In an otherwise straightforward speech in Lahore on Sunday, Imran Khan alluded to a conspiracy theory of Mansoor Ijaz that this blog has discredited not only once, but twice already. One can give Imran Khan the benefit of doubt, though, as there is a history of examples of journalists feeding Imran conspiracies, possibly as an attempt to curry favour with the PTI chief. As we stated before, “Whether or not you support Imran Khan, all political leaders need to be given the facts, not led by their noses on a wild goose chase”. As Imran’s political influence grows, it is important that he – and all political leaders – be able to make decisions from factual information, not conspiracies. Otherwise, the consequences can be disastrous. The New York Times recently reported that Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq was very prone to conspiracy theories and, as a result, made critical errors in government decisions. Pakistan should not follow this dangerous path.
Archive for October, 2011
Media Conspiracies and Imran Khan
Monday, October 31st, 2011Journalism and Agency Managed Media
Friday, October 28th, 2011The thin line between journalism and managed media was pointed out by Ejaz Haider in his column for Pakistan Today, ‘Journalism or Jabberwocky‘. Writing about a recent BBC report claiming that ISI is training and arming Taliban, Ejaz points out that, wait, the entire investigation was managed by Afghanistan’s spy agency, National Directorate of Security (NDS). “How could the BBC ensure the veracity of its story when the primary facilitator for it was the NDS”. This is not to say that the BBC report is inaccurate or accurate, it is just to say that when the information is provided by an intelligence agency, journalists should look for neutral sources who can verify the information, recognising that intelligence agencies have specific agendas that they are charged with promoting, none of which are ‘good journalism’. As Ejaz Haider notes, the response denying the BBC‘s claims by ISPR does not help much either. “How should I treat this statement, as gospel?”, Ejaz asks. “I can’t. It is the general’s job to defend the Pakistani military and the ISI.”
This is an underlying problem with much of the information we are presented by media today. How much of it actual journalism, and how much is actually media carefully managed by intelligence agencies of one nation or another? Without knowing who is the man behind the message, we, the public, are left in the dark.
Beighariat Karnay Wali Brigade
Wednesday, October 26th, 2011The YouTube video for ‘Aalu Anday’ may have made Beyghairat Brigade an instant Internet sensation while making the politicians and officials who were the targets of their satire uncomfortable. But there’s one group in particular that should have felt especially shamed by the popularity of ‘Aalu Anday’, and that’s the media which avoids any confrontation with truly controversial issues, choosing instead to focus its wrath on the easy targets of politicians and wild conspiracy theories.
This habit of attacking easy targets and ignoring more powerful ones does not go unnoticed. A BBC report on the Aalu Anday sensation pointed squarely at the media’s lack of attention to serious issues as a driving cause of the video’s popularity.
Ordinarily, satire on Pakistani television is tolerably amusing but not very daring.
It only really targets the harmless figures on the political landscape – the politicians. They are easy prey, veteran comedians argue, because they do not truly hold the reins of power.
There are more than a dozen comedy shows that Pakistani channels broadcast weekly. They include skits, rants and Indian film songs adapted to the political situation.
But the more insidious presence of Pakistan’s intelligence services and also the army – which many believe are the true power-brokers in the country – are conspicuously absent from comedy fare…
Although politician-bashing is the rage, many feel that truly free intellectual debate and parody are lacking as far as TV goes.
And so a group of three young people have shown the courage to speak out about the powers that be while so-called journalists continue peddling the same worn out conspiracy theories and safely throwing punches at the politicians who they know will not hit back.
In fact, if a politician or government official dares to respond to their rumours and conspiracies, our friends in the journalism community are quick to scream about free speech and oppression. But their silence on the issues that really matter, while a group of kids boldly calls things as they are, exposes the weakness of their claims of being fearless defenders of media freedom.
The line between ‘reporting’ and ‘mouthpiece’
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011What is the line between ‘reporting’ and ‘mouthpiece’? When is a reporter simply telling about an event, and when is he amplifying a political message? This is not an easy question – it raises important questions of neutrality and professional responsibility in journalism, as well as what is media’s role in society. But whether or not the question is difficult, it is one that needs to be considered.
Earlier this month, several newspapers reported on a conference of Aalmi Majlis Tahafuz Khatme Nabuwwat in a way that was criticised as being less like a news report and more like a press release. Each of the pieces in Daily Jang, Daily Khabrain, and Daily Express is basically the same report about what was said at the Khatme Nabuwwat conference, including the claim that “the real threat is not Haqqanis but Qadiani’s denial of Prophet’s finality”.
In each piece, the anti-Ahmadi claims are published without comment. While Daily Jang, Daily Khabrain, and Daily Express will certainly offer the defense that this is not their position, that they are simply reporting what was said, is it possible that readers of these newspapers could come away with the idea that Khatme Nabuwwat’s positions are validated by the reports?
But even if the report was neutral about the Khatme Nabuwwat gathering, why was only one side of such a controversial issue presented for readers? With such a strong statement against Ahmadiyyas by Khatme Nabuwwat, why did the reporter not seek out a comment from an Ahmadiyya leader for his response? Since the claim involves matters of national security, why did the reporter not request a clarification from ISPR about whether terrorists or Ahmadis are the real threat to Pakistan?
