Four years on…

Posted on December 27, 2011 by beenasarwar

Benazir Bhutto on her arrival in Karachi in Oct, 2007. Photo: Beena Sarwar

It’s four years since those pistol shots and bomb blast in Pindi’s Liaquat Bagh ended the life of Pakistan’s most promising politician and hope for democracy. There is no one to replace Benazir Bhutto but her legacy lives on in many ways. This is the first legitimately elected government ever in Pakistan to remain in office for as long as it has – and it will be the first to complete its tenure if allowed to do so and hand over power to the next elected government. This political process is essential to move Pakistan out of a quagmire that has taken decades to push us into. There are no quick fixes, no magic wands that can change things overnight. What’s important is the process and at least that is under way – thanks to Benazir Bhutto.

Thanks to YouTube, archival footage is now available to remind us of her legacy. Continue reading →

Filed under: Progressive politics | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Thrilled to be named ‘Best Blog from a Journalist’ at the Pakistan Blog Awards 2011

Posted on December 26, 2011 by beenasarwar

Thrilled to receive the Best Blog from a Journalist at the Second Annual Pakistan Blog Awards 2011. Thanks to all those who voted and helped make it possible 🙂 Congratulations to all the other winners. Note: There are many other blogs from Pakistan that could have been in the running but didn’t nominate themselves. One expects there will be more and more competition as the Blog Awards become better known and more established.

Filed under: Media | Tagged: , , , , | 6 Comments »

Another pot of rumours ruined by facts…

Posted on December 24, 2011 by beenasarwar

Also see Pakistan Media Watch about the dangers of speculation and rumour being presented as truth: “…there is a petition before the Supreme Court that is based on media reports that selectively summarise a foreign media report that paraphrases the speculation of unidentified people. As a result, the people’s perception of events may have been manipulated, and what they believe is reality may actually be a carefully designed version of reality that better serves a political end.” Complete article at: Media, Rumours and ‘Public Importance

Filed under: Media | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Zarteef Khan Afridi: The tribesman who showed the way

Posted on December 19, 2011 by beenasarwar

Zarteef Afridi's latest photo. Courtesy: HRCP

A tribute to the human rights activist Zarteef Khan Afridi who was shot dead recently – my article in The News on Sunday. Latitude News earlier published a shorter, different version titled In Pakistan, an unlikely hero dies for his cause. Also see my earlier article: Pakistan’s ‘enlightenment’ martyrs

The tribesman who showed the way

There was the letter from an anonymous writer saying he was going to hunt down and kill her. And then there was the letter from an Afridi tribesman offering to come down and protect her.

This was in the mid-1990s. The recipient of the letters was the fiery human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir, under threat for having taken on the case of Salamat Masih, the illiterate Christian boy sentenced to death for ‘blasphemy’ for having allegedly written sacrilegious words on the walls of a village mosque. Continue reading →

Filed under: Human rights | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Curiouser and curiouser… First Mansoor Ijaz, now Shafqatullah Sohail…

Posted on December 18, 2011 by beenasarwar

Chief Justice of Pakistan: over-enthusiastic about some issues?

Today’s headline and report in Express Tribune ‎”Citizen’s letter prompts notices to president, ISI chief”  prompts advocate Asad Jamal in Lahore to ask, rightly, who is this “Canada-based Pakistani” Shafqatullah Sohail ‘who has written such a passionate letter that the CJP immediately converted it into a petition? Continue reading →

Filed under: Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

“Focus, and spread the message of peace to all” – Nandita Das | Thousands worldwide to Pray for Peace between India and Pakistan on Dec 18

Posted on December 18, 2011 by beenasarwar

By Beena Sarwar

From Indian actor Nandita Das in Mumbai, to peace groups and individuals all over India and Pakistan, and in countries as far away as Korea, Australia, Canada and America, thousands are supporting Pray for Peace Between India and Pakistan Day on Sunday, Dec 18, 2011.

Inspired by the idea of the power of collective prayer or meditation, Toronto-based Swati Sharan randomly picked the date several months ago. “These prayers can be done from anywhere on the globe by any one, of any nationality… the more people pray for something at a given time, the greater the difference it can make,” she wrote in an initial article in May explaining the idea, Continue reading →

Filed under: Pakistan-India | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Civil society terms “memogate” scandal an attempt to thwart democracy

Posted on December 18, 2011 by beenasarwar

Ad pubished in The Daily Times, Dec 23, 2011

Please note, the names on the signatories list will be updated as more endorsements are coming in.

PRESS RELEASE, December 17, 2011

Civil society terms “memogate” scandal an attempt to thwart democracy; Says threatening the representative system tantamount to attack on sovereignty of people. Read on for the text of the statement and the signatories’ list Continue reading →

Filed under: Progressive politics | Tagged: , , , , | 10 Comments »

On Dec 16, 2011, remembering Anthony Mascarenhas

Posted on December 17, 2011 by beenasarwar

Thank you Mark Dummett, for the report in BBC today paying tribute to Anthony Mascarenhas, the brilliant and courageous Pakistani journalist who had to flee abroad in order to be able to tell the truth – Bangladesh war: The article that changed history.

Mascarenhas

“Eight journalists, including Mascarenhas, were given a 10-day tour of the province (East Pakistan). When they returned home, seven of them duly wrote what they were told to,” writes Dummett.

“But one of them refused.”

That was Mascarenhas, who died in 1986 in London.

His wife Yvonne Mascarenhas told Dummett that she remembers him coming back distraught: “I’d never seen my husband looking in such a state. Continue reading →

Filed under: Human rights, Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments »

Aman ki Asha pages featuring Mumbai journalists’ Pakistan visit

Posted on December 15, 2011 by beenasarwar

Here are PDFs of two recent Aman ki Asha pages that I tried to email to the Mumbai journalists who visited Pakistan recently, as the pages feature their responses. Since the second PDF file was for some reason too large to email, I’m posting both of them here. Click these links for the PDFs:

Aman ki Asha page, Dec 8, 2011

Aman ki Asha page, Nov 30, 2011

Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea anyway. Maybe I should upload more of these pages. The content is all available on the Aman ki Asha website anyway, but there you can’t see the great layouts the designers have been doing. Continue reading →

Filed under: Pakistan-India | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

“Better green than gas stations!”

Posted on December 15, 2011 by beenasarwar

Christmas trees instead of cars. Yeah.

We’re not exactly into the whole commercial holiday scene but it seemed like a good time to get a little tree to decorate for the season and put out to grow for the rest of the year. So we got ourselves to Ricky’s Flower Market. We’d often passed this inviting looking urban nursery, bursting with flowers and potted plants in warmer weather, incongruously tucked between two heavily trafficked roads at Union Square, Somerville, MA. Now it’s full of Christmas trees. We pulled into the parking spot (bonus) and after some deliberation and discussion with Ricky, the owner, chose a sweet little Dwarf Alberta Spruce (a hardy species indigenous to the New England and Canada area, we learnt), in a pot. Here’s part of our conversation with its surprise tidbits: Continue reading →

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