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India-Pakistan

Senate okays bills on evils against women

2011-12-13

[Pak Daily Times] The Senate on Monday unanimously passed the Women Protection Bill and Anti-Acid Throwing Bill, which envisage heavy penalties for offenders. Senator Nilofar Bakhtiar, who had presented the bills, thanked the House for passing them without objection. The bills criminalise forced marriages and abuses like throwing acid, physical violence and sexual torture against women, and stipulate 14 years jail term with a fine of Rs1 million for offenders. The offences covered by these bills will be non-boilable [sic!] and non-compoundable. Addressing the House, Nilofar Bakhtiar termed it a historic day. The Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention (Amendment) Bill is an amendment in Pakistain Penal Code 1860. It increases the punishment for offenders up to life imprisonment and makes it mandatory for the offender to pay a fine of Rs1 million to the victim. The amendment in Section 336-B states, "Whoever causes hurt by corrosive substance shall be punished with imprisonment for life or imprisonment of either description which shall not be less than fourteen years and a minimum fine of one million rupees." The new insertion in Section 336-A states, "Whosoever with intention or knowingly causes or attempts to cause hurt by means of a corrosive substance or any substance which is deleterious to human body when it is swallowed, inhaled, come in contact or received into human body or otherwise shall be said to cause hurt by corrosive substance." In the month of November, the Prevention of Anti-Women Practices (Criminal Law Amendment) Act 2011, authored by Pakistain Moslem League-Quaid MNA Dr Donya Aziz, was passed by the Lower House after a couple of amendments. It outlined punishments for social practices like Wanni, Swara or Budla-i-Sulh, wherein women are traded to settle personal, family or tribal disputes. The act, hailed by commentators as a show of collective resolve by political parties to fight social taboos against women, deals with issues such as depriving women of their inheritance and forcing them into marriages to settle disputes. Speaking on the occasion, Leader of the House Nayyar Hussain Bukhari said that it is a historic day as a private member's (Nilofar Bakhtiar) bill was made part of national law. He said it was an important bill, but stressed for creation of awareness among the masses about this law and called for efforts to stop violence against women. The statement of objects and reasons of the bill say that several practices and customs were in vogue in the country which were not only against human dignity but also violate human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... . Such customary norms, which are contrary to Islamic injunctions, should be done away forthwith and the persons continuing such practices be dealt with severely by providing penal and financial liabilities. The bill also proposed prohibition of depriving woman of inheritance, prohibition of forced marriage and marriage with the holy Koran. Earlier, during a heated debate over changes in the constitution to bring changes in the 18th Amendment and bringing back the curriculum and some part of health to federal government, the senators termed it a conspiracy against the spirit of devolution process. Senator Raza Rabbani said there was trust deficit among the provinces and federal government. Any attempt to derail the devolution process would be very disastrous, he warned. If some one has any reservations about curriculum, the issue could be resolved through CCI, Inter-provincial committee and other forum, he added.