On Monday, The Nation published an article titled, ‘NWA action to pave way for US boots’. The unsigned article describes a speech by Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Ameer Syed Munawar Hassan at a press conference in Sahiwal. The reporter dutifully describes the JI chief’s claims: America is hell-bent on making India super power of the region, Pakistani rulers have taken dictation from America, Pakistani government is pro-America and anti-Pakistan, American aid is breeding corruption in Pakistan, etc.
While we have no reason to doubt that the JI chief said these things, as The Nation reported, we would like to ask our dear readers again whether reporters have a responsibility to their readers to fact check the subjects that they are reporting, or if they should simply publish what they are fed without question.
Actually, there is no easy answer. The Nation cannot be condemned for taking the side of JI in this case because they are only reporting what was said. But neither does it appear that the reporter asked the political leader for proof of his claims. For example, Munawar Hassan claims that “America is hell-bent on making India super power of the region” and “Pakistani rulers have taken dictation from America”. These are serious charges. Shouldn’t Munawar Hassan be asked to show his evidence for making such claims? Or are we supposed to merely take him at his word that this is true? Why didn’t the reporter ask for a response from government officials who were being accused of being ‘anti-Pakistan’?
The question comes down to whether these media groups are reporting, or just transcribing? Are they giving readers a complete understanding of issues and events, or are they, intentionally or unintentionally, acting as mouthpieces for political groups? Unfortunately, the answer is not so easy. But these difficult questions must be answered if we are to improve the quality of our media and, with it, the quality of discussion that we have on the issues of the day.
Garaibaan mei jhankna
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011Rahimullah Yusufzai, resident editor of The News (Jang Group) in Peshawar, takes a very critical stance of American foreign policy in Afghanistan, saying that US foreign policy is a mess of confusion because the Americans do not actually know Afghanistan as well as they think they do, and this “paucity of knowledge” has resulted in self-defeating strategies that are alienating the people.
In concluding his piece, points to specific proof that the Americans know nothing about Afghanistan.
Before talking to the Taliban and the Haqqanis or taking them head-on with even greater vigour, the US and its allies would need to know more about these groups. As former US and Nato military commander in Afghanistan Gen Stanley McChrystal recently admitted, the US began the Afghan war with a frighteningly simplistic view and still lacked the knowledge to achieve a successful end.
An example of this paucity of knowledge about Afghanistan was on display recently when a picture of the late Afghan mujahideen leader Maulvi Yunis Khalis standing with President Ronald Reagan at the White House in the 1980s was mentioned as that of Jalaluddin Haqqani, who had never visited the US.
Only problem, this error was made not by the American media, but by Pakistani media, including Jang Group’s own Geo TV.
While Rahimullah Yusufzai may be correct “knowing thy enemy should be the first principle for the US prior to undertaking any new step towards making war or pursuing peace”, he accidentally suggests that perhaps we should be taking a look at ourselves also.
The News (Jamiat Group?)
Monday, October 17th, 2011
Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT), the allegedly independent student political group widely considered student wing of Jamaat-i-Islami, is holding a three-day convention in Lahore presently. While such a conference can be a legitimate news story, we were surprised by the way that it was reported by The News (Jang Group).
An article in yesterday’s The News reported on the start of IJT’s convention. This was basically a standard news report that a convention is taking place at Punjab University, and reporting what the attendants were saying.
What appeared on page 25, though, were neither standard nor factual news reports. Rather, The News published not one but two ‘National News’ articles proclaiming IJT as the saviours of the nation. Again, please note that these were not published as ‘Opinion’ pieces, but as ‘National News’, suggesting the articles were based on objective facts.
One article, Long Live Jamiat!, claims that “Jamiat is a ray of hope for the nation as well as the whole Muslim Ummah”. We’re not sure the whole Muslim Ummah agrees. The author even praises students role in “the bloodshed of 1971″ – bloodshed for which members of Jamaat-i-Islami are currently charged with war crimes “for allegedly leading groups that took part in killing, looting, arson and rape of Bangladeshis”. The piece ends with a prayer that, “Allah (S.W.T) give strength to Jamiat to assist the contemporary Islamic Movements of the world and provide them a young, energetic, trained, active, learned and full of abilities leadership”. We are puzzled to think what professional editor could think this is appropriate to publish as ‘National News’.
Another headline on the same page proclaims, ‘The new era for Jamiat’. And what exactly is this ‘new era’? It is an era of ‘ideological confrontation’ against the ‘Western civilization [that] has its roots in our lives’. According to the author Shahnawaz Farooqi, this will be an ideological battle similar to the one in which IJT defeated Communism. Yes, the author actually claims that IJT defeated communism.
Actually, this ‘new era’ must not be very new as the author Shahnawaz Farooqi wrote an almost identical article, even bearing the same headline, for The News two years ago.
If you don’t recognize the author, since he was published without a by line, Shahnawaz Farooqi is a ‘journalist’ with the Urdu daily Jasarat, widely considered a mouthpiece of Jamaat-i-Islami. This raises the question why The News is publishing pro-Jamaati propaganda by Jasarat and IJT writers?
IJT’s convention is a legitimate story to cover, but it is not an excuse to publish political propaganda supporting a particular political party or ideology. The pieces ‘Long Live Jamiat!’ and ‘The New Era for Jamiat’ did not appear as opinion pieces, but were rather published as ‘National News’, suggesting that they contained facts and not merely the author’s opinions. That the pro-Jamiat stories published on Sunday were not even written by usual Jang Group writers also raises the question how they came to be published at all.
