kabul in September, 1996. The SSP became an important component of the Taliban and joined Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front For Jehad Against the US and Israel in 1998. It was used by bin Laden and the Taliban for the massacre of the Shias (Hazaras) of Afghanistan.
Concerned over the uncontrollable anti-Shia activities of the SSP and the LEJ in Pakistani territory, Musharraf banned the LEJ and the SM under the Anti-Terrorism Act on August, 14, 2001, but, despite this, the LEJ has continued to be as active as before with the connivance of sympathetic officers of the military-intelligence establishment.
Hundreds of SSP cadres fought along with the Taliban in Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz and Kabul post-September 11, 2001, and suffered a large number of fatal casualties due to the US air strikes. The survivors have since returned to Pakistan and it is the fear of an anti-US and anti-Musharraf backlash from them which has led to the ban on the SSP.
The TJP or its SM have not indulged in major acts of terrorism. The TJP had refrained from participating in the post-September 11 anti-US demonstrations in Pakistan. But, Musharraf has banned it too lest a ban only on the Sunni organisations cause anger amongst the Sunnis, who constitute about 80 per cent of Pakistan's Muslim population. The USA views the TJP with suspicion because of its perceived proximity to the Iranian intelligence and would, therefore, have reasons to be gratified by the ban on it.
As a result of the policy of divide and rule followed by Musharraf and the ISI since he seized power in October, 1999, one saw for the first time in Pakistan sectarian terrorism inside the Sunni community itself between the Sunnis of the Deobandi faith belonging to the SSP and the LEJ and those of the Barelvi faith belonging to the Sunni Tehreek formed in the early 1990s to counter the growing Wahabi influence on Islam in Pakistan and the Almi Tanzeem Ahle Sunnat formed in 1998 by Pir Afzal Qadri of Mararian Sharif in Gujrat, Punjab, to counter the activities of the Deobandi Army of Islam headed by Gen. Mohammed Aziz, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.
This led to frequent armed clashes between rival Sunni groups in Sindh, the most sensational of the incidents being the gunning down of Maulana Salim Qadri of the Sunni Tehreek in Karachi in May, 2001, by the SSP, which led to a major break-down of law and order in certain areas of Karachi for some days.
While banning the strongly Deobandi SSP, Musharraf has refrained from banning the strongly Barelvi Sunni Tehreek and the Tanzeem. The Deobandis became quite powerful under Zia, himself a devout Deobandi, but numerically they are in a minority in Pakistan's Sunni community. By sparing the Barelvi organisations, Musharraf has sought to ensure that the majority Barelvis would not create trouble for him.
The junta has till now applied the ban only to the activities of the five organisations in Sindh, Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan and has not yet extended it to the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and the NA, but Government spokesmen have been saying that it will be ultimately extended to those areas too.
The position in the NA is complicated by the fact that the 29-member Northern Areas Legislative Council includes ten legislators belonging to the TJP. Haji Fida Mohammad Noshad, the deputy Chief Executive of the Northern Areas, which is the top most post offered to the Council members by Islamabad, is also a member of the TJP though he contested the election independently and later joined the party. The Northern Areas Cabinet includes two TJP members--- Sheikh Haider and Imran Azeem.
The TNSM (Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Islamic Law. Official slogan: "Shariat or Shahadat"--Islamic law or martyrdom ) led by Mufti Sufi Mohammad is an exlusively Pashtun organisation of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), consisting of the tribal areas adjoining the Peshawar, the Kohat, the Bannu and the Dera Ismail Khan districts and the tribal agencies of Bajaur, Orakzai, Mohmand, Khyber, Kurram, and North and South Waziristan.
The FATA, comprising the territories lying between the administered districts of the NWFP and the 'Durand Line', is spread over an area of 10,510 square miles with a population of a little over three million Pashtuns. It is known as Pakistan's Corsica or Wild West. According to the "Dawn" of Karachi, out of 16,988 registered proclaimed offenders in the NWFP, 99 percent have taken shelter in Darra Adam Khel, Orakzai, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. It has some of the world's largest illegal arms manufacturing and smuggling groups and prosperous narcotics smugglers. The local population has more arms and ammunition than the population of any other Pakistani province or region.
Even though the FATA is supposed to be directly administered by the Federal Government in Islamabad, the local Mullahs and tribal leaders have effective control over the area and its people and had virtually talibanised it long before the Taliban made its appearance in Afghanistan in 1994.
The TNSM first made its appearance in the Malakand area in 1994, when, instigated by the ISI to have the Benazir Bhutto Government discredited, it staged an armed revolt in support of the enforcement of the Shariat. The ISI used it along with the SSP for assisting the Taliban in the capture of Jalalabad and Kabul in September 1996.
Since then, the TNSM, with the ISI's blessings, had established a close working relationship with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda. Nearly 2,000 of its armed cadres are reported to have been killed by the US air strikes in Afghanistan. It is widely believed in Pakistan that despite the detention of Sufi Mohammad by the junta since November, 2001, his followers in the FATA have given shelter and protection to the surviving leaders of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda, including, according to some, bin Laden himself and his family.
Embarrassed by these reports, Musharraf has found himself constrained to ban this orgasnisation too, but there are as yet no reports of any vigorous action by the military-intelligence establishment to smoke out the Taliban and the Al Qaeda leaders.
