SECT IN STONE
By Katja Riikonen | October 16, 2012

It is important to speak of sectarian conflicts – rather than one sectarian conflict – when looking at the complex phenomenon of sectarianism in Pakistan. Sectarian violence, as well as sectarian conflicts, in the country exists in a complex web of interrelated and mutually reinforcing forms of violence and militancy, often making it difficult to separate these intertwined factors.
Keeping the complex contexts and interrelated forms of violence in mind, any analysis of sectarian violence should carefully avoid monocausal explanations. Sectarian violence, indeed, consists of several levels: criminal activities, competition between sectarian groups and violence to put pressure on political and law enforcement bodies, for example, are all now part of this enterprise.
Another mistake would be to see sectarian violence as being targeted against just one side of the divide. Despite the obvious asymmetry – the vast majority of those being killed are Shias – it is important to note that Sunnis are also being targeted. There is a steady stream of target killings, particularly against Sunni activists in Karachi, which is sometimes lost amidst news about striking acts of violence against Shias.
The recent growth in sectarian violence is better explained by the reinforcement of elements and factors which have enabled and supported sectarianism and sectarian violence in the past. Violent sectarian groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi extended their network outside their traditional strongholds in south Punjab long before the recent surge in violence, and their connections with other militant groups such as the Tehrik-e-Taliban are also not established recently. This is reflected in the gradual change in the focus of violence which has moved away from Punjab, the hub of such violence particularly in 1990s, to locations such as Quetta and Gilgit which, though not new venues of sectarian conflicts, are where the most striking violent incidents have taken place recently.
Sectarian violence has increased because of a clear expansion of operational spaces for violent sectarian groups to function within. Methods used in the recent sectarian violence incidents show that the groups operate with confidence and without fear of being caught. Targeting Shias on buses and other passenger vehicles, although not a new method, has become the favoured modus operandi of militant sectarian groups. Taking time to drag passengers out of the targeted vehicles, identifying Shias and shooting them differs significantly from targeted killings conducted swiftly by usually two gunmen on motorcycles from a safe distance, with the possibility of disappearing as soon as the shooting is over. Such ease of operations could have ensued from the fact that the police and the courts don’t have the capacity to investigate, prosecute and convict sectarian killers.
The groups perpetrating violence can also rely on the fact that before the upcoming general election next year no serious action will be taken against them. Instead, political parties are engaging with several sectarian leaders and reaching out to all possible constituencies for political support. The symbols of banned groups are openly displayed in political rallies, and party leaders are arguing over what actually constitutes the fine line between talking to and engaging with the leaders of the banned groups. Thus, as has become customary, the actions by the government and political parties are confined to ritual condemnations of sectarian killings and referring to international intelligence agencies and ‘foreign hands’ as being behind them. Sectarian violence would not be possible without such a permissive and enabling environment.
This increase in violence is also coupled with the strengthening of exclusivist sectarian discourse which exists and thrives in an environment where the governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer was assassinated in 2011 by his bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri who believed Taseer had committed blasphemy. The reaction to the killing was highly polarised in Pakistan: on the one hand there was strong condemnation of the brutal-violent act, on the other hand it was celebrated, with rose petals showered on Qadri after the incident.
Sectarian discourse flourishes in an environment where an unknown malang (vagabond) was killed this July in Bahawalpur by a group of people unrelated to any militant group after they accused him of insulting the sanctity of the Quran. This discourse is not removed from but inherently linked to the idea of defending religion (as defined by the perpetrators of violence) and acting against the elements threatening the sanctity of what is considered true Islam. Who is considered a blasphemer in a particular case may vary, but the logic in these incidents is the same. It allows the use of instant justice by self-appointed judges and executioners against those who profess different interpretations of Islam or against those who are seen to threaten a particular interpretation of the religion. It is impossible to draw the line to separate these cases, permitting and justifying one without implicitly allowing others. Sectarian discourse – with sectarian violence – is thus an integral part of – as well as forcing – the ongoing debate of who is ‘really’ a Muslim and what their status is in Pakistani society.
The increase in sectarian violence perhaps has had the inadvertent effect of sectarianism being discussed and thought of in the context of ‘securing minorities’ in Pakistan. It is true that Shias make up perhaps 15 per cent of the Pakistani population (the exact percentage is unknown and debated) but the concept of ‘minority’ in this case is essentially different to ‘what is less in numbers’. In fact, Shias in Pakistan have fought against Sunni demands of labelling them as a (religious) minority, this is understandable in a country whose national identity is centred on religious majoritarianism.
Branding a community particularly as a religious minority in Pakistan carries with it the processes of exclusion from the Muslim majority, legal consequences, institutional segregation as well as stigma and marginalisation. The categorisation of Shias as a (religious) minority, often heard both in national and international media, can be seen as a step towards change in the perception of Shia communities and as a success of the sectarian exclusivist discourse.
Sectarian violence has also produced demands to protect the Shia communities. It is impossible, of course, to secure entire communities but the security measures recently announced because of the recent violent incidents (such as the extra funds reportedly allocated for the security of the Karakoram Highway, or the police and the Frontier Corps escorts for buses in Quetta) are nevertheless showing that some concrete measures are being taken to improve the situation, however limited their factual effect would be.
These new security measures, though, should be looked at in the context of those already in place. It is astounding to realise that providing security for the Muharram processions and gatherings is the largest annual police operation in Pakistan, requiring substantial amounts of resources every year. Incidents of sectarian violence through the years have resulted in systematising and institutionalising the practice of securing certain religious places and practices and most worryingly this is now normalised in the Pakistani society. It highlights the damaging effect of sectarian discourse enforced with protracted violence and underscores how public spaces are increasingly used for contesting and limiting religious plurality of Pakistani society. Rather than eliminating Shias, sectarian violence has managed to limit the public space for them to practice their religion and function as a community. This must seem like a success for those who perpetrate sectarian violence, encouraging that violence to continue.
With political will to limit the operational spaces for violent sectarian groups to function, it is possible to change the trend of increasing sectarian violence. But it needs a parallel change in appreciating and valuing religious plurality in Pakistan, both at the national and local levels, and particularly in public spaces. This would make the exclusivist sectarian discourse much harder to find resonance and survive in the Pakistani society. n

— Katja Riikonen is a PhD candidate and an associate in Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU) at the University of Bradford, UK. Her PhD research focuses on sectarian violence in Pakistan

