Save Sindhyat, Save Rinkal Kumari

Rinkal Kumari, a Hindu Girl, from Mirpur Mathelo Sindh Pakistan, was kidnapped on 23rd February 2012 while she was returning home from her college. After being kidnapped, she was taken to Bharchundi Shareef (a small village near Mirpur Mathelo, Sindh, Pakistan) and was put under the custody of Feudal named Mian Mithoo (Member of Assembly). The victim, Rinkal, was harrowed by Mian Mithoo to forcefully convert to Islam and then get married with Naveed Shah, a resident of the same area. Under defenseless circumstances along with physical abuse, Rinkal married Naveed Shah. Disturbed and agonized by the situation, Mr. Raj Kumar (Rinkal’s Uncle) and Rinkal’s family approached the local law enforcement to seek justice but to no avail. The Policemen, negatively influenced by Mian Mithoo, denied the rights of Rinkal’s family to lodge a complaint.After 5 hours of struggle, pleading and literal beseech, the Police finally accepted a written complaint from Rinkal’s family and issued a First Information Report (F.I.R) saying that the case will be presented at 10 am 24th February 2012 in Ghotki Local Court.

Plan Changed and the victim was taken to a different court in Mirpur Mathelo and hearing was rescheduled to 9:00am from 10:00am. These location and time changes were influenced by Mian Mithoo and Rinkal family were not informed about this change. However, knowing this information from an unknown source, Rinkal’s family reached that place early but they were blocked from entering the court premises by private gunmen (hired by Mian Mithoo) with heavy artillery as seen in the pictures and video clips on different Tv channels. In the video clip below Ayaz Latif  Palijo Protesting against forced Religion conversion The language of the Bolta Pakistan program is urdu (Hindi).

Courtesy: ARY News Tv » (Bolta Pakistan with Nusrat Javed, Mustaq Minhas and Ayaz Latif Palijo, March 06, 2012)

BAAGHI: Resisting the Taliban menace – II, by Marvi Sirmed

– Resisting the Taliban and the Haqqani network is the only viable option left for Pakistan, following which we can still make up for most of the damage done to our relationship with not only the US but Afghanistan and, in fact, India too

While these lines are being written, hundreds of Afghans are rallying on the streets of Kabul to condemn last week’s shelling of Afghan border towns by the Pakistan Army and assassination of Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, which Afghan officials believe was a joint plot of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Afghan Taliban. Admiral Mike Mullen’s statement before the Congress Armed Forces Committee, that the Haqqani network was a ‘veritable arm’ of ISI, upped the ante in already tense US-Pak relations.

After Pakistan’s declaration in an All-Parties Conference (APC) to cool down the emotions against the US but not to act against the Taliban in North Waziristan, the week ended with Afghan President Karzai’s abandonment of dialogue with the Taliban and subsequent announcement of the schedule of his visit to India — an ultimate itch-powder for Pakistan’s establishment.

The canvas in Afghanistan so far is loud and clear about shrinking options for Pakistan if the latter does not review its policy and ground it in the region’s emerging realities ….

Read more → Daily Times

Religious intolerance in Pakistan

– The Blasphemy Law is Blasphemous itself.

– YouTube Link

Pakistan Today Is Better Than It Was 20 Years Ago

by Farid Ahmad
Sitting in the middle of load-shedding, watching the political theater roll-on ad infinitum, and reading the news of another security incident somewhere, it is easy to be depressed about Pakistan these days.

Depression, however, is parasitic.

It jumps from person to person and grows in strength unless treated. It makes you weak and vulnerable  and sometimes it is necessary to break the circle. Yes, Pakistan is going through very tough times, but there is no reason to throw all hope to the wind and to start denying the things that are going right  and a lot has gone right in the past twenty or so years.

First, the necessary disclaimer: The intention here is not to sweep Pakistan’s problems under the rug or to try and rationalize away the immense suffering of the victims of recent violence and economic turmoil. There is no doubt that things have taken a very serious turn in recent months and millions of people are paying a heavy price every day.

