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Saturday, 7 February 2015

Introducing my mother to Facebook

Gohar Karim Khan Published about 3 hours ago


“Having fun in Phuket?” was being asked to someone who had been and returned three years earlier. —Reuters
“Having fun in Phuket?” was being asked to someone who had been and returned three years earlier. —Reuters
Many of us frequently bemoan our inability to use technology and social media in particular in a moderated, responsible and conscientious sort of way.
I have lost count of the number of times I have been interrogated by friends for having commented on Facebook at an unearthly hour, or gently reprimanded by loved ones for having been ‘last seen’ on WhatsApp at 5 am.
Equally in number, there are times when I have not replied to important messages until a week has passed, putting them off incessantly while having no trouble in finding the time to scroll through my Facebook newsfeed several times over in a day.
My priorities, when it comes to social media, seem less well-structured than in other aspects of my life; my sense of self-discipline flounders and my will power succumbs to the temptation of flicking through those wedding and honeymoon photos – occasionally (though not often) of people I have never encountered.
These musings led me to believe that the real lessons in responsible and ethical use of social media are to be learnt by stepping back in time to the previous generation, the generation of our parents and grandparents, that has now begun to acknowledge and embrace social media as an important part of everyday life.
Introducing my mother to Facebook a few years ago, while she visited me in England was a memorable experience, largely on account of its hilarity. It harked back to the days of my mother chaining me down to the homework table, adamant that not only was the work to be completed but the experience of learning also be enjoyed.
Her almost contemptuous disregard for Facebook, – based on it being ‘chinwaggy’, frivolous and an incomprehensible waste of time – was difficult to overcome. Nevertheless, I set up an account for her, encouraged her to rummage for her old school friends and family using filters, and she had built up a robust list of contacts over the next few weeks.
Her reaction to all this, as she secretly begun to enjoy it, was like that of a child trapped between ego and temptation. Her Facebook statuses were as endearing as they were amusing, sometimes reading, “Hello Gohar, how are you?” and at other times to my sister, “Saba, how did the chicken turn out?”
Photographs from two or three years ago were being liked and commented on; social occasions from a number of months ago were being approached with freshness and enthusiasm, very much in the present moment. “Having fun in Phuket?” was being asked to someone who had been and returned three years earlier.
The real glacé cherry on top of this rapidly rising sponge was that I felt my mother knew far more about my social life than I might have cared to share in the pre-Facebook days!
I had knowingly empowered her to quite literally track me down anywhere.
It turned out, however, that teaching my mother to use social media was akin to ‘teaching granny to suck eggs’.
I was dealing with an expert here; someone who, after having picked up the mundane practicalities of the system, worked it like an enchantress – deftly, effortlessly and wisely.
In my mother’s approach to technology in general, and social media in particular, I sense an integrity, a discipline and a sincerity that I fail to perceive in myself and in many others of my and the younger generation. She brings to it a wisdom that allows for a perspectival positioning of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, rendering them only as important as they are and worth the time that they genuinely deserve.
For instance, the Facebook ‘Like’ option, clicked by me almost instinctively and frankly a little blindly, is used by my mother’s generation with far more discretion; it is based on genuine appreciation rather than a mindless habit, something that has landed me in very awkward situations.
I believe that's so because my parents spent the large part of their lives with an almost sacred regard and reverence for communication with loved ones, who lived across the oceans.
For them, those three-minute (or six-minute, if the occasion really called for it) long-distance phone calls that involved high-pitched tones full of excitement and relief at hearing the voice of a family member, were no less than a luxury.
Quality of communication was privileged above all else.
Words mattered.
And, for them, to now message the same loved ones and receive notification of the receipt of their message within a matter of seconds is gold dust.
So, whereas social media tends to make people like me take people and conversations for granted, making it somehow acceptable to have over 200 ‘friends’ on Facebook, for my parents’ generation, this very communication remains invaluable.
This digital appetite of the generation I speak of is more than just a pastime.
Research indicates that users of social media and internet technology are considerably more liable to reconnect with people from their past, and the rekindling of these connections can offer a priceless source of support as people become older, lonelier and more emotionally vulnerable.
Moreover, social media has served to bridge that widening generational gap that often rendered the social lives of two generations separate and impermeable.
Having said that, for them it is not a substitute for real and meaningful conversations and interactions. It is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
I, for one, will continue to try to emulate the wisdom that my mother invests in both her understanding and use of digital technology.
Perhaps one day, I will learn that to flip open my smart phone mid-conversation with someone face to face, is not just anti-social but demonstrates a lack of very basic decency (frankly, how dare I?); that my children should not have to repeat their requests thrice before I look up from my phone to attend to them; that technology, no matter how sophisticated or how enmeshed into our lives, is ultimately, just that little bit less important.
And perhaps one day, like my mother, I too, will exert that striking coolness and nonchalance towards social media and not ‘check in’ when standing at the peak of the Eiffel tower. In fact, I would like to forget my phone on the bedside table at the hotel.