THE CASE FOR DEMOCRACY
By herald | July 4, 2012
The so-called Bangladesh model is already here — with the difference that those who wield authority are not answerable to anyone. Or, perhaps, this is how such a model is supposed to work. Those who were in government in Bangladesh before the current elected administration was voted in and the previous elected government was booted out, did not have to face the ultimate political accountability — an election. There was no parliament to discuss, debate, accept or reject the actions of the government; courts were part of the administration, so was the military (albeit indirectly), a whole lot of technocrats and more than a smattering of the intelligentsia.
The real difference between the Bangladeshi and Pakistani versions of this model is that those who put it in place and ran it in the country of its origin were both in office as well as in power. In Pakistan, they don’t have to be in office to be in power. In some ways, this is crucial. Those in office in Pakistan must bear the brunt of those who are in power, and this certainly does not start and stop with the sacking of prime ministers over court orders; they must also face the wrath of voters who cannot be blamed for not realising that even the most efficient civilian administration in Pakistan hardly fares any better, given the skewed balance of power among elected and unelected institutions, inexperience among civilian politicians when it comes to governance and, above all, an administrative structure that neither has the resolve nor the vigour to cope with myriad problems that this country faces.
Depending on whether you believe in giving parliamentary democracy sufficient chance to take root, regardless of its multiple deficiencies, or you want to have an administration that delivers irrespective of how it comes about, the beauty or the ugliness of the Bangladesh model lies in its basic premise: that the military and courts must intervene indirectly through their own former colleagues, technocrats and the intelligentsia to cleanse the political system made dirty by corrupt and criminal elements, before it is too late for the general good of the people and the country; they must also set rules for the future so that those with a track record of crime and corruption cannot make it into the playing field again. The not-so-hidden assumption being that voters don’t have the capacity to elect people who can ensure the welfare of their electorate as well as the general well-being of state and society. The great unwashed – illiterate and prone to selling their votes for money and other trifles – will be able to see the white from the black, right from wrong, only after the ‘righteous’, ‘knowledgeable’ and ‘unselfish’ people at the top of the societal pecking order separate the two for them, helping them choose what is only right.
Democracy, after all, is about an informed voter making an informed political choice. In a country where a majority of voters don’t have the right kind of information as well as the intellectual ability to make informed political choices, it makes perfect sense if someone helps and guides them, so goes the argument favouring the so-called Bangladesh model.
A great idea, indeed. The only problem — it starts falling apart the moment it is put into practice. Before we move to Bangladesh to see what the model could achieve there, we have sufficient evidence from our own Pakistani model of doing the same things through direct military interventions that it does not work. Ayub Khan banished hundreds of politicians, General Ziaul Haq banned political parties and inserted subjective morality into the Constitution as an eligibility criteria for intending parliamentarians, General (retd) Pervez Musharraf disenfranchised more than 95 per cent of Pakistanis in his attempt to create ‘graduate assemblies’ and used his accountability czars to keep ‘undesirable’ elements out of politics. The results have been mixed at best and disastrous at worst.
Ayub turned politicians into civic officials, responsible for bringing paved streets and sewerage pipelines to their constituents rather than writing constitutions and making laws; Zia polarised society along the lines of religion, sect, tribe, clan and family while ostensibly trying to rid society of divisions along party lines; Musharraf’s Bonapartist insistence on the unity of command, while making all sorts of political compromises and somersaults, has left power atomised, with both state and society having dangerously moved closer to an implosion.
During, and in between these protracted military rules, we have also tried an assortment of foreign-trained technocrats, former judges and ex-bureaucrats to run interim, and not so interim, regimes. The results, once again, are highly debatable.
Now to Bangladesh. After two years of the ‘model’ rule there, Bangladeshi politics is where it always has been: one of the two main parties is in power while the leaders of the other are in jail and tens of thousands of their supporters every now and then clog the streets of Dhaka with violent protests. While the makers and breakers of opinion in Pakistan never tire of highlighting the failings of democracy, they seldom discuss the failure of the alternatives, the Bangladesh model included.
With a parliament that cannot defend its own turf, an elected executive that is regularly checked and mated – often by the judiciary, sometimes by the military and occasionally by both – and a politics that is as polarised as ever, the answer does not lie in packing up parliamentary democracy. It is rather hidden in removing challenges and obstacles that the system faces, especially from those who continue to wield power without having to be in office — whether in robes or in uniform.

__________________
Guide us on the straight path;
the path of those whom You have blessed.

THE POWER SHIFT
By herald | April 10, 2012
Let’s err on the side of caution rather than on the side of bravado. The threat of a military takeover of power in Pakistan is as real as it ever has been, notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s claim that it has shut the door on future military dictators or Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s pronouncements that there would be no coup as the military supports democracy and has no desire to come to power again. The guarantee that the military cannot take over the country will not accrue from the judicial declarations of pious intent or the executive’s purportedly pre-emptory statements about the ever-impending threat of a military coup. If there ever is a guarantee, it will come about as a result of a change in the dynamics of power.
In so far as those dynamics are concerned, there has been no change whatsoever. The armed forces remain the ultimate source of power in Pakistan because they have unmatched manpower, unparalleled firepower and unrivaled financial leverage in the system to let it run without moving in the direction that continues to secure the military’s political, strategic and business interests. Without anything done to curtail, curb or control this power, one can follow what simple logic dictates: those who have it could also use it. Perhaps already aware of this logic, many of us continue throwing these questions at each other: Why wouldn’t they? When will they? The honest answer to these questions is that they will if and when needed, regardless of whether politician A says they wouldn’t or justice B states they couldn’t.
There are two ways to go about curtailing such power in the short to medium term (let’s leave the curbing and controlling for the long term). The first is an indirect solution: continue increasing the power of other institutions, especially parliament and voters, until the comparisons between their muscle and the military’s prowess are not as lopsided as in the present. The second is a direct one: cut the military down to size so that it is economically affordable, ensure its power to procure and wield arms subject to strict parliamentary oversight and start privatising military-owned businesses (the fertiliser factories, the cement plants, the cereal-manufacturing companies, the real estate giants, the road-building and cargo-shifting behemoths, to name just a few). The irony is that the first cannot be implemented without the second taking place simultaneously and the obvious advantages of the second will be lost without any progress on the first.
Skeptics would argue that this is too big a task to even consider, let alone start and accomplish. Ignore them for they lack the courage of conviction and display a woeful ignorance about the ways of the world. In at least three other countries, a similar, if not the same, process has already taken place. The first being South Africa, that actually had a worse imbalance between the praetorian state’s elaborate security apparatus and the resourceless majority. Two decades into its present post-apartheid period, the country may be facing many challenges of integration, equitable development, crime and corruption, but the thought of a white man taking it back to apartheid era on the back of its predominantly white security forces is preposterous for even the strongest opponents of the incumbent political regime. The second country, Turkey, has remained under military or quasi-military regimes for 22 consecutive years between 1960 and 1982 and yet in the 2000s it started emerging as the shiniest example of a multi-party democracy flourishing in an Islamic society — a model many would want to emulate in Pakistan. The last country on this list, Indonesia, had a military-backed dictator for 32 years. He deployed the Indonesian military more to ruthlessly curb internal dissent than face external threats (read East Timor for East Pakistan, Aceh for Balochistan and Papua and West Papua for Swat and Waziristan), bribing the generals by doling out large chunks of government-owned businesses. Today, Indonesia is a functioning democracy, even though it still has a military that is larger than Pakistan’s. What is gone between Suharto and democracy is the military’s commercial and economic muscle that was privatised in the flurry of reforms during the transition.
Of course, we do not possess many of the tools that each of the above countries had at the critical juncture of their transition. For one, we don’t have a leader even remotely as charismatic, clear-headed, steadfast and selflessly ready to suffer as Nelson Mandela; we are not the members of some highly influential and powerful military alliance that can force our military to reform in order to maintain its membership of the forum as Turkey has in the form of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; and we do not have an unwavering commitment from international financial institutions to continue pouring money into the national economy as Indonesia managed throughout the 2000s.
That, however, does not mean that Pakistan does not have anything going for it at all. For instance, we may get inspiration from without if we don’t have anyone to inspire us from within. The way our two neighbours – India and China – have ensured that their security concerns remain subservient to their economic and commercial interests is not just inspiring but also worth emulating. The impetus for the military to reform can come from the smaller provinces which, after the 18th Amendment, may have more say in national affairs than they ever had — let them demand a federal army for a federal Pakistan. Lastly, the emerging urban middle classes should insist on genuine economic reforms, rather than running after populist mirages that the media creates and populist politicians vainly promise to deliver. They should demand that the government – and that strictly includes the military – needs to remove itself from running business concerns, and instead focus on its core responsibilities of maintaining law and order and improve healthcare, education, sanitation, roads etc.
Short of that, it is always a matter of when, not if, the military will take over.

