The devastating face of militant Islam, courtesy of Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper: Parents of 18-year-old Tasleem Solangi, who was killed in an extremely inhumane manner allegedly by some elders of her tribe, have appealed to President Asif Ali Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah to provide them protection as the killers are still at…
Showing all posts tagged Pakistan
Pakistan from the inside
New, interesting voices in the blogosphere should be celebrated. Danielle Ali Shah is an “Australian living in Rawalpindi, Pakistan with my husband, three children and extended family.” A recent post, “Digging through the land in the land of the pure“, discusses the rawness of life in Pakistan.
Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008
The issue of internet censorship has become a global concern. Harvard University’s Global Voices is one major organisation that translates bloggers from across the world and campaigns for imprisoned activists. The Global Voices Citizen Media Summit is taking place on June 27 and 28 in Budapest, Hungary. More than one hundred writers, dissidents, bloggers, journalists…
Quick easy steps to help terrorism
Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid on the disastrous effects of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” policies. Democracy Now!, June 10: And now you have huge efforts by al-Qaeda to train European Muslims, to train white European converts to Islam. They’ve set up training camps now with language facilities. That means if you’re a German Muslim,…
Human rights first
Last week the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, spoke in Sydney. He gave a passionate, wide-ranging talk, outlined the “rules of the game” for tyrannies around the world and a West that loves to collaborate with them: The Bush administration, for example, seems to prefer promoting a narrow conception of democracy as…
Let the videos run free
When will dictatorships ever learn? The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has directed the country’s ISPs to block access to the videos sharing website YouTube for allegedly featuring a blasphemous video. However, and according to the Pakistani “Don’t Block The Blog” there are two theories that could explain PTA’s recent move to ban YouTube: vote rigging…
Our man in Rawalpindi
An interview with Western-friendly, Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf. (Conducted by Imran Khan’s ex-wife Jemima Khan): The image he paints of himself as a benign, legitimised dictator is at odds with the recent Human Rights Watch report that accuses his regime of hundreds of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, harassment, intimidation and extrajudicial killings.
Why the silence?
Daniel Ellsberg, Brad Blog, January 20: For the second time in two weeks, the entire U.S. press has let itself be scooped by Rupert Murdoch’s London Sunday Times on a dynamite story of criminal activities by corrupt U.S. officials promoting nuclear proliferation. But there is a worse journalistic sin than being scooped, and that is…
Be bloody afraid
Does the thought that elements at the highest echelons of the US administration have sold nuclear technology to Pakistan, Turkey and Israel, all under the noses of the powers that be, cause alarm? Read on.
The Taliban on the march
A compelling essay in this week’s New York Times magazine about the jihadi threat inside Pakistan. Writer Nicholas Schmidle skillfully teases out the seemingly endless factions within the movement and the numerous reasons why Washington’s backing of President Pervez Musharraf has been a disaster for the region and the world.