Do you have information you wish to share with Dawn.com? You can email our News Desk to share news tips, reports and general feedback. You can also email the Blog Desk if you have an opinion or narrative to share, or reach out to the Special Projects Desk to send us your Photos, or Videos.

The writer has a PhD in English Literature from the University of Warwick. Her interests lie in South Asian Literature and Feminism and she currently teaches in Oxfordshire, England.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
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Women soldiers: If the boot fits, why shouldn't they wear it?

Women soldiers: If the boot fits, why shouldn't they wear it?

Faraz Talat Updated a day ago
Women from India's National Cadet Corps march during Republic Day parade. — AP
Women from India's National Cadet Corps march during Republic Day parade. — AP
It’s disappointing that the country that proudly vaunted its army’s ‘Nari Shakti’ (woman power) recently, prompting a thumbs up from visiting President of the United States has once again turned its back on its female officers.
An official from the Indian defence ministry stated:
“Given the army’s involvement in counter-insurgency operations, it feels the terrain and working conditions are not conducive for women, either in the jungles of the northeast or in insurgency areas like Kashmir.”
Permit me to state the obvious biological fact: Fortunately, not every woman is an ‘average’ woman.
Like men, we have tall, short, big, small, frail and muscular women, of whom many possess the physical and mental capacity to effectively perform combat roles in the military.
Why would you disqualify a person simply for lacking a Y chromosome, even when she has amply demonstrated the strength and skill required to do the job?
And, let’s face it: a ‘combat role’ is basically what the army is all about.
It’s the center-stage, with all other services, however important, essentially the means of bolstering the army’s fighting capabilities.
To make the big league off-limits to women brings to mind centuries of female oppression. Of women serving as nurses, not doctors; secretaries, not CEOs; assistants, not scientists.
The woman, by the accident of birth itself, is doomed to always be second in-command of whatever unit she finds herself in, with the primary role happily occupied by the privileged male.
Integration of women in armed forces needn't be an experiment
Many enlightened countries around the world send women to combat zones, including Israel, Australia, France and Germany. Thus far, none of these armies have imploded from estrogen excess.
Pakistan also places numerous restrictions on its female officers, particularly in the naval force. Generally speaking, however, the Pakistan army has enjoyed invaluable female participation since 1947; a beacon for other militarised Islamic countries. Female commandos and combat pilots have faithfully served this country.
Although it does allow me some pride as a Pakistani feminist, the reason is not necessarily that Pakistan’s atmosphere is significantly less patriarchal than India’s.
While India, by its sheer size, managed to amass an impressively bulky armed force, Pakistan had to scramble to become militarily equal to its neighbour. Pakistan, as a result, wasn’t quite able to afford the traditional comforts of sexism, and get awfully picky about the gender of healthy cadets. The exasperated brass decided that if the army boot fits, one must be allowed to wear it.
In 1942, anticipating a Japanese assault on British-occupied India, Jinnah reportedly said,
"Be prepared to train the women. Islam doesn't want women to be shut up and never see fresh air".
The same attitude, perhaps, got carried forth into Pakistan when it first came into being. These days, however, our zest for gender equality has noticeably dwindled.
But this is not about Pakistan. This is about India and the decisions it’s going to make.
India has attracted glares from around the world for its treatment of women. With the recent statements by the Indian defence ministry vowing to uphold its tradition of gender discrimination, it’s unlikely that India’s image will soon change.
Female soldiers aren’t merely affirmative action hires, and “nari shakti” isn’t there for just appearances’ sake.
If one sufficiently demonstrates her skill and mettle, fairness dictates that she get the job irrespective of her race, caste, gender or religion.
Women in boots haven’t let Pakistan down, and they won’t disappoint India either.
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The bride of Daish

