Isis publicly execute leading lawyer and human rights activist in Iraq

Isis militants have publically executed Samira Salih al-Nuaimi, a leading lawyer and human rights activist, who the terror group claimed that had abandoned Islam.

Al-Nuaimi was kidnapped by Isis (also known as Islamic State) on 17 September after she allegedly criticised the militant group’s destruction of places of worship in Mosul, Iraq, since it had taken control of the city, in comments posted on Facebook.

She was then kidnapped from her home by a group of masked men and tried in a self-styled Sharia court for apostasy, which for the militants is considered to be an act of abandoning Islam by converting to another faith, or by committing actions that are against the Muslim faith.

Militants kidnapped and tortured Samira Saleh al-Naimi for five days before executing her

The militants then tortured al-Nuaimi for five days.

Read more » THE INDEPENDENT
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-publicly-execute-leading-lawyer-and-human-rights-activist-in-iraq-9756197.html

Pakistan: Rights advocate Rashid Rehman Khan gunned down in Multan

By AFP & Dawn.com

MULTAN: Human Rights Advocate Rashid Rehman Khan was gunned down by unidentified attackers in Multan, DawnNews reported late on Wednesday night.

Initial reports suggest that Khan was targeted by two gunmen inside his office at Kachehri Chowk.

Sources told Dawn.com that two clean-shaven young men barged into Advocate Khan’s office and shot him dead. They also injured his two lawyer friends, identified as Nadeem Parwaz and Afzal.

Injured were taken to Nishtar Medical Center where Parwaz is said to be in a critical condition.

“Armed gunmen stormed the chamber of Rashid Rehman and started indiscriminate firing on Wednesday evening, injuring Rehman and two of his associates present there,” senior police official Zulfiqar Ali told AFP.

Advocate Rashid Rehman Khan was a coordinator for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). The senior lawyer was defending a university lecturer accused of blasphemy and had complained that he had been receiving threats on his life.

The HRCP had voiced serious concern over the threats extended to Khan.

Read more » DAWN
http://www.dawn.com/news/1104788/rights-advocate-rashid-rehman-khan-gunned-down-in-multan

In India the Army Chief is disowned by the Supreme Court

Age row: ‘Graceful’ end to dispute with the government, says Army Chief

By Nitin Gokhale, A Vaidyanathan and Sidharth Pandey

New Delhi: The Army chief’s decision to take the government to court over his age turns out to have been a huge miscalculation. The Supreme Court today sided with the government, forcing General VK Singh to withdraw his petition by lunch time. His lawyer said the dispute ended “gracefully” and restored “the honour and integrity” of the chief. Many dismiss that assessment as heavily spin-doctored, and say General Singh may quit before his term expires at the end of May.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/age-row-graceful-end-to-dispute-with-the-government-says-army-chief-175282&cp

Pakistani high court delays spy agency hearing

By Reza Sayah, CNN

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — Pakistan’s Supreme Court postponed a rare public hearing for the country’s secretive and powerful spy agency Thursday, a lawyer for one of the alleged victims of the agency said.

Long thought to be untouchable, the ISI, or Inter-Services Intelligence, has been ordered to produce seven men it’s accused of holding since 2010 and explaining the deaths of four other detainees.

But attorney Tariq Asad told CNN the court had delayed the hearing until Friday because other proceedings took up much of the day.

Asad said it was clear the lawyer for the ISI, who was present when the postponement was announced, had not brought the seven detainees to court as ordered. …

Read more » CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/09/world/asia/pakistan-spy-agency/index.html

Unfortunately, the courts are pre-occupied with other matters to take notice of human rights violations in Pakistan

It is against the Pakistani constitution and the rule of law to kill people without due process. The language of the news is urdu (Hindi).

Courtesy: Geo Tv – Lekin with Sana Bucha – 21st January 2012

via » ZemTv » YouTube

More details » BBC urdu

BBC – “Will the generals and judges force the president from power?” Pakistan’s political soap opera – By Owen Bennett Jones

Pakistan’s political soap opera

By Owen Bennett Jones, BBC News

Islamabad – Earlier this week, Pakistan’s prime minister appeared before the country’s Supreme Court to defend himself against allegations of contempt – it is symbolic of a dispute that is on-going at the centre of the country’s powerful elite.

When great institutions of state clash, history is made. It is the stuff of school history lessons – the Magna Carta, the Star Chamber, the Great Reform Act – that kind of thing.

But while in the UK such milestones have generally been once-a-century type events, in Pakistan they have become a way of life. Constitutional crises have become business as usual.

This week Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was forced to appear before the Supreme Court. He was there to face contempt proceedings related to the president’s immunity from prosecution.

I will spare you the details. But as I sat in the court’s press gallery, I felt pretty sure that in 100 years, Pakistani school children would not be learning about the January 2012 contempt case.

Perhaps they will be studying something the Western journalists did not even know was happening: a debate between some clerics on what role Islam should have in the state.