There were four Pakistani organisations in the Army of Islam of the Afghan war vintage, which the ISI had diverted from Afghanistan to Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) from 1993 onwards---the JEM, the LET, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen HUM) and the Al Badr. Of these, the first two have been very open in their anti-India activities in Pakistani territory, make no secret of their terrorist activities in J&K and have been indulging in acts of terrorism outside J&K too as was demonstrated by their attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on December 13, 2001.
As against this, the HUM and the Al Badr maintain a comparatively low profile in Pakistan and have in recent months kept their acts of terrorism confined to J&K. While banning the JEM and the LET, Musharraf has refrained from banning the HUM and the Al Badr, thereby indicating that he wants to act only against acts of terrorism in other parts of India and not in J & K.
Moreover, he has attributed the ban on these two organisations to their terrorist activities inside Pakistan and not inside India. The JEM was suspected in the assassination of Moinuddin Haider's brother in Karachi in December, 2001. Apart from this, it was not involved in acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory. However, it is perceived to be anti-Shia and has had a history of links with the SSP. In fact, its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, started his career as a terrorist under Azam Tariq, the dreaded head of the SSP.
The LET has had no history of acts of terrorism in Pakistan. All its terrorist attacks have been directed against Indian nationals and interests in Indian territory. So far, 1,957 persons belonging to the five banned organisations have been detained and 615 of their offices sealed. Of them, 735 were detained and 336 offices sealed in Punjab; 852 arrested and 180 offices closed in Sindh; 337 detained and 81 offices shut in NWFP; 15 arrested and an equal number of offices sealed in Balochistan; and 18 persons arrested and 3 offices closed in Islamabad.
There has been no action against their leadership, members and infrastructure in the FATA, the POK and the NA. The majority of those arrested belong to the political and administrative cadres of these organisations. There have been practically no arrests of their trained terrorists. They (estimated 5,000) are reported to have either escaped to the FATA, the POK and the NA or gone underground in other parts of Pakistan.
The follow-up action so far has belied expectations that at least this time the junta would give evidence of real sincerity.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director,Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com )
"Don't blame the common man if he does not take the government's orders seriously. What happened to the deweaponization ? The paramilitary forces looked on helplessly when the TNSM activists drove past the check points with guns mounted on their vehicles. Why should the common citizens believe this government when it says that it would take concrete steps against religious extremists and then buckles under such pressures, and withdraws plans to bring about procedural amendments in the controversial blasphemy law?
"Mere tough talk will not convince the people. Action speaks louder than words. How will the government liberate the 'great majority of moderate Pakistanis' held hostage by a minority of religious extremists when it cannot liberate itself from the extremists? People remain unconvinced. They say that the establishment has not divorced its religious allies altogether. This is just a separation. There will be a re-union once the situation cools down in Afghanistan. It will continue to need the support of the religious extremist groups for as long as Kashmir issue remains unresolved.
"Notwithstanding their present hibernation, the Jihadi outfits would continue to operate, along the holy war in Kashmir. They would continue to push political goals in Pakistan as well.
"The government says the extremists stand exposed and that it plans to unveil an action plan against them in the next three weeks or so. The taste of the pudding is in eating it. Time will tell how sincere is the administration in taking on religious extremism."
So wrote Mr. M. Ismail Khan, a Pakistani analyst, in the "Dawn" of Karachi on November 29, 2001, in response to the repeated reiteration by Gen.Pervez Musharraf, since September 11, 2001, of his determination to eradicate extremist and terrorist activities from Pakistani soil. The comments were provoked by the action of the military junta in not preventing the crossing- over of thousands of heavily-armed jehadis from the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan into Afghanistan, at the height of the US air strikes against the Taliban to join the Taliban in its so-called jehad against the US. Thousands of them got killed by the US air strikes and in the fighting with the Northern Alliance.
If many in Pakistan itself have thus been doubting the sincerity of Musharraf in wanting to make a total break from extremism and terrorism, India is totally justified in adopting a cautious approach to his telecast of January 12 and in wanting to see credible action on the ground against terrorists operating against India before appropriately reciprocating to his speech and the follow-up action.
In pursuance of Musharraf's telecast announcement of January 12, 2002, Lt.Gen. (retd) Moinuddin Haider, Pakistan's Interior Minister, issued a notification on January 15, 2002, formally banning the following five organisations under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, which was got enacted by the then Prime Minister, Mr.Nawaz Sharif, and under which Sharif himself was got prosecuted and jailed by Musharraf after capturing power on October 12, 1999: the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LET), the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JEM), the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), the Tehreek-e-Jafferia Pakistan (TJP) and the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM). All of them, except the Shia TJP, have a strong Deobandi-Wahabi orientation. On the other hand, the Sunni Tehreek, which is of Barelvi orientation, was placed only under observation and not banned.
According to the notification, Section 11E of the Act provides that where any organisation is proscribed, the required measures against it will include: its offices, if any, shall be sealed; its accounts, if any, shall be frozen; all literature, posters, banners, or printing, electronic and digital or other material shall be seized.
It said: "Publications, printing or dissemination of any press statements, press conferences of public utterances by or on behalf of or in support of a proscribed organisation shall also be prohibited".
"The proscribed organisation shall submit all accounts of its income and expenditure for its political and social welfare activities and disclose all funding sources to the competent authority designated by the government. The provincial governments have been directed by the federal government to take immediate action. The Interior Ministry has also asked the provincial governments to furnish a report in this regard."