The bride of Daish

Rafia Zakaria Published about 3 hours ago
Twenty-six year old Hanan (not her real name). —CNN screengrab
Twenty-six year old Hanan (not her real name). —CNN screengrab
The story was reported in CNN. It took place in the portion of Syria now controlled by the Islamic State or Daish.
There, 26-year-old Hanan (not her real name) lived with her father and mother. Her brother had been killed in previous clashes. Her father, distraught at the loss of his son kept his AK-47 in the house.
When the Daish forces entered the city, they went from house to house and finding a weapon in this one, they detained Hanan’s father.
Mother and daughter remained at home, frenetic and frightful of what would happen to the last male left in the family. Time passed and despite their fervent prayers, he did not return.
Finally, they decided to don their burkas and go to the headquarters of the group. This in itself was a difficult decision, the new rules enforced by the Daish police that continually patrolled the streets was that no women could venture out of their homes without a male guardian. All their male guardians were dead or detained.
Also read: ISIS is no Taliban
As Hanan tells it, on the way to the headquarters, they were stopped several times by the IS police squads that roamed the streets. They were fully covered, wearing full burkas and niqabs but yet this was not enough.
Each time they were stopped, they were asked why they were not accompanied by their male guardian and each time they responded telling the policemen that there was only one and he was in detention at their headquarters.
Without options
On the back of this small mercy they had received from the squads, they finally reached the headquarters.
The two pleaded to have the father and husband released. It was Hanan’s mother that went inside to speak to them.
When she returned, she presented Hanan with a terrible choice.
The only way that the men would let Hanan’s father go was if she agreed to marry their police chief, a man who went by the adopted name of Abu Mohammed Al Iraqi.
Distraught but without options and guided by her desire to have her father released, Hanan agreed. She was married and her father returned home.
Her ordeal was of course not over.
Marriage to an ISIS fighter proved to be just as desolate and cruel as the policies of their governance. The man she had married lived in a constant state of war, sleeping with a gun next to his pillow, his finger on the trigger ready to shoot any time he heard a noise or a knock at the door. He barely spoke to her but had no compunction against forcing himself on her and he did so regularly.
In the interview she gave to the CNN, Hanan said,
“There was no emotion. I did not feel that he had any emotions. I felt like he just wanted to take what was his right, like he had to."
Then, one day, Abu Mohammed Al Iraqi died in battle and Hanan became a widow. Her, nightmare, however, was still not over.
The ISIS commander sent instead a contingent of women to persuade her to marry another fighter. According to Hanan, many of these women were not Syrian but foreigners, some Tunisian and some she suspected, even European.
It was at this time that Hanan ran away.
Somehow, with the assistance of relatives and after several perilous days the family was able to cross the border into Turkey. She had left her ordeal behind, but she admits to living in fear even to this day.
Serving a war machine
At a time when much is being said about Daish and its construction of the perfect Islamic State, Hanan’s story presents the hypocrisy of the group’s promises.
In a recently published manifesto, the female jihadists of Daish rail and rant against Western customs of forcing women to work and earn money. Hanan’s story represents the injustices of their own structures.
Just like the exploitative patriarchies of tribe and caste dominant in so many Muslim societies, women’s choices and their bodies are put into the service of a war machine, where their only role is to serve their husbands and breed their children.
As in Hanan’s case, marital unions are based not on the Islamically prescribed freedom of choice and mutual respect but rather by exploiting the tenuous and difficult circumstances women like Hanan find themselves in.
No thought of purity of character or commitment to justice seemed to have occurred to the men who forced Hanan to be a hostage wife in order to secure her father’s freedom.
As the conflict in Syria and Iraq continues to escalate, daily reports are emerging of women from all over the world, including Western Europe, streaming into the region to marry Daish fighters.
In the rhetoric of radical propaganda that whets such reports, these women who may be young or old willingly marry Daish fighters and are only responsible for keeping the men well fed and producing the next generation of warriors to be.
The reality, as Hanan’s story illustrates, is rather different.
Women like Hanan are instead exploited, their circumstances used as a means of subjugating them and leaving them trapped in loveless lives where they live in daily despair.
One of Daish’s favourite claims is to have created a perfect Islamic society, devoid of the evils that plague the rest of the imperfect Muslim world.
The reality, however, lies in the stories; Hanan’s is one but surely there are thousands of others sill untold, of women still imprisoned by this latest recipe of oppression.
Do you have information you wish to share with Dawn.com? You can email our News Desk to share news tips, reports and general feedback. You can also email the Blog Desk if you have an opinion or narrative to share, or reach out to the Special Projects Desk to send us your Photos, or Videos.
 