The News speculates on Mansoor Ijaz with a twist
Saturday, October 15th, 2011When Mansoor Ijaz’s piece in Financial Times was published earlier this week, we could almost feel the excitement in the air. Here is a piece in the international media that claims a conspiracy from president’s house! But, wait, there’s a problem! The majority of the piece actually attacks the national agencies a being a source of international terrorism! It seemed a missed opportunity for Zardari haters, for what self respecting journalist would be willing to blatantly ignore half of the claims in a column just to exploit the other half? But once again, The News (Jang Group), sinks to expectations.
Anjum Niaz tried to keep her piece short, possibly as a way to avoid drawing too much attention to the fact that her column is completely without substance. She even admits that the source, Mansoor Ijaz, is a “coup master” who “thrives on conspriracy theories” and is “driven by an uncontrollable ego to showcase himself as a kingmaker”. Then, after all but terming Mr Ijaz a bald faced liar, Anjum Niaz suggests that perhaps we should at least consider his claims anyway.
And then we get a hint to Anjum’s game:
First, Mansoor Ijaz must have provided irrefutable proof to the editors at FT. They will have gone over the “phone calls and emails” exchanged between Ijaz and the diplomat to establish the authenticity of the information. Publishing such slanderous material is to invite libel.
This blog has already investigated in detail just how credible Mr Ijaz is, but let’s consider Anjum’s argument on it’s own merits. According to Anjum Niaz, the Financial Times ”will have gone over the “phone calls and emails” and therefore anyone who uses basic common sense to question the credibility of Pakistan’s James Bond is wasting his time. Perhaps. But FT never actually said that they saw any evidence, Anjum Niaz just assumes it is so. It should also be noted that Mansoor Ijaz’s piece for the FT was not an investigative news report, it was an opinion piece. Even if he were asked to provide some evidence supporting his sensational claims, we don’t know how much or of what quality this evidence is. Presumably it was of the same quantity and quality of evidence he showed the Wall Street Journal when he claimed to have been a secret negotiator between Sudan and the United States government – a claim for which America’s National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States “found no credible evidence”; or the quantity and quality of evidence he provided the Los Angeles Times in 2003 when he claimed that,”the growing body of publicly available evidence offers sufficient proof of Baghdad’s mendacious designs to warrant the immediate use of force”. We remember how credible that ‘evidence’ turned out to be. Mansoor Ijaz even claims to have brokered a ceasefire between Kashmiri mujahideen and Indian army, although Jang Group reporters who were there tell a different story.
Next year, Khalid Khwaja tried to fix a meeting between American businessman Mansoor Ijaz and Kashmiri militant leader Syed Salahuddin. Khwaja contacted Salahuddin through his friends in Jamaat-e-Islami and informed him that Mansoor Ijaz wanted to deliver a letter from Bill Clinton. Syed Salahuddin came to know that Mansoor Ijaz had meetings with Indian Army officials in Srinagar in early 2000 and also with then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He smelled a rat and refused to meet Mansoor Ijaz.
As we see, even a decade ago people were questioning the credibility of Mansoor Ijaz’s sensational stories and smelling ‘a rat’. And shouldn’t Anjum Niaz also be making the same assumptions about the evidence Mansoor Ijaz provided to back up his claim that the ISI is “a sponsor of terrorism” that “undermines global antiterrorism efforts at every turn”? She conveniently leaves out this entire part of Mansoor Ijaz’s latest conspiracy theory.
From there, Anjum spirals downward into a confused mess of speculation.
[I]f the account is accurate, Pakistan must identify the senior diplomat who allegedly contacted Mansoor Ijaz and prepared a dossier on behalf of Zardari for the White House and Admiral Mullen with Mansoor Ijaz as the messenger. How did the diplomat gain access to our military’s top secrets to pass them on to the White House and Admiral Mullen? Who gave them to him?
What if the senior diplomat was Hussain Haroon! What if it was Maleeha Lodhi, who Anjum’s colleague Shaheen Sehbai notes was Ambassador when Mansoor Ijaz supposedly arranged secret meetings between Nawaz Sharif and American national security officials at the White House! What if Gen Pasha gave away our military’s top secrets to the White House to the supposed diplomat! What if the national agencies are filled with Bharati agents! What if it was Anjum Niaz, pictured below with American President Bill Clinton who is the selling the nation!
Or, what if this is all just hair-brained nonsense…
Which bring us to the other Jang Group journalist who attempts to squeeze a controversy out of a conspiracy.
Shaheen Sehbai has been suffering humiliation for over three years now since Asif Zardari was elected to the presidency and not immediately booted out, as Sehbai incorrectly predicted. During these years, he has penned a number of pieces based in little more than rumour and speculation, and that appear to be aimed at pitting the civilians and the military against each other. His blatantly selective reading of Mansoor Ijaz’s opinion piece for FT is only the latest strike in this sad campaign.
In a way, Shaheen Sehbai and Mansoor Ijaz have much in common. Both are prone to speculation, and both are known not to let inconvenient facts get in the way of a political agenda. Speculation plays a key role in this piece by Shaheen Sehbai also, as the author admits when he says that “The real facts would come out if and when the full text of that [alleged] memo ever gets out”. Lacking “real facts”, Sehbai decides to invent his own fantasy scenarios and wonders whether Zardari would offer to replace the present Army leadership with a team more friendly to the Americans. Unfortunately for Sehbai, such lazy speculation doesn’t pass a test of basic common sense – Zardari has already granted unprecedented extensions to both General Kayani and General Pasha, and sacking the leadership now to replace them with a more pro-American team would not discourage a coup, it would practically invite one.
