The Crimson Earth

By Noreen Haider

December 22, 2010, Gujranwala
Shumila, a newly wed bride, murdered by the bridegroom, who staged a dacoity-cum-murder drama to mislead the police after killing his bride over the demand of a car in dowry which the parents of the girl could not afford. Shumaila was offering prayers when Sajid opened fire on her temple and later wounded himself by shooting on his one leg. He later confessed to the killing.
January 16, 2011, Multan
Hina, nine years old, subjected to sexual assault before being murdered in Multan according to the postmortem report. The unfortunate child, left her home to buy some food items from a nearby shop, but she never returned. Her body was later recovered from Basti Khudadad.
January 19, Lahore
Allah Rakhi, forty, killed by her husband on the allegation of illicit relations in Ghaziabad Lahore. Police arrested the accused who confessed his crime and also admitted to killing his 17-year-old daughter Surriya Bibi by strangling her five months ago. Allah Rakhi was hit by hammer repeatedly on her head, which resulted in her instant death. The body of Surriya Bibi was recovered from an empty plot by the police.
January 19, Dera Ghazi Khan
Khursheed twenty one and Nadra twenty three were ambushed by their father and uncles and showered with bullets while returning to their home town of Mozah Marhaata in Pir Adil Village of Dera Ghazi Khan. The two women were allegedly trying to escape a forced marriage. They left their home nearly 18 days ago. The family members were trying to bury their bodies when a SHO, managed to recover the bodies of the victims.
January 20, Khanewal
Asma, eight months pregnant, beaten by iron rods to death by her husband abetted by his family. Asma was tortured in front of her mother, who was held in place by some men, at Kot Abdullah village in Khanewal. The postmortem report confirms torture and death by poison. The police have arrested her husband who has confessed to the killing.
January 20, Vehari
Shaista, seven months pregnant, killed by her husband allegedly over suspicions of having an illicit relationship. She was choked to death by stuffing a piece of cloth in her mouth. Her husband Yousaf and his father, Hafeez, were arrested by the police where they admitted to killing Shazia.
January 21, Multan
Zainab Bibi, wife of a laborer was gang raped after her husband Arshad Muhammad asked a local landlord Ameen to pay his wages. The landlord owed him thirty thousand rupees. On the demand of payment, Arshad was verbally abused and brutally beaten with sticks by the hit men of the landlord. Later, Zainab was abducted by Ameen and his accomplices and was taken to Ameen’s farmhouse where she was gang raped. A few hours later she was thrown near her house badly injured. Local police officials refused to file the FIR against the criminals. The case was registered only after Khanewal district session judge Ijaz Ahmed Butt took notice of the case. Ameen and his accomplice fled the district and are now at large.
22 January, Lahore
Shazia, 26, was brutally beaten by her husband along with his brothers and other members of his family and then thrown from the roof critically injuring her and breaking her legs, arms, jaw and head. Police initially refused to file a case against the culprits. She, the mother of four children, is still hanging between life and death. Her family is constantly receiving death threats from her in-laws in case they pursue the case. The main culprit is still at large.
January 22, Burewala
Najma Bibi is reported missing for days after her in-laws disgraced her in the name of honor in Mochiwala, Bherowala. In line with the decision of the panchayat, the in-laws of Najma Bibi, 24, cut her hair, blackened her face and paraded her in the streets on the allegation of having illicit relations with a man of the same village. Najma and her children were later evicted from the village on the orders of the Panchayat which ruled that an example should be made of her before she was turned out of the village.
January 23, Bahawalpur
Saima, 17, electrocuted to death in Bahawalpur district on the orders of a Panchayat that comprised of her father and three uncles. Her crime was that she had eloped with a man in the neighborhood and married him. According to eye witnesses there were signs of severe torture and burn injuries on her body.

It may seem that these cases are taken out of the plot of some horror movie or are stories from the land of barbarians who have never seen the light of modern day world but in reality these are but a few of the reported cases of violent crimes against women, in the very first month of the new year. Every day women are being killed in excruciatingly painful ways and there is no apparent end to it. All the above cited cases have occurred in the Punjab where the rulers have tall claims of “good governance”

It is preposterous that Panchayat (the informal local councils) are still continuing in Pakistan and handing out verdicts including death sentences against women. These courts have no legal or constitutional authority and they have no business running a parallel system of vigilante justice.

It is the complete failure of the provincial governments, district administrations and the law enforcement agencies that the Panchayats are handing out death sentences to helpless women.

The Chief Minister Punjab, Home Department, IG Police and the Law Minister are directly responsible for the horrendous situation in Punjab regarding violent crimes against women.

The regular occurrence of these cases has exposed the crumbling administrative system in Punjab and the even poorer intelligence system. The Central Intelligence Department is doing a poor job of gathering intelligence about developing situations which precipitate into such violent crimes. The police are lagging behind most of the time, and actually do nothing to prevent crimes against women. Even after the occurrence of such crimes, the inertia continues. The family members of rape victims have to virtually get raped themselves in order to get the police to come out of their slumber and register the case.

But the real cause of alarm is not just the brutal killings, rape and maiming of women by their own family members, but the effortless ease and fearless ways these horrific crimes are now being carried out right under the noses of the district administration, in broad daylight. The killers and abettors have neither any fear of the law nor of any social condemnation. In fact in many cases the killing of the “allegedly tainted women” by the family is taken as a sign of honour and he-man-ship.

Although the response of the police and the law enforcing agencies is pitiable and they have a dismal record in handling the cases of violence against women but how the communities and society reacts towards it is much more significant. The reaction of the neighbors, larger family, religious leaders, prayer leaders, local mystics, influentials and elders, whose words hold importance, all constitute the overall society that matters to an individual and if there is no condemnation there and no adverse reaction then it is, in fact a tacit approval for the act. In this scenario the state and its organs can not work effectively in the prevention or control of the crime.