Rafia Zakaria is an author, attorney and human rights activist. She is a columnist for DAWN Pakistan and a regular contributor for Al Jazeera America, Dissent, Guernica and many other publications.
She is the author of The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan (Beacon Press 2015)
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

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Delhi church vandalism and attack on AAP betray the same fingerprints: those of the BJP

Delhi church vandalism and attack on AAP betray the same fingerprints: those of the BJP

Ajaz Ashraf Published about 7 hours ago
— AFP/File
— AFP/File
A particular style of politics unites the vandalising of yet another church in Delhi and the expression of righteous fury at the allegation that the Aam Aadmi Party had received donations from four companies involved in money laundering.
This style of politics is unmistakably the Bharatiya Janata Party’s, as also of those who possess power and pelf. In their arrogance, they assume that they can either fashion the world in their own image or turn their rivals into a parody of themselves.
The defining features of the BJP’s style of politics is to breed suspicion in people and divide them, to justify its own patently illegal actions through vicious smear campaigns against its opponents, to deliberately lower the standard of politics to create a level playing field for itself, to maintain a measured distance from episodes it knows will invite opprobrium, thus allowing it to deny direct involvement in them yet reaping electoral benefits if they are available.
Ultimately, and quite pathetically, its style of politics is predicated on deeply loathing ideas it opposes and targetting those who subscribe to them.
Examine the episodes concerning the church and AAP and you will see in them manifestations of the BJP’s style of politics and culture.

A clear pattern

The vandalising of the church in the South Delhi colony of Vasant Kunj is not an isolated incident. This is the fifth such occurrence over the last two months.
Yes, no BJP or Sangh Parivar activist has yet been implicated in these acts of sacrilege.
Yes, the BJP hasn’t publicly campaigned against churches in Delhi, as it had, for instance, against the Babri Masjid.
Yes, the Central government’s control over the Delhi Police is perhaps the reason why it hasn’t named any of the Sangh affiliates as a possible suspect.
Yet there is no denying that the vandalising of churches has been spawned by the BJP’s style of politics and culture.
For months, Sangh leaders have been targeting Christians, as also Muslims, accusing the two communities of forcibly converting Hindus, and portraying the religious minorities to be engaged in a sinister conspiracy to change the country’s religious demographics.
The inevitable consequences of this style of politics are to make a large segment of Hindus suspicious of minorities, foment hatred against them, as also frighten them. For all its talk of governance and development, Make in India and Swachh Bharat, the BJP primarily relies, as it always has, on communally vitiating the political ambiance.
In this atmosphere, the absence of vociferous protest is not surprising, for Delhi is where the Prime Minister lives and he hasn’t spoken yet.

Coarsening standards

This lowering of political standards and debate – by substituting the politics of interest with that of identity, by mouthing the slogan of development for all and yet pursuing exclusivist policy – is the surest way the BJP can hope to win tight elections, as the forthcoming Delhi election is turning out to be.
This is because the BJP remains the party representing primarily the interests of the rich, the conservative middle class, and the corporate sector.
It is through communal polarisation the BJP can divide the lower classes and manufacture majorities.
But the rhetoric of hate and the ensuing social instability are also deeply upsetting for segments of the middle class.
To ensure that this class isn’t alienated, the BJP is forced to keep a certain distance in order to be able to deny its role in communal polarisation or else to convey that its hatred for religious minorities is justified. This is why the Sangh floats innumerable outfits and the BJP claims it has no control over them because they function autonomously.
This is why it must spin bogus theories of the Hindu population being outnumbered, to make its constituents feel insecure and pose as their protector.
These elements of the BJP’s political culture have inspired it to attack the AAP. True, it is a splinter group of AAP that has accused the party of taking donations through the hawala channel.
Yet, look at the alacrity with which the BJP’s big guns were brought to fire volleys against the AAP. It seemed they were waiting for the story to break, more so because the BJP issued advertisements in the next day’s newspapers claiming the allegation was yet another example of Arvind Kejriwal’s hypocrisy.

