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Posted by Dr. Salman in GEO TV - DOORDARSHAN & VOA AGENT, GEO-THE TROJAN HORSE OF INDIA on July 25th, 2013
The proverbial cat is out of bag and Pakistan’s populistSupreme Court has announced its decision on the Report of Media Commission. As expected, the court in its ruling made public on its website has chosen not to touch the sensitive parts of the Report. The most sensitive is dubious interest of foreigners in Pakistan’s electronic media.
There are two most sensitive issues mentioned in the Report:
a) Pakistan Broadcasters’ Association alleged that entertainment channel Urdu 1 was owned by Rupert Murdoch and two Afghan brothers (Mohsini brothers) who were based in Dubai. This channel (Urdu 1) was granted landing right much before it went on air anywhere in the world. The trail of dubious grant of license can be traced to Musa Gilani, son of former Prime Minister and Faryal Talpur, sister of the sitting President.
a) Media watchdog, PEMRA informed the Commission a couple of media houses are reported to have received large grants in the form of advertising contracts from overseas sources. It is said that one such grant is 20 million British pounds. Any attempt by PEMRA to probe such matters immediately leads to claims that there is an attempt to curb freedom of the media and there is always the recourse to obtaining a stay order if an inquiry is held. Most of the funds are channeled through the cover of a Norwegian NGO named Friends without Borders but it was found the footprints of this funding lead to Indian sponsors including the Indian state television, the Doordarshan.
Who is Keith Rupert Murdoch and why the Indians send their money to one Pakistani channel? If the influence of Murdoch and Indians was not checked in Pakistan, then PEMRA was in breach of trust and an accomplice in the crime of allowing foreigners making inroads into Pakistani airwaves through their money.
Keith Rupert Murdoch is an Australian American media mogul. In July 2011, he faced allegations that his companies, including the News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty and public citizens. He faces police and government investigations into bribery and corruption by the British government and FBI investigations in the US. On 21 July 2012, Murdoch resigned as a director of News International.
The allegation of PEMRA that one channel (GeoTV) received huge amounts in the name of sponsorship is most disturbing. That the amounts were actually sent by Indians should have rung alarm bells in the court room and media watchdog taken to task but the Supreme Court did not utter a single word in its order. The Supreme Court could do was to order an investigation. But this very serious breach of trust on the part of PEMRA escaped the attention of the court which strengthens the perception that the said channel is enjoying strong influence in the court room.
What are the services that Geo is delivering for India? Numerous. From showing excessive Indian contents to bashing Pakistan’s ISI and armed forces for anything happening anywhere in the world. This was the first channel which blamed in unison with Indian media that Mumbai Attacks of November, 2008 were perpetrated by ISI. Not only that, it helped Indian establishment’s line that Pakistanis were involved in the attacks when it prepared a package and informed the world that Ajmal Kassab belonged to a Pakistani town Faridkot. Now when this line of propaganda has been questioned in India with Indian security officials blaming their own government, the cover of this channel has been blown off.
Why this channel bashes ISI and armed forces? Because ISI and armed forces must be weakened at the point in time when they are fighting India’s proxies in FATA, Balochistan and even in Karachi. This is something enemy does to pressurize the security establishment of the rivals and break their resolve to fight. The Pakistani channel is doing exactly the same and earning millions of dollars of Indian money it has received. The security establishment should realize that even this channel is an Indian proxy and needs to be fought. The Supreme Court owes its popularity to this channel and may not take any action or utter any word to displease it.
Posted by AghaSaad in World's Largest Hypocrisy on July 24th, 2013
Over the years, U.S. bashing has become a national pastime in Pakistan. This trend is dominant almost everywhere, ranging from drawing room discussions to media talk shows, and in recent months has assumed alarming proportions due to host of events such as Afia Siddique verdict, Raymond Davis’s capture and subsequent release, incessant drone attacks and above all, the recent killing of Osama bin Laden.