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India-Pakistan

Govt to set up body to deal with terrorism

2009-01-02

The government has decided to set up a high-level body -- the proposed 'National Commission for Counter-Terrorism -- to coordinate efforts in countering the threat posed by the Taliban, a private TV channel reported on Thursday as President Asif Ali Zardari called on the nation to put aside their differences and unite in fighting the war on terror. According to the channel, the commission -- to be a constitutional body -- would be headed by a 'top-level professional' to prepare and execute strategies, and recently retired Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) chief Tariq Pervaiz is likely to be the first choice for the post. The channel said, "Officials cite fragmented [counter-]terrorism efforts as a reason to have a cohesive policy making institution." Currently, the Inter-Services Intelligence, FIA and the Intelligence Bureau are all involved in counter-terrorism efforts, but there is no 'umbrella organisation' to coordinate their work, the channel said, adding that a 'one-window task force' is required to coordinate the counter-terrorism efforts of these agencies. Separately, President Asif Ali Zardari told representatives of Bajaur refugees on Thursday that the entire nation was a victim of militancy and terrorism, and called on citizens to put aside their differences and unite in fighting the war on terror. At a meeting with the delegation of representatives, the president said the Taliban must be defeated to restore peace and stability in the country. He said the government was aware of the problems of those displaced by fighting between the Taliban and the military in NWFP, and it had therefore planned to compensate victims of terrorism. He said the government was also working to rebuild the Tribal Areas through reconstruction opportunity zones. The representatives of the internally displaced people (IDP) from Bajaur briefed the president on the problems faced by the residents of the agency, and called for the restoration of peace in the Tribal Areas. Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik told the meeting that the writ of the government had already been established in four tehsils of Bajaur Agency, and Charmang and Mamoond tehsils would be under the complete control of the government by the end of this month. The delegation of representatives was led by Senator Nilofar Bakhtiar, who told the meeting that Pakistan Red Crescent and some other NGOs were providing relief to IDPs living in three camps.

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India-Pakistan

Blasphemy laws should be repealed: Abida Hussain

2007-07-01

“The Blasphemy laws should be repealed so that minorities can practice their religion according to their own beliefs,” said Syeda Abida Hussain, United Citizen’s Forum (UCF) chairperson, on Saturday. She was addressing a seminar on Human Rights and Existing Socio-Democratic Situation in Pakistan organised by the Amnesty International in collaboration with the UCF at a local hotel. She said General Musharraf had been supporting the extremism for the last seven years. She said the Jaish-e-Muhammad had been registered in his (Musharraf) tenure in 2000. She said former federal minister Nilofar Bakhtiar was victimised by the general’s discriminatory action. She demanded the release of Ataullah Maingal and Javed Hashmi.

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India-Pakistan

'Ijazul Haq's reaction to Rushdie knighthood absurd'

2007-06-25

Irshad Manji, the controversial Canadian-Asian whose book on Islam offended many Muslims, says she herself is offended by the “absurd reactions” of some Muslims including Pakistan’s religious affairs minister Ijaz-ul-Haq, to Salman Rushdie’s knighthood. She writes in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto-based newspaper, that this is not the first time honours from the West have met with “vitriol and violence” from Muslim countries. In 1979, she recalls, Dr Abdus Salam became the first Muslim to win the Nobel Prize in science. He began his acceptance speech with a verse from the Quran. Instead of celebrations in Pakistan, “rioters tried to prevent him from re-entering the country, while parliament declared him a ‘non-Muslim’ because he belonged to a religious minority. His name still is invoked by state authorities in hushed tones.” Manji, a self-declared lesbian Muslim, says she is offended that every year, there are more women killed in Pakistan for allegedly violating family honour than there are detainees at Guantanamo Bay. She points out that there is no outrage over the murder of Muslims at the hands of their own. Referring to the Nilofar Bakhtiar case, she says she is offended that in April some mullahs in Pakistan issued a fatwa against hugging. They called a woman touching a man “a great sin”. She is also offended by their fatwa that women should stay at home and remain covered at all times, and that music store owners and video vendors be bullied into closing shop. “I’m offended that the government tiptoes around their craziness because these clerics threaten suicide attacks if confronted. Above all, I’m offended that so many other Muslims aren’t offended enough to demonstrate widely against God’s self-appointed ambassadors,” she adds. She criticises Pakistan for pushing through the UN Human Rights Council, an OIC resolution against the “defamation of religion,” because the resolution is focused on Islam rather than faith in general. It also allows repressive regimes to squelch freedom of conscience further — and to do so in the guise of international law. She writes, “On occasion the people of Pakistan show that they don’t have to be muzzled. Last year, civil society groups vocally challenged a set of anti-female laws, three decades old and supposedly based on the Quran. Their religiously respectful approach prompted even mullahs to hint that these laws are man-made, not God-given. This month, too, Pakistanis forced their government to lift restrictions on the press. My own book, translated into Urdu and posted on my website, is being downloaded in droves. Religious authorities won’t let it be sold in the markets. But they can’t stop Pakistanis — or other Muslims — from satiating a genuine hunger for ideas.” She concludes, “It’s high time to ban hypocrisy under the banner of Islam. Salman Rushdie isn’t the problem. Muslims are.”