Of the five banned organisations, the TJP and the SSP are registered as political parties under the relevant Pakistani law and had been contesting elections. Registered political parties cannot be banned without the concurrence of the Supreme Court. The military junta got over this requirement under the pretext that since these two organisations had contested the 1997 elections under different names and had subsequently changed their names, they should have got themselves freshly registered as political parties, which they had not done.
The TJP had contested the 1997 elections as the Tehreek-e-Fiquah-e-Jafferia Pakistan and the SSP as the Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan. The TJP and the SSP came into existence after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. The TJP was formed at the instance of the Iranian Intelligence to protect the interests of the Shias and was funded by the latter. It extended its activities to the Shia majority areas of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Northern Areas--NA (Gilgit and Baltistan) and started a movement for constituting these Shia majority areas into a separate province of Pakistan to be called the Karakoram province.
In 1988, there was a violent uprising of the Shias in Gilgit, which was ruthlessly suppressed by Musharraf, who was given the task of dealing with the revolt by Zia-ul-Haq. Musharraf had a large number of Sunni Pashtun tribesmen from the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) led by Osama bin Laden brought into Gilgit. They carried out a massacre of the Shias in the NA as well as the adjoining NWFP areas. It is believed by many in Pakistan that the crash of the aircraft in which Zia was travelling from Bahawalpur in August 1988 resulting in his death was caused by a Shia airman from Gilgit sympathetic to the TJP in retaliation for this massacre.
To keep the Shias of Gilgit under control, Musharraf encouraged the the SSP, which had come into existence in the Punjab in the early 1980s at the instance of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to extend its activities amongst the Sunni population of Gilgit and to politically organise them against the the TJP. Since then, there have frequently been clashes between the TJP and the SSP followers in Gilgit, the latest outbreak of such violent incidents having taken place in June, 2001, before Musharraf's visit to India for the summit talks with Mr.A.B.Vajpayee, the Indian Prime Minister.
The SSP, which, as stated above, originally came into existence in the Punjab province of Pakistan and spread from there to Sindh, was funded and used by the ISI and the Saudi intelligence for dealing with the Shias in Pakistan and for assisting the Sunni Balochis in the areas of Iran adjoining Pakistan's Balochistan province. The SSP acted in concert with the Iraqi-funded Mujahideen-e-Khalq in fomenting an anti-Teheran revolt amongst the Sunnis of Iran. The revolt was ultimately crushed by the Iranian authorities.
Towards the end of the 1980s, the SSP, much to the discomfiture of the ISI, started demanding that Pakistan should be proclaimed a Sunni Republic and the Shias declared non-Muslims. This led to violent clashes between the two organisations. The SSP and its militant wing called the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) carried out a massacre of the Shias in Punjab and Sindh. In Karachi, many Shia doctors and other intellectuals were massacred by the SSP. The SSP also carried out murderous attacks on Iranian nationals residing in Pakistan, including an Iranian diplomat in charge of the Iranian Cultural Centre in Lahore, and some Iranian military officers who had come to Pakistan for training.
To protect the Shias, the TJP formed its own militant wing called the Sipah Mohammad (SM).
In 1996, the ISI had used the trained cadres of the SSP from the Punjab and Sindh for helping the Taliban in the capture of Jalalabad and Kabul. Hundreds of SSP cadres took part in the successful Taliban assault on Kabul in September, 1996. The SSP became an important component of the Taliban and joined Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front For Jehad Against the US and Israel in 1998. It was used by bin Laden and the Taliban for the massacre of the Shias (Hazaras) of Afghanistan.
Concerned over the uncontrollable anti-Shia activities of the SSP and the LEJ in Pakistani territory, Musharraf banned the LEJ and the SM under the Anti-Terrorism Act on August, 14, 2001, but, despite this, the LEJ has continued to be as active as before with the connivance of sympathetic officers of the military-intelligence establishment.
Hundreds of SSP cadres fought along with the Taliban in Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz and Kabul post-September 11, 2001, and suffered a large number of fatal casualties due to the US air strikes. The survivors have since returned to Pakistan and it is the fear of an anti-US and anti-Musharraf backlash from them which has led to the ban on the SSP.
The TJP or its SM have not indulged in major acts of terrorism. The TJP had refrained from participating in the post-September 11 anti-US demonstrations in Pakistan. But, Musharraf has banned it too lest a ban only on the Sunni organisations cause anger amongst the Sunnis, who constitute about 80 per cent of Pakistan's Muslim population. The USA views the TJP with suspicion because of its perceived proximity to the Iranian intelligence and would, therefore, have reasons to be gratified by the ban on it.
As a result of the policy of divide and rule followed by Musharraf and the ISI since he seized power in October, 1999, one saw for the first time in Pakistan sectarian terrorism inside the Sunni community itself between the Sunnis of the Deobandi faith belonging to the SSP and the LEJ and those of the Barelvi faith belonging to the Sunni Tehreek formed in the early 1990s to counter the growing Wahabi influence on Islam in Pakistan and the Almi Tanzeem Ahle Sunnat formed in 1998 by Pir Afzal Qadri of Mararian Sharif in Gujrat, Punjab, to counter the activities of the Deobandi Army of Islam headed by Gen. Mohammed Aziz, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.
