Fragments of thoughts beyond pain – My post in the World Shia Forum blog

Posted on August 19, 2012 by beenasarwar

Poem in Zehra Nigah’s handwriting posted at the Dr Sarwar blog – http://drsarwar.wordpress.com/

I wrote this for the World Shia Forum blog yesterday

Fragments of thoughts beyond pain – by Beena Sarwar

In January 1953, Zehra Nigah, then a high school student in Karachi, wrote the following lines in response to police firing that killed several students and passers-by, during the students’ peaceful protests for their rights:

Aaj unn toofaN badoshoN ka kinara kaun hai
Jin ke piyare mar chukey unn ka piyara kaun hai Continue reading →

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The media and Surjit Sarjit Sarjeet Surjeet Sarabjit Sarabjeet

Posted on June 29, 2012 by beenasarwar

Update to my earlier blogpost on Surjeet/Sarabjit – it seems that my initial tweet was correct:

According to the timeline compiled by CNN-IBN, the news of Sarabjit’s releases was ‘broken’ by the Pakistani TV channels at 6.50 pm (IST) on June 26, followed by the Indian channels picking up the news ten minutes later. Talking to the Indian media after crossing Wagah, Surjeet said that the media had created this confusion, as no summary of Sarabjit’s case had been forwarded and therefore the question of his release didn’t arise. Continue reading →

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Surjeet and Sarabjit: IndPak prisoners’ issue

Posted on June 28, 2012 by beenasarwar
I was on live via telephone with Rajyasabha TV (a TV channel run by parliament of India) yesterday. The sound was very bad so I don’t know if people heard what I said. Here are my main points: 
1. Yes, it’s disappointing for Sarabjit Singh and his family that he was not released, but there are people working for his freedom too. Meanwhile, let’s be happy for Surjeet, imprisoned since 1984, and his family. [Postscript: In his press conference in India after being released Surjeet Singh said that it was the media that had created the confusion about Sarabjit’s release; no summary for Sarabjit was sent or received.]
2. There are people on both sides who don’t want peace between the two countries. These setbacks happen and will keep happening but we are on the right track, dialogue will and should continue, it’s part of a process Continue reading →

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Sex trafficking snares hundreds of thousands of American children

Posted on June 26, 2012 by beenasarwar

My report in Global Post on sex trafficking, June 20, 2012 (don’t miss the interactive map at the end) 

Over 80 percent of cases of American sex slavery involve US citizens, not immigrants. It’s a problem this country must find creative solutions to solve through conferences like Demand Abolition, which took place in Boston recently.

Image: Ira Gelb (Flickr)

Beena Sarwar

BOSTON — She was only 15 when she escaped, but she had already been sold for sex up to nine times a day since she was two years old. Her parents pimped her out and beat her severely, but Mary (not her real name) is a survivor – no longer a victim.  Twelve years later, she helps other survivors in the US and abroad, volunteering with the Not For Sale Campaign.

I met Mary over lunch at a convention on sex trafficking in Boston recently and she told me her story. It has taken “a lot of healing and hard work” to get this far,” she said.

Besides survivors like Mary, activists, government officials and law enforcement officers gathered at the intense, two-day event in Boston in May, organized by Demand Abolition, a program of Hunt Alternatives Fund. The focus of the conference was on abolishing the demand for commercial sex. Continue reading →

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Quetta Youth Festival 2012: Winds of change?

Posted on June 16, 2012 by beenasarwar

Who says there’s no positive news coming out of Pakistan?