Dirty tricks

Call it the rapid response of the BJP’s dirty tricks department, whose forte includes executing ideas of love jihad, gharwapsi and other such divisive strategies before elections.
Just as the BJP often says it has no control over the Bajrang Dal and the VHP, it can claim it is the AAP splinter that is responsible for this unseemly drama.
This provides the BJP the opportunity to try confuse AAP voters and yet avoid incurring the wrath of those voters who might perceive this brand of politics as unbecoming of a party that claims to be different from others.
This ploy is aimed at making them suspicious about AAP, since it will be impossible to check the veracity of the allegations through an independent investigation in the few days left for voting. This also seeks to undercut AAP’s USP that it fights elections on a thin budget.
The BJP’s is not an attempt at flaunting its own credentials, but at eroding the credibility of others. Not for it to advocate transparency in political funding, of which it is the biggest beneficiary every election.
Like the Congress, it isn’t keen to annul the legal provision that allows parties to disclose the names only of donors who donate more than than Rs 20,000, enabling them to park slush funds with political outfits in a series of instalments of this amount.
By contrast, AAP registered the alleged hawala amount of Rs 2 crore on its website and took it in cheques.

Old tactics

This style isn't something the BJP has acquired recently. More than a decade ago, it harped on the foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi and, in the 2014 general election, took to calling Rahul Gandhi shahzada or prince. It called Kejriwal a bhagoda (a deserter) and AK 49, an anarchist, Naxalite and benaseeb-wallah (or ill-fated man).
This is unmistakably the style of those who thrive on ridicule and consider leaders competing against them as enemies.
From Gujarat, Gandhi emerged to provide India a new political language and a style of politics that was gentle and fetching. Even as the BJP seeks to appropriate the Mahatma, there has come to Delhi another Gujarati, Amit Shah, who has turned India’s politics, and Delhi’s particularly, meaner than ever before.
On February 7, Delhi will not only elect a new government but also make a moral choice.
This isn’t just one example of the BJP trying to pull down AAP to make it appear as no different from it and other mainstream players.
For instance, it has sought to turn the battle for Delhi into a contest of personalities and fling mud at its rivals, refraining from even issuing a manifesto and mouthing tired clichés about development. It has belatedly released a Vision Document for Delhi, promising to turn the city world-class.
This is a status Delhi can scarcely hope to claim, regardless of infrastructure it builds, as long as churches come under attack. It's a classic case of a backward mindset imagining modernity.
Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist from Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, published by HarperCollins, is now in bookstores.
This article first appeared on Scroll.in and has been reproduced with permission.
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Are the Afghan Taliban terrorists?

Are the Afghan Taliban terrorists?

Abubakar Siddique Published about 3 hours ago
Afghan Taliban representatives in Qatar. — Reuters/file
Afghan Taliban representatives in Qatar. — Reuters/file
This post appears courtesy of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Many were surprised when a White House spokesman recently called the Afghan Taliban an "armed insurgency" and refrained from calling the hardline militant group terrorists a month after the United States ended combat operations in Afghanistan.
The United States lost more than 2,000 soldiers in its 13-year war against the Taliban after it led an international coalition to topple their regime in Afghanistan in late 2001.
The Taliban were accused of harboring Al Qaeda, and a day after thousands were killed in the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, former US President George W. Bush declared that his country would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
On January 28, White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz told reporters that "the Taliban is an armed insurgency" unlike the Islamic State, which is a terrorist group.
The next day, reporters questioned White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. He said the administration sees the Taliban differently than designated international terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda. "The Taliban has resorted to terror tactics, but those terror tactics have principally been focused on Afghanistan," he said.
The comments provoked considerable reaction, such as a sarcastic January 30 headline on the Fox News website: "White House acknowledges -- but also denies -- that Taliban are a terrorist group."
Writing in the conservative National Review Online, Andrew C. McCarthy called the White House comments cynical.
"This business of distinguishing 'insurgents' from 'terrorists' is nonsense," he observed. "An insurgency is just a domestic uprising (in the sense that the insurgent is from the country in which he is rebelling). When insurgents use terrorist tactics, they are domestic terrorists."
A closer examination of the US designations for the Taliban reveals that while individuals insurgent leaders and some Taliban factions have been designated terrorists, most members of the Afghan Taliban are only considered insurgents.
Barnett Rubin, a New York University academic, spent years advising the US State Department on how to craft policies to help in reconciling the Taliban with the Afghan government.
He says the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations does not list the main organisation of the Afghan Taliban, which calls itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). It does, however, list Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Afghan Taliban's powerful military wing, the Haqqani network, as foreign terrorist organisations.
The Haqqanis, a large Jihadist family from southeastern Afghanistan, however, consider themselves part of the Afghan Taliban, who have backed these claims.
"Of course Afghan Taliban (IEA) uses terrorism. So did [the anti-Soviet Afghan] mujahedin [in the 1980s]. But the US has concluded the Afghan Taliban (IEA) does not target anything outside Afghanistan: not the US, India, China or Russia," he told RFE/RL's Gandhara website.
Rubin says some organisations, even after meeting the legal requirement for being designated as a terrorist organization, are not officially labeled. "The law does not require designation. It only authorizes the administration to designate the organizations if they meet the criteria," he said. "Using the designation is ultimately a political decision."
Washington's views about the Afghan Taliban began to change in 2009, when, as part of his new policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Barack Obama backed reconciliation between the Taliban and the Western-backed Kabul government.
"The US and the Afghan government agree that the goal with Afghan Taliban (IEA) is to contain them and get them into the peace process," Rubin noted. "Now this is very different than our goals for Al Qaeda, the Islamic State militants or TTP."
The United Nations also acknowledged these distinctions and in 2011 decided to split its Al Qaeda and Taliban sanction regime and established separate Al Qaeda and Taliban sanction lists with distinct criteria for the two organisations.
Adding to the complexity is the fact that the Taliban are still listed as Specially Designated Global Terrorists by the US Treasury Department. Washington is still offering $10 million for information regarding the Afghan Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Omar.
Many more Taliban figures have been designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists and, like Omar, some even feature on the State Department's Rewards for Justice program. The US National Counterterrorism Center displays the Afghan Taliban on its global map of "terrorist groups."
Rubin attributes some of these designations to political disagreements in Washington. He acknowledges that US policymakers still have to address some fundamental questions about the Taliban even after they have symbolically ended the war in Afghanistan.
"We will cross that bridge when we come to it," he said.
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‘Is criticising blasphemy laws blasphemous’

