We stop our women from going to polling stations because we think if they do, men would tease them by staring or touching them.
-Mohammed in Mateela, Pakistan
Supporters of political party Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) ride on camels and in vehicles during an election campaign rally in Karachi May 4, 2013. Pakistan’s general election will be held on May 11.
The following ‘bite’ taken from today’s Daily Express, which may be of interest…
Pervez Musharraf
Unknown gunmen have killed Pakistan’s lead prosecutor investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, throwing the case that also involves former ruler Pervez Musharraf into disarray.
Chaudhry Zulfikar was at the helm of a number of controversial cases, including the 2007 Ms Bhutto assassination in which Mr. Musharraf is accused of involvement. He was also prosecuting militants linked to the 2008 terror attack in the Indian city of Mumbai.
Mr Zulfikar was driving to a court in the capital Islamabad when gunmen fired at him from a taxi, hitting him in the head, shoulder and chest, said a police spokesman. He then lost control of his car, which hit a woman passer-by and killed her, said another police source.
Mr. Zulfikar’s guard, Farman Ali, returned fire and is believed to have wounded at least one of the attackers, but was also injured in the attack. The attackers fled after killing Mr. Zulfikar, police said, and a massive search has been launched to find them.
The motive for the killing is not yet clear, but his involvement in the two particularly high-profile cases is likely to be scrutinised closely.
Government prosecutors have accused Mr. Musharraf of being involved in Ms Bhutto’s assassination and not providing enough security to Pakistan’s first female prime minister.
Mr. Musharraf, who was in power when Ms Bhutto was killed, denies the allegations. At the time of the attack, he blamed the assassination on the Pakistani Taliban.
The Bhutto case has lingered for years in the Pakistani court system. A number of alleged assailants are on trial but no one has been convicted. The case burst into the headlines when Musharraf returned in March after four years in exile.
Mr. Zulfikar was also the government’s lead prosecutor in a case related to the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people. The attack was blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
In My Own Humble Opinion…
Pervez Musharraf is like Marmite, you either like him, or hate him, there is no buffer or in-between.
His return to Pakistan has been sanctioned by friends from upon high (and afar); he is the real solution to sorting out the mess that Pakistan is mired in, he will also provide the stability required when Allied forces pull out of Afghanistan. ‘Musharraf’ has the loyalty of Pakistan’s elite military Corps, which he will need to quell instability when he does (and he will) become Pakistan’s next Para Military President. (Just don’t expect human rights to be on the agenda when he takes on the extreme Islamic factions).
Musharraf has forged relationships with some powerful financial friends throughout his ‘self imposed’ exile In London and Dubai, as well as throughout his International ‘Free Speech’ tour of the West. His military training at Sandhurst as well as his consequential training within Pakistan’s elite special forces, allows this very well educated man to shoot from the lip, as well as the hip. He has the mark of death upon him from the Pakistani Taliban, which he brushes off as a matter of fact that simply goes with the job.
Does anyone think that ‘Musharraf’ will benefit from the Prosecutors assassination?
Has a fish got a waterproof head?
Yours Aye.
I like to learn about folks, locals, making a difference in their country. For example, in Pakistan, Veero Kolhi just declared for the May elections:
When Veero Kolhi made the asset declaration required of candidates for Pakistan’s May elections, she listed the following items: two beds, five mattresses, cooking pots and a bank account with life savings of 2,800 rupees ($28).
While she may lack the fortune that is the customary entry ticket to Pakistani politics, Kolhi can make a claim that may resonate more powerfully with poor voters than the wearily familiar promises of her rivals.
Good luck, Veero. . .
Mark Mazzetti of the NY Times must really believe us stupid if he thinks we’ll swallow this story on Raymond Davis without argument:
Pakistani rage at the United States – in particular at the drone attacks in the tribal areas – found focus with the Raymond Davis affair.
How a Single Spy Helped Turn Pakistan Against the United States.
For many senior Pakistani spies, the man sitting in the jail cell represented solid proof of their suspicions that the C.I.A. had sent a vast secret army to Pakistan, men who sowed chaos and violence as part of the covert American war in the country. For the C.I.A., the eventual disclosure of Davis’s role with the agency shed an unflattering light on a post–Sept. 11 reality: that the C.I.A. had farmed out some of its most sensitive jobs to outside contractors — many of them with neither the experience nor the temperament to work in the war zones of the Islamic world.
The third child of a bricklayer and a cook, Davis grew up in a small clapboard house outside Big Stone Gap, a town of nearly 6,000 people in Virginia coal country. He became a football and wrestling star at the local high school, and after graduating in 1993, Davis enlisted in the Army and did a tour in Macedonia in 1994 as a United Nations peacekeeper. When his five-year hitch in the infantry was up, he re-enlisted, this time in the Army’s Third Special Forces Group based at Fort Bragg, N.C. He left the Army in 2003 and, like hundreds of other retired Navy SEALs and Green Berets, was hired by the private security firm Blackwater and soon found himself in Iraq working security for the C.I.A.
Mr. Mazzetti has a new book out (that I will most surely not read) called: The Way of the Knife: The C.I.A., a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth.
Ray Davis was merely the latest in poster children for Pakistani grievance against the West. Not the first, not the last.
Mohsin Hamid is the author of two novels The Reluctant Fundamentalist and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. Here he talks about his life in Pakistan:
On Monday, my mother’s and sister’s eye doctor was assassinated. He was a Shiite. He was shot six times while driving to drop his son off at school. His son, age 12, was executed with a single shot to the head.
