Posts Tagged ‘Nawaz Sharif’

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Ansar Abbasi, wannabe political advisor, gives himself away

Sunday, December 4th, 2011

The News (Jang Group)Ansar Abbasi is at it again with a front page column in The News (Jang Group) that offers little more than Abbasi’s personal frustration that PTI and PML-N are not joining forces against the present government. Having utterly ceased to even pretend to be a journalist, Ansar Abbasi is now fantasizing that he is political advisor to Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif. But in his advice to the opposition leaders, Ansar gives himself away.

Abbasi’s would-be political advice is especially humorous given Imran’s recent successes drawing crowds exceeding 100,000 to his jalsa in Lahore and showing legitimate growth in his party’s support since disappointing showings in past elections. Nevermind the facts, Ansar Abbasi is angry that “PTI leaders are more interested in the alleged corruption cases of Nawaz Sharif”. Abbasi is further enraged that “Imran Khan and his party did not issue any statement in support of the Supreme Court” despite the fact that later in the column he even admits that “The PTI’s spokesman Umar Cheema instead said that it was the PTI that had demanded in the very beginning to establish a commission under the Supreme Court to probe the matter”.

Meanwhile, Ansar Abbasi is also angry at Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N for focusing on allegations that “Khan’s siblings and other relatives are drawing heavy salaries from donations” to Shaukat Khanum and questions about “a residential plot allotted to the PTI chief by the then chief minister and incumbent PML-N chief on the former’s request”.

It seems that Ansar Abbasi is proposing his own NRO in which all allegations against political leaders should be set aside so long as they agree to attack the government. To begin, Ansar Abbasi would have Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif stop questioning each other and instead take the strategy of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, even though both political leaders appear to know better what they are doing than Ansar Abbasi. More to the point, it appears that Ansar Abbasi is not actually interested in the success of either PTI or PML-N, but simply takes the position of “the enemy of the government is my friend”. Obviously, this raises serious concerns both about Ansar Abbasi’s ability to provide objective, fact-based reporting and analysis and also whether Jang Group is pursuing a political agenda in giving someone like Ansar Abbasi front page coverage to air his personal opinions.

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Posted in Jang, The News | 1 Comment »

Zeher Bokhari

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Meher Bokhari appears to have a formula for getting attention – say something so outrageous and sensational that people will have to pay attention. I regret that we will draw attention to her program again, but the episode of Crossfire of Wednesday night cannot go without response. The topic of the programme was allegedly Pak-India relations after 65 years. What viewers were subjected to, however, was an hour of hate and misinformation.

Claiming to speak for 187 million Pakistanis, Bokhari says that every individual wants to be at peace with India – but not at the expense of forgetting the atrocities of the past. First of all, unelected TV performers do not speak for the people. Second, if Bokhari stepped outside her elite media bubble for five minutes, she would know that while no one wants to forget about the past, neither are the people interested in wallowing in it. The reality is that all of the clips she played simply talk about keeping and maintaining good relations with the neighbors – something that 70 per cent of Pakistanis say they want. The 30 per cent who don’t, perhaps, are laal topi walas who make their money by projecting anti-India hysteria.

Speaking of which, Bokhari invites as her guest none other than Zaid Hamid whose failed TV show ‘Brasstacks‘ was built on the same anti-India hysteria. Zaid Hamid plays his role perfectly saying he was in a state of “shock” when he heard Nawaz Sharif’s speech calling for closer relations between Pakistan and India. When Senator Mushahid Ullah Khan (PML-N) tried to explain that the self-appointed defenders of the realm were making a mountain out of a molehill, he too found himself victim of Bokhari’s wrath.

Suggesting that Nawaz Sharif is soft on India is outside the boundaries of sanity. It was Sharif was ordered the first nuclear tests in 1998 in response to India’s testing their bomb, and it was Sharif who was PM during the Kargil War the following year. Whether you support Nawaz Sharif or you do not support Nawaz Sharif, saying he is soft on India is ridiculous.