With that disclaimer in place, here’s a collection of things that I have seen change for the better in my life in Pakistan – from high-school in the eighties to today.

It is necessarily a very personal list, though others might be able to relate to some of it. Traveling apart, I’ve spent my life living in Islamabad and Lahore and my memories are naturally specific to these places. So again, I’m fully conscious of the fact that not everyone can relate to or agree with my attempt at optimism.

But even if I come across as being overly optimistic, it is only to counter those who are becoming unnecessarily pessimistic.

Maybe you have your own stories, your own inspirations, your own rays of hope that keep you going… these are mine. And I share them with the hope that they will help someone else break out of the circle of pessimism.

Roads: 1989: Driving from Lahore to Islamabad was an ordeal on the mostly single-lane, badly maintained GT road.
2010: Driving from Lahore to Islamabad is a pleasure on the motorway. And it is not just this one road, a lot of roads have been added to the network or improved. I know people in my office in Islamabad who routinely drive to Karachi with their families. We need many more roads – but we have certainly not been sitting idle.

Communications: 1989: Calling from Islamabad to Lahore meant going to the market to a PCO, telling the guy to book a 3-minute call and waiting around till it got connected. Even if you had an STD line at home, your fingers were likely to get sore from dialing before you got connected. And once the call was connected you watched the clock like a hawk as it was so expensive.
2010: Instant, cheap calls worldwide for everyone from cellular phones.

Internet: 1995: I was first introduced to the wonders of Email in 1995. It was an offline ‘store and forward’ system (remember those @sdnpk email addresses?) . If you sent a mail in the morning, it reached in the evening when your Email provider called USA on a direct line to forward it.
2010: Broadband, DSL, WiMax, Dialup, Cable – instant connectivity for everyone. More generally, I’ve gone thru a series of denials about the adoption of new technologies in Pakistan. I went through thinking that cellular phones would never gain widespread adoption – I was wrong; that internet would remain a niche – I was wrong; that broadband would never take off here – I was wrong; that Blackberry would never be adopted – I was wrong. Here I speak from some experience as I work for a cellular company and I’ve seen all these numbers grow exponentially. The fact is that Pakistan and Pakistanis love technology and are eager to adopt and adapt the latest technologies as soon as they become available. With its huge population, this creates a large market for every new technology in Pakistan and businesses rush in to fill it. This bodes well for the future. ….

Read more : Pakistaniat

Current wave of extremism in Pakistan

Statistical ambiguity society

Just how some recent events of our surface politics offer an interesting study of the deep politics

By Dr Ahsan Wagha

It started with the worst ideological polarisation promoted by the military generals in the 1970s when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was forced to invite Saudi ambassador Riaz Al-Khatib to mediate between him and the opposition, a practice that was reverberated during the Musharraf-Nawaz conflict and has almost culminated into becoming one of the basic features of our foreign policy. The phenomenon can be investigated in the background of the history of Arab colonisation of this region.

The dogmas of Fatwa and Sharia Laws still dominate million of Muslim lives

Sharia Laws — Heavy Deception With Abusive Divinity

The dogmas of Fatwa and Sharia Laws still dominate million of Muslim lives

by Mesbah Uddin

No doubt, early Islam possessed many fine and noble attributes. But Islam couldn’t have swept Arabia and its adjacent lands so fabulously if Sharia Laws and Fatwa had been the models of Islamic edicts at that time.

It is an irony to iron-out the deep wrinkles of Islam, we know today. Corrupted beliefs are too profoundly ingrained in Islam. The dogmas of Fatwa and Sharia Laws still dominate million of Muslim lives and the vulnerable ones get succumb to Fatwa’s claws.

