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Tuesday, October 31, 2023
Tariq Jamil’s son dies under ‘mysterious’ circumstances
LAHORE: Asim Jamil, the son of renowned religious scholar Maulana Tariq Jamil, died of a bullet injury under mysterious circumstances in his hometown Tulamba on Sunday.
Mr Asim, 32, who suffered the bullet injury to his chest, was rushed to the Rural Health Centre (RHC) Tulamba in Khanewal district, where he died during treatment.
Officials at the RHC informed the police, who took the body into their custody and initiated an investigation. Forensic experts reached the scene of the occurrence to collect evidence.
Mian Channu DSP Saleem informed the media that Mr Asim had shot himself in the chest.
He said the family did not inform the police about the incident and took Mr Asim to the hospital.
Punjab IGP Dr Usman Anwar took notice of the incident and sought a report from the regional police officer (RPO) of Multan.
RPO Sohail Chaudhry told Dawn that Mr Asim was exercising in his home gym when he called his guard, snatched his gun and committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest.
He said Mr Asim was taken to the nearby RHC, but he could not survive.
The RPO claimed that Mr Asim was undergoing treatment for some psychological problems.
Maulana Tariq Jamil in a post on X, formerly Twitter, termed his son’s death accident. He expressed grief and requested prayers for the deceased.
Condolence messages poured in from across the country after the news about Mr Asim’s death went viral on social media.
National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti, and former prime minister and PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif extended their heartfelt condolences to and expressed solidarity with the bereaved family.
Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2023
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NAWAZ Sharif is back and anyone betting against him becoming the next prime minister is likely to lose. Some have already lost after insisting he’d never return, as that would be tantamount to him falling into the establishment’s trap.
Don’t mistake my view for enthusiastic support one way or the other; it’s just an assessment. I am no sage and rarely refer to something I wrote in the past, but have said over the past weeks that analysts and their audiences alike may be suffering from over-analysis and missing the forest for the trees.
Analysis is even more suspect, and weaker, when it isn’t rooted in a reading of the ground reality and merely represents the wishes or conforms to their partisan stance. Along with their audiences, some analysts can create (mis)information silos.
There may also be individuals with integrity in the media who follow such a path out of belief, but whatever your driver or motivator you end up sacrificing your claim to being an ‘independent’ journalist. To be honest, the independent journalist is fast becoming an extinct species.
Who wants to listen to balanced journalistic voices in such a polarised and charged political environment?
Who wants to listen to balanced journalistic voices in such a polarised and charged political environment as ours? It is ‘us versus them’. Nobody is willing to take prisoners. And here we are, where the credibility of the written, spoken word is a function of your point of reference.
By no means is this issue typical to Pakistan. It is a global phenomenon in the ‘post-truth’ era whether in the US, India or Brazil. Populist leaders have created their cult followings, and worthy men and women in the media play to this gallery in order to maximise reach and income. Preaching to the choir is profitable; advancing balanced views isn’t. It’s as simple as that.
While these lines may sound like a digression, they aren’t. What are the two dominant political points of view in the country? One holds that PTI is the most popular political party and would win any election where it is allowed to campaign and participate freely.
Despite a recent Gallup poll showing a spike in Nawaz Sharif’s popularity since his return on Oct 21, I am more sympathetic to the view that, as we speak, the Imran Khan-led PTI remains a formidable political force and could win an election on its own.
The other point of view is that Nawaz Sharif’s return, coupled with Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s reorganisation of the party, particularly in its power base of Punjab, has been a shot in the arm for the PML-N and the party’s rank and file is now motivated and galvanised enough to be able to put their leader back in the Prime Minister’s House.
Those saying this are not just party loyalists but media analysts too; they need a reality check. There can be no doubt Nawaz Sharif fell victim to a conspiracy where the establishment and judiciary joined hands to oust him from office and also jailed him and his daughter on the flimsiest of charges.
In doing so, they created political instability and an ongoing economic crisis that has inflicted untold pain on the poorest of Pakistanis in particular. Today, the country is teetering on the verge of default. Those who have steered us to this disaster are now rowing back feverishly to turn back the clock.
Whether they have the desire, or even the ability, to go back to 2011, 2013-14, 2016 or to just before the 2018 elections is yet to be clear. What we see is that with considerable brutal force, the pushback has been happening.
What happened in the ‘get Nawaz’ operation from 2016 onwards to the final days of the PTI government in office only propelled Nawaz Sharif’s popularity higher. His ‘vote ko izzat do’ slogan resonated with the people.
When he named names in that now-memorable 2020 Gujranwala jalsa, the massive crowd roared its approval. Soon, Punjab towns and the countryside heard echoes of slogans challenging the primacy of the most powerful institution’s leadership that even a few months earlier nobody could have dreamt of.
Evidence started to emerge in, for example, the Daska by-election in 2021, where the PML-N candidate pulled off a win despite the documented efforts of the Punjab government and the PTI Tiger Force chief to steal the election.
The tide started to turn when it emerged that PTI’s former benefactors had now turned against the party and were backing the no-confidence motion against the prime minister they once so proudly owned and turned out to salute en masse at GHQ.
The crisis was triggered less by ‘interference in military transfers and postings’ and jockeying for power but more by the former army chief’s burning desire to secure a second extension to remain in office for another three years to total nine! He was sure if Imran Khan’s cage was sufficiently rattled he’d be retained.
It seemed the PDM, mostly the PML-N, saw through the game being played, and Nawaz Sharif held his nerve and refused to retain the chief when his own party-led coalition took over power. From the Punjab by-elections to the dissolution of the assembly in the province and KP, most of the actions were seen as moves on a complicated chessboard by the former army chief.
Now the military, under the new leadership, seems determined to execute the ‘reset to 2016’ (at least), and like the run-up to and the 2018 election itself and its aftermath, the 2024 poll too will likely see more or less a ‘guaranteed’ outcome. A freer electoral exercise will have to wait another few years.
Nawaz Sharif may be headed for the PM’s House, but how he is judged will hinge largely on whether he can revive the economy. His credibility will be restored if he can. Equally his longevity in office will depend on how long he can suppress his civilian supremacy instinct and stick to his ‘I forgive all who wronged me’ mantra.
UNCONVINCING chants for the privatisation of bleeding SOEs are being raised in Islamabad. Presently, there are approximately 215 of them, of which 170 are commercial entities (with 475,000 employees), which have rarely achieved a five per cent return on their assets in three consecutive years.
Between FY2013-14 and 2018-19, the top 10 loss-making SOEs accumulated losses of more than Rs2.1 trillion, with the government having provided them Rs2.5tr between 2018 and 2021, including a subsidy of Rs1tr.
As an ardent supporter of a more deregulated, open, market-based economy, one regards privatisation as just one of the instruments in this direction. However, as argued earlier, the majority of these SOEs would have to be liquidated or wound up, not being marketable on an ‘as is, running concern’ basis.
One such example is that of PIA, which is being offered as the first candidate for privatisation, and which, the privatisation minister informs us, has an accumulated loss of Rs713 billion (growing in excess of Rs150bn per annum), having lost $7.1bn since 2012.
It has only 19 aircraft operational (compared to Air Blue’s 12), 15 of these are leased (six of which are grounded), costing $5 million per month. And the value of its assets is not enough to discharge its liabilities.
The reported decision of the government partially recognises that PIA as structured today cannot be privatised as one entity, and that its non-core functions and assets will have to be hived off and its debt liabilities of close to Rs300bn will need to be taken over by the government (mostly covered by government guarantees) and parked in another corporate body. The core assets identified for sale are routes, landing rights, core engineering services and air service agreements.
In my opinion, there is need for greater clarity on what we consider as assets that are being sold, our expectation of their value as against their actual market value, and what the buyer would perceive or regard as the remaining liabilities they would be required to pick up.
There is need for greater clarity on what we consider as assets that are being sold.
The most prized asset(s) would be routes, landing rights/slots in major international airports and the respective time slot ‘owned’ by PIA. The only publicly available information is the 2016 sale by Kenyan Airways of its morning slot in Heathrow for roughly $75m. What would be the likely value of PIA’s slots today — higher or lower?
What would be the real value for the buyer of the 19 aircraft owned by PIA, considering their age and flight worthiness? As for the leased aircraft, the buyer is unlikely to either induct all of them into the fleet (by signing off on the leasing agreements) or to take over their outstanding liabilities. The government would be advised to settle with the lessors out of court. Any attempt at arbitration is likely to turn out to be rather costly.
