ISLAMABAD, April 30: In the suburbs of the capital, along the road to the airport, lies Ghori Town, a housing society near Khanna Bridge. This otherwise unassuming neighbourhood, however, has a curious claim to fame and an unexpected link with the man who was convicted of murdering former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer and is currently awaiting confirmation of his death sentence in prison.
Taseer was shot and killed by Mumtaz Qadri, a member of his own security detail, at the Kohsar Market in Sector F-6 on January 4, 2011. The shooter Qadri has become a divisive figure in Pakistani society. He is hailed as a ‘hero’ by some and denounced as a cold blooded murderer by others. Clerics from the Barelvi school of thought are among those proclaiming Qadri’s ‘heroism’.
Perhaps this is why a mosque in the suburbs of the very city Taseer was killed in, has been named after Mumtaz Hussain Qadri. The mosque is constructed on a 10-marla plot of land, next to a girls’ seminary, the Jamia Rehmania Akbaria Ziaul Binaat. Even though the housing society is not fully developed and several houses in the neighbourhood are still under construction, there are already four mosques, catering to people from different schools of thought, in close proximity to each other.
The mosque’s prayer leader, Mohammad Ashfaq Sabri, told Dawn: “The mosque was built to pay tribute to the services of the man who taught a lesson to a blasphemer,” adding that the name was chosen in consultation with religious scholars and residents of the area.
Sabri said the main prayer hall was constructed by the housing society’s developers, but more storeys are expected to be added, which will be paid for by donations.
But those living in Ghori Town say no one asked them. In fact, several residents Dawn spoke to refused to be named for fear of reprisals.
“I know who Qadri is and what he did. I have a very different opinion of him, but I can’t speak out because I’m afraid something might happen to me or my family,” said one of the mosque’s neighbours.
Another Ghori Town-resident, Mohammad Tufail, said: “Have you ever heard of clerics consulting anyone in the neighbourhood before naming a mosque? But I figure, what’s in a name? We just go there, pray and come back. I don’t want to get involved in the politics of these Maulvis.”
“I cannot comment on whether this is right or wrong. I work to provide for my family and I don’t want religious fundos beating down my door because they don’t like something I said,” said Faisal Rasool, another resident of Ghori Town.Saleem Janjua, who also lives close to the Mumtaz Qadri mosque, offers his own interpretation of events.
“Some religious leaders or the owners of the housing society probably wanted cheap publicity. This will make the mosque popular and fund raising easier,” he told Dawn.
When word of the mosque’s controversial name got out, it triggered a major backlash on social networking sites. The late governor’s daughter Sheherbano Taseer, Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari and dozens of others condemned the decision to name the mosque after “a murderer”.
Civil society, politicians expressed concern
“It is clear that the fabric of our society has changed,” Ayesha Siddiqa, a security analyst who has also studied banned organisations, told Dawn.
“Extremism and violence terrify the common man and stop them from speaking out on such issues. There are people who would oppose such a move, but they have no voice,” she said.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar also expressed his shock.
“A mosque had been named after a self-confessed murderer. This will not promote peace and harmony in society, only deepen divisions”.
WHEN the arsonists broke into the Seth Dhunichand Pahlumal Bhatia Hindu Dharamshala near Jinnah Bagh, Parvesh Kumar, 20, dashed up to the rooftop. A BSc student from Dokri taluka, Kumar had recently volunteered to be one of the caretakers of the community centre. As the emotionally charged men went on the rampage on Saturday night, Kumar shook nervously, praying the men did not discover him upstairs.
Situated on Station Road in Larkana, the pre-partition edifice can be easily missed as it is crammed between mobile phone and hardware shops.
Showing us around on Monday, Kumar made sure not to repeat the obvious. The white tiles of the spacious veranda had turned black as belongings and property were set alight by the men.
Chairs were set up near the rooms for community elders wanting to witness the damage. Nearby, the vice chairman of the Hindu Panchayat Dr Dharampal Bhawani’s mobile phone kept ringing. “I don’t know how to pacify people from our community. This is the first time we have to deal with an incident like this,” he said.
But an elderly local resident said the dharamshala had come under fire in the late 1950s too when a rape incident in the Indian town of Jabalpur infuriated the Muslims in the subcontinent. “A few men barged in then as well. There was no loss of life. But I remember my Muslim neighbours providing shelter to our family,” he stated.
Half a kilometre away from Station Road, the New Leelabad — also known as New Murad Wahan — neighbourhood made news after a Hindu man was accused by a shopkeeper named Manan Sheikh of burning pages of the Quran on Saturday night.