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India-Pakistan

Nilofar serves legal notice on Lal Masjid

2007-06-21

Former Tourism Minister Senator Nilofar Bakhtiar served a legal notice on the Lal Masjid ‘shariat court’ on Wednesday for issuing a fatwa asking her to apologise for hugging a male paragliding instructor in France. The notice served through Dr Aslam Khaki said the fatwa damaged Bakhtiar’s reputation, family honour and political career. The notice asks Mufti Yunus, who issued the decree, to apologise for un-Islamic and unlawful conduct that hurt the dignity of an honourable Muslim lady. The notice, seen by Daily Times, warned that failure to apologise would result in civil and legal proceedings. Bakhtiar visited France in March where, aside from attending a fundraiser, she went paragliding. Upon completing a successful jump, her instructor Mario congratulated her with a hug.

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India-Pakistan

Nilofar un-unresigns

2007-05-26

Senator Nilofar Bakhtiar has said that she has not withdrawn her resignation. Talking to NNI here Friday, she said she is committed to her decision and will not withdraw her resignation. She said the reasons for her resignation are still intact. She said she has not issued, and will not issue any statement against the government and her party’s (PML) leadership.

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India-Pakistan

Nilofar unresigns

2007-05-24

Federal Minister for Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar has decided to withdraw her resignation after directives from Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Pakistan Muslim League (PML) President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and she will resume her duties at her office from today. PML sources said that the party’s Central Executive Committee unanimously endorsed a resolution a couple of days ago rejecting Ms Bakhtiar’s resignation. The resolution, which was tabled by senior PML leader Kabir Ali Wasti and Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, demanded that the prime minister intervene in the matter, reject Ms Bakhtiar’s resignation and direct her to resume her duties. The sources also said that Hussain and PML Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Sayed held a separate meeting with Ms Bakhtiar and asked her to withdraw her resignation from the office of tourism minister. Ms Bakhtiar finally agreed to withdraw the resignation, the sources added. Ms Bakhtiar also met President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday, who asked her to continue as tourism minister.

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India-Pakistan

Pakistan tourism minister resigns over hugging

2007-05-23

Pakistan's Minister of Tourism has resigned after being criticised by a hardline Islamist cleric for hugging her instructor after completing a charity parachute jump in France. Nilofar Bakhtiar, one of three women ministers in the Pakistani cabinet, completed the jump in March to raise money for victims of an earthquake that killed 73,000 people in Pakistan in October 2005. When Pakistani newspapers published a photograph of Ms Bakhtiar hugging parachute instructor, a pro-Taliban cleric issued a decree calling on the government to sack her for "obscenity". In her letter of resignation to the prime minister Ms Bakhtiar wrote: "It is with deep regret that I want to relinquish the charge of the office of minister for tourism." She added: "Despite my exceptional commitment to the cause of tourism in Pakistan, I have taken the decision due to unavoidable circumstances." An official in Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's office confirmed that Ms Bakhtiar had handed in her resignation but he had yet to accept it. Ms Bakhtiar was not available for comment but a newspaper cited her as saying she had been hurt by the way her parachute jump was sensationalised. "French media praised my daring attempt but unfortunately some irresponsible elements in Pakistan presented this noble cause in a malicious manner," she told the Dawn newspaper. Criticism from radical clerics is not to be taken lightly in Pakistan. In February, a Muslim zealot shot dead a woman minister of the government of Punjab province because he thought women should not be in politics. The gunman was sentenced to death in March.