Tuesday, I attended a protest in front of the Governor’s House in Lahore demanding that more be done to protect Pakistan’s Shiites from sectarian extremists. These extremists are responsible for increasingly frequent attacks, including bombings this year that killed more than 200 people, most of them Hazara Shiites, in the city of Quetta.
Cross Lahore off my list of mild vacation spots.
They have been trying to send me to the hells since 9/11, which means it’s 12 years now,” said Musharraf before boarding his flight in Dubai.
Yikes, I hate when folks try to send me to the hells (plural.) Is returning to Pakistan like going to heaven?
Certain traveling plans are ill-advised. Like this: Pakistan’s Musharraf vows return despite risks. Various “folks” are threatening his death including the Taliban and Adnan Rashid, a jailed Air Force officer who was broken out of the can last year. Be careful, Pervez. Stick to watching Ishq-e-Memnu in exile.
I treat them as Christians, and they treat me as Muslims, Alina Ghafoor said, repeating lessons learned from her mother. We should all stay together.
Christian teacher Margrett Ghafoor with her teenage daughter, Alina.
Be careful, Alina.
One of the emerging trends in Pakistan recently has been clothing companies covering up their billboard models. Of course, they are being pushed to do so:
Katrina Kaif
One of the posters to be censored featured Bollywood star Katrina Kaif advertising a hair removal cream.
This year J. Lawn by Junaid Jamshed, Almirah Lawn and AlKaram Textiles is one of several brands
which is using logos rather than female models baring flesh this year.
‘When we first started, we decided our transactions would keep the spirit of Islam alive — we want to follow its basic teachings to formulate our business dealings,’ Nadir Khan, customer relations manager, told The Express Tribune.
‘I personally feel no Muslim would disagree with that – we aren’t required to show a semi-dressed woman in our ads.’
J. Lawn? Is that some soddy J. Crew rip-off?
Looking for some new music? How about groovin’ to a little Pragaash? They’re an all-girl group from the Kashmir area. And the local Muslim militants are not pleased:
The fate of Pragaash, which means “First Light” in Kashmiri, highlights the simmering tension between modernity and tradition in Muslim-majority Kashmir, where an armed uprising against Indian rule and a relentless crackdown by government forces have killed more than 68,000 people since 1989. Separatists criticized the band for what it said was “Western-style cultural waywardness.”
Adnan Mattoo, the rock group’s music teacher and manager, said the three high school students who formed Pragaash — drummer Farah Deeba, bass guitarist Aneeqa Khalid and singer and guitarist Noma Nazir — won’t talk about their decision to disband and what led to it.
Kashmir has a long tradition of poetry and music, and has produced iconic female singers including Raj Begum, Kailash Mehra, Naseem Begum and Shamima Azad, the wife of India’s health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Unfortunately, they broke up the band. I blame Yoko. . .
I want to serve. I want to serve the people. I want every girl, every child, to be educated. For that reason, we have organized the Malala Fund, Malala Yousufzai said. Today you can see that I am alive. I can speak, I can see you, I can see everyone. It’s just because of the prayers of people. Because all people — men, women, children — all of them have prayed for me. And because of all these prayers God has given me this new life, a second life.
If you are going to offer tours of Osama Bin Laden’s home, you should at least get billboards with the proper spelling:
Osama Bin Ladan Tour in Abbottabad
And if Syed Aqil Shah, the provincial minister for tourism and sports, has his way, the Abbottabad property will be turned into an amusement city complete with a zoo, water sports and mini-golf. Can’t wait.
Our brave girl, Malala Yousufzai, was just released from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. The family plans some further rehab for our head-scarfed heroine before she returns to Pakistan.
Today marks the fist drone strike of 2013 in Pakistan. And a high-ranking Taliban commander, caught in the hellfire, perished in the missile strike:
Maulvi Nazir playing XBox
The commander, Maulvi Nazir, was among nine people killed in a missile strike on a house in the village of Angoor Adda in the South Waziristan tribal region near the border with Afghanistan late Wednesday night, five Pakistani security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
At least four people were killed in a separate drone strike on Thursday morning near Mir Ali, the main town of the North Waziristan tribal region.
Maulvi Nazir playing XBox
America’s use of drones against militants in Pakistan has increased substantially under President Barack Obama and the program has killed a number of top militant commanders over the past year.
But the drone strikes are extremely contentious in Pakistan, seen as an infringement on the country’s sovereignty.
So sad, too bad. . .
More than 200,000 supporters of the Bhutto family gathered near Larkana in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh. At the family mausoleum, 24-year-old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari delivered his first public address. As you may have guessed Bilawal is the son of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari. The first, a great lady, with perhaps more concern for her country than herself. The second, the father, an average politician. We shall see which tree the apple falls closest to. . .
Gul Meena
I am getting a little tired of posting these stories, day after day. Honor killings and fifteen year old girls. Enraged brothers who wield primitive weapons. Today’s is a poor girl named Gul Meena:
It is doubly miraculous that the young woman named Gul Meena is alive. After she was struck by an ax 15 times, slashing her head and face so deeply that it exposed her brain, she held on long enough to reach medical care and then, despite the limitations of what the doctors could do, clung to life.
God bless you, Gul. One day, women in Afghanistan will be treated as sisters and mothers.