As for properties owned or rented by PIA, it is not that obvious why the buyer would, for reasons of efficiency, retain all of them for its operations. Many of the owned properties would then eventually be up for sale. Furthermore, many of its offices globally, being superfluous for its functional needs, would likely be closed.
A key question that may have to factored into the sale agreement would be the future (and frequency) of flights to, say, Gwadar, Sui, Rahim Yar Khan, Sukkur, Skardu, Gilgit, etc — destinations to which private airlines are not flying currently.
With the public sector PIA not flying to these terminals, would the private sector take over these routes immediately or would there be a need for, say, a two-year slack subsidy, the budgetary burden of which could be lessened/adjusted against the transfer of rights for Haj flights to the new buyer?
The buyer would then examine the cost of other liabilities, those pertaining to the bloated workforce. Data is not available on the number of employees tied to PIA’s core functions — their numbers in excess of requirement for operations (the number of ‘ghost employees’ is anyone’s guess), their skill set and pension liabilities.
The buyer would expect pension liabilities of retired employees and the entitlement to date of the present to be picked up by the government. It is not clear how much of the existing workforce they would be prepared to retain, while being asked to pick up the golden handshake tag for the ones they decide to lay off, in which case they would obviously discount the offer price accordingly.
It remains to be seen if foreign investors would be interested in this transaction, given the country’s image owing to the security, political, economic and regulatory environment in comparison with other options globally. And, what tax and other concessions would they seek?
To this end, we would have to be mindful of the dividend outflows in foreign exchange, with the resulting impact on the current account and its financing.
PIA’s proposed divestment can tick all the boxes for the following, generally accepted, principles of privatisation if the transaction is also carried out in an open and transparent manner, with adequate preparation and time to get the best price for the public asset:
a) The transfer should improve the efficiency, cost-effectiveness and service delivery of the entity being sold.
b) It should improve market competitiveness in general, and in the sector in particular. Considering the number of private airlines already in operation, the sale of PIA’s core functions and assets should make the market more competitive.
c) Divestment should not result in the transfer of wealth to the buyer and the outcome should be in the public interest.
Finally, since money is fungible, the receipts from this transaction should not serve as a source for financing unproductive government activities and poorly designed, leakage-prone mega infrastructure projects, generating low returns and with limited positive externalities, since it is likely to slacken the effort for much-needed fiscal reforms.
Our laws also require that privatisation receipts be utilised to retire debt and not finance expenditures.
The writer is a former governor of the State Bank.
Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2023
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RAWALPINDI: Pakistan International Airlines has cancelled 349 flights over the last two weeks and is managing the flight schedule on a day-to-day basis due to fuel shortage, according to the spokesperson.
The national carrier has been grappling with “the most severe crisis” in its history for two weeks after the Pakistan State Oil (PSO) cut its fuel supply.
Even after two weeks, the crisis is nowhere near resolution — despite the management’s proclamations — as only ten flights, including nine international, were operated on Thursday, the spokesman confirmed without revealing the number of cancelled flights.
The spokesperson said flights were being operated as per the availability of fuel. Only those aircraft are taking off for which fuel could be assured.
Canada, Turkiye, China, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia identified as ‘priority’ destinations
A plan has been chalked out to prioritise flights to Canada, Turkiye, China, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, the spokesperson added.
The cancellation of flights has left thousands of passengers in distress, as well as PIA employees who have witnessed the airline’s decline for many years. They conceded that the airline’s condition was “never this bad”.
The crisis occurred at a time when the government was looking to expedite the process of privatising the airline as part of a fiscal discipline plan agreed under an IMF bailout in June, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, PIA Chief Executive Officer Muhammad Amir Hayat has urged employees to stay focused “for ensuring organisational compliance”.
“As we brace for the privatisation of PIACL, amidst these extraordinary times, it calls for all employees to maintain a concerted focus for ensuring organisational compliance through closely knitted teamwork as the foremost priority while staying abreast with contemporary requirements,” said a circular issued by the CEO.
Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2023
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Family of Al Jazeera journalist killed in Gaza strike
The family of an Al Jazeera journalist have been killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza, the Qatar-based network said in a statement on Wednesday as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues to rage on.
Al Jazeera said the wife and two children of its Arabic-language channel’s Gaza correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh were killed in a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza strip.
“The Al Jazeera Media Network extends its sincere condolences and sympathy to our colleague Wael Al-Dahdouh on the loss of his family in an Israeli airstrike,” it said.
“The indiscriminate assault by the Israeli occupation forces resulted in the tragic loss of his wife, son and daughter, while the rest of his family is buried under the rubble.”
Israel launched withering strikes on the narrow Palestinian territory in response to a massive cross-border attacks by Hamas fighter on October 7 that Israeli officials say have killed more than 1,400 people. More than 220 people were taken hostage and are currently held in Gaza, Israel says.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes have killed more than 6,500 people in Gaza, a rise of more than 700 since Tuesday, according to the health ministry.
In images and footage run by Al Jazeera and shared on social media, Al-Dahdouh was shown mourning over the bodies of his wife and children at a hospital in Deir el-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera said the family were staying in a temporary home after evacuating Gaza City following Israel’s warning for residents to move south as its forces intensified strikes targeting Hamas.
“This is the safe zone the occupation (Israeli) army was talking about,” Al-Dahdouh said on Al Jazeera.
The media organisation said “their home was targeted in the Nuseirat camp in the centre of Gaza, where they had sought refuge after being displaced by the initial bombardment in their neighbourhood”.
“Al Jazeera is deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of our colleagues in Gaza and hold the Israeli authorities responsible for their security,” it added.
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THE history of South Asia and most other outposts of the British (or the Dutch or French) is replete with the struggles of the ancestors of contemporary populations against colonisers who occupied the subcontinent for over two centuries.
The sum total of post-colonial history taught in most of the countries created as the sun set on the British Empire are, in fact, a compendium of the struggles of heroic fighters and thinkers who paved the way for independence.
Generations of people educated in these post-colonial nations have grown up with a consciousness of a once-glorious past that was interrupted by the machinations of colonial powers, who inveigled their way into South Asia or Africa or any of the many other places that were ‘discovered’ by white explorers in their quest to find resources to monopolise, people to subjugate, and lands to occupy.
The advent of the British East India Company or the Dutch East India Company saw the deployment of ‘trade’ interests that sought to amass raw material that the future colonisers set about gathering up.
Everyone knows what happened next: trade gave way to administration, and doddering monarchies or tribal kingdoms were converted into colonies that were administered and then ruled by the white men who had first presented their presence and their intentions as benign.
The history of colonialism and the fact that it led to the looting of vast portions of the world for the benefit of white and Western home populations is thus well known by those who suffered under the yoke of colonial occupation. It is, however, markedly less well known by the populations of colonising nations.
In the UK, many still insist that the British colonisers were ‘benevolent’ and brought only good things to the subcontinent, notwithstanding the compelling evidence of carnage or pillage of former colonies. There is still less awareness of the hobbling of long-existing systems of law, administration and cultural production that followed colonisation.
For all the good intentions of post-colonial historians, their efforts of the past half century have seemed mostly futile.
Academic departments in the UK and US have attempted to correct this incorrect recollection of the past. In the American context, post-colonial historians have focused on the lie behind the much-popularised premise that the explorer Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ America as an example of how the presence of Native Americans has been erased in American history to give the impression that America was somehow less real until the white colonisers arrived.
They have also focused on the systematic annihilation of Native Americans by white settler-colonialists so that a vast continent would become their own.
For all the good intentions of post-colonial historians, their efforts of the past half century have seemed mostly futile. Why, many readers of post-colonial history wondered, would anyone care about how the white and Western world had amassed its cultural, historical and material wealth when they did not have to.
Several demographic and racial transformations of the Western world have occurred over the years. In the UK, British Muslim populations — the progeny of labourers who had migrated from Pakistan, entered a third generation. The children of the formerly colonised are now a part of the former colonial power.
In the US, the efforts of Black Americans, whose ancestors had been forced onto ships as human cargo of the Atlantic slave trade, exposed how so much of the country had been built by the formerly enslaved. The exploitation of these slaves and the organised campaign against Native Americans took place simultaneously.
In the case of Native Americans, historians pointed out, entire tribes were decimated and their lands taken over and occupied, often through the use of despicable tactics such as distributing blankets infected with smallpox.
Even so, the prospects of post-colonial history and the anti-colonial struggle seemed dim in its capacity to stop future occupations. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seemed to offer proof of this as neo-colonial settlers from the US/Nato set about undertaking a second such campaign. Post-colonial history seemed to have failed to do what knowledge of the past hopes to do; ie, change the behaviour of actors who learn about it.