The shocking rapidity with which these crimes are occurring is a commentary on the overall deteriorating psyche of the regressive society in Pakistan generally and in Punjab particularly as majority of the crimes against women are being reported in Punjab. It is also a reflection on how the weak segments of the community are becoming more and more vulnerable with the traditional social protection networks deteriorating fast and the state being a total failure in providing protection to any of its citizens.

The society which does not show any abhorrence for horrendous crimes against humanity is a morally dead society. We are now living in a country of dead men walking. Oblivious to the blood and gore stories around them and in a state of self imposed trance. If there was any life left in them they would have protested for young Hina, for the seventeen year old Saima, for Najma. They would have protested for someone. But the silence is deafening. There is no one willing to take a stand for any of these women.

As for the ruling elite they are busy playing the fiddle like Nero and enjoying their super luxury lifestyles comparable to any oil rich Shiekh in the Middle East.

I want to ask all the leaders of the religious groups and parties the reason for this strange silence against the brutality of men slaughtering their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers. Why such abhorrence for women? What is preventing them from coming out in public and declaring “Fatwas” against the perpetrators and abettors of the crimes against women in the name of honour? How can a man justify his act by taking refuge in religious decrees against immoralities when he himself is committing murders?

As the sanctions for these crimes are inferred through the morality derived through religion, I beseech the Islamic scholars “The Ulemas” to come out of their inertia and play a positive role to save women from the blood bath going on. I beg them to pass their declarations, “Fatwas” now about men butchering women and clearly state where they stand in the scheme of things. Why can’t the Ulema use the power they have to pressurize the governments and mobilize public to rally the around this issue? Is it not also blasphemous that men are butchering women in a country where the love for the Prophet (SW) is sworn by all? What would the Prophet (SW) think of His faithful being silent spectators in the face of such brutality?

It is the obligation of the religious scholars to come out and declare the right of women with regard to their own marriage. Regarding a woman’s right to marry a person of her choice, a point that is relevant in Saima’s case, is a right granted to women by Islam and the constitution of Pakistan and upheld by numerous court judgments. All consensual marriages are perfectly legal and “Islamic”.

The blood of Shumaila, Hina, Allah Rakhi, Saima and Najma and all the slain women is calling every conscientious human being left in this country. Their blood will not run dry but will continue to seep in the earth staining every inch of this land until it becomes the Crimson Earth.

January 29, 2011
From SPN Newsletter.
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Pakistan’s ‘illegitimate daughters’

By Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Why is there not an uproar for the woes of the daughters of Pakistan who were stoned in Swat and, presently, in Orakzai Agency? Daughters like Mukhtaran Mai, of course, are not comparable with American daughters of Pakistani origin like Aafia because, perhaps, the former are illegitimate

A cartoon is truly worth a thousand columns, protests and articles. This week, a cartoon proclaiming Faisal Shahzad to be the ‘son of Pakistan’ said it all. As expected, every visible and invisible beard in the country is falling over backwards to appear more enraged than the other over the imagined slight. Dr Aafia Siddiqui, the proclaimed daughter of Islam, the ummah and Pakistan, has already succeeded in igniting passion and indignation in the country. At the time of writing these words, the Afghan Taliban have already kidnapped a British development worker from Afghanistan as a “means of revenge for Aafia”. Calls for walks and protests have been given by parliamentarians who have already staged the first walk against the sentence. There have even been calls by some circles to sever ties with the US and NATO over the pronouncement of a sentence to this ‘daughter’. Interestingly, the MQM has declared that if they were in government, they
would have severed all diplomatic relations with the US. The question that begs to be answered is: if they are not in the government, then who is? But I digress.

The newspapers are full of reports about the statements coming from Aafia’s family. Such is the self-assessed interest of the media in this issue that one of the papers ran a front page story on who Aafia’s family is talking to and who is being denied this honour. Apparently, the decision at the highest level has also been taken to send a parliamentary delegation to the US, including Dr Aafia’s sister, to lodge a protest. This is in addition to flying in her team of lawyers and her US-based brother — at the government’s expense — to Pakistan to ‘consult’ with the government over the next course of action. The government’s expense, of course, means that while there is no money for higher education, there is a lot of money to bail out non-Pakistani Muslim daughters running amuck.

Steps to bring this daughter of Islam and Pakistan back home, wherever home might be, might be necessary according to some. Perhaps, Aafia’s case should be pursued but one fails to understand why there is discrimination amongst the siblings. While the parliamentarians walk behind the opposition leader for Aafia, why do we not hear calls of “we will not rest easily” until the missing persons that have been ‘missing’ for years within Pakistan are located? Why is there not an uproar for the woes of the daughters of Pakistan who were stoned in Swat and, presently, in Orakzai Agency? Or, perhaps, the two daughters of the ummah who were buried alive in Balochistan after dogs were set after them. Daughters like Mukhtaran Mai, of course, are not comparable with American daughters of Pakistani origin like Aafia because, perhaps, the former are illegitimate.

At the time of writing these words, there are 7,000 women and children residing in 75 jails in the country. Out of these, 1,500 are in dismal conditions. According to the National Commission for the Status of Women (NCSW), 88 percent of the female prisoners are in jail only because of the ambiguities in the Zina Ordinance. However, parliamentarians do not stage walks for them, no commissions are sent anywhere in the country, no one meets their families and their ordeal is not a slap on anyone’s face simply because they are illegitimate. Legitimacy, it seems, only comes from Aafia.

A word of caution on the subject of daughters, legitimate or otherwise. Those who declare that Aafia is the daughter of Islam, Pakistan and the Muslim ummah, should remember, then, who their sons-in-law are. Aafia’s husband Mr Ammar al Baluchi is the nephew of Mr Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of 9/11 fame. We all have unsavoury uncles who get mixed up in the wrong company but investigation has revealed some roads leading to the nephew too. A detainee at the Guantanamo Bay, the son-in-law of the Muslim ummah was allegedly involved in financing the 9/11 attacks. If the trial of Aafia is “a slap on the whole Islamic world”, according to Altaf Hussain, then the trial of her husband should qualify as a slap on one side of the face at the very least.