__________________
Guide us on the straight path;
the path of those whom You have blessed.

ALL POWER TO THE ISI
By herald | December 2, 2011
The time to pause and think is a luxury that we do not have in Pakistan. And because the country’s internal, regional and international situation changes so rapidly, there never appears to be enough opportunity to formulate a thought-through and well-worked out response. As a result, we stumble from crisis to crisis. While there can be a number of explanations for such a state of affairs, there must be a consensus about the consequence:Pakistanis always in reactive mode vis-à-vis both internal problems and external challenges.
The outgoing month saw both the breakneck speed at which domestic and not-so-domestic incidents unfolded and knee-jerk reactions emanating from the state and from within society. Out of the myriad developments, these included Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s resignation from the National Assembly, followed by his subsequent entry into Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the Nato attack across the border killing 24 Pakistani soldiers and officers, the government’s review petition on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) and the ongoing saga of corruption cases.
But let’s just stick to Husain Haqqani,Pakistan’s outgoing ambassador to the United States. Without a well-hewed institutional mechanism to deal with the problem that arose with his alleged involvement in writing and sending a memo to the United States to clip the Pakistan Army’s wings in the wake of bin Laden raid, what we have are calls for his immediate arrest and trial for treason. From declaring him guilty even before he could even utter a single word in his defence, to his unceremonious exit to the filing of petitions against him in the Supreme Court, nowhere did the media, the government, the opposition and the courts stop to think for a moment, about the due process, the rule of the law, and following rules and regulation.
Not that the Herald wants to defend Haqqani or argue for or against the authenticity, origin and the purpose of the memo — far from it. This is to highlight how we, as a state and society, flout the same rule of law and institutionalisation that we so hanker for. The media acts like a demolition squad, cutting loose and running away with whatever half-truth comes its way; the government ties itself in knots by trying to avoid rules and regulations as much as it can and as long as it possibly can; the opposition believes the superior judiciary holds the key to all national problems; and the superior judiciary believes it does.
What would have happened if we had abided by the law in this particular case? An American citizen wrote an opinion piece in a British newspaper claiming that he wrote and sent a memo to the American authorities on behalf of a senior Pakistani diplomat who in turn was acting on behalf of someone at a very high position in Pakistan. The writer also thought the entire memo was a wonderful idea because it purported to rein in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which, according to him, should be declared a terrorist organisation. It is quite natural that the Pakistani media carried the story — but not as a slander campaign as it did but rather as a balanced piece that, more than anything else, highlighted the need for investigating the whole issue. The government, on its part, should not have limited its response to just denials: It should have promptly constituted an inquiry committee to probe into Haqqani’s role, asking him to resign and face the investigators without the protection of his office. The opposition should have raised the issue in the parliament before its members raised it at public meetings, television talk shows and subsequently in the court of law. After all, it does not take a lot of doing to requisition the parliament to discuss a particular issue. And finally the courts should have declined to accept the opposition’s petitions before all other options were exhausted. But the media knows no patience, the government understands no procedure, the opposition brooks no institutional limits and the courts — well, better left unsaid for fear of contempt of court.
In all this bypassing of procedures, laws and institutions, what has gone unnoticed is perhaps the greatest violation of the constitutional authority and legal processes – the ISI chief travelling to London, sitting with the writer of the memo article and receiving evidence from him against Haqqani. The ISI comes under the prime minister but there is no evidence if the ISI chief even so much as hinted about his London meeting in his interactions with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani – neither before the meeting took place or even after it had happened until somebody leaked it to the press weeks later.
Now logic demands that Haqqani be probed and tried because he allegedly acted without lawful authority and against Pakistan’s interests. But doesn’t the same logic demand that the ISI chief be probed and tried because he has reportedly acted without lawful authority, purportedly undermining the authority of the government of Pakistan? Here the media, the government, the opposition and even the courts display a deafening silence. To answer why this is allowed to happen would take us back to the same old issue of the military’s dominance over the polity in Pakistan— a subject debated unto death in these pages. But the sad truth is that no other institutional framework, legal process and official procedure will ever breathe freely and develop unless this fundamental flaw is somehow taken care of.

__________________
Guide us on the straight path;
the path of those whom You have blessed.

SHUNNING WASHINGTON
By herald | November 14, 2011
The reports are unsettling: Jalaluddin Haqqani – the latest thorn in Washington’s side, the tormentor par excellence of American forces in Afghanistan – once shared centre stage with President Ronald Reagan at the White House and Charlie Wilson, the American cowboy prowling Afghanistan with dollars in one hand and stinger missiles in the other, called him goodness personified. A classic case of friends turned foes? Hardly. And this is why they are so upsetting — the reports indicate how the United States of America changes partners with shifts in its geostrategic policies and politics. This is bad news for those who look up to the US as the single most important sponsor and supporter of democracy, freedom of speech, the rights of minorities and women in this region.
What if, in the near future, Washington discovers that its support for democracy and human rights in Pakistan does not serve the American interest as well as an autocratic, one-man rule could, regardless of whether that one man comes from right, left or is ideologically somewhere in-between? While it is difficult to predict if and when that will happen, the past is replete with not-so-helpful American engagements with Pakistani dictators of various hues and stripes. The glamorous wife of a charming American president sharing photo frames with the founding father of military dictatorships in Pakistan as a medal for his personal charm as well as political slavishness; an obsequious looking Ziaul Haq being welcomed into the Reagan White House in recognition of mutually shared hatred for godless communists; and whiskey-swigging, ‘enlightened moderate’ General (retd) Pervez Musharraf becoming America’s most allied non-NAT O ally for his historic turnabout on September 11, 2001 — these snippets have only one constant: the Americans don’t give a hoot about democracy and human rights as long as someone is willing to do their dirty laundry in his own backyard. Banking on America for strengthening democratic values in Pakistan is like writing on wind or catching at straws.
Behind the images of Ayub Khan, Haq and Musharraf basking in borrowed American glory are the darkened and invisible ruins of ideologies, values and principles that the march of Pax Americana has left in its wake since the 1950s. Current and the future US governments don’t care if gold-rimmed photographs of third world democrats and advocates of human rights with the Kennedys, Reagans and Obamas just become another pile in history’s dustbin that Washington, perhaps, has added to the most. But this is something that democrats and human rights activists in countries like Pakistan should worry about — how will the Americans treat them as and when they outlive their utility for Washington’s international politics?
Here is a historical low down on their alliances. In the 1940s, communist leaders and parties in colonial and postcolonial countries of the south and east sided with Washington-led allies in fighting against The Axis power. By the 1980s, the Americans had found the Islamists to hit the communists who, by then, had become synonymous with what Reagan called the Evil Empire and the rest of the world knew as Soviet Union. In the 2000s, the Islamists became what George W Bush called the warriors against freedom and civilisation. So, who is next? In the logical order of events, it would be the democrats who have sided with the US against religious extremists and faith-inspired militants.
The trouble with such historical analogies is that they generalise and simplify in a sweeping manner. Of course, not all communists sided with the West for the sake of economic benefit, even on a more personal level; the Islamists were not involved in their anti-Soviet jihad only because it brought them financial remuneration. By the same token, democrats and human rights advocates in Pakistan today do not receive American funds to support democratic principles and fight for the rights of vulnerable groups. But the US has this magic touch that turns indigenous gold into made-in-USA dust and that helps explain why advocates of a democratic, fair and inclusive state and society in Pakistan are always equated with some nefarious American conspiracy to westernise – in the worst case scenarios disintegrate – our beloved homeland.
What is important to keep in mind here is that ideas and ideologies bankrolled from outside have as much traction as a cockroach in cow dung. There is a difference between winning hearts and minds and buying them. Buy you can — but those whom you buy cannot be bought forever. They will keep changing sides to align with the highest bidder. Win you must, but certainly not in a top-down way. The emergence of a democratic Pakistan that respects the rights of all its citizens regardless of their creed, sect, ethnicity and financial status, if it ever materialises, will only become sustainable and productive if it has the groundswell of popular support behind it.
In this also lies a message for all those who stand for a democratic and inclusive Pakistan: standing for democracy cannot, should not, be conflated with supporting the US or be supported by the US. The support for and by the US is, either way, a pact that accrues them little political capital, leaves their image sullied as Uncle Sam’s henchmen and cuts absolutely no ice with fellow countrymen. In worst case scenarios, it haunts both sides as Haqqani’s White House powwow must be haunting him and the Americans these days.