Just when this appeared to be the way things would be, there were some unexpected stirrings of change. Following the Israeli bombardment and blockade of Gaza, an unprecedented wave of support for the Palestinian people has been seen in the US, the UK and even places like Germany and the Netherlands. In the US, Palestinian activists have been assisted by Black Lives Matter organisers, who have helped them put together well-organised and enormous protests and demonstrations all across the country.
While pro-Israeli voices have dominated the elite academia and business, student bodies and public protests have been dominated by slogans of ‘Free Palestine’. The anti-settler colonial narrative that has been behind denouncing the ‘discovery’ of America with the arrival of white people and the occupation of Native American lands has joined hands with movements like Black Lives Matter, which has an anti-racist agenda, to produce mass sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people.
In the UK, the demographics of cities like London, which now have large Muslim populations, have also contributed to an otherwise unprecedented groundswell of support. Of course, other factors, such as the availability of Palestinian voices on social media, have bolstered sympathy for them too.
Similarly, American misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq have made young people far more sceptical of occupation by colonialists than their ancestors might have been.
Even so, the change in world opinion and the willingness of protesters to denounce what Israel has done to promote an apartheid state, signal the possibility that the critique of history put forth by the formerly conquered and colonised may finally have seeped into the world’s consciousness.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy. rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2023
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Sheikh Rashid hospitalised after chest pain, breathing issues
RAWALPINDI: Former interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed was admitted to the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC) on Monday after complaints of chest pain and breathing problems.
According to doctors, the former minister has undergone ECG and other tests.
Mr Ahmed would remain under observation for some time, and more tests would be conducted on Tuesday.
If the test reports are clear, he would be discharged, the doctors added.
According to family sources, Mr Ahmed had gone to meet his lawyer, Abdul Razzaq Advocate, in the Saddar area. As he was climbing, he felt pain in his chest.
He was rushed to the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology, where senior doctors checked him and admitted him for two days. Mr Ahmed’s condition has improved since then, the sources said, adding he was a heart patient for the last many years.
Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2023
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‘Passionate rivalry’ on the cards as neighbours set to collide
CHENNAI: Pakistan have two perfect records on the line in their World Cup clash against Afghanistan on Monday. They’ve won both One-Day Internationals they’ve played against India in Chennai, while they boast a 7-0 record against the Afghans in ODIs.
So when they face their counterparts from the northwestern border at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, they will enter the game as favourites on paper.
Apart from the on-field calculations, however, the Pakistan-Afghanistan cricketing rivalry has developed some needle to it and the duo have been involved in some feisty thrillers in recent times.
The last time they met at the World Cup was four years ago in Leeds where Pakistan clinched a three-wicket victory with two balls to spare; sparking riots between the two sets of fans outside Headingley.
At the Twenty20 Asia Cup last year, where Pakistan edged the Afghans in yet another nail-biter, Afghanistan pacer Fareed Malik and Pakistan batsman Asif Ali almost came to blows.
There was another keenly-contested clash between the two sides in Hambantota in August, where Pakistan edged their neighbours by a wicket in the second game of a three-match ODI series they swept.
Apart from the fact that both teams need a win to revive their respective wins, the game is being played in the backdrop of stormy political ties between the two countries.
Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks since the Taliban came back to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
The militant assaults have been focused in regions abutting Afghanistan, and Islamabad alleges some are being planned on Afghan soil — a charge Kabul denies.
Pakistan has also recently announced a plan to evict hundreds of thousands of Afghan migrants living in Pakistan.
“I think for them [Afghanistan players] it’s a rivalry that excites them,” Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott told reporters on Sunday.
“I think it’s a rivalry that sometimes in the past has been very passionate. We’ve had very close games as well. Hopefully tomorrow isn’t very exciting and we win by a lot. It’s just the nature of the rivalry, I should say. Both teams, I think, respect each other, but are very desperate to win.”
After consecutive defeats against India and Australia, Pakistan are desperate for a victory as another slip up will severely hamper their ambitions to reach the semifinals of the tournament.
Afghanistan pulled off a shock victory over defending champions England but have also slumped to three defeats.
Pakistan are looking at the past, hoping to continue their streak despite the fact that Afghanistan’s spin trio of Rashid Khan, Mujeebur ehman and Mohammad Nabi can kick up a mayhem at a venue renowned as a slow bowlers’ paradise.
“We know this ground favours spinners and they have quality spin bowlers but we have beaten them 3-0 recently in a one-day series in Sri Lanka under the same conditions,” Pakistan opener Imamul Haq told reporters on Sunday.
“We all know Afghanistan is a good team and in these conditions they will be tough but we are ready for that and will execute our plans.”
Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2023
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Number of Pakistanis looking for opportunities abroad surges
ISLAMABAD: Amid a slump in the economy and hyperinflation, a large number of Pakistanis, particularly the younger population, are trying to move abroad in search of employment and scholarship opportunities.
According to a media report, more than 450,000 Pakistanis have left for various countries during the first quarter of 2023.
The outflow of Pakistanis can be witnessed by visiting passport offices and immigration centres where long queues of passport and visa seekers can be seen these days. A large number of young people are also trying to move abroad on educational scholarships.
However, some circles described this huge outflow of people including the skilled citizens a good omen, saying these people would become a good source of additional foreign remittances in Pakistan.
During visits to passport offices, this correspondent observed almost a twofold increase in the number of applicants seeking passports to move to different destinations across the world.
Official reveals almost twofold increase in number of passport applications
“Earlier, we were receiving 25,000 applications from all over the country in a day but now this number has increased to over 45,000 daily,” a senior official of the Passport and Immigration Department told Dawn.
He said the influx of applications increased over the past three months.
“Most of the applicants are said to be job seekers in various countries, especially the Middle East,” he said, adding that pilgrims were also included in the total number of applicants.
The official said the Passport and Immigration Departmenthad a capacity of issuing 25,000 to 27,000 passports in a day; therefore, the daily backlog of applications had come to 13,000 to 15,000. In view of the situation, the Passport and Immigration Departmenthas reduced the timing of receiving applications till 1pm to curtail the number of applications.
One of the reasons for this sudden jump in the number of passport seekers was that former interior minister Rehman Malik had enhanced the validity of passports from five to 10 years in 2013 and a large number of such passports expired this year, and their holders make a significant chunk of applicants rushing to the passport office for renewal of their travel documents.
A source in Gerry’s, a private company which processes visa applications on behalf of some embassies, said the number of visa applications had increased manifold.
The overcrowded parking area of Gerry’s International on Park Road in Chak Shahzad corroborates the claim made by the private company’s employee.
Meanwhile, the British Council (BC) is also receiving a large number of applications both for student and work visas. As a result of a growing number of applications, the BC is presently arranging three tests of Ielts (a language test required for visa) in a week, an official of the council said.
A total of 2,500 visa seekers had taken part in the last exam, the source said, adding that a rise in the number of visa seekers had been witnessed over the last two months.
The source said besides Ielts, about 600 applicants appeared in the UK VIA visa test both for study and work visas. A separate test for work visas is also conducted which is called the ‘Life Skill Test’. In this test, which is taken twice a week, 80 to 100 applicants usually participate.
Recently, caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar highlighted the ‘positive’ aspect of Pakistanis going abroad for better opportunities and called this trend both a challenge and an opportunity for the nation.
Presiding over a recent meeting of the federal cabinet, the prime minister said that professional education and vocational training programmes should be prepared on a par with needs of the international markets.
Earlier this month, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Jawad Sohrab Malik urged the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to take in over one million Pakistanis annually for Saudi Vision 2030.
“Currently, about 5 million Pakistanis proceed to Saudi Arabia annually. There is a real prospect of this figure rising to over one million,” Mr Malik added.
Published in Dawn, October 22th, 2023
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Israeli police crack down on Arab citizens expressing solidarity with Gaza
When Palestinian singer and neuroscientist Dalal Abu Amneh filed a complaint with Israeli police over death threats she had received following a social media post, she didn’t expect to be the one put in jail.
Abu Amneh is one of dozens of Arab citizens of Israel who have been arrested since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on suspicion of incitement and support for terror based on social media posts, police say. Civil rights lawyers say Israeli authorities are interpreting any expressions of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza as incitement.
Abu Amneh posted a Palestinian flag emoji with the words “There is no victor but God”, a Muslim phrase. The post has since been taken down.
Police said Abu Amneh, who has over 300,000 followers on Instagram, was promoting hate speech and incitement, something she denies.
After two days in detention, she was placed under house arrest and banned from discussing the war for 45 days, her lawyer said. It is not clear if she will be charged.
