Thursday, September 26, 2024

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) Weekly Bhaitak Saturday, September 28, 2024, 4:00 pm

Research and Publication Centre's (RPC's) programme of regular weekly Bhaitaks continues Saturday, September 28, 2024, 4:00 pm. This is an informal, open discussion forum on all aspects of Pakistan's crises: ideological, political, economic, social, cultural, etc. This week we will concentrate on Pakistan's polycrisis, what is to be done, what can we do.

All friends are welcome. Tea will be served.

RPC address: 2nd Floor, 65, Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom). 

Rashed Rahman

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Cells: 0302 8482737 (operates WhatsApp) & 0333 4216335.  

Friday, September 20, 2024

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) Bhaitak

Research and Publication Centre's (RPC's) programme of regular weekly Bhaitaks every Saturday, 4:00 pm continues with its second session today, Saturday, September 21, 2024, 4:00 pm. This is an informal, open discussion forum on all aspects of Pakistan's crises: ideological, political, economic, social, cultural, etc. All friends are welcome. Tea will be served.

RPC address: 2nd Floor, 65, Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom). 

Rashed Rahman

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Cells: 0302 8482737 (operates WhatsApp) & 0333 4216335.  

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Business Recorder Column September 17, 2024

Ill-conceived gambit

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The government has shot itself in the foot by launching an ill-conceived and hurried attempt to bring in a spate of Constitutional Amendments without proper disclosure, forging consensus on the proposed changes, or even ensuring it has the numbers in both houses of parliament to win the day. Hurried calling of sessions of both houses over the weekend too proved a dud in the end because no homework or discussion inside parliament or outside had been carried out. Since no written version of the proposed bill to carry out the Amendments was made public or even shared with members of parliament, the media and public were left grasping the few straws floating in the wind to wrap their heads around the government’s gambit.

A flurry of lobbying by the government did not produce the desired results. Short of 11 votes in the National Assembly (NA) and five in the Senate to cobble together the necessary two-thirds majority in both houses, the government’s desperate attempts to pull Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat-e-Ulema-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F’s) eight and five votes respectively, and even Akhtar Mengal’s Balochistan National Party-Mengal’s (BNP-M’s) one and two respectively, finally came a cropper despite blandishments and (in the case of the BNP-M) threats.

The main content of the proposed Amendment focused on the judiciary. Under cover of tackling the huge backlog of cases in the Supreme Court (SC), a Constitutional Court was proposed to be set up to deal with constitutional and political issues, leaving the SC free to tackle the mountain of cases related to public issues. In actual fact, according to informed sources and commentators, the government was having kittens regarding the impending retirement of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa next month and, under the present rules and procedure, the elevation of the senior puisne judge Justice Mansoor Ali Shah to the CJP’s chair. When in such matters governments resort to the cloak-and-dagger, dark-of-the-night manoeuvres such as have been on display recently, it disrespects the incumbent outgoing CJP as well as his successor, since public opinion speculates that the former is considered ‘sympathetic’ to the government, and the latter not. Judges may give verdicts that please one lot and disappoint the other, but their judgements speak for themselves, and if based on sound reasoning and the law, should command acceptance and respect across the board if judicial independence and credibility are to have any meaning. At the heart of this matter is the 8-5 verdict of the SC regarding its order to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to award the 41 seats in the NA to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) of those members who fought the elections not on the PTI’s ticket, but later declared themselves PTI members. The SC has been constrained to issue a harsh reminder to the ECP to carry out its verdict and not prevaricate through dilatory and irrelevant tactics. This is indeed an unprecedented clash of these two state institutions. To add to the mess, the government’s proposed Amendment envisages the CJP being appointed from the five senior most judges, rather than the senior most in line. If this is not personalised proposed legislation, what is?