A year before his death and before the Koran was compiled, Prophet Muhammad made his last pilgrimage from Medina to Mecca. There He made a great sermon to his people. The sermon breathed a spirit of generosity. The Muslims created a society more free from widespread cruelty and social oppression than any society had ever been in the world before.

But that was then – the prophetic Islam. Today, Islam encompasses numerous fragments, interpretations and the dreadful echoes of Sharia Laws. The Sharia Laws are much heavier on one side. It is the side that is not the Koran but the Hadith. It might surprize the readers that “stoning to death” cannot be traced anywhere in the Koran, but it is profusely enshrined in the pages of the Hadith. Obviously the Hadith narrators borrowed it from a famous story in the Christian Bible – the New Testament, and passed it in the name of Prophet Muhammad.

The story (John: 8) tells us that some Jewish crowd brought a woman who had been caught in adultery. They made her stand before Jesus, and then said to him: “Now, master, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. According to the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women to death. Now, what do you say about it?’ After they persisted in their questioning, Jesus finally straightened up and said simply, “Let the one among you who has never sinned throw the first stone at her.” …

Read more : Bangladesh-web

The Empire Without Clothes – by Waris Husain

–WITHOUT DEVELOPING A SECULAR AND TOLERANT STATE IDENTITY THAT CAN PROVIDE EQUAL PROTECTION TO ALL ITS CITIZENS REGARDLESS OF THEIR BACKGROUND, INCIDENTS LIKE THE ASSASSINATION OF GOV. TASEER WILL BECOME COMMON-PLACE.

–However, the inability of the general public to see the nakedness of Pakistan is due to the inter-generational brainwashing towards conservative orthodoxy.

The heinous murder of Governor Taseer was shocking, but one should consider the reactions in support of his assassin amongst some Pakistanis as a sign that the society is at a crossroads. Governor Taseer’s life was stolen from him because he rejected a blasphemy law based on a narrow-minded view of Islam that subjects the nation’s minorities to discrimination. Laws such as these reveal the increasingly conflicting view of Pakistan’s future: either as a nation that is able to adapt to modern times and protect the rights of all its citizens or one destined for devolution into chaos through a medieval view of Islam and the state. …

Read more : SOVEREIGN MINDS

Who’s afraid of Mumtaz Qadri?

by Fifi Haroon

I am suffering from writer’s fatigue, despite not producing a column this year. Largely because I have been tweeting up a storm with like-minded Pakistanis, outraged by the sickening apotheosis of Mumtaz Qadri, a coward who shot an unarmed man in the back and walked away a celebrity. What could I possibly add that my erstwhile colleagues Fasi Zaka, Mosharraf Zaidi and the bloggers at Five Rupees have not already articulated to their readers in the Pakistani blogosphere and English language press?

Silence, however, is not an option for anyone who believes that what Pakistan needs today is loud, sane voices. It doesn’t really matter if these voices are few. What does matter is that they exist and those of us who have access to any kind of national forum must put in our dissenting vote. So, for the record, this is where I stand and, like countless others, I will not be browbeaten. …

Read more : The Express Tribune

The Anarchist religious clerics of Pakistan : For one sect of religious cleric the other sect of cleric is Kafir and vice verse!

For one sect of religious cleric the other sect of cleric is Kafir and vice verse! in Pakistan? The language of video is urdu/ Hindi.

via – Chagatai Khan – You Tube Khan

 

Salmaan Taseer, Aasia Bibi and Pakistan’s struggle with extremism

by Declan Walsh

Aasia Bibi isn’t at home. Children play at the blue gate of her modest home in Itanwali, a sleepy Punjabi village. Bibi, the woman at the heart of Pakistan‘s blasphemy furore – which triggered the murder of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer last week – is in jail, desperately praying that she won’t be executed. Her neighbours are hoping she will be.

“Why hasn’t she been killed yet?” said Maafia Bibi , a 20-year-old woman standing at the gate of the house next door. Her eyes glitter behind a scarf that covered her face. “You journalists keep coming here asking questions but the issue is resolved. Why has she not been hanged?”