Speaking of trials, the very characters present within the ‘Aafia mafia’, as columnist Fasi Zaka puts it, are also the ones who are sworn supporters of judicial supremacy. Food for thought for them as they endure the long wait till October 13: do they believe in the supremacy of the judiciary only in Pakistan? Dr Aafia was tried. Evidence was presented against her and the judiciary has spoken. How has this judicial decision become a fight between Islam and the West?

When will we learn? This is not a fight between Islam and the West just as militant groups do not represent anything more than the Wahabiist funded, inspired, encouraged, and promoted brand of bigotry. Just this year, a total of 9,009 civilians died in terrorist attacks, along with a total of 3,215 security personnel and 19,019 terrorists. This brings us to a total of 31,243 Pakistanis who died just this year because of the twisted worldviews that they want to impose on all of us. This is opposed to a total of 189 deaths in total in 2003, 863 in 2004, 648 in 2005, 1,471 in 2006, 3,590 in 2007, 6,715 in 2008 and 11,704 in 2009. In other words, a total of 56,431 have died in the last seven years. Yet, we declare that this war is not ours. If it was not previously, perhaps it is high time that it should be now. For the person sitting in San Francisco or Paris, militant groups and their apologists pose a terrorist threat. For us in Pakistan, it is terrorist
reality.

The writer is an Islamabad-based consultant. She can be reached at : coordinator@individualland.com

– Posted to CMKP Digest Number 2261 by “Andreanos” shafique100@yahoo.com
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Incest: Harayana’s shameful social heritage

It is rare that the question of incest is raised in the Punjab on either side of the border. Uddari supports the initiation of this discussion, and suggests that it is not just the state of Haryana where incest is being faced by Punjabi women and youth but that we are being victimized in other areas of Indian and Pakistani Punjab as well.

Indeed it is a mockery of words such as ‘honour’ where women are being killed and brutalized for choosing their sexual partners when the same people and the same value systems perpetuate incest by hiding it, by dis-empowering women and children, and by protecting the perpetrators.

I cannot find another comparable situation where women, young women, and male/female children are being sexually and emotionally exploited by, in most cases, their older male relatives. Incest is known to cause long term and permanent emotional and psychological damage to victimized individuals, and yet we are unwilling to even discuss it because it challenges our prevalent social, moral and familial value systems. This includes the tradition of cousin marriages in Muslim families.

It is an act of great courage for Seema to have voiced her concerns, and in doing so she has created a space for us to discuss incest in our society.

Sukhbir Siwach, TNN, Aug 28, 2010, 02.05pm IST

By Afsar Faheem

It was a national debate on a news channel. Tempers were running high, so were the decibels. The subject was explosive – Haryana’s khaps and their diktats. In the midst of this charged atmosphere, a voice rose above the rest, silencing them all. Seema, a law graduate and resident of Karora village, made an allegation that changed the course of the debate. Her brother had been executed for marrying a woman from the same gotra, but that was not what Seema wanted to talk about on the primetime show. It was another shameful reality of Haryana villages she wanted to expose – incest.

“Khaps should look into their homes before passing fatwas on lovers and crying hoarse about honour. Incest is rampant in the state and virtually every home is affected. Where is the honour anyway?” she screamed.

Early this week, the state was shocked when a pregnant girl was strangled by her parents and her body dumped on the outskirts of Bahadurgarh in Jhajjar district. Her crime: she was reportedly having an affair with her brother-in-law and her vengeful elder sister had complained to their parents.

In another embarrassing case earlier this year, a farmer in his early 50s developed a sexual relation with his 30-year-old daughter-in-law in a village in Kaithal district. Their liaison continued for almost a year. The matter even reached the village panchayat, which ordered separation of the two unlikely partners so that the woman could go back to her husband.

And only last month, Sonepat was jolted by the gruesome murder of two minor girls, just 12 and 14. They were killed and their bodies flung in a canal by their uncles and grandmother after their “affair” with a cousin was exposed. The police said the kin of the victims were enraged when they allegedly caught the minors getting intimate with their cousin. In Yamunanagar, a girl complained to the police that her father-in-law had raped her just a few months after her marriage.

These are not isolated incidents: incest is reportedly a real part of life in rural Haryana. “It’s a menace nobody wants to talk about. Even the elders are setting a bad example, ” says D R Chaudhary, member of the Haryana Administrative Reforms Commission. The elders, predictably, blame this perversion on the growing sway of the west over the state’s youth.

When Kurukshetra-based Ramesh Kumar’s daughter married a close relative, he blamed it on urban influence. Now he is fighting a legal battle to have the marriage declared null and void, terming it a contravention of the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The mothers of the newly-wed couple were apparently related, being granddaughters of the same person.

The incidence of incest may be higher in rural areas. “Social mores in villages are different. People here are very conservative and there is no scope for interaction between men and women and boys and girls outside their homes. So, they often end up having relationships with members of their accessible, extended family, ” says Balbir Singh, a social activist in Fatehabad district.
Experts believe that such relationships have survived behind closed doors for many years. But given the modern means of communication and the proliferation of the media, the skeletons are now tumbling out of family cupboards.

The youth, interestingly, believe that incest is a traditional practice and not a new reality. “Yeh to hame virasat mein mili hai (incest is a part of our tradition), ” says Naresh Kumar, a villager in Rohera in Kaithal district. Sociologists, in turn, say that the ethnic history of the region is full of such instances.

“In the pre-Independence era, in some parts of north India, the father-in-law almost had the right to physical relations with a daughter-in-law, and in most cases the female was not in a position to resist much. The very young husband also had no say in the matter. Widows would routinely be married to a brother of the dead husband. Sharing of the wife by brothers was also not uncommon, ” says Ravinder Kaur, a professor at IIT-Delhi.

What adds to this problem in Haryana is its skewed sex ratio caused by rampant female foeticide. “Its effects are now being felt on intimate relationships within and without the family. The shortage of marriageable women can have many unintended consequences, especially when only one out of four men find a bride (as in the case of Haryana) in their own community, ” adds Kaur.