__________________
Guide us on the straight path;
the path of those whom You have blessed.

THE DIVIDE RETURNS
By herald | August 15, 2011

The story of how institutional boundaries get overstepped in Pakistan is painfully long and mostly to the detriment of the continued democratic politics in the country. The rule of the law has also had a similarly rough ride in the Islamic republic. In the political imagination of the people of Pakistan, and here we talk only about those who create and consume the contents of the public and private media machines, the two subjects have come to be seen exclusively from each other. The rule of the law and the observing of institutional boundaries have come to be seen so antithetical to each other that one cannot be upheld without letting the other go. They arouse contradictory political passions and change or perpetuate the existing political and ideological divides, depending on the number of votaries among the people that they can muster at a given point in time.

General (retd) Pervez Musharraf trampled the institutional boundaries to take over the reins of the state and the government while still being in his military uniform. However, his initial proclamations to uphold the rule of the law without fear or favour earned him many friends in urban and semi-urban Pakistan before he blew it all away, putting down the book of rules and throwing the legal texts out the window. By the time the end game approached for him, both the opponents of institutional mixing up and the champions of the rule of law had turned against him.

The incumbent government of the Pakistan Peoples Party initially tried to make a virtue of its intentions to put the institution of the parliament at the head of the structure of the Pakistani state, issuing veiled warnings to all other institutions that any infringement of the supremacy of the parliament would be tantamount to putting this structure upside down. It rallied all political powers represented in the parliament to oust Musharraf, put its own men in the presidency and embark on a massive restructuring of the federal structure of the country. But it lost the impetus midway through as President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, along the way, made a hash of the rule of law, especially in appointing their hand-picked people to the top jobs in the government departments.

When Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry first challenged Musharraf, he was lucky to have done so at a time when he could champion both the rule of law by refusing to take dictation from a military ruler, and the institutional independence of the judiciary vis-à-vis the executive. That partially explains why Musharraf suddenly became so bereft of support among the chattering classes: the rule of the law brigade that once favoured him switched sides and saw in Chaudhry a more robust – and much less sullied – advocate of their cause.

After reaching its zenith in the run-up to the 2008 election and remaining there until the end of 2009, the consensus between the two camps behind Chaudhry has been hailed as a period of unprecedented political activism and enlightenment in Pakistan’s recent history. In the last one and a half year, however, this consensus has waned even if it has not completely coalesced back into the political and ideological divides of the yore. The Supreme Court’s uncompromising stance over the appointment in superior judiciary allowed the government to put a judiciary versus parliament spin on it. The government’s continued ability to bypass the Supreme Court’s injunctions with relative impunity over official postings and transfers and controversial political and corruption-related cases has also taken some sting out of Chaudhry’s loud warnings to the government for failing to listen to him. The ring of hollowness around these warnings seems to assume a more concrete identity with each passing day. In an apparent sign of desperation, the Supreme Court and Chaudhry have made it a routine to call the government officials to the court and berate, and threaten them over their failure to implement judicial orders. With each move by the government to frustrate the court, however, these warnings to the bureaucrats and law officers of the government look like the only thing that the court and the judges can say and do. By the twisted logic that so regularly operates in Pakistan in determining the course of events, the Supreme Court now looks like a virtual replacement of the establishment division in the federal secretariat, with the transfers and postings of the government officials being its greatest concern.

Besides allowing the government to raise, rather meekly, the subject of institutional transgression, the Supreme Court is helping the erosion of its support among the rule of the law followers. The daily tussle between the government and the judges is now increasingly being seen as a turf war – and not a confrontation between an illegal ruler and a born-again judicial reformer bent upon cleaning up the Augean stables of Pakistani politics – in which other actors are trying to capitalise on the situation for their political gains. If nothing else, it allows the government to get away with all its acts of omission and commission, and weakens the moral vigour of the argument in favour of both the rule of law and respect for institutional boundaries. Chaudhry and his fellow judges will do well by trying to bring this vigour back.