Ironically, the one person who comes out smelling like roses is one of Shaheen Sehbai’s favourite punching bags, Husain Haqqani. After all, if Shaheen Sehbai is correct, Zardari knew that he could not trust his Ambassador in Washington to deliver such a pro-American, anti-Army message to the American government, so he had to turn to Mansoor Ijaz. So much for the old slander that says Husain Haqqani is ‘America’s ambassador to Pakistan’s embassy’, Zardari’s man in Washington who the Army doesn’t trust. Instead of being a pro-American Ambassador, Husain Haqqani is now a diplomat that must be worked around if an anti-Army message is to be delivered to Washington.
This brings us to the point that Shaheen Sehbai spends most of his time on: Mansoor Ijaz’s credibility. Unlike his colleague Anjum Niaz, who stops short of opening her column by terming Mansoor Ijaz a liar, Shaheen Sehbai goes out of his way to try to turn the “coup master” who “thrives on conspriracy theories” into a saint. He starts by echoing Anjum Niaz’s line that “the FT is not likely to publish something which it cannot substantiate if it was so required”. Some might find it curious that two ‘journalists’ working for the same media group would write the exact same speculative theory on exactly the same day, despite that fact that whether or not Mansoor Ijaz’s piece “invites libel”, they have no evidence to suggest it is true; or that if Mansoor Ijaz is in fact telling the truth, it has far greater implications for the subjects that both Anjum Niaz and Shaheen Sehbai conveniently left out of their ‘analysis’.
This gets to the obvious, though utterly predictable, failing of both Shaheen Sehbai’s and Anjum Niaz’s pieces for The News. Mansoor Ijaz’s column for FT included a brief accusation against Zardari in the opening paragraphs, but the bulk of the piece was directed not at Islamabad, but Rawalpindi. The title of the piece, it should be reminded, was ‘Time to take on Pakistan’s jihadist spies’ – nothing to do with Zardari. Mansoor Ijaz stated his conclusions and recommendations quite clearly: “More precise policies are needed to remove the cancer that ISI and its rogue wings have become on the Pakistani state…The enemy is a state organ that breeds hatred among Pakistan’s Islamist masses and then uses their thirst for jihad against Pakistan’s neighbours and allies to sate its hunger for power”. If Anjum Niaz and Shaheen Sehbai are to be believed and Mansoor Ijaz’s claims are above reproach, our security services are overrun with jihadis bent on overthrowing the government an installing a terrorist state.
But neither Shaheen Sehbai’s nor Anjum Niaz’s readers would know this, since Jang Group‘s ‘journalists’ conveniently ignored all of Mansoor Ijaz’s claims that were not convenient to their amateurish attempt at political point scoring and driving a wedge between army and civilian leadership. This highlights a major failing in our so-called ‘news’ media. Too many of our alleged ‘journalists’ are nothing but aging political gossips who act as if they would gladly sink the country for a juicy bit of drawing room drama. That’s not journalism. It’s not even a very good political hatchet job. Really, it’s just embarrassing.
انصار عباسی کی بے دلیل منطق اور تنقید
Thursday, October 13th, 2011
پاکستان میڈیا واچ اگرچہ انصار عباسی کا کالم انگریزی زبان میں چھاپ چکا ھے لیکن پھر بھی ھماری ٹیم نے اردو میں پوسٹ کرنا اور بھی مناسب سمجھا تاکہ اردو قارین بھی اچھی طرح سچائی سے واقف ھو سکیں۔
انصار عباسی اپنے جنگ کے کالم میں سلمان تاثیر کے قاتل ممتاز قادری کی انسداد دھشت گردی عدالت کی سزا کو عدالت کی ایک کوتاھی بیان کرتے ھیں۔ جج کے فیصلے کو غیر تسلی بخش قرار دیتے ھوئے وہ فرماتے ھیں کہ عدالت نے سب سے ضروری چیز کو نظر انداز کر دیا۔ وہ ضروری چیز یا فیکٹر بقول انصار عباسی حکومت کی بے نیازی ھے۔ انصار عباسی کا زیر بحث کالم نیچے ملاحضہ کیجیے۔
انصار عباسی اپنے کالم میں اس کیس کو کچھ یوں ظاھر کرتے ھیں کے جیسے اگر حکومت اس قدر بے نیاز نا ھوتی اور سلمان تاثیر کا نوٹس لیا ھوتا جب انھوں نے توھین رسالت کے قانون کو کالا قانون کہ کر اس کی بے حرمتی کی اور آسیہ بی بی سے یہ کہا کہ انھوں نے توھین رسالت نھیں کی ھے تو ممتاز قادری جیسے مایوس شھری کو سلمان تاثیر کا قتل نا کرنا پڑتا۔