This led to frequent armed clashes between rival Sunni groups in Sindh, the most sensational of the incidents being the gunning down of Maulana Salim Qadri of the Sunni Tehreek in Karachi in May, 2001, by the SSP, which led to a major break-down of law and order in certain areas of Karachi for some days.
While banning the strongly Deobandi SSP, Musharraf has refrained from banning the strongly Barelvi Sunni Tehreek and the Tanzeem. The Deobandis became quite powerful under Zia, himself a devout Deobandi, but numerically they are in a minority in Pakistan's Sunni community. By sparing the Barelvi organisations, Musharraf has sought to ensure that the majority Barelvis would not create trouble for him.
The junta has till now applied the ban only to the activities of the five organisations in Sindh, Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan and has not yet extended it to the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and the NA, but Government spokesmen have been saying that it will be ultimately extended to those areas too.
The position in the NA is complicated by the fact that the 29-member Northern Areas Legislative Council includes ten legislators belonging to the TJP. Haji Fida Mohammad Noshad, the deputy Chief Executive of the Northern Areas, which is the top most post offered to the Council members by Islamabad, is also a member of the TJP though he contested the election independently and later joined the party. The Northern Areas Cabinet includes two TJP members--- Sheikh Haider and Imran Azeem.
The TNSM (Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Islamic Law. Official slogan: "Shariat or Shahadat"--Islamic law or martyrdom ) led by Mufti Sufi Mohammad is an exlusively Pashtun organisation of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), consisting of the tribal areas adjoining the Peshawar, the Kohat, the Bannu and the Dera Ismail Khan districts and the tribal agencies of Bajaur, Orakzai, Mohmand, Khyber, Kurram, and North and South Waziristan.
The FATA, comprising the territories lying between the administered districts of the NWFP and the 'Durand Line', is spread over an area of 10,510 square miles with a population of a little over three million Pashtuns. It is known as Pakistan's Corsica or Wild West. According to the "Dawn" of Karachi, out of 16,988 registered proclaimed offenders in the NWFP, 99 percent have taken shelter in Darra Adam Khel, Orakzai, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. It has some of the world's largest illegal arms manufacturing and smuggling groups and prosperous narcotics smugglers. The local population has more arms and ammunition than the population of any other Pakistani province or region.
Even though the FATA is supposed to be directly administered by the Federal Government in Islamabad, the local Mullahs and tribal leaders have effective control over the area and its people and had virtually talibanised it long before the Taliban made its appearance in Afghanistan in 1994.
The TNSM first made its appearance in the Malakand area in 1994, when, instigated by the ISI to have the Benazir Bhutto Government discredited, it staged an armed revolt in support of the enforcement of the Shariat. The ISI used it along with the SSP for assisting the Taliban in the capture of Jalalabad and Kabul in September 1996.
Since then, the TNSM, with the ISI's blessings, had established a close working relationship with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda. Nearly 2,000 of its armed cadres are reported to have been killed by the US air strikes in Afghanistan. It is widely believed in Pakistan that despite the detention of Sufi Mohammad by the junta since November, 2001, his followers in the FATA have given shelter and protection to the surviving leaders of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda, including, according to some, bin Laden himself and his family.
Embarrassed by these reports, Musharraf has found himself constrained to ban this orgasnisation too, but there are as yet no reports of any vigorous action by the military-intelligence establishment to smoke out the Taliban and the Al Qaeda leaders.
There were four Pakistani organisations in the Army of Islam of the Afghan war vintage, which the ISI had diverted from Afghanistan to Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) from 1993 onwards---the JEM, the LET, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen HUM) and the Al Badr. Of these, the first two have been very open in their anti-India activities in Pakistani territory, make no secret of their terrorist activities in J&K and have been indulging in acts of terrorism outside J&K too as was demonstrated by their attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on December 13, 2001.
As against this, the HUM and the Al Badr maintain a comparatively low profile in Pakistan and have in recent months kept their acts of terrorism confined to J&K. While banning the JEM and the LET, Musharraf has refrained from banning the HUM and the Al Badr, thereby indicating that he wants to act only against acts of terrorism in other parts of India and not in J & K.
Moreover, he has attributed the ban on these two organisations to their terrorist activities inside Pakistan and not inside India. The JEM was suspected in the assassination of Moinuddin Haider's brother in Karachi in December, 2001. Apart from this, it was not involved in acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory. However, it is perceived to be anti-Shia and has had a history of links with the SSP. In fact, its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, started his career as a terrorist under Azam Tariq, the dreaded head of the SSP.
The LET has had no history of acts of terrorism in Pakistan. All its terrorist attacks have been directed against Indian nationals and interests in Indian territory. So far, 1,957 persons belonging to the five banned organisations have been detained and 615 of their offices sealed. Of them, 735 were detained and 336 offices sealed in Punjab; 852 arrested and 180 offices closed in Sindh; 337 detained and 81 offices shut in NWFP; 15 arrested and an equal number of offices sealed in Balochistan; and 18 persons arrested and 3 offices closed in Islamabad.
There has been no action against their leadership, members and infrastructure in the FATA, the POK and the NA. The majority of those arrested belong to the political and administrative cadres of these organisations. There have been practically no arrests of their trained terrorists. They (estimated 5,000) are reported to have either escaped to the FATA, the POK and the NA or gone underground in other parts of Pakistan.