But from the accounts of the man’s neighbours and various people of the area, it seems the suspect was well liked. A resident, G. R. Bhatti, said: “It is sad to see a simple man like him being wrongly embroiled in a controversy as scary as blasphemy.”
Walking along the narrow lanes as we made our way to the home of the suspect, Bhatti said the man accusing him was considered a “nuisance” by many in the neighbourhood. Sheikh, 22, irons clothes at a small dry-cleaning shop beside the suspect’s rented home. On a street corner stands a cream-coloured, two-storey building where the suspect, now under the protection of the ASP City Larkana, lived.
Both venues, the shop and the suspect’s home, were locked from outside. Pointing to the steps of the shop, Bhatti said: “Manan with his friends used to sit here and whistle at girls passing by. [The suspect’s] two sisters were among them. Though they were drinking buddies at night, they had many altercations about Sheikh’s wayward behaviour towards his sisters.”
As the suspect is unemployed, his sisters work at a nearby beauty salon to make ends meet. Residents said the girls would ignore advances of Sheikh and his friends.
Described mostly as a “simpleton” and “dervish-minded”, the neighbours said nobody saw the suspect burn the sacred pages. “Yes, the pages were recovered from a sewage line right in front of his home. But nobody saw him there; no one saw him burning the pages either. I don’t want to accuse anyone unjustly,” said Pervez Ali, owner of the dry-cleaning shop where Manan worked.
Living close by, Sheikh’s brother Izhar Ali was quick to present a clarification. “We have taken Manan to a safer place as we fear for his security,” he said. “A few people handed him a shopper with burnt pages of the Holy Book. I don’t know whether he did it or not. But we’ll help the police in locating who did it.”
“You just have to connect the dots,” doctor and professor at the Chandka Medical College Dr Inayat Magsi said. “A low-income neighbourhood, den of extortionists and land grabbers at the back of it, a Hindu girl refusing sexual advances, living with a brother with drinking problems — it helps many people in one go. If the men were so emotionally charged, why didn’t they go straight to a temple? Why did they plunder an off-route dharamshala first?”
He continued: “This is not Lahore or Bahawalpur where angry protesters will burn down an entire neighbourhood. Over here, people feel duty-bound to protect their neighbours. Many students from the seminary and boys from around the area surrounded the homes of other Hindu families to protect them. Otherwise, this incident could have created another Gojra from Larkana.”
1) The Government Restrictions Index (GRI), which measures government laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs and practices.
2) The Social Hostilities Index (SHI), which measures acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organisations or groups in society.
The results show that “Pakistan had the highest level of social hostilities involving religion, and Egypt had the highest level of government restrictions on religion.”
Neighbours Afghanistan and India were also up there with Pakistan in the SHI index.
Worldwide, except for the Americas, “the share of countries with a high or very high level of social hostilities involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012,” while ”the share of countries with a high or very high level of government restrictions on religion stayed roughly the same in the latest year studied.”
Pakistan topped the list for most religious hostilities while showing a ‘very high’ range of scores in the other index too.
SHI – One third of 198 countries reviewed saw high or very high levels of internal religious strife, such as sectarian violence, terrorism or bullying in 2012, compared to 29 percent in 2011 and 20 percent in 2010.
The biggest rise came in the Middle East and North Africa, two regions that are still feeling the effects of the Arab Spring of 2010-2011, said the Pew Research Center.
As an example, the report cites an increase in attacks on Coptic churches and Christian-owned businesses in Egypt. It said China has also witnessed a big rise in religious conflict.
PEW said that radical elements often target mainstream Muslims and Christians in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia, while India has recurring tensions between its majority Hindus and minority Muslims and Christians.
Results for strong social hostility such as anti-Semitic attacks, assaults by Muslims on churches and Buddhist agitation against Muslims were the highest seen since the series began, reaching 33 per cent of surveyed countries in 2012 after 29 per cent in 2011 and 20 per cent in mid-2007.
Christians and Muslims, who make up more than half of the world’s population, have been stigmatised in the largest number of countries. Muslims and Jews have suffered the greatest level of hostility in six years, the report said.
Religious violence declined in the Ivory Coast, Serbia, Ethiopia, Cyprus and Romania.
GRI – The number of countries whose governments have imposed restrictions, such as bans on practicing a religion or converting from one to another, has remained more or less the same, however. Three out of ten countries have high or very high levels of restrictions, the study said.
Official bans, harassment or other government interference in religion rose to 29 per cent of countries surveyed in 2012 after 28 per cent in 2011 and 20 per cent in mid-2007.
Harassment against women and religious connotations of the way they dress has also risen in nearly a third of countries to 32 per cent, compared to 25 per cent in 2011 and seven per cent in 2007.
