AS the Muslim world celebrates Eidul Fitr, many in spots around the globe have been deprived of the joys of the festival, due mainly to war and terrorism. In fact, it appears as if most of the Muslim world is in perpetual crisis. Vicious civil wars rage in Syria and Yemen, with significant external involvement, while militants struck the ‘usual’ targets (Iraq, Afghanistan) as well as newer locations (Madina, Istanbul, Dhaka) in the run-up to Eid. Violent militant gangs acting in the name of Islam — IS, Al Qaeda, TTP etc — have shed much innocent blood, as the silent majority in Muslim lands struggles to formulate a coherent response to this hijacking of their faith. Moreover, militants have struck targets in nonMuslim locales — Paris, Brussels, Orlando — feeding Islamophobia that leads to hate crimes against peaceful Muslims. Indeed, today the social fabric of the Muslim world appears in tatters, with societies fragmented.


There are complex issues that fuel militancy and extremism in Muslim lands. For one, there are genuine grievances regarding the mistreatment of Muslims; the disputes of Palestine and Kashmir have festered for decades without resolution, while Muslims in countries like Myanmar face appalling levels of discrimination. But internally, Muslim ruling elites have failed their polities. In far too many Muslim states, strongmen lord it over the people; ruling families and cliques live in luxury as the masses toil in an atmosphere of physical and economic insecurity. It is the lack of social, political and economic justice in the Muslim world that pushes some amongst the disenchanted into the arms of extremism, with those estioning democracy and promoting atavistic systems, such as IS’s so-called caliphate, appearing to have all the answers. The reality of what the militants peddle is, of course, much darker, but far too many are giving ear to their appeals. Moreover, geopolitical tussles within the Muslim world are major sources of instability. So where does the process of renewal start? Perhaps the key lies with Muslim rulers; instead of preserving the status quo, they must promote participatory governance, and the Muslim state must be one which delivers social, economic and political justice without prejudice to all that live within its borders. Unless Muslim elites come to these realisations, the militant tide, and the chaos it brings, will be impossible to confront. Though it is time for celebration, Muslim states and societies need to consider how best to confront the monster of militancy.




THE government has moved one step closer to sealing the deal on legalising the blocking or removal of online content with the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill, 2015 — a step that is largely symbolic, as the blocking of the internet by the PTA has been an ongoing process, despite the regulatory body’s lack of clear rules to do so. During a recent subcommittee meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology, senators and stakeholders discussed Section 34 of the bill, which deals with new powers being granted to the PTA to regulate online content. It is unfortunate that the discussion drifted from this most critical aspect of the PECB, as mass online censorship — from banning Baloch separatist websites to blocking YouTube — has been one of the most misguided contributions of the government to internet governance.


Thousands of experts have written about the distributed nature of the internet that makes censorship a futile, costly effort. Even the PTA, in a response to the Supreme Court last year over petitions seeking a ban on objectionable websites, stated it was helpless in blocking all websites, and that such a process would lead to “deterioration in internet quality in terms of speed and availability”. When even the regulator has submitted reports stating it is playing a game of whack-amole when it comes to internet censorship, why is it being further empowered to continue such a pointless job and prevent free speech and access to information, contravening the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of which Pakistan is a signatory?


Such an approach suggests we are actively moving towards a regressive approach to internet regulation such as that taken by China and Saudi Arabia, where citizens are left coming up with new and inventive means to bypass state censorship. ‹ Both China and Saudi Arabia have taken technological and institutional steps to censor the internet that go beyond law and now extend to societal norms, business practices and other areas. Similarly in Pakistan, we may see censorship extend beyond the government’s desire to control information to negatively impact society — eg increased instances of online blasphemy accusations used — as seen in the real world — not only to censor information on the internet, but also to target minority groups and ordinary citizens. This is not a hypothetical situation but one grounded in the fact that multiple cases of blasphemy charges based on internet content have already occurred in the last two years. The PECB has no answer to the impact of the internet censorship it will bring into law. It is unfortunate that a lack of internet penetration and thereby an understanding of the internet among the general population and leaders leave the country vulnerable to new policies that once passed will be hard to reverse and damaging to the very people who approved them.




TO work in a factory in Pakistan, as do millions of its citizens, is to play Russian roulette with your life. Earlier this week, at least six of them lost the gamble, the latest in a long line of victims of industrial accidents in this country. This time the fatalities resulted from a gas explosion at an ice factory in Karachi which was so powerful that it caused the multi-storey structure to collapse. The bodies of the dead were retrieved from the rubble with the help of an excavator, and a police official quoted doctors at the hospital where the deceased were taken as saying that they had died from ammonia inhalation. Residents of the area had to be temporarily relocated because of the gas leak. The predictable tableau that follows such events played out: the chief minister ‘took notice’, expressed sorrow and sought a report from the relevant departments.


More than likely, that report — if it ever sees the light of day — will gather dust in some government office. Judging by earlier industrial accidents, no changes will be effected in the Dickensian work conditions under which exploited millions eke out a living. One wonders what it will take for the government to address this issue. After all, aside from the Factories Act 1934 as well as other legislation pertaining to worker safety on its statute books, Pakistan has also ratified 36 ILO provisions. Lack of awareness among workers of their rights, as well as the fact that more than 70pc of them are in the informal sector also makes it easier for factory owners to overlook provisions for their safety and violate building codes and equipment standards. The shambolic state of the labour inspection system — shockingly inadequate and riddled with corruption — allows managements to get away with criminal negligence. There have been far too many deaths on this count, and the state must do its duty by those who produce the goods and services that contribute to the economy.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2016

http://www.dawn.com/newspaper/editorial