Although it would be an exaggeration to say that everyone in Pakistan mistrusts and hates the U.S., a substantial majority does. Several surveys have revealed that majority of Pakistanis consider USA as an enemy rather than a friend. In fact Al-Jazeera-Gallup Pakistan Survey 2009 revealed that 59% identified the U.S. as the greatest threat to Pakistan. Even India, the arch rival was considered as the greatest threat by only 18% of the respondents. And Taliban, despite blowing off thousands of people, were considered as the biggest threat by only 11%.
Likewise, drone attacks, which are designed to efficiently kill militants while minimizing the collateral damage, evoke far more condemnation from the public than brutal and indiscriminate suicide attacks carried out by the Taliban. It is baffling that majority of Pakistanis feel aggrieved over drone attacks because they consider it a violation of sovereignty despite the fact that the tribal areas targeted by the drones are largely lawless with no effective writ of the state. In essence, so called violation of the sovereignty becomes a meaningless accusation because the writ of the state as well as its monopoly over physical violence, which underpin the entire concept of sovereignty, are simply absent from the tribal areas.
What makes this mistrust and hatred somewhat of an anomaly is the fact that throughout its history Pakistan has received humungous amount of USA economic aid as well as assistance of various types. In fact, Pakistan has registered its highest growth rates during times when it was also the recipient of uninterrupted US aid. It is incomprehensible how Pakistanis keep censuring the US for all of their problems, yet continuing to receive economic and military assistance which is vital for their survival.
Why do Pakistanis hate a country that has helped Pakistan so much? Explanations abound, including an oft-repeated one that Pakistanis, and for that matter a substantial chunk of the Muslim world, are envious of the lifestyle of and economic progress made by the U.S. But this begs another question: why the U.S. is being especially singled out when economic prosperity and liberal lifestyles are prevalent in many other countries.
In my opinion Pakistanis’ irrational hatred of the U.S. emanates from complex interplay between the way the state has cultivated the Pakistani brand of civic nationalism, exaggerated self importance, which a majority of Pakistanis feel, and the U.S. role in the international events particularly those involving the Muslim world. And overarching these reasons is the deep mistrust of the U.S., which makes it impossible for the Pakistanis to believe that U.S. may actually be carrying any noble intentions for Pakistan.
Since independence, the state in Pakistan has tried to cultivate civic nationalism through fusion of Islam and “Honour” centered patriotism. The central purpose of infusion of religion with state has been to use it as a unifying force. Let’s not forget that Pakistan is a home to various ethnicities that have a strong penchant for greater autonomy. To prevent the emergence of any ethnic based secession movement, the state has tried to unite diverse ethnicities through the promotion of the common factor of religion. While this approach has failed to check ethnic strife, it has nevertheless nurtured a mindset that is very conscious of its Islamic identity and consequently feels aggrieved when anything happens to the Muslims around the world. Even purely regional disputes of Muslims with non-Muslims have a potential of creating a strong reaction in Pakistan. In the case of the U.S., its support to Israel has created a very strong resentment in Pakistan and even huge U.S. assistance to the country has not been able to ameliorate the situation. Pakistan, like most of the Arab world, yet despite being a non-Arab country, is held hostage by the Palestine issue. Whereas Arab resentment can still be somewhat understood due to its regional context, Pakistan’s ferocity apparently defies logic. Due to this particular way of perceiving things, Israeli attacks in Gaza give rise to far more anger against the U.S. than against Taliban atrocities committed within Pakistan.