The five countries with the most government restrictions on religion are Egypt, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
Among the 25 most heavily populated countries, Egypt, Indonesia, Russia, Pakistan and Myanmar suffered the most religious restrictions.
The 198 countries studied account for more than 99.5 per cent of the world’s population, said the Pew center.
It did not include North Korea, whose government “is among the most repressive in the world, including toward religion.”
The Washington-based center, which is non-partisan and takes no policy position in its reports, gave no reason for the rises noted in hostility against Christians, Muslims, Jews and an “other” category including Sikhs, Bah’ais and atheists. Hindus, Buddhists and folk religions saw lower levels of hostility and little change in the past six years, according to the report’s extensive data.
Increase in hostility largest in Europe
Europe showed the largest median increase in hostility due to a rise in harrassment of women because of religious dress and violent attacks on minorities such as the murder of a rabbi and three Jewish children by a radical in France.
Tensions in Israel arise from the Palestinian issue, disagreements between secular and religious Jews and the growth of ultra-Orthodox sects that live apart from the majority.
Jews face hostility
The world’s two largest faiths, Christianity and Islam, make up almost half the world’s population and were the most widely targetted in 2012, facing official and social hostility in 110 and 109 countries respectively.
Jews suffer hostility in 71 countries, even though they make up only 0.2 per cent of the world’s population and about 80 per cent of them live in Israel and the United States.
The report said there were probably more restrictions on religion around the world than its statistics could document but its results could be considered “a good estimate”.
Faisal & mother, Mewa Shah graveyard below (Credit: timesofisrael.com)
His real name is Faisal Benkhald, though he has recently adopted the Yiddish first name “Fishel.” He was born in Karachi in 1987, the fourth of five children born to a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. Though registered at birth as Muslim, he considers himself Jewish and is now fighting for state recognition of his chosen religion — an apostasy.
As far as the Pakistani authorities are concerned, Fishel is still Faisal, a Muslim. That’s what’s written on his documentation. But he wouldn’t be the only Jewish Pakistani to have a Muslim identity card: The Jews of Pakistan learned to disappear long ago. Some, like Fishel’s parents, registered their children as Muslims to blend in, and all tried to hide.
Except Fishel.
In a series of Twitter exchanges and emails in recent weeks, The Times of Israel explored Fishel’s unique story.
His earliest childhood memories include the aroma of his mother’s challah, baking in the oven every Friday afternoon. Before dusk he would watch her recite blessings over the Shabbat candles.
“When she used to put her hands over her eyes it felt so serene as if she has no worries of worldly life, reciting the blessing welcoming the holy day. Her lovely eyes and smile looking at me are engraved in my memory, I always prayed with her.”
Fishel, once known as ‘Faisal,’ was born to a Jewish mother and Muslim father in Pakistan. (courtesy)
He says his mother would prepare only kosher food for him at home. She was born to religious Jewish parents who moved to Pakistan from neighboring Iran. He knows of his maternal grandparents only through the stories his mother told him as a boy.
Fishel is all that remains of what was once a small but thriving Jewish community. Estimated to have numbered about 2,500 people at the start of the 20th century, Pakistani Jewry consisted mainly of migrants from Iraq. Following Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, the central synagogue in Karachi (demolished in 1988) became a focal point for demonstrations against Israel. The majority of Jews left Pakistan for India or Israel around this time.
Fishel’s family spent as much time abroad as possible to escape from oppressive Pakistan. His father was a mechanical engineer whose work ensured they spent long stints living in North Africa. Both parents had died by his 13th birthday.
Once his parents passed away Fishel was sent to live with an uncle, a period of time he is loath to talk about. He’s estranged from two of his brothers and the other two have every intention of ignoring their Jewishness.
Fishel is an anomaly in choosing to reclaim his mother’s heritage.
‘I couldn’t be silent anymore about my Jewish roots’
“After Rosh Hashanah in September 2009, I remember just feeling sick of hearing the constant anti-Semitic propaganda and conspiracy theories popping up from the Pakistani government and media. They are constantly blaming everything wrong on an imaginary Jewish/Israeli conspiracy. My political side outgrew my fear; I felt less hesitant to claim my religion more publicly than I would have before. I couldn’t be silent anymore about my Jewish roots,” says Fishel.
As an adult Fishel chose the same path as his father and became an engineer, also taking short-term positions abroad. Anti-Semitism is the reason, he says, he spends as much time away from his native Pakistan as he can. But he is about to complete a contract in Tunisia, and is now preparing to go back to Pakistan.
Fishel is not planning to reveal his chosen religion to his neighbors and colleagues upon his return, but he is certainly going back with a mission. He intends to enter the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and change his official religious status from Muslim to Jew.