But the court was colourful. There was the prime minister, alongside him his brilliant lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan and a throng of ministers showing solidarity.

And buzzing about all of them, the journalists – representatives of Pakistan’s new, irrepressible 24-hour news television culture.

For millions of Pakistanis, the constant wrangling of the elite has the quality of a TV soap opera.

I do not want to belittle the importance of politics. The failure of successive elected and military governments has left millions of Pakistanis highly frustrated. But still the TV news shows attract massive audiences – people both despair of their leaders and want to know all about them.

Because many of the political parties are little more than family businesses, the same names have been around for decades – with power passed from father to daughter, brother to brother, and so on.

All this is against a backdrop of corruption cases, the frequent imprisonment of politicians, the “war on terror”, suicide attacks, assassinations, US military incursions – there is so much going on.

Pakistani news anchors can pirouette from the big news such as “The Prime Minister’s Day in Court”, to the tittle-tattle – the affairs, the hair transplants, the family rows.

“Will the generals and judges force the president from power?” …

Read more » BBC

Asma refuses to continue as Haqqani’s lawyer

ISLAMABAD: Renowned lawyer Asma Jahangir on Sunday refused to continue as former Ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani’s counsel in the memogate case, DawnNews reported.

Asma Jahangir said that she did not trust the commission formed by the Supreme Court to investigate the memo-scandal, alleging that the Supreme Court judges were under the establishment’s influence.

Asma also told DawnNews in an exclusive interview that Hussain Haqqani feared the powerful spy agencies may force him into giving a statement. This fear was the reason behind the former ambassador’s stay at the prime minister’s house, she said.

Moreover, she said that the Supreme Court’s decision on the memogate petition was a victory for the country’s establishment. The law was being used to transform the country into a ‘security state’, she said.

Courtesy: DAWN.COM

Asma Jehangir ( Lioness ) interview with Aljazeera.

Husain Haqqani’s lawyer, Aasma Jehangir, speaks to Aljazeerah

Read more: Pakistani Siasat

Jewish court sentences dog to death by stoning

(AFP) – JERUSALEM — A Jerusalem rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a dog it suspects is the reincarnation of a secular lawyer who insulted the court’s judges 20 years ago, Ynet website reported Friday.

According to Ynet, the large dog made its way into the Monetary Affairs Court in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, frightening judges and plaintiffs.

Despite attempts to drive the dog out of the court, the hound refused to leave the premises.

One of the sitting judges then recalled a curse the court had passed down upon a secular lawyer who had insulted the judges two decades previously.

Their preferred divine retribution was for the lawyer’s spirit to move into the body of a dog, an animal considered impure by traditional Judaism.

Clearly still offended, one of the judges sentenced the animal to death by stoning by local children.

The canine target, however, managed to escape.

“Let the Animals Live”, an animal-welfare organisation filed a complaint with the police against the head of the court, Rabbi Avraham Dov Levin, who denied that the judges had called for the dog’s stoning, Ynet reported.

One of the court’s managers, however, confirmed the report of the lapidation sentence to Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.

“It was ordered… as an appropriate way to ‘get back at’ the spirit which entered the poor dog,” the paper reported the manager as saying, according to Ynet.

Certain schools of thought within Judaism believe in the transmigration of souls, or reincarnation.

Courtesy: AFP, Google News

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gpVCUh9KzOc5uEutaeYfOTL_m2dw?docId=CNG.7cb7d99990eea60a7a2805cbbc294dbf.631

Pakistan army generals are dangerously duffer, says Asima Jahangir, President Supreme Court Bar Association

Pakistan army generals are dangerously duffer, says Asima Jahangir, a leading Pakistani lawyer, advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, President Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan and human rights activist, who works both in Pakistan and internationally to prevent the persecution of religious minorities, women, and exploitation of children.

Courtesy: SAMAA TV (In program Awaaz with Kamran Shahid, Asima Jahangir, Imtiaz Alam & Akram Sehgal, 29tth May 2011)

via Siasat.pk, YouTube

 

Ram Jethmalani, the former Law Minister & Chairman of Bar Associations of India is proud on the Secular Sufi values of Sindh

Ram Jethmalani, was born September 14, 1923, in Shikharpur, Sindh (now in Pakistan)) is an eminent Indian lawyer and politician. He spoke about Sindh & Jinnah. He said that “When Jinnah qualified for the Bar, he came to Karachi to practice. Jinnah belonged to the community of Khojas who were rich merchants and he expected to have a ready-made clientele in Karachi, Sindh. He (Jinnah) went to a firm of Hindu lawyers in Hyderabad called Harichandra and Co., Old Harichandra had interviewed him and once he said that he was perfectly qualified to practice, they had to settle the terms. Jinnah wanted hundred rupees, but the old Hindu miser was unwilling to go above seventy-five. I have always said, even in public, that Jinnah was not the cause of India’s partition, but that old Hindu miser.”