Kumar’s 35-year-old nephew, Roshan, is yet to get any offers for marriage. “We are at a loss, wondering what to do, ” says Kumar. A growing army of bachelors has become a problem in the state, leading to more illicit relations.

Yet, there seems little the government and social organisations can do about this. Haryana has not seen any strong social movement in recent years and there are very few NGOs working on such issues. While a Haryana court was quick (it took three years) to deliver the death penalty to five khap members accused in the sensational murder of Manoj and Babli in March this year, it took a Bhiwani court around five years to give its verdict in a shocking case of incest that surfaced almost a decade ago.
In a letter to Bhiwani senior superintendent of police, an 18-year-old girl spoke of how her father and cousin exploited her sexually for seven months. “My father used to rape me. Not only this, my uncle and his son too sexually assaulted me, ” stated the girl.

“My mother was usually sent to sleep in another house and I was made to sleep with my father. My mother was not aware of all this. When I told my boyfriend and he objected, my father and cousin beat him up and also got a false case registered against him. When I threatened to go to the police, I was locked up, ” she wrote in the letter.

It was only after the girl said she would tell her mother that she was released from her confinement. The girl then ran away with her boyfriend and a case of abduction was slapped on the boy. Nobody knows where the couple is today.

Chilling tales of incest and abuse have been pouring in from all over the state. Inquiries reveal that physical relationship with a husband’s brother is not considered ‘unusual. ‘ “Such relations are not objected to. They are considered a family’s ‘internal affair’, ” says Prem Singh, a farmer-leader from Kaithal.

In a study conducted by the UNICEF in 2001 to gauge the context of abortions involving 83 adolescent girls in the age group of 10 to 19 years in Rohtak district, it was found that incest was a common cause. “It was responsible for pregnancies in 16 per cent of the cases. We have even had cases of girls getting pregnant through their kin, including fathers and brothers, ” says Sonia Trikha, who’s associated with the UNICEF. Many feel the situation has worsened in the last decade.

Leaders of gotra-based khap panchayats blame the law for protecting those who are guilty of incest. “A scheduled caste girl had run away with a boy from her family. Later, they married and even got police protection, ” says Badan Singh, leader of the Kalayat khap. Another prominent leader, Om Parkash Dhankar, president of the Dhankhar khap, complains about new social trends: “Illicit relationships are on the rise. Even a Supreme Court ruling spoke of permitting live-in relationship without marriage. ”

But Seema blames the khaps for shifting the focus from the real problems. “The problem, ” she says, “is not of love marriages, or marriages within gotras and villages, but incest. Marrying out of choice is not a crime, incest is. Khap leaders should be addressing the problem of incest and check this evil instead of hounding people who are in love. ”

INCEST IN MYTHOLOGY
If you thought Greek tragedies such as Odeipus Rex were embarrassing in their details of incest, our own epics and mythological texts are no less. They, in fact, abound with instances where men and women have conjugated with close kin. For instance, in the Mahabharata, Arjuna was married to Subhadra, the daughter of his aunt Rohini. Then there is the union of Yama with his twin sister Yami; Manu, son of Vivasvat, and his sister Sraddha; Prajapati and his daughter Ushas; Pushan and his sister Surya; Sukra and his three sisters; Satrajita and his 10 sisters; Nahusha and his sister Viraja. Purukutsa’s queen Narmada after her husband’s death obtained a son through her own brother

WHY IN RURAL HARYANA?
– Skewed sex ratio; 860 girls for 1,000 boys
– Very conservative society; girls and women are allowed to speak openly with only close relatives
– A large number of girls and women don’t work outside their homes
– Social resistance to love marriages
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100 Cities Around the World Against Stoning

The Statement of the protest action of August 28, 2010 by

On August 28, 2010 one hundred cities around the world are rising up to protest the barbaric practice of stoning, as well as to save the life of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in Iran. This day will be recorded in the annals of humanity as a manifestation of the protest, during the prior weeks, by millions of people across the globe against stoning as the most heinous form of medieval cruelty. It is a disgrace to humanity that, at the close of the first decade of the twenty-first century, stoning is still practiced in Iran and similar Islam-stricken countries. We, the citizens of 100 cities, hereby unequivocally declare that this blot must be removed from the face of humanity immediately and permanently.

On this day we also protest against the regime of stoning in Iran. This regime has, during the 31 years of its existence, committed genocide, established a system of sexual apartheid in Iran, and made imprisonment, execution, torture, rape of political prisoners, and the rule of pre-medieval Islamic Sharia the law of the land. Such a regime is not the representative of the people of Iran. It is their murderer, and its leaders must be brought to trial before international tribunals for their crimes against humanity.

Further, the international protest of August 28 is yet another manifestation of the solidarity of people around the world with the people of Iran, who have heroically risen up to bring down the regime of stoning, the Islamic code of punishment (Qesaas), Hijab, torture, and execution. We, the citizens of 100 cities worldwide, proudly declare that we consider ourselves the standard bearers of the universal front of humanity against barbarity. We support the struggles of the people of Iran against one of the cruelest regimes in the history of humankind. We, therefore, emphatically declare, on behalf of the world’s civilized humanity, that the path to the liberation of the Iranian people will not pass through threats or military action against, the country, but through the removal of the regime of the Islamic Republic by the power of the struggles of people in Iran and across the world.

The following are our common demands on August 28, 2010 throughout 100 cities of the world:

1- The immediate and unconditional freedom of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani and all other prisoners in Iran sentenced to be stoned to death.

2- The abolition of stoning in Iran and elsewhere. We demand that the United Nations urgently adopt a specific resolution forbidding stoning as an inhuman punishment all over the world.

3- Not recognizing the Islamic regime of stoning in Iran as the government of that country and, thus, banning it from all international bodies.

4- Bringing to trial the perpetrators of stoning. Stoning is one of the most abominable forms of crime against humanity. Any individual, group, organization or state executing the punishment of stoning must be prosecuted and tried by international tribunals.