Maafia was one of a group of about four women who accused Bibi, also known as Aasia Noreen, who is Christian, of insulting the prophet Muhammad during a row in a field 18 months ago. But she will not specify what Bibi actually said, because to repeat the words would itself be blasphemy. And so Bibi was sentenced to hang on mere hearsay – a Kafkaesque twist that seems to bother few in Itanwali, a village 30 miles outside Lahore.

A few streets away Maulvi Muhammad Saalim is preparing for Friday prayers. The 31-year-old mullah, a curly-bearded man with darting, kohl-rimmed eyes and woolly waistcoat, played a central role in marshalling the blasphemy charge. When a court sentenced Bibi to death last November – the first woman in Pakistan’s history – he “wept with joy”, he says. “We had been worried the court would award a lesser sentence. So the entire village celebrated.” …

via – Globeistan – Read more : Guardian

Salman Taseer Remembered – by Tariq Ali

Mumtaz Hussain Qadri smiled as he surrendered to his colleagues after shooting Salman Taseer, the governor of the Punjab, dead. Many in Pakistan seemed to support his actions; others wondered how he’d managed to get a job as a state bodyguard in the carefully screened Elite Force. Geo TV, the country’s most popular channel, reported, and the report has since been confirmed, that ‘Qadri had been kicked out of Special Branch after being declared a security risk,’ that he ‘had requested that he not be fired on but arrested alive if he managed to kill Taseer’ and that ‘many in Elite Force knew of his plans to kill Salman Taseer.’

Qadri is on his way to becoming a national hero. On his first appearance in court, he was showered with flowers by admiring Islamabad lawyers who have offered to defend him free of charge. On his way back to prison, the police allowed him to address his supporters and wave to the TV cameras. The funeral of his victim was sparsely attended: a couple of thousand mourners at most. A frightened President Zardari and numerous other politicians didn’t show up. A group of mullahs had declared that anyone attending the funeral would be regarded as guilty of blasphemy. No mullah (that includes those on the state payroll) was prepared to lead the funeral prayers. The federal minister for the interior, Rehman Malik, a creature of Zardari’s, has declared that anyone trying to tamper with or amend the blasphemy laws will be dealt with severely. In the New York Times version he said he would shoot any blasphemer himself.

Taseer’s spirited defence of Asiya Bibi, a 45-year-old Punjabi Christian peasant, falsely charged with blasphemy after an argument with two women who accused her of polluting their water by drinking out of the same receptacle, provoked an angry response from religious groups. …

Read more : LRB.co.uk
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/tariq-ali/salman-taseer-remembered?%22%20target=%22_blank%22%3ELRB.co.uk

The People of the Book!?!

The People of the Book!?! Watch.

– You Tube Link – You Tube Link # 2 – You Tube Link 3

Pakistan : Will The Political Establishment Wake Up?

Will The Political Establishment Wake Up?

By: Agha Haider Raza

Our country is at a crossroad. Pakistan has come to a point where thousands believe they are righteous and have divine authority to carry out God’s acts on this earth. …

Read more : Agha Haider Raza

Pakistan : Someone always to kill

Someone always to kill – by Fasi Zaka

At some point in time, a lot of the citizens of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan quietly renounced their citizenship to become ‘Takfiristanis’. They took upon themselves the right to declare anyone they willed a non-Muslim and gave themselves the right to murder.

I was always under the impression that ghazis in history were men and women of valour, who stared death in the face and didn’t flinch because the mettle of their belief was so strong. So as it emerges that the killer of Salmaan Taseer, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, is a ‘ghazi’ to many, it’s odd that he allegedly requested the other guards not to kill him. That he killed an unarmed man in cold blood is cowardly, that he wanted his life spared is cowardly. That doesn’t sound courageous to me.