If NADRA permits him to do so (which he thinks is unlikely), he will be committing the crime of apostasy, punishable by death.
“It is dangerous but I will go at least once to record my request to change the status of my religion from Islam to Judaism so that their response can be documented,” says Fishel.
In his quest to discover more about his Jewish identity, Fishel contacted the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals in New York City. He has been guided by the founder and director of the institute, Rabbi Mark Angel, ever since. Fishel hopes together they can unlock more of his heritage.
The Jewish graveyard in Karachi has become a haven for vandals and drugs, says Fishel. (courtesy)
Speaking from New York, Angel tells The Times of Israel the kind of details he explained to Fishel would help him prove he is halachically Jewish: “If his mother had siblings who continued in their Jewishness, or if his mother’s mother/grandmother are buried in a Jewish cemetery. I don’t think these are easy things for him to find out, but I believe he’s trying his best,” says Angel.
Perhaps this is why Fishel is intending to fulfill his dream of cleaning up the old Beni Israel Jewish graveyard in Karachi. If one of the graves there belongs to a blood relative, he will have a much better chance of persuading halachic authorities of his Jewish roots.
Fishel insists, however, that the goal is wider than his own quest for family knowledge.
‘My dream for the near future in Pakistan is to gain some empathy from Pakistani Muslims for cleaning the Jewish graves’
“My dream for the near future in Pakistan is to gain some empathy from Pakistani Muslims for cleaning the Jewish graves. Later I will try to harness it in getting support and help in the legal process for a small synagogue in Pakistan. After getting that little piece of paper in my hand stating that legally we are allowed to have a synagogue, my dream will come true,” says Fishel.
Even from his temporary position in Tunisia, Fishel has not been idle in pursuit of this goal. He has repeatedly emailed and called Pakistan’s National Peace Council for interfaith harmony to gain permission to enter the cemetery, though so far with no reply.
Fishel has already snuck into the cemetery on several previous occasions to document the state of the graves. Upon his return he plans to step up his campaign to get the Pakistani government to provide him with the access he needs to clean the Beni Israel graveyard undisturbed.
The derelict Jewish graveyard is located within Karachi’s larger Mewa Shah graveyard. According to Fishel, it has fallen into a state of disrepair and is known as a hangout for drug addicts and criminals.
As part of his quest to help clean the Jewish graves in Karachi, Fishel has taken to Twitter where he goes by the handle @Jew_Pakistani
As part of his quest to help clean the Jewish graves in Karachi, Fishel has taken to Twitter, where he goes by the handle @Jew_Pakistani. It is here that he is searching for help both from sources in Pakistan and the wider Jewish world.
Unfortunately he has also become a magnet for Taliban apologists and often finds himself fighting the cause of Judaism against Islamic extremists.
Fishel knows he is starting from nothing and is looking for all of the help he can get in pursuit of his goals. He has managed to obtain a couple of Jewish books, but not enough to study from, and is looking for more. His thirst for knowledge about Judaism has led him to seek information online. He is now able to celebrate Passover, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat, he says, thanks to recordings of services he has found posted on the web.
Fishel hopes to make Pakistan more tolerant to Jews and promote Pakistani interaction with Israel. Although at first glance these goals might sound insurmountable, there is room for some optimism, says Oxford University expert on Pakistan Dr. Faisal Devji.
“Bizarrely for such an anti-Semitic society, Pakistani school textbooks routinely compare the country to Israel as the world’s only two states founded in the name of religion rather than monarchy, language, ethnicity, etc. So it’s weirdly possible to propagate a pro-Israeli stance there, and indeed there have been a number of public suggestions of recognizing Israel,” says Devji.
Perhaps one day Fishel will be able to take a trip to Israel, but to do so he’d have to negotiate the obstacle of his Pakistani passport, where it is written, he reports, “This passport is valid for all countries of the world except Israel.”
OTTAWA, Feb 28: The hereditary spiritual leader of the world’s 15 million Ismaili Muslims Thursday compared a conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims to Ireland, urging the West to engage both branches of Islam.
Speaking to both houses of Canada’s parliament, the Aga Khan said tensions between the two denominations “have increased massively in scope and intensity recently and have been further exacerbated by external interventions.”
“In Pakistan, Malaysia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan it is becoming a disaster,” he warned.
To help bring an end to the strife in these countries, the Aga Khan said “it is important for (the West) to communicate with both Sunni and Shia voices.
“To be oblivious to this reality would be like ignoring over many centuries that there were differences between Catholics and Protestants. Or trying to resolve the civil war in Ireland without engaging both Christian communities.”
Highlighting the span of the crisis, he said: “What would have been the consequences if the Protestant-Catholic struggling in Ireland had spread across the Christian world as is happening today between Shia and Sunni Muslims in more than nine countries.”