The follow-up action so far has belied expectations that at least this time the junta would give evidence of real sincerity.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director,Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com )
6 Christians Killed in Riots in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Days of rioting between Christians and Muslims in eastern Pakistan, over allegations that a Koran was defiled, escalated Saturday, leaving six Christians dead, including four women and a child, the authorities said.
Members of a banned Muslim organization began burning the homes of Christians in the Punjabi city of Gorja on Thursday after accusing them of desecrating pages of a Koran, said Shahbaz Bhatti, the federal minister for minorities. He said there was no truth in the allegation that the Koran had been defiled.
Mr. Bhatti said hundreds of radical Muslims burned more Christians’ homes on Saturday, killing the six Christians. Television images showed houses burning and streets strewn with debris and blackened furniture as mobs ran at each other. Local media also reported that gunfights had broken out between Christians and Muslims.
Pakistan is a predominantly Sunni Muslim state where Christians are a tiny minority. Although the two groups generally live peacefully, pro-Taliban militants have periodically attacked churches and Christians since the Sept. 11 attacks, accusing them of sympathizing with the United States. Mr. Bhatti said the attackers belonged to Sipah-e-Sahaba, a banned group that is accused of attacking security forces and carrying out bombings in recent years.
The Punjab law minister, Rana Sanaullah, said that the authorities had investigated the allegation of a Koran being defaced but that “our initial reports say that there has not been any incident of desecration.” Mr. Sanaullah said that although the riots had calmed by Friday, “some miscreants and extremists entered the city today and pushed people toward armed clashes.”
Elsewhere, police officials said Saturday that they had arrested a member of an outlawed group that is linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban and is suspected of involvement in the 2002 beheading in Karachi of Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
Rao Shakir, believed to be a member of the militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was arrested late Friday on the outskirts of Islamabad, the capital, a police official said. The group, a banned Sunni Muslim organization, has been blamed in the killings of Shiites in Pakistan. Its members have also been accused of attacks against Westerners in Karachi.
(New York Times)
Members of a banned Muslim organization began burning the homes of Christians in the Punjabi city of Gorja on Thursday after accusing them of desecrating pages of a Koran, said Shahbaz Bhatti, the federal minister for minorities. He said there was no truth in the allegation that the Koran had been defiled.
Mr. Bhatti said hundreds of radical Muslims burned more Christians’ homes on Saturday, killing the six Christians. Television images showed houses burning and streets strewn with debris and blackened furniture as mobs ran at each other. Local media also reported that gunfights had broken out between Christians and Muslims.
Pakistan is a predominantly Sunni Muslim state where Christians are a tiny minority. Although the two groups generally live peacefully, pro-Taliban militants have periodically attacked churches and Christians since the Sept. 11 attacks, accusing them of sympathizing with the United States. Mr. Bhatti said the attackers belonged to Sipah-e-Sahaba, a banned group that is accused of attacking security forces and carrying out bombings in recent years.
The Punjab law minister, Rana Sanaullah, said that the authorities had investigated the allegation of a Koran being defaced but that “our initial reports say that there has not been any incident of desecration.” Mr. Sanaullah said that although the riots had calmed by Friday, “some miscreants and extremists entered the city today and pushed people toward armed clashes.”
Elsewhere, police officials said Saturday that they had arrested a member of an outlawed group that is linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban and is suspected of involvement in the 2002 beheading in Karachi of Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
Rao Shakir, believed to be a member of the militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was arrested late Friday on the outskirts of Islamabad, the capital, a police official said. The group, a banned Sunni Muslim organization, has been blamed in the killings of Shiites in Pakistan. Its members have also been accused of attacks against Westerners in Karachi.
(New York Times)
Negligence of officials blamed for Gojra riots
By Tariq Saeed 
TOBA TEK SINGH: As the death toll in violence against the Christian community rose to seven, relatives of the victims blocked the Multan-Faisalabad section of the railway track for over six hours on Sunday by placing on the track the coffins of the people killed in Gojra on Saturday.
They protested against attacks on their houses and burning alive of seven members of their community by a mob.
Rangers patrolled the area as shops and businesses remained closed.
Violence had broken out in a Gojra village on Thursday after an alleged incident of desecration of the Holy Quran during a wedding ceremony.
Violence had broken out in a Gojra village on Thursday after an alleged incident of desecration of the Holy Quran during a wedding ceremony.
The incident triggered two days of violence in which a mob torched a large number of houses, burning seven people alive.
On Sunday, talks were held between representatives of the protesters and Federal Textile Minister Rana Muhammad Farooq, Minorities’ Minister Shahbaz Bhatti and provincial ministers Kamran Michael, Haji Muhammad Ishaq, Raja Riaz Ahmad and Dost Muhammad Khosa to persuade leaders of the Christian community to end their protest.
During the talks, local leaders of the community said they would end their protest only after names of the DPO and DCO were included in the FIR of the case.
Addressing the protesters, Pakistan Minorities Democratic Alliance president Atif Jamil Pagaan accused some of their leaders of betraying the community. A group of youths jeered at Faisalabad’s Bishop Joseph Coute when he was addressing the protesters at the railway track.
The provincial in-charge of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Mahboob Ahmad Khan, Labour Party leader Tariq Mahmood and dozens of rights activists from Lahore, including Nadeem Anthony, Waliur Rehman, Munawar Shahid, Iftikhar Butt and Atif Nadeem, were present during the protest.
