Karachi blast
August 19th, 2012
It is hard to say exactly who is behind the blast near Safari Park on University Road in Karachi that killed two people on August 17. Indeed, we are not even sure if the explosion was caused by an IED, as the police claimed, or whether it was the result of a gas cylinder explosion, as several news channels reported. According to the authorities, the intended target was a bus carrying members of the Imamia Students Organisation (ISO) to protest on the occasion of Al-Quds Day. If they were indeed the target, then it is likely that this was yet another anti-Shia attack, since the ISO is one of the largest Shia student groups in the country.
That the explosion came just one day after the incident near Gilgit where 19 Shia passengers were brutally murdered, will only add to the grievance and sense of persecution that this community currently faces. What the authorities now need to do is to ensure that all these lives lost do not go completely in vain. Tracking down the perpetrators of the attacks is only the first step, and yet, one that has rarely been taken up whole-heartedly by the law-enforcement agencies. We need a change in the mindsets of the government and the military which, rather than ignoring the fact that militant groups that have had official patronage in the past are now behind the anti-Shia attacks, need to take them on.
For there to even be a small chance of this happening, the people themselves will need an awakening. The fact that this attack appeared to target protestors heading to an Al-Quds rally will surely be picked up as proof by the conspiracy theorists that external forces, like Israel, are actually behind this and all other similar attacks in Pakistan. The impressionable followers of such propagators will then spread the word and soon the issue will be muddied and confused. For once, let us be clear that there is no phantom Jewish or Hindu conspiracy out to get us. We live in a country where one sect has no problem attacking the other weaker sect. Let us own up to that. Until the time this realisation sinks, we would continue to witness such despicable acts of terror occurring on a regular basis.
Street children and HIV
August 19th, 2012
There seems to be no limit to the varied dangers that street children in Pakistan face. The latest disturbing development that has come to light regarding their predicament is an outbreak of the HIV infection among drug-using street children of Karachi. According to press reports, a local NGO has confirmed that a significant proportion of street children, whose blood samples it tested, were found to be infected with HIV, after having used contaminated needles or being sexually abused by infected men.
Street children are among the most vulnerable part of the population as they are susceptible to disease, violence, sexual abuse and poverty. On top of that, the government does not possess any means to register street children as citizens of the state. This makes the situation vis-a-vis the HIV prevalence among street children even more worrying as there is no way to determine the pervasiveness of the virus among them. In fact, countless street children all over Pakistan may be infected with all sorts of dangerous, contagious diseases with no way to determine the extent of the problem.
HIV is not a dominant epidemic in Pakistan but the number of cases reported annually are increasing and with this latest development, it is time the government woke up to the potential crisis at hand. This problem is a multi-faceted one and a comprehensive approach is needed to resolve it. Taking a long-term view of the situation, the reasons leading children to take to the streets need to be eliminated. But for those already on the streets, the government needs to set up a mechanism to register them as citizens, devise programmes aimed at bringing them off the streets and rehabilitating them, test them for HIV and other diseases, and then provide them with the required treatment. Concerted planning and effective implementation are required to secure our children’s future. However, there first has to be a realisation at an official level that there is a problem at hand that needs urgent resolution.
Wikileaks row
August 19th, 2012
The drama stemming from the leaking of sheaf after sheaf of sensitive documents, including diplomatic cables sent out by the US, continues. Julian Assange, the founder of the Wikileaks website on which the information revealing the truth to the world about murky politics played out globally, continues to occupy centre stage in this piece of theatre. Since June this year, Assange has been holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after seeking asylum in the South American nation.
For two months, things had appeared to be at a standstill, but they have now moved forward dramatically. Assange’s asylum request has been accepted by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa this month; the Australian’s gambit in picking Ecuador — apparently based on a friendly interview with Correa and the president’s open distaste for the US — seems to have paid off. But both Sweden and the UK are not pleased. Sweden has been seeking Assange’s extradition on sexual assault charges, which the Wikileaks’ founder denies. He is also convinced that extradition to Sweden would be followed by a move to hand him over to the US for trial on the Wikileaks affair. London has said that it is bound by law to respect Sweden’s extradition request and will not allow Assange safe passage out of the country. Ecuador has interpreted this as an assault on its sovereignty and also criticised a warning issued from London stating that the Ecuadorian embassy could be stripped of its diplomatic status and a police raid made to net Assange.
An affair that began with a few leaked documents has turned into a global crisis. The Ecuadorian parliament has backed the presidential decision and 11 South American nations are meeting to discuss the matter. The question of free expression seems to have got lost in the midst of this scenario, since so many other complexities have emerged, which are increasingly hard to unravel. For now, Assange’s future remains uncertain, and it is hard to say what his final fate will be.