__________________
Guide us on the straight path;
the path of those whom You have blessed.

THE POLITICAL VOID
By Razeshta Sethna | July 18, 2012

When at the Bonn conference in 2001 Hamid Karzai was appointed Afghanistan’s interim president by his international supporters, he came to occupy this position without any local backers. He had no traditional constituency and no political party, but has been able to exert his power for the past 10 years through his strong associations with the international community, power-seeking warlords and former Taliban sympathisers, many of whom have been part of his cabinet since 2004. Despite Afghan fears that the Nato withdrawal will bring back the Taliban in the absence of a strong government, the Karzai administration has not changed the political process and structure.
Today, almost 40 years after the country’s ‘first decade of democracy’ (1963-1973), and in the aftermath of the Bonn conference that initiated the process of statebuilding in theory – the creation of a constitution followed by elections for president and parliament – Afghans are critical of the Kabul-based, centralised government’s failure to promote regional autonomy and wider political party participation. This is because after years of war and political upheaval, Afghanistan is a different country from what it was in 1978, with a majority of Afghans – the war generation eligible to vote in the next election – judging the government’s legitimacy by its actions and its dismal record on governance.
Last month, when for the first time after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 the government banned a small, but vocal, leftist party rapidly gaining recognition, there was public outcry and the ban was overturned. The Solidarity Party had angered powerful politicians at an April demonstration in Kabul held on a national holiday which commemorates the victory of mujahideen fighters over Soviet troops; hundreds of protesters openly denounced and burnt pictures of politicians whom they consider war criminals. “[We] demand the prosecution of the criminal leaders,” the group said in a statement issued on the day. “Our party is committed to breaking the atmosphere of fear and dread.”
Human Rights Watch and other international observers strongly condemned the controversial ban; the government accused the party of violating Article 59 of the constitution which stipulates that no one can misuse their rights and freedoms to damage national sovereignty or unity. At the Kabul headquarters of the Solidarity Party, Hafiz Rasiq, a senior party member, explains that the party was summoned in May by the upper house of parliament to answer questions about the demonstration. Then, in early June, it received a letter informing that the party’s activities had been suspended to allow the attorney general to investigate the demonstration, Rasiq adds.
According to him, the party’s “main goal is to work towards peace and equal justice for all and ensure warlords involved in war crimes over the past three decades are brought to justice.” Having boycotted the last two elections to the lower house of parliament (“because of corruption”), the Solidarity Party has one senator in the upper house, barely standing as a political force to contend with other heavyweight power brokers and traditional patrons.
Thomas Rutting, a director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, explains that “two years ago the Solidarity Party’s old leadership was voted out by young people refusing to participate in the post-2001 political process which they perceive as a facade democracy. They not only oppose human-rights violators from all factions but condemn what they term the ‘Nato occupation’ of Afghanistan demanding that western troops withdraw.” Solidarity Party representatives explain why their members refuse to sit in parliament: “We are not against sitting in parliament, if it is free and independent. Under the present conditions, parliamentarians are unable to voice the real concerns of Afghans. Alternately, the media operates as our mouthpiece,” Rasiq tells the Herald. Said Mohammad, a party spokesperson, adds that contacts with leftist parties in Europe have increased; posters reflecting this are prominent in the party’s Kabul office.
The clampdown is a reminder that the Karzai government has zero tolerance for dissent, with limited freedom of expression for political parties. “Political parties are crucial for shaping the future. The international community talks about democracy and relates political parties to democracy — this is a positive ideal. But I’m not sure if democracy is a realistic goal in the Afghan context. For the moment, the most important step is to authorise pluralism so that Afghan people feel that their opinions are voiced,” explains Herve Nicolle, a political analyst with Samuel Hall Strategy in Kabul.
In the real absence of mature political parties – most have failed to grow beyond representing constituencies with a narrow ethnic base – the real challenge towards a democratic transition is mobilising the younger generation which shares a deep mistrust of the Karzai government and its ministers. “They [Solidarity Party] may be more like a protest movement but they don’t fear talking against the US-led intervention. I have sympathy for them. Young people in Afghanistan today don’t want to make compromises. The Afghan system is very young; they need their own experiences,” Rutting says.
Political parties in Afghanistan date back to the 1940s when [Afghan king] Zahir Shah’s modernisation strategies nurtured various political groups, and the 1960s later witnessed the rise of communist parties, but such fragmented movements gave way to military factions divided along ethnic, tribal and religious lines – even in post-Taliban times political party identities and ideological profiles have not changed. (See Uneasy Political Histories). With 45 registered political parties to date in Afghanistan, they continue to face public distrust because of links to armed militias from pre-Taliban times. “In Afghanistan, politics is about individuals, alliances and ethnicities [rather] than parties. When we asked people [during a research survey: 80 households in 10 provinces] to name political parties, they mentioned Jamiat-e-Islami, Hezb-e-Islami, Jumbosh, the Haqqani network etc. These are political factions or insurgents; not exactly political parties with clear identities and frameworks,” Nicolle explains.
The Bonn Process initiated the post-war reconstruction of Afghan institutions which meant a political process of democratisation with the establishment of a presidential and parliamentary system, a bicameral parliament and an electoral cycle. This included the formation of a transitional government at the Emergency Loya Jirga in 2002 and the ratification of a new constitution 18 months later. According to this system, two elections, both for president and parliament, have been conducted. In the October 2004 presidential election, Karzai sought electoral approval for the first time, followed by parliamentary and provincial elections in 2005. While the Karzai-backed government established its legitimacy, many were dissatisfied with its performance, which meant lower popularity ratings in Karzai’s second term.
Analysts explain that when the 2004 constitution was ratified, the US-led international coalition perceived the problem to be the lack of a centralised system, so put in place a new constitution which made the Karzai government responsible for everything — from appointing provincial governors to police chiefs to paying local teachers. Certain provisions in the constitution state that the president as head of state “conducts authority in executive, legislative and judicial branches” which in the past two years has resulted in parliamentarians disgruntled by government interventions. Another heavily-criticised and controversial 2010 amnesty law (The National Reconciliation and General Amnesty Law) drafted and ratified by parliament gave blanket amnesty to war criminals: former warlords and militia commanders guilty of human rights abuses over the past three decades are not liable to prosecution.
Afghans now see these factors, that transformed the political landscape, as detrimental to their future post-2015: many believe the US-backed Karzai government has suffered from corruption, and incompetence; that development aid has inflated the Afghan economy; powerful regional commanders (such as Abdul Rashid Dostum and Mohammad Ata) have become stronger while former discredited leaders from the civil war responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of civilians (Ishmail Khan from the west and Gul Aga Sherzai from the south) now live in Kabul surrounded by ministerial trappings of power; and Taliban sympathisers in the cabinet continue to dominate the judiciary.
Ramzan Bashardost’s independent presidential campaign in 2009 won him supporters because he is a critic of Karzai, warlords-turned-ministers, and foreign and local aid agencies for spending millions on development projects with no results. This might have lost him Karzai’s favour (he resigned as Minister of Planning in 2004) but struck a chord with ordinary Afghans. The 50-year-old parliamentarian who came third in the last presidential election after Dr Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai’s main rival, and ahead of Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister, says: “I am clean. I am not a criminal of war. I work for the Afghans; not just one ethnic group. I do everything I say and I say everything I do.” He gives most of his 2,000 dollar monthly salary to the poor, lives in a small room in his father’s house and even though he has no personal wealth and no powerful backers, his popularity is increasing.