The protesters ended the blockade of the track only when provincial minister Kamran Michael showed them a copy of an FIR naming the DCO and DPO (for negligence), 15 other people and 800 unidentified people for being involved in the killing of their men and damaging their property.
Later, final rites of the seven deceased were performed in a church on Samundri Road and the bodies were laid to rest in a local cemetery.
Meanwhile, Gojra city police have arrested more than 65 people for their alleged involvement in the violence.
The arrested men include Qari Abdul Khaliq Kashmiri, a leader of the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan.
Police also raided the house of Sipah-i-Sahaba activist Abid Farooqi but he escaped and police took his father and two brothers into custody.
Agencies add: Local administration chief Tahir Hussain told reporters that Rangers had been deployed in the violence-hit areas who had arrested 12 suspects.
Three of the arrested people were from a banned sectarian group, he said.
Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, who visited the violence-hit town on Sunday, promised to pay compensation to the affected families.
Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, who visited the violence-hit town on Sunday, promised to pay compensation to the affected families.
‘We have identified those who attacked. They are terrorists, these people want to destabilise our country,’ he told reporters.
‘We will give compensation to the victims, we will pay them for all the losses they suffered,’ Mr Sanaullah said.
Local people and officials said the situation on Sunday morning was tense, but there was no unrest.
‘There is too much fear among the Christians,’ said provincial Minister for Minority Affairs Kamran Michael.
‘The situation is tense in the city, but security has been enhanced to keep the situation under control.’
Sohail Iqbal, a cellphone shop owner in the city’s main market, told The Associated Press by phone that there was a heavy police presence in the area.
‘We have opened our shop and others too, but the atmosphere is grim and tense,’ he said.
‘We have opened our shop and others too, but the atmosphere is grim and tense,’ he said.
Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti said 40 Christian homes had been torched on Saturday by the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba group, which is accused of attacking security forces and of staging bombings at public places in recent years. He said there was no truth to allegations that the Holy Quran had been defiled and accused the police of ignoring his appeal to provide protection to Christians under threat.
In a statement released on Sunday, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini denounced the violence against Christians as ‘a very grave and unjustifiable attack against human rights and in particular against the inalienable right to religious freedom’.
(Dawn)
Sectarian violence hits Pakistani town
By Aleem Maqbool BBC News, Gojra, Pakistan
One home in particular is the focus of attention. The windows and doors are gone, what is left of the furniture lies gnarled inside, and some of the ceilings have collapsed. People are peering into a small bedroom at the back of the building.
It is from here that the charred bodies of six members of the Hameed family, from Pakistan's minority Christian community, were recovered. The youngest of the dead was four-year-old Mousa.
We found his father, Almass Hameed, 49, in a crowded hospital ward nearby.
'Shocked and crying'
"He was such a bright boy. His teachers complained that he was cheeky at times, but nobody could doubt how clever he was. But now he's gone," Mr Hameed said, breaking down.
He described how an angry Muslim mob came through the area, known here as the Christian Colony.
"I think there were thousands," he said. "My elderly father went out to see what was happening and they shot and killed him. We were all shocked and crying. Before we knew it, they were breaking into the house."
Mr Hameed explained how he and nine other members of the family hid in the bedroom as the house was over-run.
"We could hear them smashing everything and dividing our belongings amongst themselves," he said. "Then they started beating on the door saying they would teach us a lesson and burn us alive."
Soon after, a fire was raging through his house.
"We just couldn't breathe," he said. "I grabbed my eldest son and managed to get out of the room through the flames, my brother came out with one of my daughters, but the rest were stuck and we had no way of rescuing them."
As well as his father and Mousa, Mr Hameed lost his 11 year-old daughter, his wife, a brother, a sister-in-law and her mother.
"It was like the most horrific movie. They destroyed our lives."
'Fired shots'
'Fired shots'
Tensions had risen after allegations that Christians in the nearby village of Korrian had torn up and burnt pages of the Koran at a wedding a few days earlier.
"They started it," 19-year-old Omar Ali Raza said in Gojra's marketplace.
"We Muslims are the victims. We gathered to protest about what they did to the Koran in Korrian and just wanted to walk through their area, but they threw stones at us and fired shots."
"We Muslims are the victims. We gathered to protest about what they did to the Koran in Korrian and just wanted to walk through their area, but they threw stones at us and fired shots."
"Of course it is bad that Christians died," he added. "But they provoked the Muslims here. I don't understand why everyone is on their side."
But an elderly Muslim man passing by interrupts. "The responsibility is with the one who actually burns the Koran, not all Christians," he said. "Here, we live together, and there were no problems before this."
As it happens, a local police chief, Ahmed Javaid, said he believed the claim that Christians desecrated the Koran was not true in the first place.
"Yes, pieces of paper had been cut up to look like money at a Christian wedding, but they were not pages of the Koran," he said.
"However, the rumour spread and the issue became politicised."
Very soon after the allegations from Korrian surfaced, politicians from several parties held large rallies denouncing Christians in the area, calling for action. These were not just politicians from expressly right-wing Islamist parties.
PML-N leaders have visited Gojra in recent days, expressing solidarity with minority communities. But Christians here say they are sceptical.
They accuse the party and others of having previously taken advantage of anti-Christian feelings rather than helping to calm things down.
'Rare' violence
Senator Pervaiz Rashid, at the headquarters of the Nawaz party, told me it was very serious in its commitment to minority rights.