Another issue is that as a nation, Pakistanis needs some citable evidence of their country’s importance in the international arena. Unfortunately, since economic success has largely eluded Pakistan, things like “strategic location” and nuclear arsenal become the “symbols” of national pride and importance. Due to this exaggerated feeling of self importance as well as interpretation of the U.S. as an-anti Muslim country, a majority of Pakistanis actually believe that the U.S. is fearful of the nuclear arsenal and is waiting for an excuse to purge it. In fact everything, from war in Afghanistan to suicide blasts on the Pakistani soil, is interpreted as U.S. conspiracy to create “conducive” environment for purging nuclear arsenal. Conspiracy theorists argue that the U.S. has “bought” Taliban and is using them to destabilize Pakistan with the eventual aim of taking hold of the nuclear arsenal. Unfortunately, the U.S. invasion of Iraq on flimsy grounds has merely exacerbated the situation, providing the conspiracy theorists irrefutable “evidence” of US hegemony. They argue that if the U.S. can invade a country that did not possess weapons of mass destruction then to assume that it would leave a nuclear armed Muslim country alone is sheer naivety. This belief is so pervasive that immediately after the recent attack on the navy compound in Karachi, some of the media persons were openly alleging that USA was behind the attack and the sole purpose was to create doubts about the capability of the armed forces to defend the nuclear assets in case of a terrorist attack. Nuclear Arsenal, more than anything else, is the main driver of the conspiracy theory industry in Pakistan. And this conspiracy theory mindset is deeply suspicious of everything the U.S. does. The Pakistani media has been responsible for aggravating the situation more than anyone else. Its hard earned independence has unfortunately come at the time where it has actually become jingoistic. Consequently rather than playing any meaningful progressive role, it is merely reinforcing rabid anti Americanism in order to commercially capitalize on the existing hatred. Opinions are not changed or even challenged, just reinforced and strengthened.
To some extent the suspicion ridden environment has also worsened due to the negative perception about the dealing tactics of USA with Pakistan. The impression of the majority of the Pakistanis is that U.S. does not consider it more than a client state. Instead of engaging with the people of Pakistan, US strikes deals with shady characters in the establishment and political top tier. Most of the Pakistanis feel that the case for war on terror has never been convincingly presented to them. The irony is that the elements which are striking deals with the U.S. are also highly critical of it, when it comes to public posturing. This kind of double behavior merely aggravates the negative impression of the U.S. in the eyes of masses. Apart from behind the door deals, another perception is that U.S. often bullies Pakistan and cares little for what the people of Pakistan feel. The recent issue of Raymond Davis merely worsened USA’s repute in the eyes of ordinary Pakistanis who construed the release of Raymond as an affront and open coercion by the superpower.
Despite the mistrust, the fact is that both countries need each other as they are fighting a common enemy. The U.S. cannot and should not leave Pakistan completely in isolation even after withdrawal from Afghanistan as to do so would be a repeat of the grave mistake it made in late 1980s when after the defeat of Soviet Union it simply packed up from the region. However, the prevailing deep mistrust has to be removed and both the parties need to take concrete steps. Pakistani media has to exercise maturity and try to cultivate rational self interest instead of indulging in rightwing hollow sloganeering about so called national honor and violation of sovereignty. Media needs to understand that freedom of expression comes with a responsibility that it would not be used for cheap sensationalizing and petty commercial interests. Pakistanis need to be convinced that due to their irrational and delusional mindset, they are getting completely isolated in the world while at the same time strengthening forces of extremism. They need to understand that USA and Pakistan are facing a common enemy and Media can potentially play a constructive role by at least allowing space to liberal opinion. At present the media is overwhelmingly dominated by the right wingers.
The U.S. has to engage with the people of Pakistan and dispel this impression that it is just a bullying coalition partner. It has to highlight its contributions to the country of Pakistan and those are many. Above all, it needs to strengthen democracy in Pakistan and should completely discard the previous policy of dealing with the unelected institutions.
As the death toll steadily rose on Wednesday from a powerful car bomb in Peshawar, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, stood up grimly in Islamabad to appeal for Pakistanis to overcome the misperceptions and stereotypes they had of the US.
Misperceptions carry the weight of fact in Pakistan; nowhere more so than where the US, and arch-rival India, are concerned.