Meher Bokhari says Pakistan wants parity with India, but forgets that parity is not enmity. Pakistan is and should be India’s equal, but that does not require it to be hostile or hateful. Just as Nawaz Sharif ordered the first nuclear tests to remove any doubts about Pakistan’s nuclear capability, he also signed the Lahore Declaration committing both nations to resolve differences with peaceful dialogue and cooperation.

Bokhari also repeatedly refers to India as a Hindu nation as opposed to Pakistani Muslims, creating a sense of religious conflict where none need exist. Once again, Meher Bokhari is wrong on the facts, and wrong on history. Actually, India is home to some 160 million Muslims. At the time of independence, there were more Muslims in India than Pakistan. And just as there are millions of Muslims living in India, there are 7 million Hindu Pakistanis also.

Meher Bokhari asks whether Nawaz Sharif has forgotten the blood spilt of millions of Muslims, seemingly forgetting that this is not a natural state of affairs. Hindus and Muslims have lived in peace and harmony in the subcontinent for hundreds of years, and in spite of attempts by some to continue animosity between Pakistan and India, most people are not interested in continuing tensions.

Through out the program Meher Bukhari continues to bash Nawaz Sharif saying that he forgot the contributions of our founding fathers when all Nawaz Sharif said was that Pakistan and India have several similarities, including cuisines. She consistently plays on the religious sentiments of people by inviting guests like Zaid Hamid and Jamat-e-Islami representatives.

Not content with merely bashing the PML-N chief, Bokhari then drags out an anti-American conspiracy theory, telling viewers that the Americans want us to think that the terrorists’ inside of Pakistan who are “a part” of Pakistan are the real enemy. Once again, Meher Bokhari gets her facts very, very wrong.

Many of the militants responsible for killing innocent Pakistanis are indeed foreign, but they are not American or Indian. Many are Uzbek, and just this week it was militants crossing the border from Afghanistan who killed an anti-Taliban tribal elder and his son in the Bajaur tribal region. Or perhaps it was the TTP and LeJ militants who were recently arrested armed to the teeth that Meher Bokhari terms “a part of Pakistan”?

Towards the end of the program she again shows an excerpt from Jinnah’s speech in which he mentioned talks about the two-nation theory. She forgets to mention that Quaid-e-Azam never said do not keep good relations with your neighbors. Jinnah also famously said that “in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.” It was always the goal of Pakistan’s founders that Pakistan and India would co-exist as good neighbors, not eternal enemies.

Jinnah with Ghandi

There is a difference between losing sovereignty and keeping good relationships with neighbors. Meher Bukhari wrongly projects that the current leadership along with PML (N), MQM and ANP are wanting to get back together with India when reality is, all of these parties want good bilateral relationship with India. Meanwhile, she conveniently ignores the ongoing violations of Pakistan’s sovereignity by foreign terrorists like Osama bin Laden.

This is not the first time that Meher Bokhari has stooped to jingoism. The timing of Tuesday’s programme must be noted as well as it aired just one day before a 20-member parliamentary delegation left for India. Certainly Bokhari’s programme will be dismissed in some corners as mere entertainment. But as we have shown before, there is a line between entertainment and incitement, and how can our parliamentarians expect to be received by their Indian hosts after such an introduction?

The 18th Century English poet Samuel Johnson famously said that ‘patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels’. Certainly there is nothing wrong with loving one’s country, and relations between Pakistan and India are a valid topic for analysts and commentators to reflect on. But what Dunya TV aired on Tuesday night was neither news nor analysis, it was an ugly reflection of a poisonous mindset desperate for attention. It’s time to change the channel.