"We acknowledge there were problems in Gojra, and it is an embarrassment," he said. "However, it was an isolated incident and the local president, Qadeer Awan, has now had his party membership suspended."
"I do not believe that there are any other local politicians in our party involved in such activities."
Violence of this scale against Pakistan's estimated three million strong Christian community may be rare (this is the worst such incident in seven years), but complaints of discrimination are certainly commonplace.
The government says it has opened an inquiry into what happened in Gojra, but Asma Jahangir, the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, is not expecting the type of change she thinks is needed.
"For too long the Pakistani state has protected people with extremist views," she said.
"It is not just political parties. There are radicalised individuals, and supporters of militant groups within the judiciary, the education system, the bureaucracy and police as well."
This was not the vision of Pakistan held by its founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
"Minorities, to whichever community they may belong, will be safeguarded. Their religion or faith or beliefs will be secure," he said just weeks before Pakistan's creation in 1947.
"Minorities, to whichever community they may belong, will be safeguarded. Their religion or faith or beliefs will be secure," he said just weeks before Pakistan's creation in 1947.
"They will be, in all respects, the citizens of Pakistan without any distinction of caste or creed."
But as Pakistan prepares to mark its independence day, many of its citizens do not see any cause for celebration.
(BBC)
Pakistan: Who's Attacking the Christians?
By Omar Waraich / GojraThe intruders wore masks and carried guns. They went door to door, through the narrow and dusty alleyways, asking if there were any Christians inside. When the terrified faces inside replied yes, they poured chemicals on the small, redbrick homes of Episcopalians and Evangelicals, setting them ablaze. In some cases, they didn't bother with the question. Instead, they opened fire and hurled rocks, forcing families to flee in a panic — moments before fresh flames consumed their homes as well. When the attackers were done, nine people had been killed and 45 homes lay smoldering and destroyed in the clustered Christian colony in Gojra, a town in central Punjab, marking the worst anti-Christian violence Pakistan has seen in recent years.
A tearful woman crouches over rubble outside the attackers' first target. "Look what they have done to our church," says Shahida William, the wife of the pastor, pointing at the deeply blackened one-room Faith Bible Church. Inside, bricks are strewn across the floor. The stinging smell of the chemicals used still hangs in the air. A few houses down, Ethel Gill points to nine bullet holes that have been punched into the top story of her home: "They threw rocks and bricks at us. Then they opened fire. We cowered for safety and ran away, jumping over roofs of other houses. We eventually found sanctuary in a church." She shows the remains of her Urdu-language Bible: "Look at our holy book. The pages are all burnt. Is this not desecration?" (See pictures of the ethnic rivalries beneath the surface of Pakistan.)
The roots of the attack lie in Korian, a village 5 miles from Gojra. There, a Christian family was celebrating a wedding on July 28 when, somehow, a rumor spread alleging that the revelers had torn the pages of the Koran and thrown them in the air. No evidence has emerged that this actually happened. But the mere suggestion appeared to set off days of rioting. Christian homes in Korian were torched before the violence spread to Gojra. Last Friday, Christian residents say, the preacher at a nearby mosque issued a fiery sermon inciting violence against them. The police visited the Christian community later that night, warning them of possible violence the next day. Some left that very night. But it appears others didn't receive the warning and were present when thousands of Muslim protesters charged through the town.
Clashes ensued between the advancing Muslim crowd and the much smaller group of Christians trying to push them back. The police were caught in the middle for some time before they, for reasons that remain unclear, melted away. Some members of the Christian community allege that the police stood by as a group of armed men mounted an attack. Paramilitary forces were dispatched on Sunday, but their arrival came too late, residents say.
Authorities and human-rights groups now suspect that the attackers belonged to the Sipah-e-Sahaba, a sectarian militant group from the nearby town of Jhang. A senior member, Qari Saifullah, served as Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud's right-hand man and trained scores of suicide bombers. The group's even more vicious offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is considered al-Qaeda's front in Pakistan. The enduring and undisturbed presence of Sipah-e-Sahaba and other militant groups in central and southern Punjab has led many analysts to predict that the militants will open up their next front here. Already, the Pakistan army has said "splinter groups" from Jaish-e-Mohammad have been fighting alongside the Taliban in Swat. And Punjab is also home to front groups of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the outlawed militant group that was blamed for last November's Mumbai massacre. (See pictures of the long journey of the lone surviving Mumbai gunman.)
The Gojra tragedy has sparked outrage across Pakistan. The government has ordered a judicial commission to investigate what happened and Parliament unanimously passed a resolution condemning the violence. Islamabad's gestures, however, have done little to assure Pakistan's estimated 3 million Christians, who are 60% Catholic and 40% Protestant (the second largest religious minority, after Hindus). Many now question whether they can remain safe in a country that has long neglected them and continues to have blasphemy laws that have been repeatedly exploited by violent extremists.
"This isn't the first time that this has happened," says Pastor William, who heads the burned one-room church. Similar episodes of broke out in the towns of Shantinagar in 1997 and Shangla Hill in 2005. Just last month, accusations of blasphemy triggered violence in four different towns in Punjab. On Tuesday, two people were killed in the town of Muridke after a similar accusation was raised. In each case, says William, blasphemy laws are used as a pretext for attacks on religious minorities. Anger is now spreading in Pakistan's Christian community. On Wednesday, riots broke out in Lahore's Youhanabad neighborhood, where stick-wielding Christian protesters smashed buses and property.