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India-Pakistan

Talibanisation of Islamabad

2007-04-19

Over two decades ago, a visiting Indian journalist, charmed by the old world splendour of Lahore and the vigour and vitality of the bustling commercial city of Karachi, where I was then India's Consul General, described Islamabad as a city of "bureaucrats, bores and boulevards". Islamabad has always been a sanitised city, far removed from the reality of what is Pakistan. The Army and bureaucracy that have received preferential allotment of housing plots are comfortably ensconced there. It was always presumed that the capital would remain immune to ferment elsewhere in the country. Two events in recent days have shattered this comfortable belief. The first has been the unprecedented solidarity of the legal fraternity, after Pakistan's Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry unexpectedly refused to bow when peremptorily sacked by President Pervez Musharraf, dressed up in his attire of a four-star General. The more ominous development has been the defiance shown by two clerics, Maulana Abdul Aziz and his brother Abdur Rashid Ghazi, who appear determined to challenge the established order and coerce it into adopting shari'ah in the capital. While it was widely expected that the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 would lead to a reduction in Islamic radicalism in neighbouring Pakistan, the opposite seems to have happened. With Taliban and Al Qaeda supporters seeking haven in Pakistan, their radical supporters, particularly in the tribal areas (FATA) and elsewhere in the North-West Frontier Province and in Baluchistan, have risen to challenge the writ of the Pakistani state. These areas bordering Afghanistan are now becoming progressively Talibanised. When Gen Musharraf deployed over 80000 troops in FATA to force tribals to end support for the Taliban, the Pakistan Army received a bloody nose, losing over 700 soldiers. More ominously, over 300 officers and men reportedly face disciplinary action for refusing to take up arms against fellow Pashtuns. Paradoxically, even as Pakistani soldiers were being killed by Taliban supporters in Waziristan, Gen Musharraf permitted Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders to seek haven in Quetta. With Gen Musharraf's writ over the NWFP being successfully challenged, pro-Taliban elements soon established shari'ah courts, banned videos and music, forbade barbers from cutting and trimming beards and prevented girls from receiving modern education. In Peshawar and other places in NWFP that abut the tribal areas, local Taliban have threatened English language schools, warned schoolgirls to veil themselves and ordered men not to shave their beards. Elsewhere in FATA, armed Taliban stop vehicles and remove cassette players and radios and force men to grow beards. What is shocking is that the two clerics in Islamabad are threatening to enforce similar measures in Islamabad from the precincts of a masjid-madarsa complex they control, which is located barely one mile away from the Prime Minister's Secretariat, the Supreme Court and the Parliament. Maulana Abdul Aziz runs Lal Masjid, set up with tacit approval of the powers that be, in the very heart of Islamabad. His brother Abdur Rashid Ghazi runs two madarsas - the Jamia Hafsa (for burqa-clad girls) and Jamia Faridia (for bearded male students). A few months ago, the girl students of Jamia Hafsa forcibly occupied a children's public library after the administration demolished seven illegally constructed mosques. The two brothers then proclaimed their determination to enforce shari'ah in the capital. They set up a shari'ah court to hear public complaints, with their male students warning owners of video parlours and music cassette stores to close shop, while females driving cars were warned to stop doing so. They even issued a fatwa against Pakistan's gutsy Tourism Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar for being hugged by a paragliding instructor in Paris. A campaign against vice was launched with the abduction of a woman accused of encouraging prostitution and two of her family members. When the Islamabad police sought to rescue the kidnapped women, they had to beat a hasty retreat when their vans were seized in retaliation. In the meantime, the shari'ah court started entertaining petitions from women police personnel, complaining of sexual harassment. There is an understandable disinclination to use force against the masjid-madarsa complex. Over 70 per cent of the students are Pashtun. They are evidently well-armed. Given the fact that around 20 per cent of the Pakistan Army is made up of Pashtuns and recent experiences in Waziristan, any significant loss of lives would provoke Pashtun outrage. Moreover, responding to appeals from the clerics, a large number of madarsa students from across Pakistan have converged on the site of Lal Masjid. Gen Musharraf deputed the President of the Muslim League (PML-Q) Chaudhry Shujat, who is given to yielding to pressures from religious extremists, for talks with Maulana Aziz. Shujat has held talks with the clerics, with the Musharraf dispensation showing signs of buckling to their demands. The Government has agreed to reconstruct the seven illegal mosques it had pulled down. It has also agreed to act against alleged centres of prostitution. The clerics have refused to close down their shari'ah court and remain firm on their demands for the introduction of shari'ah. Measures to deal with this situation will figure prominently when Pakistan's real rulers, the Army's Corps Commanders meet in Rawalpindi this week. Reflecting on developments in Islamabad, the Editor of the Lahore-based Friday Times, Najm Sethi notes: "More mullahs (across Pakistan) are likely to follow suit, if the issue is not 'closed' swiftly. Brothels, billboards, veils, music, film, haircuts, dress, and schools - there will be no end to 'concessions' demanded in the name of jihad and Islam." The process of Talibanisation moving eastwards from the NWFP appears to have commenced. In Lahore, the student wing of the Jamat-e-Islami, the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, has beaten up "un-Islamic" students and proclaimed "Islamisation" of the campus. Can this process of creeping Talibanisation of Pakistan be halted? It can, if Gen Musharraf and the Army establishment take a few crucial steps. These include an irrevocable break with their traditional partners - the Islamic political parties - an end to support for groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, which declare "Hindus, Christians and Jews" as "enemies of Islam", and for the Taliban, apart from the secularisation of education, with mainstream political parties being allowed to function freely. Whether Gen Musharraf has the inclination, will or ability to undertake these measures remains to be seen.