دراصل انصار عباسی صاحب کی بات سچائی سے کوسوں دور ھے۔
1. توھین رسالت قانون قران شریف سے نھیں نکالا گیا بلکہ یہ جنرل زیا الحق نے آئین میں شمار کروایا تھا۔
2.سلمان تاثیر اس قانون کے استعمال سے ناخوش تھے اورانھوں نے اسی بات کو مدنظر رکھتے ھوئے آسیہ بی بی کے موضوع پر کہا تھا کہ ان کے خلاف جن لوگوں نے کیس درج کیا تھا ان کے پاس ثبوتوں کی کمی تھی۔
ایک رپورٹ کے مطابق سلمان تاثیر نے آسیہ بی بی کے کیس کے بارے میں کچھ یوں کہا تھا کہ یہ ایک متنازع کیس ھے اور الزام تراشی کرنے والوں کے پاس ثبوت کی کمی ھے۔رپورٹ میں یہ بھی بتایا گیا کہ سلمان تاثیر قانونی کاروائی میں دخل اندازی نھیں دینگے اور جس حد تک مدد کر سکے کرینگے تاکہ آسیہ بی بی کو اس بات کی سزا نا ملے جو انھوں نے نا کی ھو۔
اب آئیے عباسی صاحب کی ایک اور غلط فھمی کی طرف۔ اپنے کالم میں وہ ایسے ظاھر کرتے ھیں جیسے سلمان تاثیر نے ایک لیڈر ھونے کے ناطے آسیہ بی بی کی رھائی کی کوشش کر کے ایک غیر اسلامی حرکت کی جب کہ حضرت آئشہ رضی لله سے روایت ھے کہ نبی کریم نے فرمایا کہ ایک لیڈر کے لیئے یہ بھتر ھے کہ وہ غلطی میں معاف کرے بجائے اس کے کہ وہ غلطی میں سزا دے۔ یہ ایک سچ حدیث ھے۔
اس کے علاوہ انصار عباسی جس توھین رسالت قانون کو مقدس کہتے ھیں اس قانون یں تبدیلیاں لانے کے حق میں کاؤنسل آف اسلامک آئڈیالوجی ھے۔ یہ کاونسل اسلامی اسکارز پر مشتمل ھے اور اس کاؤنسل نے توھین رسالت قانون میں تبدیلی لانے کی حمایت کی ھے۔
یہ تو بات ھوئی صرف انکے غلط فیکٹس کی۔ اب آئیے انکی بے بنیاد دلیل کی جانب۔ انصار عباسی صاحب فرماتے ھیں کہ چونکہ سیشن کورٹ نے آسیہ بی بی کو سزا موت سنا دی تھی سلمان تاثیر ایک ممجرم کی طرف داری کر رھے تھے جس کا نوٹس حکومت نے نھیں لیا اور اس بات کو انسداد دھشت گردی کورٹ یعنی اے ٹی سی کورٹ نے نظر انداز کر دیا۔مگر سوچنے کی بات ھے کے اسی لاجک اور دلیل کے بل بوتے پر کیا انصار عباسی صاحب جیل تشریف لے جانا چاھیں گے۔کیونکہ ممتاز قادری بھی ایک مجرم ھے جسے باقائیدہ عدالت نے سزا موت سنائی ھے۔اور انصار عباسی اس وقت خود ایک عدالت سے سزا یافتہ ملزم کی جوش و جزبے سے طرف داری کر رھے ھیں جسے جنگ گروپ نے اپنے صفحہ اول پر چھاپا ھے۔
ان باتوں سے یہ ظاھر ھوتا ھے کہ انصار عباسی کے تمام سچ اور انکے دلائیل سخت کمزوری کا شکار ھیں۔ لیکن اس سب میں جنگ گروپ کی بے نیازیوں کو نظر انداز نھیں کیا جا سکتا۔انصار عباسی کی دھشت گردی کی طرف نرم دلی سے تو کافی لوگ آگاہ ھیں ھی لیکن کیا جنگ گروپ کا اس اشو یعنی موضوع کی جانب غور کرنے اور اسے صحیح کرنے کا ارادہ ھے بھی کہ نھیں۔کیا وہ اب بھی اردو قارین کو ایسے شدت پسند مضامین پڑھنے کا موقع دیتے رھیں گے۔ اس بات کا جواب حاصل ھونا صرف ضروری ھی نھیں بلکہ لازم ھو چکا ھے۔
Is Khawaja Sharif or Ansar Abbasi defending Mumtaz Qadri?
Thursday, October 13th, 2011On the front page of The News on Wednesday, Ansar Abbasi makes the shocking revelation that Naval Chief Admiral (R) Saeed Muhammad Khan, under whose oversight the controversial purchase of French Agosta submaries took place, has told the court investigating the scandal that it wasn’t his fault. It must be an interesting world that Ansar Abbasi inhabits if someone accused of misconduct denying that they were responsible is considered newsworthy. It also says something about Jang Group‘s editorial judgment.
What speaks more to both Ansar Abbasi’s mentality and Jang Group‘s editorial judgment, however, is what appeared on the same day on the front page of Daily Jang – Mumtaz Qadri ko saza, Adalat nay riasat kee nakami nazarandaz kardi (Mumtaz Qadri Sentenced: Court Ignores Failure of the State).
In this piece, Ansar Abbasi writes not about French submarines, but Mumtaz Qadri. According to Abbasi, Salmaan Taseer was murdered because the PPP government refused to punish him when he, “told a woman who had been sentenced to death by a court for blasphemy that she had not committed blasphemy, calling the blasphemy law as ‘black’ law, and asking for forgiveness for a woman who is proven guilty of blasphemy”.
Ansar Abbasi is wrong on the facts. Asia Bibi was accused of blasphemy by some people who she had an ongoing feud with. On that fateful day, a fight erupted over a glass of water.
The argument started on a hot summer’s day in June 2009 as Aasia Bibi picked falsa berries – a purple fruit used to make squash – with her Muslim neighbours. She brought them water to drink; they refused to touch her glass because she was a Christian. A vicious row ensued, although what was exactly said remains a matter of contention.