We continue our struggles until we have achieved all of these demands. As an immediate, primary step to that end, we demand that Mahmood Ahmadinejad, the president of the regime of stoning, be stopped from entering the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 2010.

Free Sakine, No Stoning, No Execution, No more, Nowhere!
http://www.iransolidarity.org.uk/
http://stopstonningnow.com
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Repatriate Dr. Aafia Siddiqui to her home in Pakistan!

We urge all individuals concerned with human rights to sign this international petition to U.S. and Pakistani government officials, urging the immediate repatriation to Pakistan of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

SIGN THE PETITION AT
http://www.iacenter.org/SiddiquiPetition

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is being held in federal prison in New York City awaiting sentencing, now scheduled for September 23. This is a campaign for justice, solidarity and compassion for a woman and a political prisoner who has been severely injured and abused.

A coordinated campaign of petitions will be delivered in NYC, London, and to officials in Pakistan on August 14 – Pakistan Independence Day. The kidnapping and illegal extradition to the U.S. of this Pakistani citizen is an insult to the dignity of all Pakistanis and an affront to Pakistan’s sovereignty.

In New York City petitions will be presented at 12 noon on Saturday, August 14 at the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations at 8 East 65th St, between 5th Ave and Madison Ave, NY, NY 10065 to the office of Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon.

Messages will call for this simple act of compassion during the month of Ramadan.

Aafia Siddiqui holds a place in the hearts of people of conscience internationally irrespective of their faith, nationality or location. There is already immense international outrage about her case. Aafia Siddiqui has repeatedly maintained in court appearances that she was tortured while in U.S. custody.

This U.S.-educated doctor of neuroscience has come to symbolize the many hundreds of Pakistanis who have been secretly disappeared, detained and tortured, as well as the national outrage at the continuing deadly U.S. drone attacks.

The plight of the disappeared and missing in Pakistan is a cause of great national pain. Let us begin with this act of compassion to address this grievous problem.

Dr. Siddiqui’s five years in secret detention in Pakistan and Afghanistan, her grievous injuries, her two years in solitary confinement in the U.S. and her trial in New York City were continuing top news in Pakistan. Civil rights, religious and women’s organizations marched and petitioned, demanding the return of this “daughter of the nation” to Pakistan.

Dr. Siddiqui’s family and supporters have launched an international campaign for her repatriation to Pakistan. Aafia Siddiqui’s elderly mother is seriously ill and has pleaded for her daughter’s return.

Dr. Fauzia Siddiqui, Aafia Siddiqui’s older sister, in stressing the urgency of a campaign for Aafia Siddiqui’s repatriation, explained that under U.S. law a foreigner tried by a U.S. court could be repatriated to the country of his or her nationality on the request of their own government before the pronouncement of a sentence. She said there were 19 such precedents in which prisoners after indictment were repatriated to their countries on the request of their respective governments.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is neither a U.S. citizen nor a permanent resident. She had only one passport, issued by the Pakistan government.

Dr. Siddiqui was not charged with committing any crime on U.S. soil; therefore she should not have been extradited to the U.S. for trial but either tried in Afghanistan or extradited to Pakistan. Dr. Siddiqui is not charged with terrorism nor is she charged with injuring or harming anyone anywhere. She is a victim of terrible life-threatening injuries.

The Pakistan government through diplomatic channels should insist on Aafia Siddiqui’s repatriation. The U.S. government, based on overwhelming Pakistani sentiment for Aafia Siddiqui’s return, should grant this humanitarian request.

Dr. Siddiqui was convicted despite all physical and forensic evidence that she could not have committed the acts with which she was charged.

The U.S. government should release all the secret documents regarding Aafia Siddiqui’s disappearance that were suppressed at her trial in NYC and the documents on the many other disappeared and missing people in Pakistan. As we have seen in the recent release of documents by Wikileaks, we cannot count on governments to give a true accounting of events that may prove embarrassing to various government officials.

BACKGROUND TO CASE
In March 2003, at the age of 30, Dr. Siddiqui disappeared along with her three children from a street in Karachi, Pakistan. On March 31, 2003, the Pakistan media reported that Dr. Siddiqui had been arrested and turned over to U.S. officials.

Dr. Siddiqui mysteriously reappeared on the streets of Ghazni, Afghanistan, following five years of secret detention. There she was immediately re-arrested, shot and almost killed. After emergency treatment, she was brought to the United States and held in solitary confinement for almost two years before being placed on trial in a federal court in New York City.

The government charges were preposterous. Dr. Siddiqui had supposedly been arrested in July 2008, five years after her disappearance. The U.S. claims that when U.S. military personnel came to interrogate her after the arrest, Siddiqui grabbed a U.S. soldier’s M4 gun, fired off two rounds and was herself shot while being subdued.

Questions of how the bullets, supposedly fired by Siddiqui, failed to hit a single one of the 20 to 30 people in a small, crowded room, or hit any wall or floor, or leave any residue or fingerprints, were never answered. Witness testimonies often contradicted their earlier sworn testimonies and the testimony of others. The prosecution urged the jury to ignore science and irrefutable facts and believe the contradictory testimony of U.S. Special Forces soldiers and FBI agents.

Despite her severe wounds and her pleas for mercy the court imposed daily abusive and painful strip searches. The court through unprecedented security measures sought to close the trial and intimidate all support. Most important is that throughout her trial Aafia Siddiqui refused her lawyers and made it clear that she was not represented by lawyers of her choice.

Dr. Siddiqui’s missing son Ahmed was reunited with his aunt in late 2008 while daughter Maryum was dropped near her aunt’s home in Karachi in April 2010 after she had been missing for seven years. Dr. Siddiqui’s youngest child, Suleman, who would now be about seven years old, remains missing and is feared dead.

There have been massive demonstrations in Pakistan’s major cities demanding the return of this 38-year-old mother, now dubbed the “daughter of Pakistan.”

