All posts tagged: violence

A tacit admission?

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THE statement by Gen Javed Zia, Quetta corps commander, that the “army considers the killing of missing people an abhorrent act” is perhaps the first time that a senior military commander has directly addressed an issue that goes to the heart of the fifth insurgency in Balochistan: the `missing persons` whose bodies are appearing in so-called `kill and dump` operations over the past year. Gen Zia also made another remarkable statement, going so far as to say that `patriotic elements` had hit back against Baloch insurgents and those involved in desecrating the Pakistani flag. Was this a tacit admission that the ISI and the Frontier Corps have been involved in the extrajudicial killings, as independent and Baloch observers have repeatedly alleged? via A tacit admission?.

To Whom Will They Turn?

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Dawn- 27th April 2011 By Faisal Siddique ‘AN open letter to the chief justice of India’ by four Indian law academics, protesting against the acquittal of accused rapist by the then conservative Indian Supreme Court [Tukaram v. State of Maharashtra (1978)], contributed to the development of a judicially activist Indian judiciary which became sensitive to rape victims.

Pakistan oblivious to child rights

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Dawn-30/11/2010 Twelve–year–old Tehmina and her elder sister left Rahimyar Khan to work as domestic workers in Islamabad. On July 30 this year when she asked for salary to celebrate Eid at home, her ‘educated’ employers instead beat up Tehmina and threw her over the terrace breaking her backbone. Tehmina will never walk again. Tehmina’s sister, Samina, recounting the horrible incident, said, “I sat with my sister in the porch from about 10am to 2pm, when the employer’s sister came and took us to the hospital, but by then the harm had been done. Now my sister is bedridden, unable to move.” To save themselves from trial and punishment, the employers made an out of court settlement.

Pity the nation by Hajrah Mumtaz

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The ironies we witness every day in Pakistan would have us shaking our heads were it not for the fact that they usually provoke such deep visceral dread. Take the furore over the recent shutdown of Facebook and other websites. In Pakistan the debate framed the issue mainly in terms of either the freedom of speech or the legitimacy of government censorship. Both models, as constructed here in Pakistan, were flawed and reductionist. Let that be as it may, I wish to point out something else. The websites were shut down because many people found their content ‘blasphemous’ and hurtful to their sentiments as Muslims.