After the killing of Salmaan Taseer, the silent majority of Pakistan finally spoke. They liked it. It didn’t matter what class they were from, what clothes they wore, how many years of education they had. They agreed with murder most foul. But they are still silent on their secret identity as Takfiristanis. …

Read more : The Express Tribune

Due to insecurity Pakistani Hindu community is migrating to other countries

Pakistani Hindu community is migrating to other countries due to the insecurity. The language of talk show is urdu/ Hindi.

Courtesy: Express TV (Pakistan Poochta Hai with Munizai, 11 January, 2011)

via – ZemTV – You Tube Link

Killer media… Abbas Athar

In an interview to BBC Urdu Abbas Athar has alleged that Shaheed Salman Taseer’s killer is media, particularly one group. Listen his interview at BBC. …

Read more : WICHAAR

Salmaan Taseer : My Father Died for Pakistan

My Father Died for Pakistan

By SHEHRBANO TASEER, Lahore, Pakistan

TWENTY-SEVEN. That’s the number of bullets a police guard fired into my father before surrendering himself with a sinister smile to the policemen around him. Salmaan Taseer, governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, was assassinated on Tuesday — my brother Shehryar’s 25th birthday — outside a market near our family home in Islamabad. …

Read more : New York Times

PAKISTAN: Appeasement policy towards religious intolerance leads to murder of a governor

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission

AHRC-STM-001-2011 : The nation has suffered a great loss due to this tragic murder. A voice of sanity has been silenced. This has happened at a time when the kind of political leadership provided by Salman Taseer is most needed. He stood for basic values which are essential for the stability of Pakistan. His shocking death should be an awakening for all right-thinking people of Pakistan about the perils that the country is facing. Creating chaos is not difficult under the tense conditions under which Pakistan has functioned for a considerable time now. The benefits of such chaos will only go to a few. However, the consequences of this death can seriously harm the population which may begin to react with fear of such murders. It is time for all concerned persons and the government to react soberly but strongly on this occasion in order to ensure that the benefits of this situation will go to those are bent on creating chaos.

Protest against religious fundamentalism in Lahore

Lahore : On 8th January 2011, civil society organised a protest against Salman Taseer’s assassination and religious fundamentalism in Pakistan outside Quaid-e-Azam Library. About two hundred people were present at this quickly organized protest. Some prominent personalities such as Tahira Syed were also present.

Dedicated to Salman Taseer

by Dr. Khalid Javaid Jan.

Mazhab kay jo byopari hein,

Woh sab se bari beemari hein.

Woh jin kay siwa sab kaafir hein,

Jo deen ka harf-e-akhir hein.

In jhootay aur makkaron say,

Mazhab kay theke-daron say,

Mein baaghi hoon mai baaghi hoon.

Jo Chahe mujh per Zulm Karo

= – = – = – = – =

– Benazir Bhutto used to recite this poem. CLICK HERE to listen her recitation of the poem!

Pakistan or Fascistan? – by B. R. GOWANI

… All signs point to fascism

While Taseer’s body was being riddled with bullets, the other guards stayed inactive.

(The infiltration of the security and the armed forces by the Islamic elements has been a known fact since the late 1970s when General Zia-ul-Haq was in power.)

The reason given by the assassin was Taseer’s criticism of the blasphemy law. According to Qadri’s lawyer, Saimul Haq Satti, Qadri told him: “I am proud of it.” …

Read more: Globeistan

Cheer the assassin! – by Khurram Husain

Cheer on my friends! Cheer on the assassin! Smile and clap your hands, chant odes to the ghazi’s bravery! Go ahead, applaud the darkness that is coming your way, because once it has taken you into its embrace, there’ll be no cheer left in your life.

Hail the assassin as your hero! Lift him up on your shoulders and show his brave deed to your children! Tell them to emulate his example and follow his footsteps! Kiss the ground he walked on! Congregate outside the prison that holds him and shout slogans so he hears your support through the walls. Because soon, the only heroes left in your life will be those with blood on their hands and death in their hearts.

