Rape, mutilation: Pakistan’s tribal justice for women

By Rebecca Conway

MULTAN,(Reuters) – On April 14, two men entered Asma Firdous’ home, cut off six of her fingers, slashed her arms and lips and then sliced off her nose. Before leaving the house, the men locked their 28-year-old victim inside.

Asma, from impoverished Kohaur Junobi village in Pakistan’s south, was mutilated because her husband was involved in a dispute with his relatives, and they wanted revenge.

Her fate is familiar in parts of Pakistan’s remote and feudal agricultural belts, where women are often used as bargaining chips in family feuds, and where the level of violence they face is increasing in frequency and brutality.

At the hospital in nearby Multan town, Asma’s shocked parents sat quietly by her bedside and struggled to explain what the future holds for their now disfigured daughter.

“I don’t know what will happen to her when she leaves here,” Asma’s father, Ghulam Mustafa, said, in a dilapidated ward heavy with the smell of antiseptic and blood, where other women, doused with acid or kerosene by relatives or fellow villagers, awaiting an equally uncertain future.

Asked if Asma will return to her husband, her father remains silent.

Pakistan is the world’s third-most dangerous country for women, after Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, based on a survey conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation (link.reuters.com/jet92s)

Read more → Reuters

Two Young Sindhi Political Workers Ruthlessly Murdered in Sindh, Pakistan

By Khakid Hashmani

The people of Sindh once again woke up to the sad news that two of their young leaders Qurban Khawar and Roplo Cholyani were brutally murdered. They were travelling in a car along with another leader Noorullah Tunio who survived the attack. The three leaders belonged to a leading Sindh nationalist party. The party alleged that the murders were carried out by death squads of infamous premier Intelligence agency of Pakistan. As the news of their brutal murder spread through Sindh, a wave of sorrow and anger rose through many of cities, towns and villages. The shops and businesses closed in the protest and people came out in the streets demonstrating their resolve to continue their struggle for Sindhi Rights.

The surviving leader Noorullah Tunio was interviewed by the local police. In a video posted on YouTube, he is seen saying that two vehicles sandwiched their car and started firing. Once the car stopped, they threw petrol and lighted causing further destruction when the petrol tank blew up.

After the murders, leaders of several Sindh nationalist parties issued statements and demanded justice. One leader said that there is a secret plan to eliminate leaders of patriot Sindhi leaders so that the favorites of the establishment have a free hand in sabotaging Sindh’s rights movement. Another Sindhi leader said that the frequency of killing of Sindhi leaders has leads him to believe that there is a conspiracy to create Balochistan like situation in Sindh in order to eliminate Sindh nationalists and get rid of democratic set-up.

HAARP!

Case of bogus science – By Pervez Hoodbhoy

COMSTECH is the Organisation of Islamic Countries’ highest scientific body. It has received millions of dollars from OIC countries, including Pakistan.

Comstech’s magnificent headquarters are located on Constitution Avenue in Islamabad. It has been headed by Dr Atta-ur-Rahman since 1996. Although its performance has been consistently mediocre, the organisation has now descended to an all-time low.

Recently Dr Rahman published an eye-popping article entitled HAARP (Dawn, Oct 17). The article claims that a physics research project, based in Alaska, may have been used by the US to trigger earthquakes globally, and could also have caused the catastrophic floods in Pakistan. Dr Rahman concludes with a chilling question: “Is the HAARP then, a harmless research tool — or a weapon of mass destruction far more lethal than nuclear weapons? We may never know.”

Given Dr Rahman’s prominent place in Pakistani science, and that he is fellow of the Royal Society, one must consider seriously his claim that HAARP can cause earthquakes and floods. But even the briefest examination makes clear his claims make no scientific sense.

HAARP stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Programme. Its website states it is a research programme run by the University of Alaska in collaboration with various US colleges and universities. If HAARP is a secret military project conceived by evil and diabolical minds, it is hard to see why visitors, including foreign nationals, are said to be allowed on site. The website says that the last open house was on July 17, 2010.

At least on the face of things, HAARP does not have the trappings of an American secret weapons facility. (Google Earth, which I used, blacks these out.) Readers will see a field of antennas, as well as some cars and two ordinary looking buildings.

No security barriers are visible. This does not appear to be a classified project.

But, of course, appearances can be deceptive. So let us simply use common sense and physics. Assume therefore that the power of the transmitters is many times that declared on the website (3.6MW). This may mean HAARP could potentially disrupt radio communications during war, or blind incoming missiles. But science cannot accept Dr Rahman’s claim that “It (HAARP) may also affect plate tectonics causing earthquakes, floods through torrential rains and trigger tsunamis.”

Does the good doctor believe in magic and demons? How else can massive tectonic plates be moved by radio waves? Will HAARP tickle a sleeping subterranean monster that awakes and sets off earthquakes? This kind of thinking was what irate and ignorant village mullahs used after the 2005 Pakistani earthquake. They blamed cable television, after which followers smashed thousands of television sets.

Weather change simply cannot be caused by HAARP’s radio waves. …

Read more : DAWN