On Tuesday, Israel’s police commissioner Kobi Shabtai said there would be zero tolerance for incitement against the state and its symbols, following a deadly Hamas attack across southern Israel, in which 1,400 people were killed and at least 200 were taken hostage.
“Whoever wants to be a citizen of the state of Israel, ahlan wa sahlan (“welcome” in Arabic). Whoever wants to identify with Gaza is welcome, I will put them on a bus headed there,” Shabtai said in a video message.
Since the Oct 7 Hamas attack, Israel has bombarded the densely populated Gaza Strip, killing more than 4,000 Palestinians, including more than 1,500 children, the health ministry in Gaza says.
Close scrutiny
Arabs in Israel — Palestinian by heritage and Israeli by citizenship — make up some 20pc of the population. After the 1948 war surrounding its creation, Israel placed the minority of Palestinians who had not fled or were not expelled, under military rule for almost 20 years.
Scrutiny over speech during times of emergency and war is not new, said lawyer Abeer Baker, who represents Abu Amneh. What is different this time is the lower threshold.
Israeli authorities are interpreting any sympathy for the people of Gaza as support for terror, she said.
“We’re being forced to silence ourselves because being Palestinian has become a crime,” said Baker. “Before, we would be called a fifth column for such statements, but at least we weren’t imprisoned. That’s the escalation.”
At least 100 Arab citizens have been detained, most on allegations of incitement and support for terror over social media posts, said the Haifa-based centre for Arab minority rights Adalah, citing data from the State Attorney’s office.
The centre said it knows of at least 83 students who are facing disciplinary action at universities and that it received over 40 reports from employees who are at risk of being fired for social media posts expressing solidarity with Gaza.
“About 90pc of the cases, legally speaking, have no basis,” said Hassan Jabareen, the founder and director of Adalah. “The conduct of the police is illegal. You cannot arrest people over such things.”
Sketch
One case involves a 60-year-old urban planner who was arrested on suspicion of aiding the enemy at a time of war for posting a sketch and analysis of ways Israel could launch a ground invasion into Gaza — scenarios that journalists and commentators discuss daily on Israeli media, said Jabareen.
Police spokesperson Eli Levy said in a radio interview on Thursday that a special team formed in February to combat incitement to terror had spotted nearly 180 posts since Oct 7, which he described as a “very worrying increase”.
Levy said 96 people were being investigated and 63 of them had been detained — “in some cases, within 40 minutes of the publication of a post”.
“Look at this audacity and ungratefulness. Citizens with a blue, Israeli ID… have the audacity to think that we as police will allow them to take to the streets and support a murderous, Nazi terrorist organisation,” he said.
Police have said those arrested include teachers, lawyers and nurses. Some of the evidence police provided includes TikTok videos of people using a filter with the Palestinian flag.
During an 11-day Israel-Hamas confrontation in May 2021, when Palestinian citizens took part in widespread protests across Israel, police arrested at least 1,600 Arabs, many of them civil society leaders and activists, said Adalah.
Most of the indictments were based on “racial” or “terrorist” motives, it said.
For the first time in some 20 years, Israeli authorities are launching an arrest campaign before any organised protests have taken place, said Adalah’s Jabareen, adding: “They want to instil fear.”
Header: Syrians gather during a pro-Palestinian protest to express solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, in Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, near Damascus, Syria, October 20, 2023. —Reuters/Firas Makdesi
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CJP Isa may take up military court trial cases soon
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court may take up important constitutional matters in the coming weeks, such as trial of civilians by military courts and the holding of general elections.
The intention to fix the cases was revealed when Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa made some hints during the hearing of a different case in which a counsel sought 15 days’ time.
The CJP observed the court intends to hear important cases, like the trial of civilians by military courts and election matters, in the coming weeks. Therefore, it was difficult to postpone the present case for a fortnight, though it could be taken up again after two months.
The last time a six-judge SC bench had taken up challenges to the trial of civilians in military courts was on Aug 3.
During a hearing on May 27, the federal government assured the court that, up to that date, no formal trial had commenced against 102 individuals held by military authorities in connection with the May 9 incidents of violence and arson.
Then Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan had told the court that all the accused were still under investigations, and no trial ultimately would be conducted in a summary manner.
Recently an application was filed before the SC to fix the military court case as early as possible, preferably in the third week of October.
The applicant, Junaid Razzaq, pleaded that he had been informed that the trial of civilians by the military courts had commenced in sheer violation of the SC’s directions.
The applicant pleaded that an early hearing would be in the interest of justice. Otherwise, if the trial of his son, Azam Junaid, commenced and conclud hastily, the petitioner would suffer an irreparable loss.
He also pleaded with the court to declare that the referral of his son’s trial to the military authorities was unlawful, unconstitutional and void.
The court should also declare Section 2(1)(d)(ii) and 59(4) of the Pakistan Army Act 1952 as ultra vires of the Constitution.
The court is also seized with a petition moved by PTI, seeking a direction for President Dr Arif Alvi to announce a date for holding elections within 90 days of dissolution of the National Assembly.
Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2023
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IN 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in a bunker in Berlin. Seventy-eight years later, his destructive spirit has reincarnated itself in Benjamin Netanyahu, a US-trained Jew. Many of Hitler’s policies that led to World War II — lebensraum, contempt for treaties, unbridled militarisation, persecution of minorities, and the malevolent use of a ubiquitous security apparatus — have been reborn in modern Israel. Those violations of civilised norms — once a casus belli — are now kosher to the West.
Geography reveals the vulnerability of the Gaza Strip. It is only 365 square kilometres — one tenth the size of Indian Goa, once similarly trapped between a hostile mainland and an inhospitable sea. India resolved that by invading it in 1961. The Gaza Strip is dwarfed by Israel’s 22,145 sq km.
The present Palestine/ Israel contest is between an underfed David and a US-fattened Goliath. Since 1948, Palestinians have survived off scraps tossed from the tables of their wealthy Arab brethren, while Israel has been the recipient of some $260 billion in aid from the US. Every year, it receives about $3.3bn in foreign military financing from it.
Hamas’s surprise attack last week was a reprise of the Yom Kippur war of 1973, 50 years ago, when Egypt and Syria took advantage of the Yom Kippur holidays to launch an offensive. This attack by Hamas on a Sabbath caught Israel again off guard.
The contest is between an underfed David and a US-fattened Goliath.
It should not have. Over the past five years alone, Israel has invested over $80bn on its military defence. It must be galling, therefore, for the Israeli defence ministry to discover that 5,000 Hamas rockets could penetrate its expensive security shield with such precision.
In May 1987, an audacious German teenager, Mathias Rust, flew his Cessna aircraft from Helsinki and landed in Moscow’s Red Square. The Soviet defence minister Sokolov and other top officials were forced to resign. The Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant has no intention of going anywhere, except into the Gaza Strip, with a vengeance.
Netanyahu has told the residents of the Gaza Strip to leave before they are bombarded into non-existence. It is a cruel warning, as callous as if the Nazis had called on the Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940 to find alternative accommodation. The final death toll in that ghetto was estimated to be “300,000 killed by bullet or gas, combined with 92,000 victims of starvation and related diseases”.
The two million trapped in the Gaza Strip have nowhere to go. Their exodus is not through a Red Sea parted by Moses. It has to be through once Pharaonic Egypt, or the Mediterranean patrolled by two US aircraft carriers, or into oblivion.
The US, the UK and some European countries have leapt to Israel’s defence. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken went overboard in Tel Aviv by declaring in Netanyahu’s presence ‘I am a Jew’. It was more than J.F. Kennedy’s symbolic assertion: “Ich bin ein Berliner”, and far beyond what Henry Kissinger would have admitted. Kissinger sublimated his Jewishness throughout his tightrope negotiations between the Arabs and Israel.
Russia has growled from its lair, warning the West that it too has interests in the area. The Iranian foreign minister has cautioned Israel that “violence could spread to other parts of the Middle East”. The Iranians and the Saudis are holding talks “to prevent a broader surge in violence across the region”. Interestingly, China has remained relatively silent. Is it waiting for the situation to deteriorate until its intervention as a peacemaker becomes inevitable? For once, public demonstrations in world capitals have supported the Palestinians that go beyond the token keffiyeh. The slogan ‘Je suis Charlie’ chanted in Paris has been replaced by ‘Je suis Palestinien[ne]’.
Meanwhile, an Armageddon waits in the wings.
Some who spot a comedy in every tragedy will have a field day on the predicament of Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf. His mother-in-law is trapped in Gaza, unable to escape. Forty years ago, the British cricketer Ian Botham remarked caustically that Pakistan was “the kind of place to send your mother-in-law for a month, all expenses paid”. Humza Yousaf must wish his mother-in-law had chosen anywhere — even Pakistan — for her foreign trip.
