“Day of sorrow” – protests against deadly factory fires in Pakistan

Posted on September 14, 2012 by beenasarwar

Residents watch the rescue operation in the garment factory in Karachi. Photo via CNN

Protests are scheduled all over Pakistan on Saturday, against the horrific factory fire that claimed nearly 300 lives in Karachi and 25 in Lahore due to criminal negligence of the factory owners whose primary interest lies in making money — they exploit workers, ignore safety standards that the government, equally criminally, did not enforce. Details of the protests below. Online petitions calling for the government to take action: Avaaz and International Workers Solidarity Petition Continue reading →

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Lest we forget…. other minors in Pakistan accused of ‘blasphemy’

Posted on September 6, 2012 by beenasarwar

1993 – May 11: Salamat Masih, a 14-year-old Christian boy, was named as the main accused in a case lodged by the imam of the mosque at Ratta Dhotran, district Gujranwala, Punjab, Pakistan. It was alleged that Salamat had written derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad (SW) on the mosque walls and  thrown slips of paper with similar language written on them into the mosque. Salamat’s father Rehmat Masih and uncle Manzoor Masih were co-accused. Manzoor Masih and Salamat Masih were illiterate. A sessions court sentenced them to death but the high court later acquitted them. Manzoor Masih was shot dead during the hearings, and the High Court Judge, Arif Iqbal Bhatti, who acquitted them, was also later shot dead. Salamat Masih and Rehmat Masih had to flee the country.

For a list of more cases see Incidents of minors in Pakistan accused of ‘blasphemy’ at the Citizens for Democracy blog

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Milne Do: Online petition urging India, Pakistan to let people meet

Posted on September 1, 2012 by beenasarwar

The people of Pakistan and India, people of Indian and Pakistani origin around the world, and friends of India and Pakistan, are fed up of the visa restrictions that prevent them from visiting families in the other country. There isn’t even a tourist visa protocol between these two biggest neighbours of South Asia. People in the region want the right to travel and to trade, to walk along coastlines and roads that represent their collective past, to seek and spread harmony across a subcontinent not divided by politics and propaganda. In this modern age of interdependence, it is a tragedy that the citizens of India and Pakistan are left peering over a border made indomitable and intimidating. There is little space for the hand of friendship to be extended across this border. This must change. Sign the Aman ki Asha Milne Do petition at Change.org . Let’s get a thousand signatures in time to present to the Foreign Ministers when they meet in Islamabad on September 8 2012.

 


Filed under: Pakistan-India, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

The Emperor has no Clothes… or is it the CJ?

Posted on August 30, 2012 by beenasarwar

Article sent for this blog by Justice Markandey Katju, retired Justice of the Supreme Court of India.

The Emperor has no Clothes

Now the Chief Justice had to be given oath by the President of Wonderland, but before that could be done the Chief Justice grabbed a golden crown from somewhere and crowned himself… then declared himself the Emperor of Wonderland, a post above the President or Prime Minister…

By Justice Markandey Katju

Once upon a time a little girl called Alice was dozing one summer afternoon on a meadow when she saw a strange sight. A white rabbit dressed in a coat and wearing a wristwatch was running while saying, ‘I am late’. Continue reading →

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Inspiring musical video tribute to Ahmed Faraz from his son Sarmad

Posted on August 28, 2012 by beenasarwar

The late great poet Ahmed Faraz’s son Sarmad Faraz pays tribute to his father, by releasing a music video titled “Shayar”, which features the poet reciting his verses in his inimitable manner.

Sarmad is a musician and is best-known for being in the band Corduroy. He chose this particular poem of his late father because it espouses resilience, individuality and change.

The poem “Shayar” is part of Ahmed Faraz’s first-ever published book Tanha Tanha (1954). (Read more below).

Continue reading →

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Photos from Karachi protest in support of Rimsha Masih

Posted on August 26, 2012 by beenasarwar

People of all ages and from all faiths came out in Karachi in support of Rimsha Masih, the young girl accused of blasphemy. For more photos see the Christians in Pakistan facebook page. Photo Copyright © Sunny Gill Photography.

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Support Rimsha Masih: Pls join demo in Lahore, Aug 25, 4 pm

Posted on August 25, 2012 by beenasarwar

Posted by :  LAHORE protest against blasphemy charges and detention of Rimsha Masih: Join us in solidarity on 25 August 2012; Time: 4 pm.  Venue: Youhanabad, Ferozepur Road, Lahore – from: Life for All Pakistan and Masihi Foundation Pakistan.

In my view, it doesn’t matter how old she is or whether she’s got Downs Syndrome or not. There must be a stop to charging & demanding death for anyone accused of ‘blasphemy’.

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Demo in Karachi, Aug 25, 3.30 pm, in support of ‘blasphemy’ accused Rimsha Masih

Posted on August 24, 2012 by beenasarwar

 

Demonstration in Karachi in support of Rimsha Masih, the girl (aged between 11 and 16 years who is reported to have Downs Syndrome) who has been accused of blasphemy in a blatant misuse of religion as a political tool, at Press Club TOMORROW, August 25, at 3.30 pm. This peaceful protest has been organised by All Pakistan Christian League, Action Committee for Human Rights, Peace and Development Organization, The Saviour’s Trust, Minority Rights Forum and Mass International, supported by various human rights organisations. Do join with friends if you are in town. Cross-posted from the blog Citizens for Democracy, Pakistan.

NOTE: I’ve removed the visual originally used with this post after learning that the photo that was used is fake and misleading on several counts.

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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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Dr. Ghalib Khan Lodhi: A personal memoir, by Eric Rahim

Posted on August 17, 2012 by beenasarwar

Former journalist Eric Rahim’s thoughtful obituary of Dr Ghalib Khan Lodhi (1930-2012), one of the founding members of DSF, who passed away in Karachi recently… Solas Educational Trust, supporting schools in Chitral, remains Ghalib’s most important legacy

“Goodbye, generous friend, earnest and upright, seeker of knowledge”

Dr Ghalib Lodhi, London, 2001. Still from video footage by Beena Sarwar

Ghalib, who has recently died of cancer, was a founding member of the Democratic Students Federation and, along with Mohammad Sarwar, Hashmi, Haroon, Ayub Mirza, Yousaf Ali, SM Naseem and others, a leading activist in the early 1950s student movement in Karachi. I remember him as one of the most serious minded among his cohort. While a medical student, in his early twenties, he was trying to grapple with Das Kapital.

Along with so many others – students, journalists, writers, and trade unionists – he was arrested in the general round-up that took place in West Pakistan in the wake of the triumph of the United Front in East Pakistan elections of 1954 and Pakistan government’s decision to sign military pacts with the United States. Before his arrest he was acting as general manager of the organ of the Democratic Student Federation, the Students’ Herald. Naseem, who was the editor of the Herald, in a recent communication described to me the occasion of the arrest in the following words..…

Read more at: Dr. Ghalib Khan Lodhi (1930-2012) – A personal memoir by Eric Rahim.

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