Stop ‘Financial Times’ award to Narendra Modi

Protest Financial Times decision to confer an award on Modi – who was complicit in and personally responsible for the communal carnage that occurred in Gujarat in 2002, seen as India’s worst instance of violence against minorities. This is well known and documented by over 30 human rights fact finding reports.

Asif Ali Zardari – another perspective

The confessions of Brig Imtiaz have forced other intelligence officers to admit their role in destroying democracy in Pakistan, and establishing that Zardari’s name has been trashed for about 20 years to force Benazir Bhutto out of politics and to destroy the credibility of Pakistan People’s Party, writes Bilal Qureshi in his article Asif Ali Zardari – President of Pakistan

‘Jinnah’s Secularism: A Hindu wrote Pak’s first national anthem’

‘On the morning of August 9, 1947, there was a message from Pakistan’s first Governor-General, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. It was through a friend working in Radio Lahore who called me to his office. He told me `Quaid-e-Azam wants you to write a national anthem for Pakistan,’ recalled Jagannath Azad

Jinnah revisited, thank you Jaswant Singh

Jaswant Singh’s latest work on Jinnah had not hit the Pakistani bookstalls at the time of writing. But from reported and televised statements and published extracts his thesis appears to be similar to Ayesha Jalal’s seminal work The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge University Press, 1985).

‘Blasphemy laws’ – Stopping the rot

Those inciting violence and murder from mosque loudspeakers and public accusations, true or false, must be held culpable, charged, tried and punished according to law. This also goes for those who desecrate a holy book or symbol of any religion. There must be accountability for those who allow these murders to take place. The political leadership is responsible for providing police with the training, means and the orders to prevent such violence. Finally, religion cannot be used or allowed to justify murder.

Target killing of doctors; my article of 2002; Dr Sarwar on censoring Jinnah, 1991

It is significant that while the doctors’ killings are labeled as sectarian because those targeted mostly belong to a particular sect, there is no sectarianism or religious intolerance at the grassroots level. ‘‘The incidents of apparently religiously-motivated violence, like the attack on the Islamabad church or the murder of Daniel Pearl, are planned and executed by individual miscreants with no popular support or public sanction,’’ says The News editorial. (excerpt from article of 2002)

Remembering Saneeya Hussain on her birthday

Here’s to Saneeya – we’ll always miss her. It is wonderful that the Saneeya Hussain Trust is up and running. Please do check it out at http://www.saneeyahussaintrust.com/ – The Trust has already done a lot of valuable work in terms of helping young girls obtain an education.

Gojra and education, conspiracy theorists and judicial activism

Links to articles about Gojra, conspiracy theorists and the judiciary, by Zubeida Mustafa, Nadeem Farooq Paracha, Asma Jahangir, and Haris Gazdar

Naeem Sadiq, Gojra and the Zakat suo moto notice

Note from Naeem Sadiq, the indefatigable campaigner on Aug 14 regarding Gojra, and an update on his appeal to the Supreme Court to take suo moto notice on the issue of compulsory deduction of Zakat by banks

Neighbours in peace – or pieces?

‘Intellectuals’ on either side of the border keep finding justifications for continuing animosity: “India/Pakistan wants to destroy us”; “Stop appeasing India/Pakistan”; “There is no point in talking to them”. If we listen to this babble of voices whose sole aim seems to be to present their own country’s case as better than the other’s, we’ll never get anywhere. Let’s stop these blame games and try and understand the nature and complexities of each other’s problems.