Those who have a reverence for God in whichever form will recall the Bhagavad Gita’s opening verses. In them, Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra expresses despair at seeing his kinsmen mixed with friends and honoured elders: “Some this side, some that side ranged: and, seeing those opposed, such kith grown enemies […] If we slay kinsfolk and friends for love of earthly power, Ahovat! What an evil fault it were!”
Is the Gaza Strip to become a Semitic Kurukhshetra, a battleground-turned-graveyard for the warring seed of Abraham?
GOVERNMENT employment in Pakistan is a ticket to the good life, where work is optional, but pay and perks are guaranteed. But as the nation battles a debilitating financial crisis, it is fair to ask if such a model is sustainable for a country that requires a bailout every few years.
A recent study by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics sheds light on the bloated size of our bureaucracy and questions the output of our army of civil servants.
According to the report, titled Lifetime Cost of Public Servants, there are over 1.3m federal government employees, while the total cost of employee salaries and pensions, including military wages, comes to a staggering Rs8tr.
The PIDE report suggests the judiciary enjoys the highest perks, while officers of the Pakistan Administrative Services also receive significant non-monetary benefits. In fact, as the study notes, if perks and allowances are monetised, “the myth of low salaries in the public sector” would be broken.
Considering this huge expenditure, it is only natural to ask what positive impact this legion of bureaucrats has had on the country and its development.
Apart from some notable exceptions, the average Pakistani will tell you that run-ins with the state — whether at the thana, katcheri, or another administrative department — are rarely pleasant.
Perhaps this is because the bureaucracy, a product of the Raj, still operates according to colonial mores, where the rulers are supposed to lord it over the natives.
Certainly, the luxury vehicles, sprawling mansions and lavish lifestyles of many government employees support such assertions. While all civil servants are not parasites, and indeed many do work hard to get the job done, far too many do too little, yet fully enjoy the perks of power.
Perhaps the root of the problem lies in a state that has been turned into an employment exchange, where politicians can reward loyalists with jobs.
To change this scenario, it must be asked if the state is putting the taxpayers’ money to good use. Without reforming our top-heavy bureaucracy, and independently evaluating performance, things will not change. Merit and efficiency should be the core values that drive our bureaucracy, not political links and self-enrichment.
Politicians and elements within the bureaucracy have thwarted numerous attempts at reform, and unless the civil service is brought in line with 21st-century best practices, the state will continue to pour trillions of rupees into a black hole.
As the PIDE report notes, the government’s “job is to create new opportunities and not offering jobs”.
Only the best, brightest and most honest men and women need to be hired and retained, with regular monitoring of their performance, while the colonial-style perks and privileges for state employees, especially at the higher tiers, must be discontinued.
Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2023
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WHO says only 24 hours left for aid to enter Gaza before ‘catastrophe’ as Israeli strikes intensify
The Gaza Strip has only “24 hours of water, electricity and fuel left”, the regional head of the United Nations’ World Health Organisation said on Monday, as Israeli forces kept up their bombardment of the Palestinian enclave.
If aid is not allowed into the besieged territory, doctors will have to “prepare death certificates for their patients,” WHO regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, Ahmed al-Mandhari, said in an interview with AFP.
Israel stopped piping water to Gazans as part of a siege imposed to stop food and fuel from reaching the enclave of 2.3 million people, many poor and dependent on aid in response to a surprise Hamas offensive on October 7 that left 1,300 Israelis dead, according to officials.
After it suffered the deadliest attack in its history, Israel unleashed a relentless bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip. The health ministry in Gaza said around 2,750 people have been killed and 9,700 wounded while, according to the UN, one million have been displaced.
Key developments:
Convoys of international aid are waiting just across the border with Egypt
WHO says 111 medical facilities targeted, 12 healthcare workers killed and 60 ambulances bombed
Pakistan to immediately dispatch humanitarian assistance to Gaza
Putin speaks to Netanyahu, Middle East players; US president says any move by Israel to occupy Gaza would be a ‘big mistake’
Power outages threaten to cripple life-support systems, from seawater desalination plants to food refrigeration and hospital incubators.
Even everyday functions — from going to the toilet, showering and washing clothes — are almost impossible, locals say.
With emergency responders overwhelmed, doctors working around the clock and a dire lack of space, “bodies cannot be properly taken care of”, Mandhari said.
Overcrowding has paralysed hospitals, where “intensive care units, operating rooms, emergency services and other wings” are all on the brink of collapse, he said.
Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz on Sunday said water supplies to southern Gaza had been switched back on, a week after Israel announced a “complete siege” cutting water, power and fuel supplies to the territory where it wants to crush Hamas.
Depriving civilians of goods essential for survival is banned under international law, the UN human rights chief has said.
‘Left to die’
During the air and artillery bombardment, the WHO has recorded 111 medical facilities targeted, 12 health care workers killed and 60 ambulances bombed — in violation of both “international law and the principles of humanity”, Mandhari said.
A total of 22 hospitals in northern Gaza are treating more than 2,000 patients, including “some on ventilators, some who need regular dialysis, in addition to children, infants and women”.
The enclave’s hospitals have run out of clean water, while “fuel shortages threaten electricity supply,” he said.
As medical resources dry up, Mandhari said doctors — who know they cannot save everyone — are having to make impossible choices.
“They have to triage the patients who are coming in. They have no other choice. There are too many people, so some are left to die slow deaths.”
Aid must be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip within one day before the situation becomes completely unmanageable, Mandhari said.
Convoys of international aid are waiting just across the border with Egypt, but they have been allowed no closer than the Egyptian town of El Arish, 50 kilometres (31 miles) away from the Rafah border crossing — the only passage in and out of Gaza not controlled by Israel.
UN-flagged fuel trucks move towards the border crossing, amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. — Reuters
Cairo has refused to allow foreign nationals to exit without humanitarian aid coming in.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry accused Israel of blocking the aid, despite “repeated requests” from Cairo.
Under a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade in place since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, Israel has a say in the passage of all goods and people coming in and out of the territory.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned to Israel on Monday after shuttling between Arab states, hoping to coordinate efforts against Hamas while finding ways to alleviate Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
He announced in Cairo on Sunday that the US had appointed veteran former diplomat David Satterfield to work on aid to Gaza.
The UN’s humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said he would be heading to the Middle East on Tuesday “to try to help in the negotiations” for aid access.
“We are in deep discussions with the Israelis, with the Egyptians and with others,” Griffiths said.
Heavy bombing
In Gaza’s north, where Israel says Hamas fighters are hiding in a tunnel network, people said Israeli aircraft bombed areas around the Al-Quds hospital early on Monday. Houses were damaged, forcing hundreds of people to take shelter in the Red Crescent-run hospital.
Israeli planes also bombed three offices of the Civil Emergency and Ambulance Service in Gaza City, killing five people and paralysing the rescue services, health officials said.
Israel has told Gazans to evacuate south, which hundreds of thousands have already done in the enclave, home to about 2.3 million people. Hamas has told people to ignore Israel’s message.
In southern Gaza, five members of a family were killed in Khan Younis refugee camp.
With hundreds of people trapped in collapsed buildings, rescuers and residents were frantically tearing away rubble, sometimes pulling out barely breathing children.
“We were inside the house when we found bodies scattering, flying in the air - bodies of children who have nothing to do with the war,” said resident Abed Rabayaa, whose neighbour’s house in Khan Younis was hit overnight.
Reserves of fuel to power generators at all hospitals across the Gaza Strip are expected to last only around 24 more hours, putting thousands of patients at risk, the United Nations Humanitarian Office (OCHA) said early on Monday.
More than one million people – almost half the population of Gaza — have been displaced within the enclave, the United Nations said, and it is struggling to cope with their needs.
A Palestinian child looks on breads as others wait to bake on firewoods, amid fuel and power shortages. — Reuters
For the fifth consecutive day, Gaza has had no electricity, pushing vital services, including health, water and sanitation to the brink of collapse. People are consuming brackish water from agricultural wells, raising concerns over the spread of disease.
US officials have warned that the war between Israel and Hamas could escalate after cross-border clashes between Israel and militants from Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel for talks on Monday, Iran said the United States should be held to account for its role in the conflict.
Israel, Hamas deny border ceasefire
The Israeli military said earlier on Monday it would refrain from striking two roads in the Gaza Strip marked for residents to move south and out of the way of a possible ground offensive.
“The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) will refrain from targeting the designated axis from 8am until 12pm,” military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X, formerly Twitter.