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Olde Tyme Religion

Pakistan minister rejects fatwa

2007-04-10

Pakistan's Tourism Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar has dismissed a fatwa issued against her by an unofficial Islamic court in the capital, Islamabad. On Sunday, the chief cleric of the Lal Masjid Mosque issued a fatwa against her after she was pictured hugging a man following a paragliding flight. The cleric described Ms Bakhtiar's behaviour as obscene.

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India-Pakistan

Pak Tourism Minister Hugs Frenchman - Gets Fatwa'd

2007-04-10

Islamabad, 10 April (AKI/Asian Age) - An unofficial Taliban styled Sharia (Islamic) court in the heart of the Pakistani capital Islamabad has issued a fatwa (religious decree) against the federal minister for tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar for hugging a French man at a tourist resort in Normandy (France). Last week, after completing a successful para-jump from an aircraft, the minister joyfully hugged her French partner. Bakhtiar toured France on the invitation of Alpine Club and visited a number of resorts in a bid to attract tourists for Pakistan. Bakhtiar said that the reports of her hugging a French man had been misrepresented. The minister had carried out the jump to raise funds for earthquake victims in Pakistan-administered-Kashmir. In its first fatwa since being established in Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) last Friday, the Sharia court condemned what it called an un-Islamic act of Bakhtiar with the French man "during her para-jump adventure in France".

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India-Pakistan

Masses may judge me, not self-made courts: Nilofar

2007-04-10

Federal Tourism Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar on Monday said she did not believe in decrees issued by self-made courts and only the people could judge her actions. She was referring to the ‘fatwa’ issued against her by the Lal Masjid qazi court demanding she be sacked for hugging her French male paragliding coach. Talking to reporters at a poster competition in the Islamabad Traffic Police office, she said Islam did not allow slander or casting blame on anyone without full knowledge of the facts. She said the self-appointed Lal Masjid qazi court had not bothered to verify the facts. The minister said that human rights organisations and others including Sherry Rehman had already spoken on her behalf. She explained that she had been paragliding for the humanitarian cause of fundraising for children affected by the October 2005 earthquake. “What I did was right and patriotic. I fear no one but God.”

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