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Posted in Dunya | 9 Comments »

Ansar Abbasi Continues Political Attacks, Extremist Sympathies

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

The News (Jang Group)In his column for The News, Ansar Abbasi continues his pattern of misrepresenting facts and using journalism as a cover for political and extremist propaganda. His latest piece, ‘Battle-lines in war on terror get sharper Zardari, Nawaz take clear positions’, is a bald face attempt to show PML-N as an Islamist political party while bashing PPP and President Zardari as against religion. But once again Abbasi’s attacks are easily debunked and exposed.

The reporter begins by referencing a recent speech in which President Zardari dubbed Nawaz Sharif as “Maulvi Nawaz Sharif”. But Ansar Abbasi does not give any context for this statement, instead presenting it as if it came from thin air.

Actually, Ansar Abbasi’s own newspaper, The News, reported that in another recent speech of his own, Nawaz Sharif accused the military intelligence agencies as responsible for “ruining the country”. Actually, this is not the first time that Mian Nawaz has accused the military of ruining the nation. In 2006, Nawaz Sharif presented a speech at a PML-N meeting in London where he said that Pakistan Army was worse for the country even than Indian Army.

A seemingly bitter and perhaps even desperate Nawaz Sharif on Thursday castigated Pakistan Army generals in the harshest ever terms, accusing them of destroying their institution by using it to promote their political ambitions.

He even went to the extent of comparing the Pakistani Army with its arch rival the Indian Army and declared that the latter was much superior in professionalism to the former.

He said the Indian Army did not harm Pakistan as much as the Pakistani generals, “and that is why we have to continuously face the ignominy of being called a failed state”.

It was in response to this ongoing attitude that President Zardari gave his speech earlier this week during which he termed the PML-N chief as “Maulvi Nawaz Sharif” who he accused of “practising the politics of Zia”. In response, Abbasi reports, PML-N leader Ch Nisar “asked both the government and armed forces to stick to the Islamic ideology”.

This is the actual context that for the political battle between the PPP and PML-N, but readers of Ansar Abbasi will understand it differently. Rather than giving all the facts and letting readers decide for themselves, Ansar Abbasi writes that President Zardari wants to fight the US-led war on terror “for the next 30-40 years while the PML-N insists on policy review as per the will of parliament”.

And Ansar Abbasi does not stop there. He goes on to say that present policies “have started pushing religious people against the wall as the difference between religiosity and extremism is being mixed up to the disadvantage of the former”. Ansar Abbasi says that Ch Nisar is expressing “serious concerns” about “the present suffocating environment for practising and principled Muslims.”

This is a very curious claim. Where are religious people being pushed against the wall? Azaan still fills the sky each day. Mosques are still filled with religious people. In fact there is no shortage of religion anywhere in the country.

Perhaps the answer can be found in another part of Abbasi’s column in which he questions the military’s decision to arrest a brigadier for alleged links to banned organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir. According to Ansar Abbasi, HuT is “a global Islamic organisation involved in peaceful political struggle for the unity of Muslims”.

But journalist Ziauddin Sardar says there’s more to HuT than their propaganda admits.

During a recent debate on PTV, the Pakistani satellite channel, a prominent member of HT told me emphatically: “The idea of compromise does not exist in Islam.” This is standard HT rhetoric, and it explains why the group is deemed dangerous and worthy of being proscribed. Intolerance of that kind is a natural precursor of, and invitation to, violence.

In fact, violence is central to HT’s goals. Its primary objective is to establish a caliphate. It seeks, I have been told on numerous occasions, a “great Islamic state” ruled by a single caliph who would apply Islam “completely to all Islamic lands” and eventually to “the whole world”. What would be applied “completely” is the sharia, Islamic law.

No wonder they recognise no compromise. Their ideology argues that there is only one way Muslims can or should be ruled, that those who form this caliphate have the right to rule, that all others must submit unconditionally and that only this political interpretation of Islam is valid and legitimate. In other words, the caliphate of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s vision can be established only by doing violence to all other interpretations of Islam and all Muslims who do not agree with it – not to mention the violence it must do to the rest of the world, which also must eventually succumb.