For more information on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui’s trial and treatment and the campaign to repatriate her, go to:
www.FreeAafia.org or www.JusticeForAafia.org.

SIGN THE PETITION TO U.S. AND PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS.

You can send this message or you can edit and revise it.

COPIES WILL ALSO BE SENT TO MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA IN THE U.S. AND PAKISTAN.

To: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joseph Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder, Sen. John Kerry (Chairman, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee), Congressional leaders, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi

cc: Ban Ki-Moon (Secretary-General, United Nations), UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, UN High Commissioner on Refugees, and members of the Pakistani and U.S. media

Dear President Barack Obama, President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani :

As the sentencing of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui draws closer at the Federal District Court in Manhattan, I urge you to repatriate Dr. Aafia Siddiqui to her native Pakistan as a matter of urgency. Given all the facts and circumstances of this case, repatriation of Dr. Siddiqui to Pakistan would not only serve the interests of justice, but is also warranted on humanitarian grounds.

This simple act of compassion during the month of Ramadan would be of special significance.

There are numerous credible reports that Dr. Siddiqui was abducted from Pakistan with her three young children in March 2003. Dr. Siddiqui claims that her captors detained her in a series of secret prisons for five years during which time she was abused in a variety of ways and tortured. Her youngest son, Suleman, remains missing to this day.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a citizen of Pakistan. She was not charged with committing any crime on U.S. soil, nor is she a U.S. citizen. She should not have been extradited to the U.S.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is not charged with terrorism nor has she been charged with injuring or harming anyone anywhere. She is a victim of terrible life threatening injuries.

The plight of the disappeared and missing in Pakistan is a cause of great national pain. Let us begin with this act of compassion to address this grievous problem.

In light of the circumstances of this case, in which it appears that at a minimum, Dr. Siddiqui suffered severe physical and emotional trauma, we call upon you to exercise all lawful authority to allow Dr. Siddiqui to be repatriated to Pakistan on humanitarian grounds.

Sincerely,
(your signature will be appended here)

SIGN THE PETITION AT
http://www.iacenter.org/SiddiquiPetition

International Action Center
55 W 17th St #5C
New York, NY 10010
212-522-6626
www.iacenter.org
iacenter@iacenter.org
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FAISALABAD VIGILANTE KILLINGS: Rashid and Sajid Emmanuel

ISLAMABAD-RAWALPINDI CIVIL SOCIETY OUTRAGED AT FAISALABAD VIGILANTE KILLINGS

Islamabad, 20th July, 2010

Civil Society Organizations, Peace and Human Rights Activists are once again shocked and outraged at the vigilante killings in Faisalabad of two young men under trial, accused under the infamous Blasphemy Law.

We strongly condemn the absence of law enforcement, the lack of protection to the under trial accused, and the impunity with which the fanatics who carry out extra-judicial killings are allowed to get away with murder – quite literally.

Whether or not 35-year old Sajid and Rashid would ever have received justice is now an academic debate. They are dead, killed by religious intolerance in the prime of their youth, for no fault of their own except the accident of being born Christian in the theocratic Islamic State of Pakistan, where, two and a half years into its five-year rule, the self-professed progressive Government is unwilling or unable to provide its non-Muslim citizens the required protection and security that the Constitution guarantees them; and where the elected Legislature shows neither the political will nor the commitment to repeal the Zia-imposed Blasphemy Laws.

We demand that the Punjab Government should immediately increase security at law courts, prisons, all places of worship, and should particularly provide protection to all non-Muslim Pakistani citizens in view of recent intelligence reports on specific targeting of non-Muslims and Muslim minority sects. We demand that the killers of Sajid and Rashid should be apprehended immediately and dealt with by the full force of the Law, without any leniency or mitigation.

We demand that the federal Ministers for Religious Affairs and Minority Affairs should immediately jointly table a Bill in Parliament to repeal at least Sections 295 B and C of the Blasphemy Laws for a start.

We ask: How many more Shanti Nagars and Gojras and Ayub Masihs and Bishop John Josephs and Sajids and Rashids and Hafiz Farooqs and Naimat Ahmars and Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khans must we suffer before the alarm bells start ringing in the corridors of power? What more will it take?

Tahira Abdullah
socialist_pakistan_news@yahoogroups.com

PAKISTAN: The killing of two Christian brothers

AHRC-STM-151-2010
July 20, 2010

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission
PAKISTAN: The killing of two Christian brothers is the result of the negligence and bias of the Punjab government and police

The abuse of the Blasphemy law, misuse of mosque loudspeakers and the impunity offered to Muslim extremists are the main causes of the persecution of religious minorities.

The shooting deaths of Rashid Emmanuel and in broad daylight in front of hundreds of people in the district courts compound in Faisalabad on July 19 came as no surprise. As was expected Muslim extremists carried out the murder just five days after the issuance of an Urgent Appeal by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in which it was feared that they were vulnerable to attack. The AHRC had also demanded that immediate action be taken to provide protection for the men so that their case might be taken up in accordance with the laws and procedures of the country. Please see the Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-102-2010.

The investigation officer of Police, Mr. Muhammad Hussain was also seriously injured during the attack as he tried to seize one of the attackers all of whom escaped unhindered. The two brothers had been arrested on charges of Blasphemy on the complaint of a printer on July 2, 2010.

Both brothers were produced before the court of Civil Judge, Mr. Aamir Habib, for their remand. Banned Muslim extremist groups, which enjoy freedom from the government of Punjab province, made announcements through the mosque loudspeakers asking Muslims to gather at the district courts building when the Christian brothers would be produced. They also spread rumors one day before that the Christian brothers would be free to go home from the Civil Lines Police Station, Faisalabad.

During the court proceedings the investigating officer told the court that there was no evidence of Blasphemy against the brothers and that therefore the police had no cause to further remand them in custody. The court ordered that Rashid Emmanuel and Sajjid Emmanuel be held in Judicial custody until the next date to issue further orders.