Before the latest wave of terror attacks that have swept Pakistan’s big cities, rumours swirled in the capital about the US’s imperial ambitions for Pakistan.
A large contingent of US marines was imagined to be stationed at the embassy compound. Likewise, hundreds of houses were supposedly rented in the city to house staff of Blackwater, a private military company.
These fictions unnerved embassy staff, all too familiar with the incendiary nature of the society around them. They feared a possible repeat of the 1979 storming of the embassy. Then, an inaccurate radio report blaming the US for bombing the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca stirred students to burn the embassy down. Yet the attack on the mosque was the work of someone closer to home: a Saudi Arabian zealot.
Thirty years later, such grand misunderstandings still play themselves out on the streets of Pakistan. The brutal killings meted out by Taliban militants on Pakistan’s people are somehow either the US’s fault, or the handiwork of India.
Distrust between Islamabad and Washington runs deep, in spite of an embrace that spans decades when Pakistan was seen as a strategic counterweight to Moscow-leaning New Delhi and Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Times have changed and more development assistance is on offer. Yet perceptions of the US have worsened. On the streets, Pakistanis are openly defiant towards the US. In the highest offices in government, officials are similarly resentful. They complain that the US has treated Pakistan as a “hired gun” to fight the Soviets and more recently al-Qaeda militants responsible for the 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
Mrs Clinton’s visit offers a chance for the top US diplomat to present Washington’s case for a long-term relationship with a country where anti-US sentiment is fervent. “I want you to know that this fight is not Pakistan’s alone,” she said in remarks aimed at Pakistani sceptics. “So this is our struggle as well and we commend the Pakistani military for their courageous fight and we commit to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Pakistani people in your fight for peace and security.”
Mrs Clinton’s formidable task is to convince Pakistan’s leadership of Barack Obama’s determination to turn a page. Her visit comes amid controversy in Pakistan over the passage of a bill to triple US help to the country to $1.5bn a year. It also comes in the face of a widespread militant assault.
“The US in the past has only preferred to do business with people who suited its own interests. The interests of Pakistanis have never been considered,” said Ghaus Khan, an Islamabad student, on Wednesday, echoing wider public views.
General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, the Pakistan army’s chief, in a rare public criticism, cited “serious concern” over the Kerry-Lugar bill which was viewed as intrusive in areas including military promotions and Pakistan’s nuclear program.
Mrs Clinton has tried to emphasise development goals over military ones. On Wednesday, she offered US help to modernise Pakistan’s electricity infrastructure. Little investment went into power during Mr Musharraf’s time in office and now cities are blighted with outages.
“What do people in Pakistan want? Good jobs, good healthcare, good education for our children, energy that is predictable and reliable – the kinds of everyday needs that are really at the core of what Americans want,” she said.
That question is on the minds of many Pakistanis too. Instead of jobs, schools and hospitals they have escalating terror attacks.
“The people of Pakistan will be convinced of good American intentions when we see them in real life,” Mr Khan said. “There is a long history of bad American behaviour towards our people.”
Posted by Azahir in Pakistan's Beauty, Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on June 21st, 2013
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Posted by Brave_Heart in Baloch Feudal Sardars, KASHMIRI KUGOO WAJA, KIDNAPPING & RAPE OF 8000 YOUNG GIRLS, Morally corrupt Thieves of PML(N), NAWAZ SHARIF US & SAUDI AGENT, Nawaz Sharif US Agent, Nawaz Sharif Womanizer, Nawaz Sharif-The Prime Minister from Hell, Pakistan's Hall of Shame, Pakistan's Ruling Elite Feudals Industrialists, WOMEN OF PAKISTAN on June 16th, 2013
| 9-year-old Pakistani girl kidnapped and gang-raped |
An archive photo of a Pakistani girl. (Reuters / Fayaz Aziz)
Meerwala, Pakistan
Mr.Kristof is a New York Jew and writes particularly vicious articles for the Jewish Newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post about Muslim societies like Pakistan, ignoring the 1 million cases of unreported rapes in
his home country.Pakistan allows these Jewish reporters, who cleverly hide their identity to roam around in Pakistan, and even to spy for Israel and India. Pakistan’s security agencies can only keep an eye on them, our executive and Judiciary protects them.