But even if Bashardost is the people’s choice, he appears destined to remain an independent fringe politician with no political party support and, given his anti-Karzai stance, he has failed to win international backers — for now. “Today we have Karzai, [Qasim] Fahim (the Vice President and a former Tajik warlord), [Karim] Khalili (a former mujahideen commander who is the current second Vice President) and if you add Mullah Omar, [Gulbadin] Hekmatyar and [Jalaluddin] Haqqani, we will have six enemies to deal with here. They have killed a lot of innocent people in the past. We cannot make political deals with them. We cannot respect human rights values with criminals of war. The US supports them as ministers, senators … this is damaging American taxpayers and young [US] soldiers who come to fight for this corrupt government. If the US supports a young Afghan generation, they in turn will support its values,” he adds.
Critics argue when it comes to newer, pro-secular and post-Taliban era political parties, their internal organisation and capacity building has been neglected by the government and international community during the last 10 years when other political institutions were provided developmental assistance. “After the fall of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan had the opportunity for political parties to emerge in a new environment of progress and democracy but, unfortunately, this didn’t materialise. Instead of political parties, we saw ethnic and tribal national groups emerge,” Ali Aklaqui, a parliamentarian from Ghazni province tells the Herald. He explains that none of the existing registered parties has a solid mandate or even a constitution. “There are very few parties where all members have decision-making powers. The problem is that the international community was focused on human rights, the war against terror and drugs in the last 10 years but there is a responsibility to support Afghan political development which is in a transitory phase towards democracy,” Aklaqui adds. When aid money benefits only the existing older factions of Islamist parties, newer democratic parties are excluded and sidelined, Rutting concurs.
The Afghan electoral system, formed around the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV), backs independent candidates and larger organised political parties. Rutting explains that “it’s an unfair system and worse in Afghanistan because there are multi-seat constituencies and no limits on the number of candidates that can stand from a constituency.” For example,Kabulhas many seats and support is given to those who have power and control such as the mujahideen parties. Voicing concern about ethnic-identity-based parties, Rutting believes “they will become a hurdle to forming an efficient political process because ethnic policies mean mujahideen parties will dominate, forming alliances and resulting in infighting.”
The 2004 presidential election had 18 contesting candidates, but only four – Yunus Qanooni, Latif Pedram, Syed Ishaq Gailani and Ghulam Farooq Nejrabi – were backed by political parties. The 2005 parliamentary election was conducted along similar lines: 14 per cent of 2,835 candidates declared their party affiliations. Party-affiliated candidates with grass-roots influence and campaign money to spend mobilised supporters which meant that parties with the most representation in the 2005 Wolesi Jirga (lower house of the Afghan parliament) were those which emerged from the seven mujahideen organisations, Shia parties representing regional factions and the Hazara community. Independent candidates, with ethnic associations and community support, won seats based on personalities that dominated; manifestos or even party objectives or slogans were absent. For example, parliamentarian and rights activist Shukria Barakzai from Kabul won a parliamentary seat in 2004 after a street campaign whereas, she explains, her husband spent thousands of dollars but was unable to win in the same election.
In 2003, the first political Party Law was passed allowing parties to register with the Ministry of Justice, but a modification in 2009 required that they needed the signatures of 10,000 members to register as opposed to 700. “Political party affiliations are closer to their ethnic, tribal and regional roots as opposed to being truly nationalistic in orientation. How participative and open these parties are in their functioning is also questionable. Political parties will have to adopt a balanced approach and not appear to be on a Western payroll or follow the West’s agenda. The issues of the Afghans will have to be the central theme,” Arif Ansar, chief analyst at PoliTact, a Washington-based think tank, explains.
The US-backed Karzai government is criticised for deliberately neglecting a political process through which parties are given space and raise awareness about the electoral system among the country’s rural districts. “Karzai didn’t encourage the development of strong multi-ethnic political parties, nor did he form his own political group which leads one to believe that he had an [implicit] political agenda,” Hamidullah Farooqi, the spokesperson of the Truth and Justice Party and an ex-transport minister explains. Karzai is known to have selected certain key warlords to form his inner ministerial coterie; as his popularity waned and he needed support from former mujahideen groups, Khalili as Vice President fitted the bill. This has left a dangerous political vacuum and, with no pro-reform, pro-moderation party in the last 10 years, the government also refuses to build political coalitions.
“Karzai intentionally didn’t want to build the political capacity of the country,” Farooqi adds. This would imply that Karzai is taking advantage of the weaknesses inherent in the political system to ensure that he retains power for years to come in some form. “[Afghan] Political party structures cannot be compared to that of other countries: Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah, [Ali Ahmed] Jalali etc do not represent a specific party or political choice, based on political concepts (socialist, socio-democratic, liberal). They represent a personal way to deal with the US, insurgents,Pakistan, warlords and ethnic groups. They also represent a specific relationship with the past and Afghan history [mujahideen and Taliban time] and that drastically changes the way people do and understand politics,” says Nicolle.
Independent candidates have also had it tough not only while campaigning with minimum resources but many needed to form alliances with traditional powerbrokers in a multi-ethnic political milieu. “Alliances are complex but that is the only way to get things done in polarised societies such as the one that exists in Afghanistan,” Ansar adds. When it comes to political survival, despite factional infighting, the two largest opposition alliances – The National Coalition of Afghanistan (NCA) and the National Front of Afghanistan (NFA) – have played the game well. Abdullah Abdullah (a candidate in the 2009 presidential elections) fronts the NCA with Qanooni as another senior leader whereas NFA is a political alliance between Ahmad Zia Massoud, former first Vice President (and a Jamiat-e-Islami member), General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the founder of the Junbish-i-Milli, and Muhammad Muhaqqiq, a Kabul parliamentarian and the leader of a faction of Hezb-e-Wahdat.
Donor assistance, development and security forces alone won’t bring peace and stability, but an intra-Afghan political process supported by regional countries might be closer to the reconciliatory politics that Afghanistan needs. In two years, when Karzai will have to step down, the government will require a strong successor and not a weak proxy. The question is not simply decentralising the Kabul-government or ensuring that a proper electoral voter system is in place for the elections, but the solution lies in working to invigorate independent political parties. Because of SNTV, which suited the Karzai government at the time, analysts say that parliament is not only fractured but has strong ties to the Taliban leadership and other older extremist factions with regional links. If political parties and youth movements are denied an entry point into this system, the third parliamentary election will result in an even fragmented parliament — only with greater chances of extremist candidates and their supporters winning seats to continue with the old system, and this time without international intervention to guide as in previous elections.
Access to information about the elections has a clear impact on electoral participation, states an Asia Foundation Report titled Voter Behavior Survey: Afghanistan’s 2010 Parliamentary Elections. With low education levels, the first hurdle is educating the Afghan electorate. Secondly, political parties hardly deliver on promises and corruption levels are high. “Most candidates running for public office do so to get rich than to serve the people. This further dents public perceptions about the role of politicians,” a member of the Awakened Youth Movement explains. With a large part of the population based in rural areas where the writ of the government is weak, services offered negligible, and where traditional structures are more enduring, the media, especially radio, has to play a role in developing awareness and to illustrate where voters as citizens fit in. Ansar explains that “it’s a really tough place where status quo is much preferred over change, where people do not have the appetite for grand visions and promises. They have to make it through the day and if you are going to help do that, they’ll believe you.”
Tired of the war, young Afghans are joining anti-Karzai movements and secular-leaning parties that stay away from playing the ethnic card. “They [the youth] are critical to the future of any state. It also depends on how successful their experience with the state has been. This can be called the issue of national integration. Afghanistan needs a period of calm that lasts up to 10 years where positive experiences can be developed. Moreover, any political party that targets the youth on a nationalistic agenda and brings them into its fold, will have a huge advantage over the others. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, next door, is a case in point,” Ansar explains.