As both the brothers came out from the court suddenly some persons emerged from the crowd and opened fire at them. The elder brother Rashid died instantly whereas the younger one Sajjid died on the way to hospital. The police officer, Muhammad Hussain also received a bullet injury and is in critical condition.

Despite the threats by extremist elements from the banned Muslim militant groups to kill the Christian brothers the administration of Faisalabad city and the Punjab government did not take any security measures for their protection. Only three police officials, including the investigation officer, were assigned for the production of the accused brothers at the court whereas the Christian community had already asked the administration to provide sufficient policemen to protect them.

The AHRC has also mentioned in its Urgent Appeal that violent rallies by radical Muslims in the area have called for the men’s death, and Christians have reportedly begun to leave the neighbourhood. They fear that a new attack is planned for the end of the month, around the anniversary of a deadly attack on Christians 50km away in Korian village, Tehsil Gojra where six people were set alight and burned to death. Mosque loudspeakers are also being freely used to incite violence, which is illegal.

The killing of the Christian brothers in broad daylight was due to the sheer negligence and biased attitude of the Punjab provincial government and police. The Punjab government is notorious in appeasing the banned Muslim militant organisations. The Punjab provincial government, during the bye elections in 2009 has released some extremist leaders from the jails, who were involved in sectarian violence and killings, which helped them to win the elections. The younger brother of the Chief Minister of Punjab is also associated with one of the banned militant Muslim groups and is involved in spreading communal and sectarian violence.

It is very sad that after the killing of the two brothers some groups have attacked the Daud Nagar of Warispura, Faisalabad where there is 100,000 strong Christian communities. Different groups carried out processions inside the Christian area until the late hours of the night and threatened the residents. They warned them that they will face the same fate as happened in Gojra last year where nine people were killed and six were burned to death.

The other factor which suppresses the freedom of religious minority groups in Pakistan is the illegal use of loudspeakers from the mosques against the religious minorities as the easiest tool to instigate the Muslim population. The government is not taking any action against the misuse of loudspeakers. According to the law it is illegal for the loudspeakers in mosques to be used for anything other than Friday sermons in Arabic and the call to prayer.

Religious minority groups in Pakistan remain vulnerable due to the continued use and abuse of blasphemy charges, despite section 295C of the Pakistan Penal Code. This must be strongly implemented if minorities are to be protected. Police who fail to follow the code and who operate under the directives of extremists in the community must face strong legal action. Charges of blasphemy are still met with the death penalty in Pakistan, and desecrating the Quran carries a life sentence.

The AHRC urges the government to appoint a judicial commission to probe the incident of killing of the two Christian brothers and the attacks on the Christian community, the high police officials must be prosecuted for their negligence in providing security to the Christians when it was very obvious that the extremists would attack them.

The government should immediately abolish the Blasphemy law which was introduced by a fundamentalist military dictator in the 1980s for the purpose of prosecuting religious minorities. The government should also follow the amendment made in the Blasphemy law that no FIR for Blasphemy can be filed without an officer of the rank of Superintendent of Police. Therefore the government should take action against the responsible police officers who, without proper investigations, filed the FIR for Blasphemy at the pressure from some Muslim extremist groups.

The government should also provide compensation to the family of the assassinated brothers.

Asian Human Rights Commission
19/F, Go-Up Commercial Building,
998 Canton Road, Kowloon, Hongkong S.A.R.
Tel: +(852) – 2698-6339 Fax: +(852) – 2698-6367
twitter/youtube/facebook: humanrightsasia

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
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Citizens of the World against Stoning

24 July 2010 – International Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani Day
In Vancouver @5 Pm
Art Gallery Robson St.
Pls. Join Us!

We, the undersigned, are extremely concerned about the fate of 43 year old Sakine Mohamadi Ashtiani and fear she may be executed in Iran at any time for ‘having an illicit relationship.’

We call on people everywhere to intensify their protests by marking Saturday 24 July as the International Sakine Mohamadi Ashtiani Day. On the Saturday, we ask you to come out on to the streets and in city centres across the globe at 2pm local time bringing photos of Sakine and messages in her defence and against stoning and execution. Other measures that can be taken include highlighting her case wherever possible, signing petitions (http://stopstonningnow.com/), (http://www.avaaz.org/) and (http://freesakineh.org/), joining rallies, and keeping pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The mother of two has already received 99 lashes and been sentenced to death by stoning. Sajjad, her 22-year-old son, who raised the alarm of her imminent stoning when there was no further legal recourse via an open letter to the people of the world (http://notonemoreexecution.org/) and said ‘there is no justice’ in Iran (www.notonemoreexecution.org/-sajjad) has been summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence for his brave efforts to secure his mother’s freedom (http://notonemoreexecution.org/press-release).

As a result of the public outcry, the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in London has issued a press release stating that the regime did not intend to stone her, that stoning in Iran was rare and that there was no truth to the reports (http://iransolidarity.blogspot.com). Her lawyer, however, has made it clear that ‘Iranian embassies are not a part of the judiciary system, and it is the judiciary which should cancel this sentence’ (http://notonemoreexecution.org/-sakineh4/). Rather than being rare, a new report has found that over 100 known stonings have already taken place and another 25 known cases await death by stoning in Iran (http://countmein-iran.com/Sangsarha). Since the global protests, families of others held in Tabriz prison have come forward with news of 170 people sentenced to death, including children, youth, and 18 men and women for being gay. Two other women also await death by stoning in the same prison including Azar Bagheri who was 15 when she was arrested and 25 year old Maryam Ghorbanzadeh who is currently pregnant (http://notonemoreexecution.org/press-release-no-13/).

On 24 July 2010 at 2pm join us and make the world stand still in its rage against medievalism and barbarity and in its support of humanity. Sakine, her children and the many others awaiting death by stoning and execution deserve nothing less.