Other controversial aspects of the (now submerged) Amendment disallows appeals against military courts verdicts against military personnel or civilians. Obviously this is aimed at the arrest and pending court martial of Lt. General (retd) Faiz Hameed, with the added spice of the possibility of Imran Khan too being dragged into this bog. What do all these shenanigans really mean? It has been the long standing policy of the establishment to resolve all issues regarding dissent or opposition through force rather than rational dialogue. This is the continuing state of affairs in Balochistan, which has pushed Akhtar Mengal to despair and resignation from parliament, is driving the youth of the province into the arms of the insurgents, and is unlikely to yield results different from the past, albeit perhaps increasingly worse. Similarly, Imran Khan and the PTI’s travails at the hands of the establishment, added to immeasurably by the former’s Quixotic adventurism of May 9, 2023, is following the all too familiar pattern of pursuing the establishment’s aims in a manner so overdone that in time, it loses credibility. Here too, the establishment is perhaps gnashing its teeth at not getting rapid results because of our justice system and its normal delays, as well as the complications in the cases against Imran Khan. The problem with this gung-ho approach, as the track record and current developments have once again proved, is that the more the establishment presses on this particular gas pedal, the more the results turn out to be the opposite of those intended or desired.

Pakistan’s political culture, for understandable reasons given our history, gravitates towards the actual or perceived underdog, irrespective of the latter’s qualities or lack of them. It is the visceral reaction of our people to the establishment’s role in denying the people genuine representation, credible upholding of rights, and the actual or threatened use of force and fear to get what the establishment wants. This is not an inspiring scenario, not from the past, certainly not from the present, and worryingly, the future nightmare of impending disaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

The September 2024 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The September 2024 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:


1. Vijay Prashad: Venezuela is a Marvellous Country in Motion.
2. Israeli torture of Palestinian prisoners.
3. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi: Developments in Bangladesh.
4. Kinza Fatima: Resistance Movement from the Margins in Pakistan.
5. W B Bland: The Pakistani Revolution – II: The Class Structure of Pakistan.
6. Fayyaz Baqir: My life and struggle – VII: Gomal University.
7. Mohammad Ali Talpur: The Rise of Baloch Nationalism and Resistance – XIII: Foreign hand and Balochistan.
8. From the PMR Archives February 2019: Rashed Rahman: Creeping coup in Venezuela.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Research and Publication Centre Regular weekly Bhaitak

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) is inaugurating its programme of regular weekly Bhaitaks every Saturday, 4:00 pm, with its first session on Saturday, September 14, 2024, 4:00 pm. This will be an informal, open discussion forum on all aspects of Pakistan's crises: ideological, political, economic, social, cultural, etc. All friends are welcome. Tea will be served.

RPC address: 2nd Floor, 65, Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom). 

Rashed Rahman

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Cells: 0302 8482737 (operates WhatsApp) & 0333 4216335.  

Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) regular Bhaitak

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) is inaugurating its programme of regular weekly Bhaitaks every Saturday, 4:00 pm, with its first session on Saturday, September 14, 2024, 4:00 pm. This will be an informal, open discussion forum on all aspects of Pakistan's crises: ideological, political, economic, social, cultural, etc. All friends are welcome. Tea will be served.

RPC address: 2nd Floor, 65, Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom). 

Rashed Rahman

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Cells: 0302 8482737 (operates WhatsApp) & 0333 4216335.  

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Business Recorder Column September 3, 2024

International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Enforced Disappearances (EDs) have been frequently used as a strategy to spread fear and terror in a society, according to the UN. By now, the world body argues, it has taken on the dimensions of a global problem. Once largely the product of military dictatorships, nowadays the practice is perpetrated in complex internal conflicts as an instrument of political repression. One famous example from the past is the Argentine military dictatorship of the 1960s and 1970s, against whose repressive tactics of ED, the “Mothers of Mayo” organisation rallied persistently in Buenos Aires’ main square for news of their disappeared loved ones. By and large, the disappeared never appeared, but the Mothers, by now Grandmothers, have not given up their persistent struggle.