“Looking at the videos really changed my perception of the youth of Balochistan. Such brilliant young men and women, sitting together for a cause, enjoying, eating, singing, dancing and spreading the message of love” – Ali Rahman, on the First Quetta Youth Conference 2012

Continue reading →

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Pakistan’s medical fraternity plea re: the tragic death of Dr Aftab Qureshi and SayNoToWeapons

Posted on June 5, 2012 by beenasarwar

Dr Aftab Qureshi: Another life snuffed out

Received via email, a doctor’s heartfelt plea about the tragic death of his colleague, the eminent neurosurgeon Dr Aftab Qureshi who had been kidnapped and was killed during a rescue operation that also claimed the lives of two security personnel, followed by citizen activist Naeem Sadiq’s note about his “Say No to Weapons” campaign. Unless police are properly trained, equipped, empowered, de-politicised and allowed to tackle crime at the local levels, with successful prosecutions, there’s no winning ‘war on terror’.

To: Continue reading →

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Human rights activists condemn threat to Asma Jahangir’s life

Posted on June 4, 2012 by beenasarwar

 Link to South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) statement of concern regarding the threat to Asma Jahangir 

Signatories to HRCP Press release condemning threat to Asma’s life:

Lahore, 4 June 2012: We the undersigned citizens, belonging to various sections of Pakistan’s civil society, express our serious concern and alarm at the information-leak from a responsible and highly credible source that there is a serious threat to the life of the country’s leading human rights activist and one of the most influential leaders of the bar, Ms Asma Jahangir. What makes the reported conspiracy to liquidate Asma Jahangir especially serious is, firstly, the environment of target-killings, in which dissident persons’ dead bodies are being dumped all over, and, secondly, the fact that the finger of accusation has been pointed at the extraordinarily privileged state actors. We wish to make it clear to all and sundry, especially those who preside over the security apparatus, that they must not under-estimate the consequences of any harm being caused to the life of Asma Jahangir. This is not a conspiracy against one individual alone; it is obviously a plot against Pakistan’s future as a democratic state, of which the threat to Asma Jahangir may be only one, though crucial, part. What the duty of the state in this matter is and how the civil society must face the challenge thrown to it need no elaboration. Continue reading →

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Rinkle Kumari: A Test Case for Jinnah’s Pakistan (Updated)

Posted on May 25, 2012 by beenasarwar

Marvi Sirmed raises some critical questions about the complex case of Rinkle Kumari, with a timeline of the case, on her blog Rinkle Kumari: A Test Case for Jinnah’s Pakistan (Updated).

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Bengali “Crossfire” reaches U.S.

Posted on May 6, 2012 by beenasarwar

This is a slightly longer version of my interview of Bangladeshi photographer-activist Shahidul Alam published in Latitude News, May 4, 2012, with reference to his exhibition at Queen’s Museum in New York. The exhibition is an attempt to internationalise the issue of extra-judicial killings. Thousands have been killed in such ‘crossfire’, allegedly at the hands of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) that the U.S. and UK governments have been training and providing arms to.

Crossfire @ Queens

Crossfire launch at Queens Museum. Photo: Beena Sarwar

In “Crossfire,” an exhibition of photographs at the Queens Museum of Art in New York that closes on Sunday the 6th, acclaimed Bangladeshi photographer and activist Shahidul Alam chronicles the extra-judicial killings allegedly committed by Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion, or RAB.Over a thousand victims have been ‘cross-fired,’ or executed by police without trial, in the last four years in the South Asian country, human rights activists claim. Many more people, perhaps thousands in total, have suffered similar fates, they say. Continue reading →

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“Allow Woeser the freedom to express and to travel”

Posted on March 31, 2012 by beenasarwar

“Allow Woeser the freedom to express and to travel”: Prominent Asian intellectuals appeal for Tsering Woeser 

Chinese authorities have not only prevented the Tibetan writer and historian Tsering Woeser from receiving the prestigious Prince Claus Award for 2011 in Beijing (being awarded by the Dutch Ambassador to China) but her movements within Beijing have been restricted, says a statement issued from Kathmandu by Prince Claus laureates Arif Hasan (Karachi, Pakistan), Ganesh Devy (Vadodara, India), Jyotindra Jain (New Delhi, India), Kanak Mani Dixit (Kathmandu, Nepal) and Mehrdad Oskouei (Tehran, Iran). Continue reading →

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