‘Is criticising blasphemy laws blasphemous’

Malik Asad Updated about 11 hours ago
Counsel of Mumtaz Qadri Mian Nazir Akhtar arrives for the hearing of Salman Taseer’s murder case at IHC. — INP/File
Counsel of Mumtaz Qadri Mian Nazir Akhtar arrives for the hearing of Salman Taseer’s murder case at IHC. — INP/File
ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) bench hearing an appeal filed by Mumtaz Qadri – the murderer of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer – asked his defence team whether criticising the blasphemy laws was, in itself, an act of blasphemy.
The IHC division bench consisting of Justice Noorul Haq N. Qureshi and Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, on Friday, read out a statement by Mr Taseer, where he called the blasphemy law ‘a black law’. At this point, the judge asked Qadri’s counsel, former Justice Mian Nazeer Ahmed, whether Taseer had blasphemed when he criticised a law that was promulgated during the regime of former military dictator General Ziaul Haq.
“Did his actions fall under the ambit of the blasphemy law,” the judge mused, adding, “For the sake of argument, even if it is presumed that Mr Taseer had committed blasphemy, should he not be dealt with in accordance with the law?”
Evading the question, the counsel recalled that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had himself sent men to punish blasphemers. However, the bench remarked that in doing so, the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was also exercising judicial powers in addition to administrative ones, adding that under second Caliph Umar, the judiciary was separated from the executive.

Qadri’s defence attorney maintains it is acceptable for individuals to act unilaterally against blasphemers in certain cases

The counsel claimed that in his research on the subject of blasphemy, he had found as many as 115 cases where alleged blasphemers had been put to death over the course of nearly 14 centuries. These included, he pointed out, Christians who had been executed in the name of religion in Europe.
He alleged that the west had double standards; on the one hand, they did not permit Holocaust Denial but on the other hand, they allowed things that hurt Muslim sentiments under ‘freedom of expression’.
The judge-turned-counsel argued that in certain circumstances, individuals could take action against blasphemers on their own.
At this point, Justice Qureshi remarked that even a judge did not have the authority to touch a convict. He said that a district and sessions judge, after convicting an accused, can award him the death penalty but he could not shoot the convict himself.
In case a judge causes any harm to the convict, the judge may be held accountable in accordance with the law and a case may be instituted against him, he added.
Qadri’s counsel claimed that his client was an honest policeman and had served with many VVIPs in the past.
He also claimed that there was insufficient evidence against Qadri to establish that he was a criminal.
Justice Siddiqui then asked the counsel whether, as a policeman, Qadri had taken an oath to protect the lives of his fellow citizens. If he believed Mr Taseer has done something wrong, he would have been dealt with in accordance with the law, the judge said.
He then asked the counsel whether the bench should decide the matter on the basis of emotions and sentiments, or strictly in accordance with the law and adjourned further hearing until February 10.
Published in Dawn February 7th , 2015
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