Signatories
Mina Ahadi, International Committee Against Stoning and International Committee Against Executions (Germany)
Maryam Namazie, Iran Solidarity, Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran and One Law for All (UK)
Maria Rohaly, Mission Free Iran (USA)
Shahla Abgari, Human Rights Activist (USA)
Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Stop Child Executions (Canada)
Russell Blackford, University of Newcastle (Australia)
Caroline Brancher, Union des Familles Laïques (France)
Helle Merete Brix, Journalist and Writer (Denmark)
Roy Brown, International Humanist and Ethical Union (Switzerland)
Ed Buckner, President, American Atheists (USA)
Peter Calluy, Belgian Humanist Society (Belgium)
Pierre Cassen, Riposte Laïque (France)
Megan Cornish, Seattle Radical Women (USA)
Parvin Darabi, Dr. Homa Darabi Foundation (USA)
Richard Dawkins, Scientist (UK)
Sanal Edamaruku, Rationalist International (India)
Bill Flanagan, Queen’s University (Canada)
Tahir Aslam Gora, Writer and Journalist (Canada)
AC Grayling, Writer and Philosopher (UK)
Laura Guidetti, Marea Association (Italy)
Maria Hagberg, Network against Honour-Related Violence (Sweden)
Johann Hari, Journalist (UK)
Farzana Hassan, Author (Canada)
Tasneem Khalil, Independent World Report (Sweden)
Hope Knutsson, Sidmennt, the Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association (Iceland)
Leo Igwe, Nigerian Humanist Movement (Nigeria)
Sonia Jabbar, Journalist (India)
Trefor Jenkins, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
Ghulam Mustafa Lakho, High Court Advocate (Pakistan)
Monica Lanfranco, Marea Feminist Review (Italy)
Anne-marie Lizin, Belgian Senate Honorary Speaker (Belgium)
Marieme Helie Lucas, Secularism Is A Women’s Issue (France)
Kinga Lohmann, KARAT Coalition (Poland)
Mohamed Mahmoud, Centre for Critical Studies of Religion (UK)
Irshad Manji, European Foundation for Democracy and New York University (USA)
Caspar Melville, Rationalist Association (UK)
Behnaz Parman, Artist (Germany)
Angela Payne, Anti-Injustice Movement (UK)
Clancy Pegg, Bioethics Journal (UK)
Naomi Phillips, British Humanist Association (UK)
David Pollock, European Humanist Federation (UK)
Venita Popovic, Zenicke Sveske Journal (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Gita Sahgal, Human Rights Campaigner (UK)
Terry Sanderson, National Secular Society (UK)
Nina Sankari, European Feminist Initiative (Poland)
Udo Schuklenk, Queen’s University (Canada)
Aisha Lee Shaheed, Women Living Under Muslim Laws (UK)
Issam Shukri, Defense of Secularism and Civil Rights in Iraq (Canada)
Elizabeth Sidney, Women Worldwide Advancing Freedom and Equality (UK)
Joan Smith, Writer and Activist (UK)
Roy Speckhardt, American Humanist Association (USA)
Annie Sugier, Ligue du Droit International Des Femmes (France)
Richy Thompson, National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (UK)
Christine Tasin, Résistance Républicaine (France)
Peter Tatchell, Human Rights Campaigner UK)
Giti Thadani, Writer and Filmmaker (India)
Shishir Thadani, South Asian Voice (India)
Gianni Verdoliva, Journalist (Italy)

Notes
1. The new and comprehensive list of persons stoned to death or awaiting death by stoning in Iran compiled by Farshad Hosseini of the ICAE is available in Persian: http://countmein-iran.com/Sangsarha. It is being translated into English.

2. See a 17 July article in the Times calling for the eviction of the Islamic Republic of Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women: http://iransolidarity.blogspot.com/

3. For more information, please contact:
Mina Ahadi, Germany, ICAE and ICAS Coordinator
minaahadi@aol.com
0049 1775692413
Ahmad Fatemi, ICAE Public Relations
fatemimark@gmail.com
0046 0735203817
Maryam Namazie, UK, Iran Solidarity Spokesperson iransolidaritynow@gmail.com
0044 7719166731

4. To donate to the important work of the International Committee Against Stoning and International Committee Against Executions, please make your cheque payable to ‘Count Me In – Iran’ and send to BM Box 6754, London WC1N 3XX, UK. You can also pay via Paypal (http://countmein-iran.com/donate.html). Please earmark your donation.

5. You can also find the latest news on the following websites:
International Committee Against Executions
http://notonemoreexecution.org/
International Committee Against Stoning
http://stopstonningnow.com/wpress/
Facebook Page of Save Sakine Mohamadi Ashtiani: http://www.facebook.com/

RSVP
Friends of Women In The Middle East (FWME)
http://www.equal-rights-now.com/
Zahra A.

Petition to Support Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani

The Iranian government has suspended the stoning penalty but Sakineh will still face execution for alleged ‘adultery’. Please sign the online petition to help overturn the penalty to save her.

Sign the Petition

‘Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is kept in prison since 2005 in Tabriz prison in Iran. She is accused of having committed adultery with a married man and henceforth is sentenced to being stoned to death while her crime has not been proved.

‘We condemn this judicial sentence and ask for international help for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. We hope that someday in near future stoning people to death be eradicated from all judicial laws.’

Sign the Petition
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WAF outraged at jirga’s judgment of stoning to death

Staff Report

LAHORE: Women’s Action Forum (WAF) is outraged at reports of yet another “judgement of stoning to death due to illicit relations”, pronounced by a self-styled jirga convened in Kala Dhaka, wherein it was alleged that a man and a woman were seen walking together in a field in Madakhail.

WAF noted that Kala Dhaka was a Provincially Administered Tribal Area (PATA) until it was converted into a settled area and renamed ‘Torghar’ last week, after which it might be excused for demanding the writ of the state, the pronouncements of the judiciary, and the provincial law enforcement system to be de jure and de facto functional.

WAF states that there appears to be no law enforcement and no heed paid to the higher judiciary (including the Supreme Court’s) declaring jirgas and panchayats to be illegal parallel systems of “justice” and instructing the respective federal and provincial governments to eradicate them, and to punish those who participate in them.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=201079\story_9-7-2010_pg7_17