Our an enemy can only point out our flaws. It is for us to fix them
Nicholas D. Kristof
If the thought has ever flitted through your mind that your spouse isn’t 100 percent perfect, then just contemplate what Shakira Parveen is going through. And give your own husband or wife a hug.
When Ghulam Fareed proposed marriage to Ms. Parveen, he fingered prayer beads and seemed gentle and pious. Ms. Parveen didn’t know him well, but she and her family were impressed.
“The first month of marriage was O.K.,” Ms. Parveen recalled. “And then he said, you have to do whatever I tell you. If I tell you to sleep with other men, you have to do that.”
It turned out that Mr. Fareed was running a brothel and selling drugs, and he intended Ms. Parveen to be his newest prostitute. “I said, ‘No, I don’t want to sleep with other men,’ ” she said, but he beat her unconscious with sticks, broke her bones and at one point set fire to her clothes. Finally, she broke and assented.
Her “husband” locked her up in one room, she said, and the only people she saw were customers. “For two years, I never left the house,” she said.
This kind of neo-slavery is the plight of millions of girls and young women (and smaller numbers of boys) around the world, particularly in Asia. A major difference from 19th-century slavery is that these victims are dead of AIDS by their 20s.
Finally, Ms. Parveen was able to escape and return to her family, but Mr. Fareed was furious and began to torment her family, saying he would let up only if she returned to the brothel as his prostitute. Then Mr. Fareed’s gang pressured Ms. Parveen by kidnapping her younger brother, Uzman, who was in the fifth grade. Uzman says that his hands and feet were shackled, and he was raped daily by many different men, apparently pimped to paying customers.
The gang members explained that they would release the boy if Ms. Parveen returned to the brothel, and she contemplated suicide.
After six weeks, Uzman escaped while his captors became drunk and left him unshackled. But when Ms. Parveen and her parents went to the police, the officers just laughed at them. Mr. Fareed and other gang members worked hand in glove with the police, the family says.
Indeed, the police even arrested Ms. Parveen’s father, who is one-legged because of a train accident (that is one reason for the family’s poverty). Apparently on the gang’s orders, the police held him for two weeks, in which time he says he was beaten mercilessly. The police are also searching for Ms. Parveen’s brothers, who have gone into hiding.
Mr. Fareed also threatened to kidnap and prostitute Ms. Parveen’s younger sister, Naima, a 10th-grader who was ranked first in her class of 40 girls. Panic-stricken, the parents pulled Naima out of school and sent her to relatives far away. So her dreams of becoming a doctor have been dashed. (For readers who want to help, I’ve posted some suggestions on my blog:www.nytimes.com/ontheground.)
This nexus of sex trafficking and police corruption is common in developing countries. The problem is typically not so much that laws are inadequate; it is that brothel owners buy the police and the courts.
But Ms. Parveen’s tale arises not only from corruption, but also from poverty.
“If I had money, this wouldn’t be happening,” said Ms. Parveen’s mother, Akbari Begum. “It’s all about money. In the police station, nobody listens to me. The police listen to those who sell narcotics.”
“God should never grant daughters to poor people,” she added. “God should not give sisters to poor brothers. Because we’re poor, we can’t fight for them. It’s very hard for poor people, because they take our daughters and dishonor them. There’s nothing we can do.”
Yet in a land where poor women and girls are victimized equally by pimps and by the police, they do have one savior — Mukhtar Mai. She is the woman I’ve visited and written about often (she also uses the name Mukhtaran Bibi).