“For your safety take advantage of this short period of time to move south from the north of the strip and Gaza City.”
Military spokesman Jonathan Conricus pledged in a separate statement that the two designated roads “would be safe to use” for that duration.
Putin speaks to Netanyahu
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time since the Hamas attack, and briefed him on several talks with leaders from the region and Palestinian Authority.
“The Israeli side was in particular informed of the essential points of telephone correspondences that took place today with the leaders of Palestine, Egypt, Iran and Syria,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
According to Moscow, the discussion focused on “the crisis situation resulting from the brutal escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
Putin expressed “his sincere condolences to the families and friends of the deceased Israelis,” the Kremlin said.
He also told the Israeli president of the steps Russia has taken to “promote the normalisation of the situation, prevent a further escalation of violence and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.”
Putin spoke in telephone calls with the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.
The Russian leader also told Netanyahu that Russia had a “fundamental desire to continue its targeted action aimed at ending” the conflict and finding “a peaceful settlement through political and diplomatic means,” according to the government’s statement.
“We believe that the main thing right now in this situation is to immediately cease the fire and begin the process of a political settlement,” Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov was quoted by state news outlets as saying.
“The Middle East conflict is old of character but now it is necessary to take active, sharp steps in order to stop this escalation which is unprecedented,” Ushakov said.
The results of the calls were unclear. TASS said Putin and Assad want humanitarian aid delivered to Gaza.
Putin will meet Xi Jinping in China this week in a bid to deepen a partnership forged between the United States’ two biggest strategic competitors.
Putin, who says the West is seeking to cleave Russia apart by supporting Ukraine, says the current violence in the Middle East shows just how far US policy in the region has failed.
But Russia has also repeatedly warned that the situation could swiftly escalate into a regional war.
Russia and China, both permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, have said that the fundamental issue at the heart of the conflict is the lack of justice for the Palestinians.
China’s foreign minister on Monday called for a ceasefire to halt the bloodshed in Israel, suggesting at a meeting with his Russian counterpart that major world powers should work to avoid a humanitarian disaster.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the conflict between Israel and Hamas with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing ahead of a visit by President Vladimir Putin to China.
“The United Nations Security Council must take action, and the major powers should play an active role,” Wang told Lavrov, according to a Chinese transcript of the meeting.
“It is imperative that a ceasefire be put in place, that the two sides be brought back to the negotiating table, and that an emergency humanitarian channel be established to prevent a further humanitarian disaster.”
Pakistan to immediately dispatch humanitarian assistance to Gaza
As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza depends, Pakistan has decided to immediately dispatch humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian enclave.
“In the wake of indiscriminate Israeli aggression and siege of the Gaza Strip, the already oppressed people of densely-populated Gaza are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance,” a press release issued by the Foreign Office said.
It stated that the government was coordinating with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, relevant UN agencies, Egypt and Pakistan Missions abroad to finalise modalities of the delivery.
Earlier today, Interim Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar said that Israel’s “deliberate, indiscriminate and disproportionate” targeting of civilians in Gaza was against “all norms of civility and in manifest violation of international law”.
A wounded Palestinian boy, 12-year-ol Mohammed Sofi, looks at destroyed buildings near his home in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern of Gaza Strip, on October 16. — AFP
In a statement on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Kakar said, “Pakistan is deeply concerned on the ongoing violence and loss of life in Gaza. We stand in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine and call for an immediate ceasefire and lifting of the blockade in Gaza.”
He said that the violence needed to be viewed in “the context of years of forced and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and repressive policies against its people”.
“The UN and international community must immediately act to open safe and unrestricted humanitarian corridors for transportation of urgently needed relief supplies to the besieged Gaza,” he said.
The prime minister added that Pakistan was closely coordinating with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and its member states on the “fast deteriorating situation” in Gaza.
He said that the foreign minister would also be attending an emergency meeting of the OIC’s executive committee on October 18 and “call for urgent action to alleviate the suffering of people of Gaza”.
Meanwhile, caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani on Monday said he spoke to his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir Abdollahian and discussed the crisis unfolding in Gaza including the killing of civilians and large-scale displacement of Palestinians.
“We agreed that urgent steps were needed to prevent conflict from escalating and provision of humanitarian assistance,” he said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
‘Gaza is being strangled’
“Gaza is being strangled and it seems that the world right now has lost its humanity,” said United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, in an urgent appeal for critical aid to be allowed in.
“We all know water is life — Gaza is running out of water, and Gaza is running out of life,” he said.
Lazzarini feared that soon there would be no food or medicine in the Palestinian enclave. “There is not one drop of water, not one grain of wheat, not a litre of fuel that has been allowed into the Gaza Strip for the last eight days.
“The number of people seeking shelter in our schools and other UNRWA facilities in the south is absolutely overwhelming, and we do not have any more the capacity to deal with them,” he added.
Palestinians stand next to a crater caused by an explosion from an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis in the southern of Gaza Strip, on October 16, 2023. — AFP
“An unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding under our eyes,” the UN official stated, highlighting that UNRWA has lost 14 of its members in the war so far and Gaza had even run out of body bags.
“All parties must facilitate a humanitarian corridor so we can reach all those in need of support,” Lazzarini added.
One million Gazans flee as Israel readies for ground attack
More than one million people have fled their homes in Gaza in scenes of chaos and despair as Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled territory and continued massing troops on Monday in preparation for a full-blown ground invasion.
Following an Israeli order to move to the south of the Gaza Strip, people have fled their homes in the north of the enclave to seek shelter wherever they can, including on the streets and in UN-run schools.
Palestinians carrying whatever belongings they can, in bags and suitcases, or packed onto three-wheeled motorbikes, battered cars, vans and even donkey carts have become a common sight.
“No electricity, no water, no internet. I feel like I’m losing my humanity,” said Mona Abdel Hamid, 55, who fled Gaza City to Rafah in the south of the enclave, and is having to stay with strangers.
US President Joe Biden said in an interview with the CBS news programme ‘60 Minutes’ that while invading and “taking out the extremists” was needed, any move by Israel to occupy Gaza would be a “big mistake”.
Biden said he believed Hamas must be eliminated but there should be a path to a Palestinian state.
‘Verge of abyss’
A bereaved and infuriated Israel has massed forces outside the long-blockaded enclave of 2.4m in preparation for what the army has said would be a land, air and sea attack involving a “significant ground operation”.
“We are at the beginning of intense or enhanced military operations in Gaza City,” spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Jonathan Conricus said. “It would be unsafe for civilians to stay there,” he added.
Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have warned that an invasion of Gaza would be met with a response.
“No one can guarantee the control of the situation and the non-expansion of the conflicts” if Israel sends its soldiers into Gaza, said Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
Fire along the Israeli-Lebanese border has intensified in the last week, prompting Israel to shutter the area to civilians.
On Sunday, a rocket hit the UN peacekeeping base in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah attacks killed one person in Israel, the Israeli military said. At least 11 people have been killed in Lebanon and at least two in Israel in the past week.
Among those killed in Lebanon was a Reuters journalist, Issam Abdallah.
Blinken was due to hold talks in Israel on Monday after a crisis tour of Middle Eastern countries in a frantic attempt to avert a wider crisis in the volatile region.
But as Israel seeks to avenge the brutal attack that also saw Hamas fighters take scores of hostages, the Arab League and African Union have warned an invasion could lead to “a genocide”.
UN chief Antonio Guterres has warned that the entire region was “on the verge of the abyss”.
Israeli troops prepare weapons and armed vehicles near the southern city of Ashkelon on October 15. — AFP
Escalation risk
Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said his country had “no interest in a war in the north, we don’t want to escalate the situation”.
The United States, which has given unequivocal backing to Israel, has sent two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean as a deterrent.
The White House has voiced fears at the prospect of Iran becoming “directly engaged”, after Tehran praised the Hamas attack but insisted it was not involved.
Biden, asked in the ‘60 Minutes’ interview whether US troops might join the war, said “I don’t think that’s necessary”.
“Israel has one of the finest fighting forces … I guarantee we’re gonna provide them everything they need,” he said.
The United States has also appealed to China to use its influence in the region to ease tensions.
On Sunday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Israel’s response had “gone beyond the scope of self-defence”, and demanded that it “cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza”.
People gather in a neighbourhood in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, after it was hit by an Israeli strike on October 15. — AFP
Aid agencies’ alarm
Massing thousands of troops and heavy weaponry in the desert south of the country, the Israeli military has said it is awaiting the “political” green light to go into northern Gaza.