Denounce the fallen governor! Denounce his licentious ways! Mock his speeches and drag his grieving wife and children through the dirt that is in your mind, your eyes! Question his faith: Was he a secret atheist? Fling all manner of filth and dirt on his name and his ways, for soon there’ll be nothing left in your minds, other than the filth of a faithless piety and the dirt of prejudice.

Sanctify the assassin’s bullet! Distill all your hatreds and frustrations into it! Place it on a pedestal and recite psalms of solemn servitude to it! Let it be the one fixed point in your life, your north star by which you navigate yourself towards your destiny! Let its line of travel, from muzzle to victim, be the straight and narrow path you seek to your salvation. May you find your victim one day too, just like the bullet found its. Yes, sanctify the bullet because soon it’ll light the way for you towards that destiny where you hold the knife in your hands and your hapless victim struggles vainly in your clutches.

While you’re at it, make a game out of it all. Clap, laugh and sing songs while the darkness falls all around you. Tell yourself silly little tales of how it’s all for the best because, after all, politicians are corrupt and deserve it all. Let the madness ooze into your puny minds without a struggle, since struggle in the path of what is right can get you killed.

Kiss the pages of the document where the ‘holy’ laws are written. Don’t read them, don’t think about what they say. Don’t ask questions about them, such as what the rules of evidence are under these laws or how the court is supposed to tell the difference between a true and false allegation. No, don’t do any of that, because soon these will be the only laws left in your life.

Do it, my friends! Because there is no ‘silent majority’ any more, only a frightened and confused flock hemmed in by the darkness, trembling at the howling of the hyenas around, huddled together under a vanishing light, barely enduring the great dark absence beyond.

No words will soothe their fears, no courage will call them to action. No strength exists any longer to lift this cowering multitude into the ranks of humanity, no mind’s eye to light the way for them.

So do it! Celebrate all manner of bloodlust because soon there will be nobody left in your life who can call murder by its name.

Courtesy: The Express Tribune, January 6th, 2011.

Link- http://tribune.com.pk/story/99546/cheer-the-assassin/

Mullah Shahi and their opponents – by Dr. Manzur Ejaz

What are it that Mullah Shahi has and their opponent don’t have:

1. Mullahs have a concerted ideology which may be called twisted, but they have it. Their opponents do not have a central ideological theme: they are collection of individualists who are against Mullah Shahi due to different reasons.

2. Because of ideological strength Mullah Sahi has people who are willing to sacrifice their life for their cause. Their opponents do not have such committed people.

3. Mullah Sahi has been supported by Pakistani state in organizing themselves and through an educational system that produces pro-Mullah Shahi crowd. Now, Mullah Shahi may not need state support and function on its own.

4. Pro-Mullah Shahi mass has infested all the state institutions including all kinds of security agencies. Therefore, Mullah Shahi has a significant control over the state with or without Islamabad’s help.

5. The new rich class, backward in its world outlook, is more likely to fund Mullah Shahi than its opposing modernist forces (if there are any).

6. The liberal minority–that is what it is–has no commitment to enlightened ideals. They are just a small crowd of ever-mourning people.

Courtesy: http://www.wichaar.com/news/285/ARTICLE/23516/2011-01-07.html

Salmaan Taseer: assassinated on a perilous path – Dr Mohammad Taqi

Salmaan Taseer dedicated his personal fortune to the cause of publishing the unvarnished truth and the people’s right to know this truth. It would not have been possible for this paper’s editorial board to carry itself independently were it not for Salmaan Taseer’s personal commitment to not only this project but to the very freedoms of speech and expression.

“The sorrowful smell of the mist,

Lingering over the Indus,

Gentle waves of rice, dung and rind,

This is the salt cry of Sindh,

As I die let me feel,

The fragrance of tears”

— Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai.