After being sentenced to be gang-raped by a tribal council for a supposed offense of her brother, Mukhtar refused to commit suicide and instead prosecuted her attackers. And then she used compensation money (and donations from Times readers) to run schools and an aid organization for Pakistani women.
It was in Mukhtar’s extraordinary sanctuary that I met Ms. Parveen. In my Sunday column, I’ll tell more about Mukhtar today.
A nine-year-old Pakistani girl has been taken to the hospital in critical condition after being kidnapped and brutally gang-raped. The girl’s mother has named the abusers, but no arrests were made.
The girl was admitted to a hospital in Bahawalpur after being raped on Wednesday. She remains in critical condition due to loss of blood and internal injuries, the Express Tribune reported, quoting the hospital’s doctors.
Local police have launched a criminal case against seven men for the kidnap and rape; no arrests have been made yet.
The girl’s mother named five of the seven suspects. She reportedly told police that she hesitated to inform law enforcers because the kidnappers threatened to kill her and the girl if the woman spoke to authorities.
Station House Officer Irshad Joyia said they were ordered to arrest the suspects, but later were informed that the men had fled to Alipur village, the Express Tribune said.
According to a First Information Report (FIR) prepared by police, the girl was beaten and then kidnapped by three women and a man in front of her house in Manzoorabad in Rahim Yar Khanby. The kidnappers reportedly took her to another location where she was gang-raped by three men, one of whom was named in the FIR.
The girl was then allegedly taken back to the place from which she was kidnapped. The girl’s mother told police she found her bloodied daughter near their house. She then took the child to Sheikh Zayed Hospital for examination and treatment.
The rape came weeks after a similar shocking case when a six-year-old Hindu girl was allegedly raped in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province at the beginning of December. The child was also reportedly kidnapped and gang-raped. Residents of the province staged several protests in response to the incident.
These two recent cases in Pakistan coincide with a horrifying gang-rape in India that claimed the life of a 23-year-old student raped on a bus by six men, the youngest of whom reportedly was a minor. The six men have all been charged with murder, gang-rape, attempted murder, kidnapping and other felonies. They are expected to appear in court on Monday.
The case sparked mass protests in New Delhi. Demonstrators, particularly women, demanded the rapists be punished and called for the creation of new laws to protect Indian women.
The incident has drawn international attention to the high rates of violence against women in India, where rape victims often do not report to the police for fear of shaming their families or being ignored by law enforcement.
The American government has just gone into the anti-honor-killing “business.” Given my extensive academic and legal work documenting and opposing honor killing, I support this venture. I do find it a bit odd that the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem has just launched such a campaign–but for Palestinian women only.
I have written about honor killing among Palestinians and among Israeli Arabs; I also interviewed Palestinian feminist Asma Al-Ghoul about how she was fired and then arrested for her anti-honor-killing advocacy both in Gaza and on the West Bank. Thus, I favor some U.S. intervention in the matter.
However, I wonder: Why not branch out to Pakistan or Afghanistan where honor killing and honor-based violence is, possibly, even more epidemic?
Last night, I watched an excellent and heartbreaking Frontline documentary by Habiba Nosheen about honor-based violence in Pakistan: “Outlawed in Pakistan.” Thirteen-year-old Kainat Soomro was chloroformed, drugged, kidnapped, and then gang-raped for three or four days by four men who threatened to kill or sell her.
Amazingly Kainat escaped, in her bare feet and without her headscarf.
I am very partial to a story about a girl or woman who escapes a life-threatening captivity in the “Wild East,” as I once did, in Kabul, long ago. I write about this in my forthcoming book, An American Bride in Kabul.
But, I was a foreigner, an American, and once I got out I had a second chance. Kainat is now and forevermore a ruined child, an “outlaw,” whose family was meant to kill her for having “dishonored” them.
Amazingly, her loving family refused to do so. Unlike so many honor-killing families in which parents and siblings are either hands-on perpetrators or collaborators in the murder of their daughters and sisters, Kainat’s mother weeps and kisses her. Her father and older brother proudly supported Kainat’s search for justice.