Canada is home to approximately 100,000 Ismaili Muslims, who found refuge in this country after being expelled by Ugandan President Idi Amin in 1972.
The Aga Khan himself was made an honorary Canadian citizen in 2010.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The images of recent days have an eerie familiarity, as if the horrors of the past decade were being played back: masked gunmen recapturing the Iraqi cities of Falluja and Ramadi, where so many American soldiers died fighting them. Car bombs exploding amid the elegance of downtown Beirut. The charnel house of Syria’s worsening civil war.
But for all its echoes, the bloodshed that has engulfed Iraq, Lebanon and Syria in the past two weeks exposes something new and destabilizing: the emergence of a post-American Middle East in which no broker has the power, or the will, to contain the region’s sectarian hatreds.
Amid this vacuum, fanatical Islamists have flourished in both Iraq and Syria under the banner of Al Qaeda, as the two countries’ conflicts amplify each other and foster ever-deeper radicalism. Behind much of it is the bitter rivalry of two great oil powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rulers — claiming to represent Shiite and Sunni Islam, respectively — cynically deploy a sectarian agenda that makes almost any sort of accommodation a heresy.
“I think we are witnessing a turning point, and it could be one of the worst in all our history,” said Elias Khoury, a Lebanese novelist and critic who lived through his own country’s 15-year civil war. “The West is not there, and we are in the hands of two regional powers, the Saudis and Iranians, each of which is fanatical in its own way. I don’t see how they can reach any entente, any rational solution.”
The drumbeat of violence in recent weeks threatens to bring back the worst of the Iraqi civil war that the United States touched off with an invasion and then spent billions of dollars and thousands of soldiers’ lives to overcome.
With the possible withdrawal of American forces in Afghanistan looming later this year, many fear that an insurgency will unravel that country, too, leaving another American nation-building effort in ashes.
The Obama administration defends its record of engagement in the region, pointing to its efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis and the Palestinian dispute, but acknowledges that there are limits. “It’s not in America’s interests to have troops in the middle of every conflict in the Middle East, or to be permanently involved in open-ended wars in the Middle East,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, said in an email on Saturday.
For the first time since the American troop withdrawal of 2011, fighters from a Qaeda affiliate have recaptured Iraqi territory. In the past few days they have seized parts of the two biggest cities in Anbar Province, where the government, which the fighters revile as a tool of Shiite Iran, struggles to maintain a semblance of authority.
Lebanon has seen two deadly car bombs, including one that killed a senior political figure and American ally.
In Syria, the tempo of violence has increased, with hundreds of civilians killed by bombs dropped indiscriminately on houses and markets.
Linking all this mayhem is an increasingly naked appeal to the atavistic loyalties of clan and sect. Foreign powers’ imposing agendas on the region, and the police-state tactics of Arab despots, had never allowed communities to work out their long-simmering enmities. But these divides, largely benign during times of peace, have grown steadily more toxic since the Iranian revolution of 1979. The events of recent years have accelerated the trend, as foreign invasions and the recent round of Arab uprisings left the state weak, borders blurred, and people resorting to older loyalties for safety.
Arab leaders are moving more aggressively to fill the vacuum left by the United States and other Western powers as they line up by sect and perceived interest. The Saudi government’s pledge last week of $3 billion to the Lebanese Army is a strikingly bold bid to reassert influence in a country where Iran has long played a dominant proxy role through Hezbollah, the Shiite movement it finances and arms.
That Saudi pledge came just after the assassination of Mohamad B. Chatah, a prominent political figure allied with the Saudis, in a downtown car bombing that is widely believed to have been the work of the Syrian government or its Iranian or Lebanese allies, who are all fighting on the same side in the civil war.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have increased their efforts to arm and recruit fighters in the civil war in Syria, which top officials in both countries portray as an existential struggle. Sunni Muslims from Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have joined the rebels, many fighting alongside affiliates of Al Qaeda. And Shiites from Bahrain, Lebanon, Yemen and even Africa are fighting with pro-government militias, fearing that a defeat for Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, would endanger their Shiite brethren everywhere.
“Everyone fighting in Syria is fighting for his own purpose, not only to protect Bashar al-Assad and his regime,” said an Iraqi Shiite fighter who gave his name as Abu Karrar. He spoke near the Shiite shrine of Sayida Zeinab near Damascus, where hundreds of Shiite fighters from around the region, including trained Hezbollah commandos, have streamed to defend a symbol of their faith.
Some Shiite fighters are trained in Iran or Lebanon before being sent to Syria, and many receive salaries and free room and board, paid for by donations from Shiite communities outside of Syria, Abu Karrar said.