The army has told 1.1 million Palestinians in the north of the Gaza Strip to head to the south of the enclave.
But Israeli air strikes were continuing in the south of Gaza, including in Khan Yunis and Rafah, where one resident said a doctor’s house was targeted. “All the family was wiped out,” said Khamis Abu Hilal.
The UN said on Monday that 47 entire families, amounting to around 500 people, have been killed in Israel’s bombing campaign.
Foreign governments and aid agencies, including the UN and Red Cross, have repeatedly criticised Israel’s evacuation order.
The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees said on Sunday that some one million Palestinians had already been displaced in the first week of the conflict — but the number was likely to be higher.
Lynn Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, decried that Israel was connecting humanitarian aid into Gaza with the release of scores of hostages kidnapped during the Hamas attack.
“Neither should be conditional,” she insisted in a video posted by the UN. “They have said they want to destroy Hamas, but their current trajectory is going to destroy Gaza.”
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ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has ruled out the existence of any proposed amnesty scheme targeting non-customs paid (NCP) vehicles, which comes at a time when dealers have been noticeably hiking prices across various categories over the past few weeks.
“There is no such proposal under discussion or consideration in FBR”, the spokesperson Afaq Ahmed Qureshi told Dawn on Monday.
The social media is flooded with false information that FBR is contemplating an amnesty scheme for vehicles. “These are nothing but baseless rumours,” Mr Qureshi stated, adding that the very notion of such a scheme is out of question while Pakistan is adhering to an IMF programme.
The government has taken strict action against unlawful money traders, smugglers and those holding local and foreign currency. As a result, the Pakistani rupee’s exchange rate against the dollar has dropped to around Rs277 per dollar. Previously, it had reached a record high of Rs335 in early Sept 2023.
Dealers raise prices across various categories
A tax official told Dawn that a coordinated effort is underway, particularly from dealers who have heavily invested in NCP vehicles in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Gilgit-Baltistan, advocating for the amnesty scheme.
Back in 2010, a comparable amnesty scheme was introduced for such vehicles. However, the scheme was riddled with corruption and legal disputes, and it failed to effectively reduce the influx of smuggled vehicles or generate substantial revenue for the FBR.
Based on past experience, senior customs officials from the operations side, who wish to remain anonymous, said there is currently no consideration of an amnesty scheme to regularise NCP vehicles.
According to sources, despite resistance from the tax department, there’s a significant push from security forces to contemplate a scheme for the regularisation of NCP vehicles. However, this proposal faces opposition from the customs department. The matter was also recently brought up in a meeting of the Peshawar apex committee, added the sources.
Chairman All Pakistan Motor Dealers Association H. M. Shahzad told Dawn that the government should target those facilitating the transport of vehicles from Afghanistan. He pointed out that these vehicles, aged between five to 10 years, are entering via the Bandar Abbas port in Afghanistan.
Rather than cracking down on smugglers, he criticised the government for repeatedly considering schemes that primarily serve to legitimise undisclosed income, thereby causing a dent to national revenue collection.
Mr Shahzad said local manufacturers have also increased their prices unprecedentedly. He said there is a contradiction in government policies regarding the automobile sector.
The exemption for NCP vehicles in the merged districts of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata), Balochistan and GB is set to conclude on June 30, 2024. Initially, the exemption was due to lapse on June 30, but it was granted a one-year extension by the PDM government.
Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2023
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IHC reserves verdict on Imran’s bail plea in cipher case
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday reserved its verdict on PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s petition seeking bail in the cipher case.
The cipher case pertains to a diplomatic document that reportedly went missing from Imran’s possession. The PTI alleges that the document contained a threat from the United States to oust Imran from office.
The PTI chief was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison in the Toshakhana graft case on August 5, 2023. He was subsequently shifted to Attock jail, but the IHC later suspended his sentence. However, Khan remained in jail because he was on judicial remand in the cipher case.
On September 25, the IHC accepted Imran’s petition to be shifted to Adiala jail in Rawalpindi from Attock district jail.
On September 30, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) submitted a challan —a charge sheet — in the Special Court established under the Official Secrets Act, naming the former prime minister and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi as the principal accused in the cipher case.
Imran has filed several petitions in the IHC, including two seeking to stay his jail trial and bail in the cipher case, another seeking to suspend the Toshakhana verdict, and a third against his indictment in the cipher case, which is set for October 17.
Today, the IHC resumed hearing arguments on the PTI chief’s plea seeking bail in the case. During the proceedings, Special Prosecutor Raja Rizwan Abbasi presented his arguments.
At the outset, he said the federal government had approved the filing of the complaint against Imran through the interior secretary.
According to Abbasi, there were two categories of cases in the Official Secrets Act: one that included punishment for or less than 10 years (bailable) and the other that had a prison sentence that exceeded 10 years (non-bailable). He said Imran was charged under the latter category.
Here, IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq asked if information in the cipher could not be communicated further. “In one category you can, but not in the other,” the prosecutor replied.
“This cipher was top secret and hence could not be shared,” he contended, claiming that the petitioner’s lawyer did not provide the correct interpretation or definition of Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act — which talks about “wrongful communication of information”.
“The PTI chairman disclosed the information in the cipher to the public when he was not authorised to do so,” Abbasi said.
Meanwhile, the IHC CJ asked if there were any rules of practice or SOPs pertaining to a cipher.
“The document has two categories of which one can be communicated while the other cannot be disclosed,” the prosecutor replied. “This cipher falls under the second category.”
He added that as the prime minister, Imran was not exempted from Article 248 (Protection for president, minister or governor) of the Constitution. “In the cipher case, the PTI chief can either be sentenced to life imprisonment or death,” Abbasi said.
He then listed the former officials whose statements were on record, adding that Azam Khan — principal secretary to Imran during his premiership — was a witness in the case. Abbasi went on to say that his primary witnesses in the case were Azam, Asad Majeed and Sohail Mehmood.
Meanwhile, Justice Farooq said he wanted to understand the chain through which a cipher is sent and received, to which Abbasi said the chain was written in the statements.
“It is evident in the witnesses’ statement that this was a secret classified document and such documents are not circulated,” the prosecutor argued and then gave examples of similar cases from neighbouring India.
“The challan has been submitted … what will you do keeping Imran under arrest?” the IHC CJ asked.
However, Abbasi contended: “Surely someone will benefit if Pakistan’s relations with superpower America are being affected by someone’s statement.”
He added that cipher was a document that couldn’t even be shared with friends or family.
IHC directs Imran to approach special court against jail trial
Earlier in the day, the IHC disposed of Imran’s plea against the holding of the cipher case trial in Adiala Jail and directed the PTI chief to approach the special court — established under the Official Secrets Act — instead for the same.
Justice Farooq announced the reserved verdict today.
The verdict stated that the jail trial was “in favour” of the former premier keeping in mind security-related matters. “There is no ill will apparent on the matter of jail trial,” it observed.
The order recalled that Imran had voiced his reservations relating to his security “numerous times”. “If the PTI chairman has reservations about the jail trial, he may approach the trial court,” the order stated.
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To the average observer looking from a distance, the Islamic history of modern Pakistan appears to be a kaleidoscopic mesh of ever-shifting empires, forever-marching armies, and a saga of never-ending imperial objectives.
Upon closer inspection, one finds the nature of Islamic history in the Indus Valley is intertwined with pious men, known as preachers, Sufis, saints, and by other names, who traversed the region and introduced Islam to the locals. The nature of their wanderings connected people, cultures and languages, but also sought to connect distant lands.
One such connection, laid down around 800 years ago, has survived into our modern day. It is in the form of a building in the heart of Jerusalem, established by one of Punjab’s greatest saints and poets: Baba Farid.
The fall of Jerusalem
In the year 1187, soon after Crusader forces were annihilated on the plains of Hattin in Palestine, the gates of Jerusalem looked upon a victor who stood before them: Saladin. The Kurdish leader, by routing the Christian forces and annexing a large part of the Crusader state in Palestine, had fulfilled his long-term ambition of liberating the Holy Land.
But even with the physical liberation, much work was yet to be done in the spiritual domain. Decades of Crusader rule had led to many Islamic monuments being used for all kinds of purposes except for which they were made.
Hence, one of the first acts committed by Muslim forces was a ‘cleansing’ of the city, whereby Muslim monuments such as the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock (amongst many others) were rid of any remnants of Crusader rule.
A residential lodge in the holy city of Jerusalem is known by the name of Punjab’s most beloved poet, Baba Farid. How did this come to be?