This family deserves a major prize for having the courage and the sanity to stand up to tribal misogyny.
The Soomros turned to the police who refused to act. Instead, they said to kill her according to tribal custom. “She has shamed you.” The police do no sperm or DNA testing, and do not secure the crime scene. They ensure that charges of rape are almost impossible to prove.
Perhaps the U.S. Consulates in Peshawar and Karachi can donate rape kits to the Pakistani police.
Instead of becoming a bandit queen, as the gang-raped Phoolan Devi did in Uttar Pradesh, India; instead of killing herself — Kainat wanted justice. She wanted these men “sentenced to death” because they ruined her life. And they have. Probably, no one will marry her, and Kainat’s plans to become a physician may be permanently on hold. The death threats against this honorable family became so serious, that Kainat’s 18-person family was forced to flee their home for two rooms in Karachi.
Men who rape girls in tribal areas feel no guilt. Kainat’s accused rapists were enraged when their victim dared speak out. They hotly denied Kainat’s charges.
In Karachi, Sarah Zaman, of War Against Rape, a grassroots feminist group, decided to help Kainat and found her a dedicated pro bono lawyer. Zaman knew that powerful village men routinely rape girls and then have them killed for having shamed their families. In Afghanistan, raped women are either honor-killed or jailed as criminals. Kainat bravely agreed to endure a 5- to 10-year legal process, one in which she will be grilled in humiliating ways. The pro bono lawyer who represented the accused men, is also representing the President of Pakistan.
Nevertheless, Kainat’s lawyer managed to have the four men jailed and held in jail without bail for three years. This, too, is amazing.
Nevertheless, the accused rapists prevail. We see dozens of their village supporters descend on the courthouse yelling that “Kainat is a whore.” Their winning defense is ingenious: They claim that Kainat married one of them and he produces her thumbprint on a marriage document and a photo of the two of them, smiling. Kainat repeats that she was drugged and does not remember this. Her presumed bridegroom demands that she return to him.
Kainat was only 13 and did not have the right to consent to a marriage under secular law. However, under Sharia law, if she has reached puberty, she can do so. Sharia law prevails in the matter and the accused are all freed.
Despite claims to the contrary, Sharia law and Sharia courts are dangerous for women.
Kainat’s story is a victory and like all such victories, the price is high and the risk is even higher.
For a poor girl and her family to have four powerful men jailed for three years is extraordinary. The price: They allegedly killed her supportive brother, Sabir. And despite national headlines, the police closed the murder investigation. Kainat quietly says that her “life is a living hell.”
Kainat and her family live under police protection. Again, this is extraordinary.
I suggest that the U.S. Consulates also consider funding Kainat’s education as a physician. Perhaps the entire family should be air-lifted out of the Pakistani Badlands and into America for their safety.
Posted by razahamad in Pakistan Air Force, Pakistan Air Force Special Services Group, Shaheen on May 31st, 2013
BEIJING, May 25, (ChinaMil) — Ma Xiaotian, member of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and commander of the Air Force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), met with Hussain, the visiting first deputy chief of air staff of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on the afternoon of May 24.
Ma Xiaotian said that China and Pakistan are close and friendly neighboring countries. Regardless of how the international and regional situations change, China will unswervingly consolidate and develop the friendly relations between China and Pakistan. The militaries of both counties have maintained close exchange and cooperation, kept frequent high-level military reciprocal visits, and established an effective cooperation mechanism. The Air Forces of both countries have maintained close cooperation and achieved fruitful results in multiple fields.
Hussain expressed that the PAF is willing to continue to strengthen the mutually beneficial and friendly cooperation with the Air Force of the Chinese PLA, expand exchanges and push forward the progressive development of the friendly cooperative relations between the two countries, the two militaries and the two air forces in particular.
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