Although the Saudi government waged a bitter struggle with Al Qaeda on its own soil a decade ago, the kingdom now supports Islamist rebels in Syria who often fight alongside Qaeda groups like the Nusra Front. The Saudis say they have little choice: having lobbied unsuccessfully for a decisive American intervention in Syria, they believe they must now back whoever can help them defeat Mr. Assad’s forces and his Iranian allies.
For all the attention paid to Syria over the past three years, Iraq’s slow disintegration also offers a vivid glimpse of the region’s bloody sectarian dynamic. In March 2012, Anthony Blinken, who is now President Obama’s deputy national security adviser, gave a speech echoing the White House’s rosy view of Iraq’s prospects after the withdrawal of American forces.
Iraq, Mr. Blinken said, was “less violent, more democratic and more prosperous” than “at any time in recent history.”
But the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was already pursuing an aggressive campaign against Sunni political figures that infuriated Iraq’s Sunni minority. Those sectarian policies and the absence of American ground and air forces gave Al Qaeda in Iraq, a local Sunni insurgency that had become a spent force, a golden opportunity to rebuild its reputation as a champion of the Sunnis both in Iraq and in neighboring Syria. Violence in Iraq grew steadily over the following year.
Rebranding itself as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the group seized territory in rebel-held parts of Syria, where it now aspires to erase the border between the two countries and carve out a haven for its transnational, jihadist project. Sending 30 to 40 suicide bombers a month to Iraq from Syria, it has mounted a campaign of violence that led to the deaths of more than 8,000 Iraqis in 2013, according to the United Nations, the highest level of violence there since 2008.
In recent days, after ISIS fighters rode into the cities of Falluja and Ramadi, they fought gun battles with Sunni tribal fighters backed by the Iraqi government, illustrating that the battle lines in the Middle East are about far more than just sect. Yet the tribal fighters see the government as the lesser of two evils, and their loyalty is likely to be temporary and conditional.
As the United States rushed weapons to Mr. Maliki’s government late last year to help him fight off the jihadis, some analysts said American officials had not pushed the Iraqi prime minister hard enough to be more inclusive. “Maliki has done everything he could to deepen the sectarian divide over the past year and a half, and he still enjoys unconditional American support,” said Peter Harling, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “The pretext is always the same: They don’t want to rock the boat. How is this not rocking the boat?”
The worsening violence in Iraq and Syria has spread into Lebanon, where a local Qaeda affiliate conducted a suicide bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut in November, in an attack meant as revenge for Iran’s support of Mr. Assad.
More bombings followed, including one in a Hezbollah stronghold on Thursday, one day after the authorities announced the arrest of a senior Saudi-born Qaeda leader.
“All these countries are suffering the consequences of a state that’s no longer sovereign,” said Paul Salem, vice president of the Middle East Institute in Washington. “On the sectarian question, much depends on the Saudi-Iranian rivalry. Will these two powers accommodate each other or continue to wage proxy war?”
For the fighters on the ground, that question comes far too late. Amjad al-Ahmed, a Shiite fighter with a pro-government militia, said by phone from the Syrian city of Homs, “There is no such thing as coexistence between us and the Sunnis because they are killing my people here and in Lebanon.”
Ben Hubbard reported from Beirut, Robert F. Worth from Washington, and Michael R. Gordon from Jerusalem. Peter Baker contributed reporting from Washington.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 5, 2014
An earlier version of this article misstated the year in which, according to the United Nations, more than 8,000 Iraqis died in a campaign of violence by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a Sunni insurgency that had been known as Al Qaeda in Iraq, which sent more than 30 to 40 suicide bombers a month to Iraq from Syria. It was 2013, not this year
WHEN it comes to law and order, crime and insecurity, and the state’s diffident response to serious threats, the story has become a depressingly familiar one: lamentation and more lamentation; inaction and more inaction. The killing of an Islamabad leader of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Munir Muawia, in the federal capital on Friday ought to be alarming, but it is already destined to become yet another bloody footnote in the once-again simmering sectarian wars and the state’s inability to control them.
It is not even surprising anymore that a drive-by shooting can occur in Islamabad and the assassins simply melt away — it ought not to be the case, but helplessness seems to be the only reaction of the heavily financed and resourced capital police. And if the heart of Islamabad cannot be made safe by security officials, then what hope for Peshawar, Quetta or Karachi?
Next, a familiar question. What is the government’s strategy to handle the rising sectarian pressures? Ignorance of the problem is surely not a possibility. Punjab has long been the heartland of sectarian tensions and while the infrastructure of hate has spread far and wide across the country, Punjab, under the control of the PML-N, remains very much a hub of the problem. This is not even about immediately rolling out long-term solutions: that will necessarily require the input and full cooperation of many arms of the state, provincial and federal.