Bibi’s accusers say she flung vile insults at Islam and the prophet Muhammad. “She got very annoyed,” recalls Maafia. “But it was normal. We could not drink from that glass. She is Christian, we are Muslim, and there is a vast difference between the two. We are a superior religion.”
According to the Asia Bibi, though, she did not make any insults to Islam or the prophet. Not only did Asia Bibi deny that she had made any insults to Islam, she even swore on the Bible that she had not committed blasphemy which as a Christian would be the highest oath. Rather than accept her oath, the crowd threatened her if she refused to convert to Islam.
It should be noted that Surat Al-Baqarah (2:256) says, “la ikrah fi’d-din” (There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion).
Salmaan Taseer did not tell Asia Bibi that she had not committed blasphemy. What he said was that the case was controversial and that her accusers were lacking evidence. According to a news report at the time:
Taseer said that he did not want to interfere in the judicial proceeding, but he would do as much as he could in his capacity to make sure that she does not get punished for a crime she said she had not committed.
It should be noted also that according to al-Tirmidhi (1011), Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said, “it is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.”
Additionally, what Ansar Abbasi terms as ‘one of the most holy (muqadas) laws’ is actually not without controversy. The Council of Islamic Ideology recommended several amendments to the law, saying that as it was written it was open to misuse.
“It should be made obligatory for the complainant to produce concrete evidence to substantiate the charges while lodging a First Information Report with the police.
The accused persons must be given the right of defence through a legal adviser and a First Class magistrate should supervise the police investigations prior to the registration of the case,” according to the proposal.
Blasphemy cases should be tried by the High Courts, members of the CII have observed in the document.
Asia Bibi’s case was not handled in a manner that complied with these recommendations. No concrete evidence was lodged against Asia Bibi, the police handled her case as if she was assumed guilty from the beginning, and her sentence was given by a district court, not a High Court.
But Ansar Abbasi not only distorts the facts, he distorts logic also.
According to Abbasi, Salmaan Taseer was out of line to question Asia Bibi’s guilt or innocence once the court handed down its decision. Ansar Abbasi says that “because the State was silent on the governors extremely controversial speeches” it “forced a sad/upset (mayoos) citizens to kill Salman Taseer and take the law in his own hands”.
Abbasi complains that “even after all the demonstrations, protests and rallies, the federal government did not take any steps”. But this is supposed to be a country that respects the rule of law, not the rule of mobs.
But has Mumtaz Qadri not been tried, convicted, and sentenced also? By Ansar Abbasi’s own logic, should he himself not be shot down in the street by some mayoos shehri who disagrees with him? Obviously not. Mumtaz Qadri was tried, convicted, and sentenced, but he still has a right of appeal. And even after his appeal, he has the right to petition for a presidential pardon. Ansar Abbasi tries to justify the difference by arguing that “though the ATC court judge knew that Mumtaz Qadri did not have anything personal with Salman Taseer, he still wrapped up this case like a normal murder case”. In other words, the social context of the case should be taken into consideration when judging whether someone deserves a sentence of death. But isn’t this exactly what Salmaan Taseer was saying about Asia Bibi’s case?
What it seems to come down to is that Ansar Abbasi supports Mumtaz Qadri and believes he was justified in murdering Salmaan Taseer because of extenuating circumstances, namely that the government would not punish Taseer for him. It also seems that Ansar Abbasi is too cowardly to say this directly, so instead he begins his piece by stating that “any one person cannot be given such authority over such a person because this will spread lawlessness, anarchy, unease and panic in the society” and then proceeds to justify exactly the “lawlessness, anarchy, unease and panic” that he warns.
So Ansar Abbasi is wrong on the facts, and he is wrong on the theory also. But what about Jang Group? For their English-medium audience, Ansar Abbasi and Jang Group serve up corruption accusations against PPP based on the self-serving statement (whether true or not) of an accused man. For the awam, Ansar Abbasi and Jang Group have saved the real masala – a front page article telling that Mumtaz Qadri was forced to murder Salmaan Taseer because the PPP government refused to punish him for defending a blasphemer.
Ansar Abbasi’s extremist sympathies are well documented. Does Jang Group continue projecting these views out of ideological sympathy, or are they using Ansar Abbasi as their Media Taliban in a proxy war against the PPP government? These are the facts. You decide.
[CORRECTION:] An English version of Ansar Abbasi’s piece about Mumtaz Qadri did appear in The News (Jang Group) on Wednesday also. We missed this in our original post because the piece was published on page 12, with a second Ansar Abbasi piece about French submarine scandal on page 1. While we regret the mistake, we do not believe that it affects the substantive analysis in the post. We thank our dear reader for bringing this to our attention.