“It was a Sindhi poet, Shah Abdul Latif, who captured the forlornness of his country in this haunting verse,” wrote Salmaan Taseer in the opening chapter of his 1979 book, Bhutto: A Political Biography. I have read these words many times but had never once thought that the forlornness might get deeper than the deepest depression one could feel. But the assassination of Salmaan Taseer has left many of us even more devastated and depressed than what Shah Latif could depict.

I do not mourn Salmaan Taseer alone but I also mourn those who have been killed before him on the perilous path of speaking their mind, and those who will be killed in the future on this journey. Ayesha Siddiqa, Kamran Shafi, Nadeem Farooq Paracha, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Sherry Rehman,  and so many others are living on borrowed time. It is not a matter of if but when an indoctrinated bigot let loose by the deep state will get to them or, for that matter, any of us who decline to follow the rotten creed that it has been peddling for decades.

However, I have a feeling that Salmaan Taseer would not have wanted to be remembered with melancholy. His illustrious father, Dr M D Taseer, once said:

“Parwana jal kay dil ki muradon ko pa gaya, Aur shama reh gayi rukh-e-zeba liay huay” (Translation: The light-loving moth has died caressing the candle flame. The candle thus remains alone in all its elegance).

It is nearly impossible to accurately translate the above Urdu verse, which my father, Malik Rahat Ali, had quoted while writing Dr M D Taseer’s obituary for Edward’s College, Peshawar’s magazine Tajjali (light) in 1951. The obituary was titled ‘Aik raushan dimagh tha, na raha’ (an enlightened mind is no more). It is amazing how references to light and progressive thought keep popping up when discussing the Taseers and in the work of the Taseers themselves. Pakistan, and the liberal thought within Pakistan, is the candle that Salmaan and M D Taseer loved to the extent that to see it remain alight, they would dedicate their lives to it.

When thinking of Salmaan Taseer, two images come to mind. One is of a political activist and the second is of a patron of progressive and liberal thought. Perhaps senior members of the Indo-Pakistani leftist movement will recall that Dr M D Taseer, along with Abdullah Malik and Rajindra Singh Bedi had pioneered a liberal publishing house called Sangham Publishers in 1947, before the partition. I would not be wrong in assuming that the Daily Times and its media affiliates came into being due to Salmaan Taseer’s desire to follow in his father’s footsteps. …

Read more : Daily Times

Religion has made Pakistan a schizophrenic society: Ayaz Amir

In a time when obscurantists and terrorists have tried to silence our voices and strike off the heads of those who dared oppose them, Taseer spoke without fear, condemning the blasphemy law and those who stood in its defence, despite the very real threat of violent retribution.

Source Link – You Tube

A divided Pakistan buries Salman Taseer and a liberal dream

by Declan Walsh in Lahore

Liberals have long been a minority force in Pakistan, reviled for importing ‘western’ ideas and culture; now they are virtually an endangered species.

There was silence in the ancient city of Lahore yesterday as Salman Taseer, a pugnacious son of the soil who made his name by speaking out, was lowered into an early grave. …

Read more : Guardian.co.uk

= – =  – = – = – =

To read BBC urdu column, click here

Fundamentalists are digging a grave of Pakistan to doom it …!?

The language of talk show is urdu/ Hindi.

Courtesy: GeoTV (Lekin with Sana, 4th Jan, 2011)

via – ZemTV – You Tube Link

Unfortunately, Pakistan has missed the Bus!?

Courtesy: Geo TV ( Choraha, 25 Dec 2010)

via – ZemTV – You Tube Link

Feudal thinking Mullah-military dominates Pakistan. Where is Jinnah’s Pakistan?

Discussion is in urdu/ Hindi.

Courtesy: Express TV (Front Line with Kamran Shahid, 25 Dec 2010)

via – ZemTV – You Tube Link

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful

Letter From An Expat – by Azra Rashid

Dear Pakistan,

I decided to write today after being mostly a silent observer for 31 years because now you are seriously …

Read more : CHOWK