But the warning lights on sectarianism are again blinking furiously and urgent steps are needed. Fire-fighting after the problem erupts, as happened in Rawalpindi over Ashura, is only a recipe for awaiting the next big conflagration. The sectarian killers and militants are in most cases known to the intelligence apparatus. While there is sometimes random violence, much of the violence is orchestrated by small cadres at the fringe of the main sects. The religious leaders who can influence events are well known too. Why, then, the inaction by the state? There are few reassuring answers.
“Salmaan Taseer was a brave man who never shied away from raising his voice for the voiceless, the marginalised, the poor, and for women and minority rights. His martyrdom shook us all but it also made us realise that a brave man never dies…his legacy lives on,” Journalist Mehmal Sarfaraz said at a candle vigil to mark the third death anniversary of Salmaan Taseer, former Punjab governor, at the Liberty roundabout on Saturday.
Salmaan Taseer’s daughter, Sanam Taseer said her father’s public life and private life had been the same. He was a man of compassion and candour. “As long as Article 33 remains law and Aasia Bibi continues to languish in prison, his sacrifice has been in vain,” she said.
More than 150 participants at the vigil demanded the removal of blasphemy laws and Aasia Bibi’s release from prison. They opposed the government’s plans to hold talks with the Taliban. They chanted “Taseer, your blood will bring forth a revolution” and “religious extremism and fundamentalism are not acceptable”. They held banners emblazoned with slogans like Down with Fanaticism; Down with Extremism; Shame on the Silent Majority; and Repeal Blasphemy Laws.
Awami Workers Party general secretary Farooq Tariq said, “We are here to condemn religious fundamentalism and declare that Mumtaz Qadri, who poses as a hero, is a villain. Taseer’s only crime was to support a Christian woman falsely accused of blasphemy.”
SAP-PK deputy director Irfan Mufti said, “We are here to mark a day for anti-terrorism and anti-extremism in remembrance of Salmaan Taseer who lost his life to build a tolerant society.”
Ali Salman Alvi, a columnist for The Nation, paying tribute to the late governor, said, “Taseer was an ambassador of tolerance. He stood for the rights of minorities and the downtrodden. He had the courage to denounce the extremist mindset that has destroyed the fabric of our society. He sacrificed his life for humanity and will be sorely missed in our society which is increasingly becoming intolerant.”
Columnist Marvi Sirmed said, “I am here for Aasia Bibi. Taseer knew the danger he was in for supporting her, but he did not back out for a minute. We have seen several incidents of intolerance since, yet no one has been arrested.”
Sirmed said no FIRs had been registered against the culprits responsible for the incident at Joseph Colony and in the Rimsha Masih case…Rimsha’s family had to leave the country instead.
Journalist Sirmed Manzoor said, “We are small in number and the extremist narrative is everywhere, but I am sure we can encourage more people to take a stand against extremism.”
Syed Ahsan Abbas Rizvi of the Peoples Youth Organisation (PYO) said, “Pakistan Peoples Party has been orphaned since Taseer died on January 4, 2011.”
Taseer was shot dead by his guard Malik Mumtaz Qadri. Qadri had shot him 27 times with an MP5 sub machine gun. He had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Later the Islamabad High Court admitted Qadri’s appeal against the conviction.
In support of Qadri
As many as 250 students from several madrassahs in the city held a rally in support of Mumtaz Qadri on Saturday. The rally was organised by the Mumtaz Qadri Lovers’ Forum. The participants walked from the Punjab Assembly to the Press Club holding banners and chanting slogans in favour of Mumtaz Qadri. Maulana Asharaf Jalali addressing the rally said politicians like Dr Tahirul Qadri, who had called Mumtaz Qadri a murderer, were villains.
The participants demanded that the government pardon Mumtaz Qadri and release him. “Mumtaz Qadri is our hero and we will sacrifice our lives if we have to in order to get him released,” said speakers.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 5th, 2014.
Peshawar church massacre (Credit: lakewypilot.com)
PESHAWAR: As bodies became unseemly piles in the morgue and victims offered up mangled injuries for attention, Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) was mercilessly transported back to the horrors of October 28, 2009 when a bomb exploded at Meena Bazaar.
“It is difficult to tell how many people have been killed or injured, they are just pouring in,” said LRH Chief Executive Officer Arshad Javaid initially. “This is the biggest trauma we have had to deal with since the 2009 attack, which killed 139 people.”
And no one was prepared.
The LRH chief confessed the hospital was running short of medicines, supplies, coffins and something he did not need to say out loud – space.