English Translation:
Islamabad (Ansar Abbasi) ATC delivered the death sentence to Mumtaz Qadri and reinforced the law that punishing someone is the responsibility of the State not an individual, but very simply overlooked failure and the laziness of the State which were the reasons for the death of the former governor. In a 12 page verdict delivered by the ATC, it was mentioned that a proved blasphemer is ‘duty to kill’ (wajib-ul-qatl) and no one can forgive him except for the prophet himself and raised these two fundamental questions: First, can a person who lives a sinful life be called as an apostate (murtad) and second, if that is the case, who is responsible for punishing him? The verdict answered these questions itself. The answer is that no one person can be given the firm authority to decide upon any particular person is he/she is an apostate or a non-Muslim. Furthermore any one person cannot be given such authority over such a person because this will spread lawlessness, anarchy, unease and panic in the society. Nevertheless, the verdict does not mention anything about the laziness and failure of the state in handling the situation created after controversial steps taken and speeches made by Salman Taseer. And this was the actual reason for death of former governor Punjab at the hands of Mumtaz Qadri. Although ATC judge said rightly that no one person can take the law in his own hands, he completely ignored what Salman Taseer did. Judge did not talk about the controversy created by Salman Taseer with reference to the disconnect showed by the federal government, the President and the Prime Minister. Based on these reasons why was the role of government not brought up and also neither was this basic fundamental question answered which asked if State was the true responsible entity for death of Salman Taseer. Former governor of Punjab visited the Lahore jail and did a press conference with Aasia Bibi who had already been sentenced to death by the Session Court under blasphemy law. Being the leader of the province Salman Taseer told a woman who had been sentenced to death by a court for blasphemy that she had not committed blasphemy, calling the blasphemy law as ‘black’ law, and asking for forgiveness for a woman who is proven guilty of blasphemy, Salman Taseer had to face the reaction from entire Pakistan. Salman Taseer had said that he would take the case up to the president who has the power of the law to grant her pardon. He also said that he had studied the case of Aasia bibi in detail and found out that she is not deserving of the blasphemy law verdict handed to her. According to this and his press conference, he himself had not accepted the decision of the court even though he was the legal leader of the province, called one of the most holy (muqadas) laws as a black law, and tried to get forgiveness for a death sentenced woman under blasphemy law which according t the ATC court is not even possible. Just like the president, the governor also cannot be tried that is the reason why Salman Taseer couldn’t be caught. Even though there were protest rallies all over the country and he was asked for resignation. Anyways, even after all the demonstrations, protests and rallies, the federal government did not take any steps. Salman Taseer was not condemned on any of his speeches by any government department/institutions, President or the Prime Minister. The verdict delivered by ATC does not mention any of this disconnect from the state, which forced a sad/upset (mayoos) citizens to kill Salman Taseer and take the law in his own hands because the State was silent on the governors extremely controversial speeches. Even though the ATC court judge knew that Mumtaz Qadri did not have anything personal with Salman Taseer, he still wrapped up this case like a normal murder case
Pakistan’s James Bond? Or Nicholas Schmidle…
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
Two months ago, Nicholas Schmidle caught the nation’s attention with his sensational piece for The New Yorker that presented a made-for-Hollywood re-telling of the Abbottabad operation. Now, a new thriller appears in the Financial Times, this time by a Pakistani. But, like Mr Schmidle’s earlier piece, this one, too, may not appear to be all that it seems.
The piece in question today is by Mr Mansoor Ijaz, and the author takes no time letting readers know his agenda in the title of his column, ‘Time to take on Pakistan’s jihadist spies’.
ISI embodies the scourge of radicalism that has become a cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy. The time has come for America to take the lead in shutting down the political and financial support that sustains an organ of the Pakistani state that undermines global antiterrorism efforts at every turn.
But Mr Ijaz is not here to bury the ISI only. Actually, he’s brought a little bit for everyone’s tastes, and he cleverly begins his column not by attacking ISI head on, but by telling a most incredible tale about the civilians also.
According to Mansoor Ijaz,
Early on May 9, a week after US Special Forces stormed the hideout of Osama bin Laden and killed him, a senior Pakistani diplomat telephoned me with an urgent request. Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president, needed to communicate a message to White House national security officials that would bypass Pakistan’s military and intelligence channels.
The message? “He needed an American fist on his army chief’s desk to end any misguided notions of a coup – and fast”.
That’s right. Fearing an imminent coup, Pakistan’s president wanted to get a message to the President Barack Obama. So he called a diplomat and asked him to call…Mansoor Ijaz? Even Nicholas Schmidle had the humility not to name himself as the killer of Osama bin Laden.
If Nicholas Schmidle was writing the screenplay for Hollywood’s next war thriller, though, Mr Ijaz has penned a worthy sequel.
In a flurry of phone calls and emails over two days a memorandum was crafted that included a critical offer from the Pakistani president to the Obama administration: “The new national security team will eliminate Section S of the ISI charged with maintaining relations to the Taliban, Haqqani network, etc. This will dramatically improve relations with Afghanistan.”
The memo was delivered to Admiral Mullen at 14.00 hours on May 10. A meeting between him and Pakistani national security officials took place the next day at the White House. Pakistan’s military and intelligence chiefs, it seems, neither heeded the warning, nor acted on the admiral’s advice.
Not only was Mr Ijaz the preferred messenger between President Zardari and President Obama, but he was also closely tuned in to the high-level military and intelligence discussions that were carried out over the next days. Amazing, no?
Before we go any further into this exciting tale, perhaps we should pause for a moment to ask, just who is Mansoor Ijaz?
According to his by line, Mansoor Ijaz is an American of Pakistani ancestry who “negotiated Sudan’s offer of counter-terrorism assistance to the Clinton administration”. Apparently, Mansoor Ijaz is not Pakistan’s Nicholas Schmidle, he’s Pakistan’s James Bond!
Writing for an American newspaper in 2001, Mansoor Ijaz claimed that “President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates”. And how does Mr Ijaz know about this high-level American intelligence failure? “I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities”.
Mr Ijaz claimed in 2001 that he was secretly negotiating between the governments of Sudan and the United States. Unfortunately, America’s National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States says otherwise.