Pakistan's blasphemy laws date back to the colonial era. The late military dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq introduced a further, harsher clause as part of his sweeping "Islamization" program. Human-rights groups have long appealed to successive governments to repeal or amend the laws. The current ruling party, the Pakistan People's Party, vowed to do so in its election manifesto. As yet, nothing has been done. But presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar says the Gojra tragedy "has increased the urgency of revisiting these laws."
(TIME)
Bishop of London, Grand Mufti of Egypt deplore Gojra killings
* Joint statement declares murder, arson or theft in God’s name ‘sacrilege’
* Call upon clergy to speak out against ‘abuse of religion’
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: The Grand Mufti of Egypt Dr Ali Gomaa, and the Bishop of London Rt Revd Richard Chartres, on Tuesday condemned the recent violence in Gojra targeted at Christians, in which at least nine persons, including women were killed and many others injured.
“On behalf of the C-1 World Dialogue, we deplore the recent terrible events in Gojra where at least seven Pakistani Christians were killed and many more wounded in a terrible attack,” the two said in a joint statement.
Sacrilege: “We stand with those whose lives and property have been damaged and we grieve with those who mourn. The taking of innocent lives, including those of children is deeply shocking,” the statement said.
They said murder, arson and theft committed in the name of God was both a crime and sacrilege.
“The perpetrators of this attack have committed a crime not only against Christians but against Pakistan and beyond even that, against the honor and dignity of Islam. We call upon all to join us in prayer for those affected and for a better and peaceful future for all the communities of Pakistan,” the two leaders said.
“What matters now is not merely that those who did this are brought to justice, but also that longer term problems are addressed. Security and protection for all religious minorities everywhere is a basic requirement that must be fulfilled,” the statement said.
Calling on the clergy: “It would seem that false rumours were used to inflame those who launched the attack. It is important that what is sacred in religion should not be abused, but it is also vital that there is proper protection from false and malicious allegations and such formal protections as this may require. We call upon all pastors and imams in every mosque and church to speak out against these deeds and to spread the true message of cooperation harmony and peace.”
They said “we urge too, that schools and all places of education must teach the message of tolerance and cooperation so that we can overcome differences and together build a more secure future for all”.
“The Common Word Open Letter highlighted two principles that all people of good will can share, whatever their religion is, namely that we must love God and our neighbour. We call upon everyone everywhere to ask themselves if they are living out these commandments and to explore how they can do so more fully,” the statement said.
“The director general of the C-1, Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff, has been able to make a visit to Gojra and has given us a first hand account and we are grateful for the help he received from the governor of Punjab and others in Pakistan to make this possible,” they added.
The leaders said that on behalf of the C-1, “we stand ready to assist in any way that can help the government and people of Pakistan spread the message of peace and cooperation between all people and communities whatever their religion is. We hope we shall be able to make a visit to show practical solidarity in due course”.
(Daily Times)
* Call upon clergy to speak out against ‘abuse of religion’
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: The Grand Mufti of Egypt Dr Ali Gomaa, and the Bishop of London Rt Revd Richard Chartres, on Tuesday condemned the recent violence in Gojra targeted at Christians, in which at least nine persons, including women were killed and many others injured.
“On behalf of the C-1 World Dialogue, we deplore the recent terrible events in Gojra where at least seven Pakistani Christians were killed and many more wounded in a terrible attack,” the two said in a joint statement.
Sacrilege: “We stand with those whose lives and property have been damaged and we grieve with those who mourn. The taking of innocent lives, including those of children is deeply shocking,” the statement said.
They said murder, arson and theft committed in the name of God was both a crime and sacrilege.
“The perpetrators of this attack have committed a crime not only against Christians but against Pakistan and beyond even that, against the honor and dignity of Islam. We call upon all to join us in prayer for those affected and for a better and peaceful future for all the communities of Pakistan,” the two leaders said.
“What matters now is not merely that those who did this are brought to justice, but also that longer term problems are addressed. Security and protection for all religious minorities everywhere is a basic requirement that must be fulfilled,” the statement said.
Calling on the clergy: “It would seem that false rumours were used to inflame those who launched the attack. It is important that what is sacred in religion should not be abused, but it is also vital that there is proper protection from false and malicious allegations and such formal protections as this may require. We call upon all pastors and imams in every mosque and church to speak out against these deeds and to spread the true message of cooperation harmony and peace.”
They said “we urge too, that schools and all places of education must teach the message of tolerance and cooperation so that we can overcome differences and together build a more secure future for all”.
“The Common Word Open Letter highlighted two principles that all people of good will can share, whatever their religion is, namely that we must love God and our neighbour. We call upon everyone everywhere to ask themselves if they are living out these commandments and to explore how they can do so more fully,” the statement said.
“The director general of the C-1, Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff, has been able to make a visit to Gojra and has given us a first hand account and we are grateful for the help he received from the governor of Punjab and others in Pakistan to make this possible,” they added.
The leaders said that on behalf of the C-1, “we stand ready to assist in any way that can help the government and people of Pakistan spread the message of peace and cooperation between all people and communities whatever their religion is. We hope we shall be able to make a visit to show practical solidarity in due course”.
(Daily Times)
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