For the UN today, of particular concern is the ongoing harassment of human rights defenders, families of the victims, witnesses and lawyers dealing with cases of ED. States use their overarching counter-terrorist narrative to cloak and ‘justify’ the breach of their obligations under the law, Constitution and human rights principles. Most alarming, there is no let up in the widespread immunity for EDs. The UN reports that hundreds of thousands of people have vanished during conflicts and their concomitant periods of repression in at least 85 countries around the world.

The victims of ED are frequently tortured and in constant fear of being extra-judicially killed. Having been removed from lawful protection and ‘disappeared’ from society, they are deprived of every one of their conceivable rights and are at the mercy of their captors. Even if they survive their nightmare ordeal and are eventually released, the physical and psychological scars of the brutality and torture they suffered remain lifelong afflictions.

The families and friends of the victims of ED, on the other hand, experience the torture and slow mental anguish of not knowing whether the victim is still alive and if so, where he or she is being held, in what conditions, and in what state of health. This causes a constant alternation between hope and despair, wondering and waiting, sometimes for years, for the anxiously awaited news that may never come. In addition, they are also aware that searching for truth, justice and relief is risky, exposing them to threats to life and limb. If the disappeared person is the family’s breadwinner, the emotional upheaval is further exacerbated by material deprivation. The serious economic hardships that usually accompany an ED are most often borne by women. It should not, therefore, come as a surprise that it is women who are usually at the forefront of the struggle against EDs. Of course this places them in the path of intimidation, persecution and reprisals. When it is women who are disappeared, they are vulnerable not only to physical violence and torture, but also sexual. In either case, the disappearance of a parent traumatises a child for life.

The UN General Assembly through its Resolution 47/133 on December 18, 1992, adopted the “Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance”. This was followed by the “Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court” on July 1, 2002 and the UN General Assembly’s adoption of the “International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance” on December 20, 2006. The last states that when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at any civilian population, an ED qualifies as a crime against humanity not subject to any statute of limitations. It gives victims’ families the right to demand the truth about the disappearance of their loved ones and seek reparations. On December 21, 2010, the UN General Assembly, through its Resolution 65/209 decided to declare August 30 the “International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances” to be observed from 2011 onwards.

The Day was duly observed in Karachi by hundreds marching from Teen Talwar to the Press Club. It fielded not just the usual cast of suspects, but a wider set of organisations than just the Baloch Yakjehti Committee that has, under the leadership of Dr Mahrang Baloch and Sammi Deen Baloch, transformed the Balochistan scene through a virtual social revolution led by women in that conservative, tribal society and inspired women and men throughout the length and breadth of Pakistan through their courage, steadfastness and commitment to the cause of their missing loved ones. Partly because of that example, partly in response to their own lived experience of EDs, people in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa too have taken to the road of peaceful protest against the ED of their loved ones. Increasingly, even Punjab has not been spared. The horror of ED therefore is by now common cause, with varying levels of intensity presently, of all the people of Pakistan. Having joined the ranks of the peoples of 85 other countries around the world suffering from this horror, we are in ‘good’ company. However, having suffered through the farce of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances headed by Justice Javed Iqbal (retd), which did more to obscure and obfuscate the truth about EDs than anything else, in the process ‘failing’ to punish even a single person for the crime, we need to reflect on the spread of the practice of ED from Balochistan to begin with to the rest of the country. That obliges us all to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, against this increasingly common horror.

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Monday, September 2, 2024

The September 2024 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review is out

The September 2024 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:


1. Vijay Prashad: Venezuela is a Marvellous Country in Motion.
2. Israeli torture of Palestinian prisoners.
3. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi: Developments in Bangladesh.
4. Kinza Fatima: Resistance Movement from the Margins in Pakistan.
5. W B Bland: The Pakistani Revolution – II: The Class Structure of Pakistan.
6. Fayyaz Baqir: My life and struggle – VII: Gomal University.
7. Mohammad Ali Talpur: The Rise of Baloch Nationalism and Resistance – XIII: Foreign hand and Balochistan.
8. From the PMR Archives February 2019: Rashed Rahman: Creeping coup in Venezuela.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)