Sudan’s minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Ladin over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment out-standing.
In 2001, though, Mansoor Ijaz was not a humble “American of Pakistani Ancestry” who secretly negotiated between foreign governments. At that time, his by line identified him as “a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is chairman of a New York-based investment company”.
Mansoor Ijaz is not a passive investor. Writing about his alleged links with Sudan in the 1990s, The Washington Post reporter David B. Ottaway noted that Mr Ijaz uses politics to advance his financial interests1.
Wealthy and well-connected, Ijaz was more than willing to pitch in. By Election Day in November, he had raised $525,000 for the Democratic cause, including $250,000 from his personal funds and $200,000 donated by guests at a fund-raising reception for Vice President Gore at Ijaz’s New York penthouse in September, according to Federal Election Commission records, White House documents and Ijaz.
Now Ijaz is trying to reap what he has sown. Having earned access to the Clinton administration through his fund-raising prowess, Ijaz has met with a succession of senior officials in the White House, State Department and Congress to further his business interests through changes in U.S. policy toward Islamic countries, particularly Sudan, a government long accused of sanctioning international terrorism.
A 2006 by line appearing in The National Review gives little more information about Mansoor Ijaz’s ‘business interests’.
Mansoor Ijaz is chairman of Crescent Investment Management LLC, a New York private equity firm developing homeland-security technologies related to Internet security, air and seaport-cargo security, and airship-surveillance technologies.
In addition to investing heavily in both politicians and security technologies, Mansoor Ijaz finds the time to write rather prolifically. Benador Associations, a PR firm representing Mansoor Ijaz as an ‘expert’, was also involved in managing media in the lead up to the 1992 invasion of Iraq.
The newly-formed Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) sits at the center of the PR campaign, which is coordinated closely with other groups that are actively promoting an attack on Iraq, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, Project for a New American Century, the American Enterprise Institute, Hudson Institute, Hoover Institute, and the clients of media relations firm Benador Associations.
CLI sends its message to American citizens through meetings with newspaper editorial boards and journalists, framing the debate and providing background materials written by a close-knit web of supporters. CLI also works closely with Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials to sponsor foreign policy briefings and dinners.
Nor is this the first time that Mansoor Ijaz has written about the need for America to take on the ISI. Writing in June of this year, Mansoor Ijaz wrote a piece strikingly similar to his latest:
The time has come for America to take the lead in shutting off the political and financial support that gives life to an organ of the Pakistani state dedicated to undermining global anti-terror efforts. The ISI embodies the scourge of radicalism and Islamist terror that emanates from the soil it runs roughshod over.
No mention then of the author acting as secret liaison between Islamabad and Washington, though. Perhaps he forgot? One thing Mansoor Ijaz did remember back in June is that not only did he negotiate with Sudan and the US, “He was also involved in the negotiation of the ceasefire in Kashmir between militants backed by ISI and Pakistan’s armed forces and Indian security forces in August 2000″. Is there no crisis that Mansoor Ijaz has not either created or solved?
Actually, the ISI is not Mr Ijaz’s only recommended target. Recently, writing for The Washington Post, Mansoor Ijaz encouraged Obama “to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty at every future opportunity it gets”. His credentials when trying to create this crisis, though, were that he was not only involved in negotiations between Kashmiri militants and Indian security forces, he “was the joint author of the blueprint for a ceasefire”. No, I’m not making this up.
Mansoor Ijaz is, like James Bond, an ‘International Man of Mystery’. In the 1990s, Mansoor Ijaz carried out secret negotiations between the government and Sudan and President Clinton to give Osama bin Laden to the Americans, but Washington wouldn’t listen. In 2000, he secretly negotiated a ceasefire between Kashmiri militants and Indian forces. And, once he remembered that he forgot, he was a secret messenger between Islamabad and Washington following the Abbottabad operation. His missions were so secret that nobody knew about them but him.
Mansoor Ijaz is also, like Nicholas Schmidle, a storyteller. In 1999, he told News Hour that “his father was a founder of the Pakistani nuclear program”. In 2004, he recited a tearful memory of how his father could not “fulfill his dream of helping his country become a peaceful nuclear power”.
In 2007, Mansoor Ijaz wrote that Benazir Bhutto, “looted the treasury, sparked conflict with India in Kashmir to cover her financial misdeeds and ignored the fundamental needs — jobs, education, basic healthcare — of her people”, and said that “Pakistan requires a revolution, not a bunch of has-been, corrupt politicians who self-servingly and halfheartedly claim they want to fix what they themselves tore apart.” After her death a few months later, his story took a different tone.
“But I firmly believe that she loved Pakistan, and for all her faults, had returned there this time to turn a new page in its troubled political history. We should remember her for her courage to stand up in the face of incalculable odds to bring some semblance of sanity to the disaster that Pakistan has become.”
His latest revelations come at a curious time. Just when America’s and Pakistan’s agencies appear to be turning around what was a souring relationship, along comes Mansoor Ijaz who remembers what he had forgotten the last time he wrote the same article attacking ISI – that they were sold out by the civilians in Islamabad.
It’s hard to question a man who wrote in 2003 that “the growing body of publicly available evidence offers sufficient proof of Baghdad’s mendacious designs to warrant the immediate use of force”. But maybe this time, before anyone rushes to judgment, we ought to ask for a little more proof.
1. Ottaway, David B. ‘Democratic Fund-Raiser Pursues Agenda on Sudan’. The Washington Post. 29 April 1997.