__________________
Guide us on the straight path;
the path of those whom You have blessed.

A WORLD WITHOUT LAW
By Maham Javaid | January 17, 2012
When a crime occurs in the real world, the victim follows a straightforward routine: register a complaint, which then needs to be followed up with investigations, and if you are lucky, the suspect will be tried in court under relevant laws. But what is a sufferer supposed to do when a crime occurs in the cyberworld? Felonies that are committed in cyberspace are as harmful – if not more – than non-virtual crimes; however, there is no legislation for cybercrimes in Pakistan. In rare cases, a privileged few have been assisted when certain laws, meant for the offline world were interpreted to suit the needs of the victim. Here, the Herald takes a look at how Pakistan’s cyberworld functions without laws and regulations.
Free for all

In 2007 General (retd) Pervez Musharraf introduced the Prevention of Electronic Crime Ordinance (Peco). Government officials said that the ordinance was necessitated in order to prevent terrorist or banned groups from using the Internet for propaganda against the military and to protect female members of the Parliament who were being harassed by abusive phone calls and text messages.
On the other hand, the rumour mill said that the military dictator issued the ordinance to curb slander against the leadership of the country. The ordinance was re-promulgated thrice and in 2009 the government tried to pass it as an act. Anusha Rehman from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Marvi Memon who was then a part of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam, opposed the bill as members of the National Assembly (NA). They believed the bill was not protecting the human rights of Pakistanis and it would make the country a pariah in the cyberworld. They proposed that critical amendments be made to the bill since there were numerous loopholes in the ordinance that affected each and every individual linked with the usage of technology which needed to be looked into. Moreover, the ordinance was being turned into an act without prior consultation with the stakeholders and this was unacceptable to both the MNAs. Hence, the Prime Minister sent the bill to a select committee which was supposed to bring it up to par with international cyberlaws. However, since then the bill has not seen the light of day.
Others outside the world of political figures are also troubled with the existing state of lawlessness. Shahzad Ahmad, the country coordinator for Bytes For All is despondent about the fact that there is no legislation regarding crimes on the internet. But he is also delighted that Peco was never passed as a bill; “Peco had several flaws; many of the definitions in it were incorrect, and the provisions were draconian,” he says. For instance, the ordinance which was sent to the NA for ratification stated that sending indecent, provocative and ill-motivated messages through emails and text messages was an offence and would result in 14 years imprisonment along with the confiscation of property. Many felt that this was too harsh a punishment for such a minor crime. Moreover, there was no provision in Peco to tackle child pornography or intellectual property theft.
Jehanara, the president of Pakistan Software Houses Association seconds Ahmad’s claims. She says that “we would rather have no legislation than bad legislation.” According to Jehanara, the ordinance was created independently by officials from the Ministry of Information Technology (IT) who were not trained in IT legislation. She suggests that the civil society, businesses and IT experts need to be consulted by the IT ministry before they create cybercrime law. Jehanara also explains that although she is not a believer of censorship or regulation, the internet is too vast a space for one to roam about without protection.
The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) National Response Centre for Cyber Crime (NR3C) disagrees with Ahmad and Jehanara. “Peco had very solid legislation; it was extremely comprehensive as it covered almost everything from financial crimes to laws against harassment of women. It was missing a few aspects of crime and that is why they removed it,” says Faisal Iqbal, the deputy director of NR3C. Iqbal adds that now there are thousands of cases that are reported to the NR3C but all they can do with these cases is file them and put them away because without Peco these crimes no longer fall under their jurisdiction. “Even after Peco lapsed, we continued to investigate cases that fell under it, but by the beginning of 2010 the Supreme Court ordered that we could no longer entertain cases that were not in our jurisdiction, so we began filing and shelving all such cases.”
Mix and match
This does not mean that the NR3C exists in a complete vacuum. They have brought together certain laws to form a type of selective legislation through which only ‘certain’ victimised parties can find justice. What this means is that when the victim of cybercrime is an influential person, the NR3C can and will interpret laws in such a way that his or her complaint can be investigated. Last year, when a man from Punjab hacked into the President’s website and defaced it, the NR3C under Sections 36 and 37 of the Electronic Transaction Ordinance (ETO) traced the man and arrested him. Since offences under the ETO are non-bailable, the man is still in custody and the court has reached no verdict.
Last month, the NR3C received a complaint from the Lahore section of a telecommunications company in connection with a fraud committed through its electronic voucher centre system. The company said that millions of rupees were embezzled through unauthorised transactions using the ‘Easy Load’ facility, which allows telecom service subscribers to recharge their accounts through franchises. The NR3C caught the multiple parties involved in this fraud and under the ETO the criminals were sent to court. Another similar case which the NR3C handled successfully was regarding Pakistan State Oil’s (PSO) Fleet cards. The cybercrime wing caught three men who had allegedly hacked the PSO system and had been stealing thousands of rupees through their Fleet cards.
Another area in which the NR3C has managed to make much headway is regarding illegal gateway exchanges. The company involved had been selling long-distance phone call minutes to foreign clients using a mechanism that bypassed the centralised gateway through which all internet traffic should pass; hence the company avoided paying the mandatory per minute fee to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and made a dishonest profit. “These illegal exchanges were costing the government of Pakistan 437 million rupees per month this year and we hunted down dozens of people responsible for them and booked them,” says Iqbal. These criminals were presented in court under a 19th century law, the Telegraph Act 1885, identical to the one in India which was conveniently interpreted to fulfil their needs.
Similarly, Section 509 of the Pakistan Penal Code is the third law used by the NR3C when and where they believe it is necessary; however the success rate remains vague, at best. This section is about the state guarding the modesty of women, and on special occasions the NR3C has interpreted this law and ‘assisted’ women who were being harassed via the internet. With all the important details being nebulous, the only statement Iqbal makes is: “Sometimes a female will lodge a complaint that someone has created a fake Facebook profile under her name, and we write a letter to court and ‘begin the procedure’ to remove the fake profile. But how many can we attempt to remove? We have very limited manpower.”
It’s a man’s world
It seems that women are one of the easiest targets for cyberbullies and cybercriminals. Recently, two female students from a liberal arts college decided to participate in an international sketching competition. The sketches had to be nude self portraits. The students asked a friend to photograph and then email the pictures to them. It seems that the friend didn’t have the stomach to keep such a juicy secret because the very same week the girls’ email accounts were hacked and blackmailing threats started pouring in. Since the NR3C has no legislation for cybercrimes such as hacking, the girls had no choice but to lie low and hope for the best.
Earlier this year two relatively well-known female celebrities in Pakistan reported to Bytes For All that fake Facebook profiles of them had been created. The mastermind criminal who created these fake profiles was using them to recruit young girls with modelling aspirations to dubious events and phoney jobs. The profiles were not only wrecking the reputations of the celebrities but as a result many vulnerable young girls were now at the mercy of the criminal. “The most frequent complaints I get from women are that either their email account has been hacked or that someone has created a fake profile of them on Facebook,” says Nighat Dad, a lawyer who is the lead researcher at Bytes For All. Dad says that there is no legal remedy for these girls; hence the only thing that lawyers like her can do is request the NR3C to look into the case. “Laws under the ETO deal with the privacy of corporations, but when the President’s website got defaced, the FIA interpreted the law to serve an individual,” says Dad. Similarly, these laws can be interpreted to help these women too, to retrieve their private data and save them from defamation.
Another issue that women face due to the lack of cybercrime legislation is of cyberbullying and online stalking. Nabiha Meher, a blogger who also teaches at various universities in Lahore explains that in Pakistan, family honour is intricately tied around women; if the woman is sexually attacked the entire family’s honour is attacked. “The easiest way to harass women in this culture is to threaten to rape them and I have got numerous well-detailed rape threats in response to my blogs,” Meher says. Meher is not alone: other female bloggers such as Sana Saleem and Mehreen Kasana have similar concerns and no faith in the abilities of NR3C.
Need of the hour
If there is one thing that the NR3C and the activists agree upon it is that there is an urgent need for legislation. “The ETO is very vague and incomprehensive, we can interpret the laws to suit us but its regulations have not been created for the cyber world. I have written many times to the Ministry of IT about this because too many people are suffering,” says Iqbal. Ahmad and Dad agree that there is a pressing need for a pro-people legislation which respects human rights and allows the public to use the internet as an enabling tool. One fear that the activists face day after day is that Peco will one day resurface and engulf everyone simply because there is a dearth of legislation. An IT ministry official says that Peco is currently with the NA and that it was not in the hands of the ministry to help or to hinder the bill from being passed.