Ram Jethmalani also spoke about Sindh being the cradle of Sufism, the gentlest and finest of the fine form of Islam. He said that it was synonymous with the Kashmiriyat of Kashmir. Shah Abdul Latif, one of the greatest poets, was a product of Sindh. “We had developed a great synthesis between the two communities, that as a Hindu youngster, I would get my new clothes on Eid (a Muslim festival) and Muslin youngsters would get their clothes on Deepavali ( a Hindu festival). Even when Partition had happened, and hundreds of thousands of people were getting killed in Punjab, but the Sindhi Muslim never killed a single Hindu.”

“Speaking for myself, for the sake of safety, I had brought my family to Bombay, but I had gone back to Sindh and continued my practice in the hope that things would become normal. I stayed till February 1948 and by that time a large influx of Muslims had came from Bihar and other places from India to Sindh and that was the cause of great tension because they wanted Hindu properties.

“In February, when I was arguing a case in the Magistrate’s court, my Pathan driver came in and said that the locality where I was living was in danger. I found on the way back that nobody was being hurt physically, but preparations had been made to rob all the property by new comers from India, to create fear and force Hindus to migrate. That is exactly what happened.”

He said his partner during his practice in Karachi was a secular Sindhi Muslim gentleman and a great scholar – A. K. Brohi, who later piloted the first Constitution of Pakistan. “Seeing the incidents of February 1948, Ram Jethmalani said that he could no longer bear the responsibility of my safety. Then I left and settled down in Bombay and started practice.”

– You Tube Link

The Ilam Din fiasco and lies about Jinnah —Yasser Latif Hamdani

Jinnah’s record as a legislator tells us a different story altogether. He was an indefatigable defender of civil liberties. He stood for Bhagat Singh’s freedom and condemned the British government in the harshest language when no one else would

In the recent debate over the blasphemy law, a group of Jamaat-e-Islami-backed right-wing authors have come up with an extraordinary lie. It is extraordinary because it calls into question the professional integrity of the one man in South Asian history who has been described as incorruptible and honest to the bone by even his most vociferous critics and fiercest rivals, i.e. Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The lie goes something like this: ‘Ghazi’ Ilam Din ‘Shaheed’ killed blasphemer Hindu Raj Pal and was represented by Quaid-e-Azam at the trial who advised him to deny his involvement in the murder. ‘Ghazi’ and ‘Shaheed’ Ilam Din refused and said that he would never lie about the fact that he killed Raja Pal. Quaid-e-Azam lost the case and Ilam Din was hanged.

To start with, the story is entirely wrong. First of all, Jinnah was not the trial lawyer. Second, Ilam Din had entered the not guilty plea through his trial lawyer who was a lawyer from Lahore named Farrukh Hussain. The trial court ruled against Ilam Din. The trial lawyer appealed in the Lahore High Court and got Jinnah to appear as the lawyer in appeal. So there is no way Jinnah could have influenced Ilam Din to change his plea when the plea was already entered at the trial court level. Nor was Ilam Din exactly the ‘matchless warrior’ that Iqbal declared him to be — while simultaneously refusing to lead his funeral prayers. Indeed Ilam Din later filed a mercy petition to the King Emperor asking for a pardon. …

Read more : Daily Times

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

Jemima Khan on Assange; Don’t shoot the messenger; The Assault on Assange Is an Assault on All Americans

Why did I back Julian Assange? It’s about justice and fairness

by Jemima Khan

Why did I offer to provide surety for an alleged rapist, a man I have never met? That’s the question even my mother asked me after I appeared in court for Julian Assange.

That morning I had sent a spur-of-the-moment message of support by email to Assange’s lawyer, Mark Stephens, when I read of his arrest. He immediately responded and asked if I would be prepared to come to court in the next hour to act as a surety for Assange. I was nervous about the inevitable media circus, but felt that it was the right thing to do after being convinced by Stephens that it could help.

Assange has not even been charged, let alone convicted. Swedish prosecutors do not have to produce any evidence that he committed the alleged sexual offences to justify the warrant. On the basis of the allegations that I heard read out in court, the evidence seems feeble, but I concede that I don’t know the full facts. Neither does Assange. Stockholm’s chief prosecutor, Eva Finne, who heard the evidence against Assange in August, threw the case out of court, saying: “I don’t think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape.”

Read more : Guardian.co.uk

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To read article of  Naomi Wolf – The Assault on Assange Is an Assault on All Americans –   CLICK HERE

BNP-M leader Habib Jalib Baloch Assassinated

BNP-M leader Habib Jalib Baloch shot dead

Moscow-educated Jalib was a prominent Baloch intellectual and a former chairman of the Baloch Students Organisation.

QUETTA: Central Secretary-General of the Balochistan National Party – Mengal (BNP – M) and former senator Habib Jalib Baloch was shot dead in Quetta on Wednesday.

Jalib, a senior Supreme Court lawyer, was on his way to the court when he was killed by three unknown assailants riding a motorbike in Quetta’s Musa Colony area.

Read more >> DAWN

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Read more >> BBC urdu