Pervez Masih, an eyewitness waiting to get head and chest injuries looked at, described how an ordinary weekend mass at the 130-year-old church turned into a bloody Sunday. Around 400 people, including the elderly, women and children, were at the church, he estimated. “What sounded like a minor blast occurred outside the church, but people rushed out to the main gate.” That is when the second suicide bomber, clad in a police uniform, ran at the crowd and blew himself up, said Pervez.
“We don’t understand what happened next,” he said, and he does not remember how he reached the hospital.
Principal of Geovernment High School No-4 Nothia William Ghulam and his son Neil William, a student of Khyber Medical College Peshawar, were not as fortunate as Pervez. They died in the blasts, but William Ghulam’s wife, daughter, brother Anwar and sister-in-law survived, however, not unscathed. Anwar and his wife were being treated for head, chest and hand injures at the LRH.
The aftermath of the twin suicide attack has resulted in at least 78 dead and more than 146 injured. By evening, Khyber Teaching Hospital had 25 patients – six women and three minors – and had sent 15 of their nurses to the LRH.
A jolt to the system
As the first closest point of response, the LRH took in the lion’s share of the casualties but Sunday meant lean staff; even the blood bank was shut. Doctors had to be called in; the hospital had to be woken up with a shock to its system.
The first response to any calamity or attack determines many eventualities. Most importantly, it controls the increase in fatalities and severity of injuries. This was near impossible in the attack at the church as ‘ambulances’ took the shape and form of anything with wheels and a working engine. No Rescue 1122, a few Edhi and mostly Al Khidmat ambulances were visible hurrying to the LRH. The latter eventually took bodies waiting to be buried to their homes.
Inside the hospital, while LRH doctors, nurses and staff were being called in, not much could be done about the shortage of space – the dead and the injured remained lying on the floor for nearly three to four hours.
Below ground, the LRH morgue has the official capacity to store 60 bodies. Without sufficient hands on deck, the deceased lay askew on blocks of ice. The hospital had only 52 coffins at a point when it had at least 70 bodies.
The last straw, the first brick
Above ground, the chaos only brewed chaos. As relatives collected inside the halls, there were not enough medical professionals to cater to everyone’s injuries and beds were in short supply. A majority of the injured seemed to be women and children. Distraught, with no place to even sit, loved ones raised a voice, chanting slogans against the absence of facilities and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.
“Yeh zalim loug hain, yeh humain is mulk mein nahin jeenay dein geh,” cried an inconsolable family member of a deceased victim.
Younas Masih, an older adult, led the impromptu protest which resulted in some broken window panes and a rowdy crowd. “We are citizens of this country and we have equal rights like other citizens. Why is the PTI government not providing us with security and with facilities in the hospital?”
“We only ask for our rights,” said Younas. “This is a huge loss for us.”
Security lapse?
As the hospital was overrun with patients and caregivers, safety measures were invisible. Standard procedures after a blast dictate heightened security to ensure a second disaster does not follow, bur there were no policemen or private guards visible at the gates or inside.
After the hospital gained some control, LRH chief Javaid assured the victims and their worried caregivers the hospital was fully staffed and will attempt to treat every patient.
Referencing the blood bank which was shut earlier, Javaid promised the hospital was equipped with blood but encouraged people to go and donate.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 23rd, 2013.
Author meets community in Sultanabad (Credit: Fayyaz Naich)Sultanabad, Aug 20: ATDT author visited her ancestral village of Sultanabad, founded by her maternal grandfather Fida Hussain Khaliqdina – who was appointed in 1920 as a trustee of Sultan Mohammed Shah Aga Khan 111 – while Sindh was still under British occupation.
The invitation to visit Sultanabad was formally extended to the author and her companions by the religious higher ups of the community.
Sultanabad founder (extreme right) (Credit: Author)Built in the proximity of Mirpurkhas, Sindh (in the south of Pakistan), Sultanabad is enclosed in a thicket of trees, with rich cultivated farm lands, well planned rows of houses, class rooms for computer training, community hall, library – and prayer house.
The author was apprised of her grandfather’s work in buying 644 acres of barren land in Bulgai Jodhpur Railway Station, near Sukkur barrage, where he successfully settled Ismaili families with his own funds, in what became known as Sultanabad Agriculture Colony.
According to the community elders, Sultanabad (1-3) have since become a model agricultural villages.. with a thriving market that supplies fruits and vegetables to Sindh. In turn, the community has built up good quality education, employment, health facilities and a high level of security that protects it from the uncertainty that plagues much of the province.
A multi purpose cooperative society has been formed in the name of Varis Fida Hussain, to facilitate economic cooperation and enhance the financial well being of the community.