__________________
Guide us on the straight path;
the path of those whom You have blessed.

SAVING INSTITUTIONS
By herald | August 4, 2012

The blunderbuss of a judiciary taking potshots at the executive and parliament — for supporters of the government this could be an apt description of how the Supreme Court of Pakistan has been behaving in recent months and years. Whether they are right or wrong is not important, though. What matters more is the outcome of what is perhaps, the longest-running institutional turf war in the history of Pakistan. Could there be an outcome anytime soon?
An even more important question to ask could be: what kind of outcome are we looking at? Soothsayers would have you believe that there is only one plausible outcome, that the end is nigh for the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) rule. That they make such predictions with deliberately ill-concealed glee is meant to prove that their prognosis could be wishful but it is widely shared — who wouldn’t be happy at the much-anticipated curtain on a government that everybody loves to hate. But the reality could be as far away from such forecasts as one legitimately-due general election is from the next.
The government has survived – more accurately, muddled through – so many deadlines of its imminent collapse that it is now using them as a self-defence mechanism even against genuine criticism of its policies and legitimate calls for improved service delivery. For an administration that has stumbled from crisis to crisis, the fact that it has existed for so long is an ‘accomplishment’ that it never tires of congratulating itself for. And it has been so ‘busy’ trying to fend off one ‘vile machination’ after another, planned by the invisible masters of Pakistan’s destiny, that it did not find time at all to do the job that it was voted in to do — to set the economy, the state and society back on track. The peddlers of political prophecies, the clairvoyants, and their puppet masters, have indeed helped this bumbling, blundering monster of an incompetent government in coming up with an excuse to justify its failure. By all means, it deserves a severe thrashing at the Hastings — that is, the next general election when one becomes due.
But the irony is that many senior leaders of the ruling party are seriously harbouring not-so-secret hopes of winning the polls again, albeit with possibly reduced strength. So, what great good has come out of fortune-telling in the name of reporting and analysis and judicial chest-thumping disguised as sanctimoniously moral and legal discourse over all these years? Yes, a certain politician from Multan is no longer a member of the National Assembly. Big deal? His son has managed to secure a narrow victory in a by-election. And that is what is so disconcerting. If all the column inches, broadcast hours and decidedly one-sided judicial activism employed in an unrelenting anti-PPP invective have failed to sway the last four thousand or so decisive voters, what will? A few more months of indulging in the same vain tactics is definitely not going to make much of a difference.
The party spin doctors will surely try to turn the bruises PPP has sustained in the process as trophies and medals ‘selflessly’ secured in the valiant ‘defence’ of Pakistan’s nascent democracy. And that’s about it. They seem to feel that they are winning the war of attrition; their opponents are already exhibiting signs of weariness after having launched one futile attack after another with as much gusto as there could ever have been. Now is the time for the pugilists in wigs and the wrestlers in khakis – as well as their support staff masquerading as media – to put an end to the charade and get serious about the business of the state.
The collateral damage that their antics have caused has been immense and it has mostly destroyed the institutions of state and society much more than an easy to hate party and its abominable administration. What we are left with is a blood-littered body politic in which the individuals are winners and the institutions losers. The parliament, the judiciary, the constitution — each one of these is left unsure of its responsibilities even while the individuals representing them respectively are insisting on exploiting the rights conferred on them by virtue of their place in the institutional scheme of things for preserving personal interests and promoting private agendas. The prime minister says the people of Pakistan have, through an elected parliament, authorised him to act at his own sweet will in running – or ruining – the affairs of the government; the chief justice claims he can do whatever he wants to — and send an elected chief executive home in the name of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary; and the president tells his minions to let it be known to all and sundry that the he has constitutional immunity. Allow these conflicts of personalities to continue and all you will have is inflated egos and atrophied institutions.

__________________
Guide us on the straight path;
the path of those whom You have blessed.

CAN A CONVICTED MAN SERVE THE NATION?
By Umer Farooq | May 6, 2012

The prevailing constitutional and political situation in the country is akin to the old pattern of Pakistani politics, wherein, after a brief confrontation between two constitutional offices the opposition jumps into the arena with a detailed and comprehensive plan of agitation, and in the process paves the way for the president, who used to be equipped with the powers to dissolve the assemblies and send everybody packing home. Fortunately the president no longer has the power to dissolve the assemblies and dismiss the government. The reason Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz is oft accused of being a ‘soft’ opposition is because under the prevailing constitutional setup, its capacity, as an opposition party, to disrupt the political process is not as immense as it used to be in 1990s. Thus the former prime minister and current opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, has to stomach the accusations from his critics that, as an opposition party they are good for nothing. Perhaps this is why Sharif wanted to prove everybody wrong when he raised the slogan: quit as prime minister or face the country-wide protest movement.
The immediate constitutional issue facing the country is whether a convicted man can continue as the chief executive of the country. The opposition says Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gailani has been disqualified from the National Assembly due to his conviction in the contempt of court case. Opposition leaders think that any deviation from this legal and constitutional path will lead the country towards chaos and anarchy. On the other hand, the government is insisting that the question of the prime minister’s qualification doesn’t arise in the prevailing situation. Media reports suggest that in the latest cabinet meeting the members suggested that the Supreme Court should be dealt with aggressively.
To me this situation seems to be a replay of events in the Supreme Court back in 1997 when the then prime minister, Sharif, was faced with contempt of court proceedings. The capital was abuzz with speculations that Sharif would be disqualified once he was convicted by the Supreme Court. It would be instructive to examine the response of the then government to that situation,not with the intention to enter into any political polemics or to prove anybody wrong, but solely to point out the similarity in the responses of ruling politicians towards any threat to their survival no matter how high the cost is. Sharif’s response in 1997 was harsh and crud. He had the contempt of court law amended in the parliament to forestall the judgment of the court. He made his intention known that he would make the parliamentary committee summon the chief justice and question him on the charges of breaching the parliamentary privilege.
One concern of the political class was as genuine then as it is now: that no one should be allowed to invent a constitutional and legal mechanism to oust an elected prime minister – apart from the existing constitutional procedure of no-confidence vote given in the constitution. Ousting the prime minister by way of his conviction in a contempt case after which he loses his national assembly seat is tantamount to inventing such a mechanism. Given the history of institutional imbalance in the country, where, powerful unrepresentative institutions are allowed to oust elected representatives by using such invented mechanisms, it is likely that the power balance will further shift toward non-representative and non-elected institutions. Part of the problem is the absence of strong traditions of parliamentary democracy in the country’s political culture. If we had an uninterrupted parliamentary tradition such petty questions would not have given rise to national crises. For instance a court conviction could have convinced the prime minister to simply resign from his office, without having to fear that his resignation could lead to non-representative institutions finishing off rest of the political process.
Many independent analysts do not disagree with the point that ousting the prime minister through an invented mechanism can weaken the parliamentary democracy irreparably. The political class has to understand that they are not in a battlefield, despite the mines that have been planted on the path they have to tread. So aggression as suggested by some cabinet members could prove to be self-destructive. For surely, keeping the whole system on track, is primarily their responsibility. They have to understand that courts in any society play a foundational role in keeping the society from drifting towards anarchy. Head-on-collision must be avoided at every cost.

__________________
Guide us on the straight path;
the path of those whom You have blessed.