With a new Muslim administration in place, the city of Jerusalem appears to have reclaimed its position among what can be considered a triad of sacred cities in Islamic history. The notion of a reunion of these holy cities, promoted by the Ayyubid monarchs, soon translated to the city becoming a place frequented by groups of Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca.
In addition, it became an important destination for many significant scholars, preachers and holy men of the time, who all wished to simply spend time in the holy city. While the Ayyubid administration was busy reviving Jerusalem, one such preacher whose feet would wander across the old city was still busy as a young man being tutored in the city of Multan.
A lithograph of Jerusalem in 1839 by Scottish painter David Roberts
The Saint from Kothewal
Born in the small village of Kothewal near Multan around 1173 CE, Farid al-Din Masud came from a family which had once enjoyed a significant position in the environs of Kabul, but which had migrated to Punjab generations ago owing to a fear of the increasing power of the nomadic Ghuzz tribes of Central Asia.
Raised in a deeply Islamic household, with a mother intent on cultivating a religious character in her son, Farid got his early Islamic education in a madrassa attached to a mosque in Multan where, amongst many things, he became proficient in Arabic and Persian.
But it was the language of the land where he lived which brought to him eternal prominence. Farid is amongst the very first people to have used the vernacular of Punjab to spread his message, which led to it travelling farther than the messages of those before him. He is, as a result, considered amongst the earliest poets of the Punjabi language.
It was in the same madrassa in southern Punjab that he came across the acclaimed Sufi Bakhtiyar Kaki, and was enrolled in the Chishti order. His unchallenged devotion towards his order and unparalleled proficiency in theological matters is said to have attracted many of the then non-Muslim groups of Punjab towards him and his message.
It was somewhere between his wanderings in Punjab and beyond to spread his message and his eventual settling down in the small town of Ajodhan (now Pakpattan) that it appears he arrived in the recently liberated city of Jerusalem.
Baba Farid and Jerusalem
Early sources on the life of Baba Farid are more or less silent on any visits or wanderings of the saint beyond his own region, which makes it difficult to reconstruct the occurrences of his stay in Jerusalem.
According to folk memory, much of the duration of the revered saint’s stay in the holy land was spent in the state of fasting and a good deal of his day would be spent praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque or engaging in acts of devotion.
It is also said that he devoted some of his time to writing new verses of his own, which later became the bedrock of Punjabi poetry for centuries. On the few occasions he would not be occupied with praying or writing, Farid could be found meditating around one of the gates of Old Jerusalem known to the Muslims as Bab-az-Zahra and to the Christians as Herod’s Gate.
It was around this very Herod’s Gate that Baba Farid found a lodge inside a small khanqah. Also known as zawiyas, khanqahs were structures dedicated to Sufi orders, which served both as seminaries for the people associated with the order and as hospices for travellers. The immediate fall of Jerusalem saw the confiscation of many buildings belonging to the exiled Franks and turned into khanqahs, which further attracted Sufis and preachers towards Jerusalem.
It was a khanqah belonging to the Rifai order and present on a small hillock inside Herod’s Gate where Baba Farid found himself resting — unbeknownst to both him and the owners of the khanqah that his brief sojourn would completely alter the fate of this khanqah.
The current entrance to the Indian hospice | Photo by Satdeep Gill
The Zawiya Al-Faridiya
Soon after the departure of Baba Farid, the khanqah — previously occupied by the Rifai order as a hub for their activities — quickly transformed into a hospice and a lodge for all travellers from South Asia who entered Jerusalem.
This lodge was now known locally by two names: the Zawiya Al-Faridiya (the Lodge of Farid) and the Zawiya Al-Hindiya (the Lodge of Hind). Much like its two popular names, there are two popular tales which have survived to narrate how this change of association came to be, with one tale emphasising how the Chishti order of Sufism, to which Baba Farid belonged, eventually went on to buy the khanqah in the name of the saint.
The other speaks of how the then Ayyubid authorities of Jerusalem recognised the spiritual standing of the saint and, in this regard, decided to grant the zawiya either to Baba Farid directly or to some of his disciples who later visited the city.
With the turn of the centuries, the region saw much political upheaval, but the lodge appears to have managed to survive it all. It possibly remained a witness to the various later Crusades launched by the Europeans, to the Mongol horsemen galloping towards their ultimate doom in the plains of Ain Jalut at the hands of the Mamluks, and to the later march of the Ottomans who eventually defeated the Mamluks and established Ottoman rule in Palestine for centuries.
Despite all the conflicts and turmoil, the lodge finds itself in the small list of structures which, albeit in a decrepit state, managed to stay erect till the very end of direct Muslim control of the region.
Not much knowledge exists about the sheikhs and heads of the lodge during the many intervening centuries, but some documents from the Ottoman era which have survived down to our time point towards a connection of the lodge to Punjab in particular.
A document from 1681, revealed to an Indian researcher Navtej Sarna by the current sheikh, reveals details of a dispute about the leadership of the lodge between a Muslim carrying the nisbah Al-Hindi and a Muslim from Multan in southern Punjab.
Another document related by the same source provides a reference towards another Muslim from Punjab, as it speaks of a certain sheikh named Ghulam Mohammad Al-Lahori who is credited to have engaged with the Ottoman administration in 1824 and successfully conducted a transfer of properties, which resulted in the addition of seven rooms, two water tanks, and a courtyard to the original lodge.
It seems the lodge enjoyed prominence and stability under sheikhs from across South Asia during the many centuries of Ottoman rule, but the story takes a drastic turn when the Ottoman empire itself finally gave way in 1919.
Sheikh Nazir Hasan Ansari of Saharanpur | Photo courtesy Anis Ansari
A turbulent change of owners
The Ottoman Empire, which at the time was known as ‘the sick man of Europe’, was eventually dismembered by the end of World War I, with much of its former territories in the Middle East becoming occupied by European forces.
Palestine remained under the watchful shadow of the Union Jack and, thus, so did Jerusalem and the lodge of Farid. As the British occupation of Palestine set in, with time, the position of the Grand Mufti of Palestine was established by the Europeans, who also greatly strengthened it in pursuit of effective management.
By 1921, the position had come down to the hands of one Amin Al-Husayni, who undertook massive rebuilding projects and renovations in Jerusalem to bring it once again to the centre stage of the Muslim world. To accumulate funds for these projects, the Grand Mufti sent envoys to any and every possible Muslim patron across the world, many of whom at the time could be found in the form of Muslim rulers of princely states in British India.
It was during this very visit that the envoys from Jerusalem informed the leaders of the Indian Khilafat Movement of the existence of an ‘Indian Lodge’, which was in a decrepit state and desperately required a capable Indian person to look after it.
This Indian lodge was, in fact, the same lodge of Farid, and chosen by the Indian Muslim leaders to breathe a new life into it was a young man from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, named Khwaja Nazir Hasan Ansari.
Thus, the lodge came under the administration of the Ansari family of Uttar Pradesh, who still look after it. Nazir Ansari got a hold of the lodge in 1924 and, in a brief time, managed to completely renovate it and brought it to such a credible state that, for the next 15 years, it gave sanctuary to thousands of travellers and pilgrims from British India.
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the lodge, which was housing pilgrims, now offered sanctuary to Muslim and non-Muslim soldiers of British India alike fighting in North Africa. It would later resume its duties towards pilgrims in the post-war period, until the British withdrew and the frenzy of war began once again.
A British soldier standing guarding at the Dome of the Rock during WWI
Conclusion
The end of the Second World War in 1945 was soon followed by the withdrawal of British authorities from both British India and the British Mandate of Palestine, with ironically two new states forming in both regions that immediately went to war.
With the exodus of the Palestinians, the war with the nascent Israeli state, and the refugees pouring in from West Jerusalem, the lodge eventually could not run on its own and help was sought. For this, Nazir Ansari reached out to the Indian embassy in Egypt and established an official relationship between the lodge of Farid and the newly independent Indian state.
Today, many decades later, the lodge proudly displays two Indian flags at its entrance, with a nameplate reading ‘Indian Hospice’. And though one could debate if the state of Pakistan has much more of a right to a connection with the lodge — owing to Baba Farid’s ancestry being in this country — it cannot be so, amongst a plethora of reasons, simply because Pakistan has no official ties with the state of Israel.
Perhaps, in the future, a shift in the circumstances of the Palestinians could lead to a linkage being established between the lodge and the homeland of the person who established it. For now, it suffices to know that there does exist in the heart of one of the world’s most important cities, a corner occupied by a piece of Punjab.
The writer’s areas of interest are Pakistan’s lesser known history and folklore. He is a Chitrali based in Peshawar. X:MHuzaifaNizam
Published in Dawn, EOS, October 15th, 2023
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