Neither is this the first time that Ansar Abbasi has shown sympathies for extremist groups. Speaking on Capital Talk after the Abbottabad operation, Ansar Abbasi infamously gave sympathetic statements about Osama bin Laden.

Abbasi concludes his latest column by praising PML-N and bashing the government, a blatant political bias that has no place in respectable journalism. It is unknown whether Abbasi is exploiting religion for political ends, or whether his ultimate goal is to promote banned extremist groups and use the cover of journalism for propaganda. What is known is that his columns continue to misrepresent the facts and present a distorted view of reality.

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Posted in Jang, The News | 3 Comments »

Wikileaks selectively quoted for political attack in The News

Friday, May 27th, 2011

wikileaksAn article in The News today which claims that Wikileaks proves that Nawaz stood tall and delivered in the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry while tarring PPP with a black brush. The author, Anusha Rehman Khan, is of course a PML-N MNA, so her words must be read with the understanding that she is writing not as an objective journalist but as a politician who wants to be seen supporting her party. But even articles supporting one’s own political party should be based in facts. Unfortuantely, a review of Wikileaks cables shows that MNA Anusha Khan’s piece appears to selectively quote certain facts while ignoring others that are inconvenient to her argument.

Most of the piece is a list of accusations against PPP completely unrelated to the article’s main thesis which is the claim that the Sharifs held “unfaltering conviction” and “stood tall and delivered” on a commitment to see the Chief Justice restored.

The premise of the article is based on a Wikileaks cable dated 31 January 2008 that MNA Anusha Khan says proves that the Sharifs were standing strongly behind the restoration of the Chief Justice:

According to yet another leaked US embassy cable, the then US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, called on Nawaz Sharif on January 31, 2008 and “strongly opposed the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry”. But the Sharifs stuck to their principled stance and “insisted that without restoring the chief justice, there was no point to filling other slots on the bench.

Here is what the cable actually says:

5. (C) Nawaz expected both PPP and PML-N would do well at the polls if the elections were free and fair; he dismissed the Pakistan Muslim League party, saying that Pervaiz Elahi would get few, if any votes. Claiming he had no vendetta against President Musharraf, Nawaz said the PML-N had also reached out to the Pakistan Muslim League and they in turn had contacted PML-N (Ref A). (Note: He then launched into a long description of his mistreatment after Musharraf overthrew Nawaz in 1999). The PML-N’s goal in government would be to reinstate the deposed judiciary and restore the law and order situation. Without restoring the judiciary, Nawaz argued, you cannot restore law and order and rule of law.

6. (C) Ambassador said we continued to support an independent judiciary and wanted to work with the new government on this issue. It was simply too difficult to tackle before elections. We believed there should be a way to restore some of the deposed judges, but not the former Chief Justice. Nawaz insisted that without restoring the Chief Justice, there was no point to filling other slots on the bench. Ambassador disagreed, noting that many of the provincial judges could be restored for the benefit of Pakistan’s judiciary.

It is clear from this cable that the Sharifs believed that restoration of Chief Justice was important to the perception of an independent judiciary. But is this the whole story? Actually, another Wikileaks cable dated 14 March 2009  tells a completely different story.

4. (S) On the issue of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, Shahbaz claimed that the PML-N was open to negotiation, provided that Chaudhry was symbolically restored as Chief Justice of Pakistan. Shahbaz stressed that his party could not afford the political humiliation of abandoning what had become a long-standing principle in favor of Chaudhry’s restoration. At the same time, Shahbaz claimed to understand that Chaudhry was a problematic jurist, whose powers would need to be carefully curtailed. Shahbaz underscored that the Sharifs were prepared to adopt any safeguards that President Zardari desired prior to Chaudhry’s restoration, including curtailment of his powers to create judicial benches, removal of his suo moto jurisdiction, and/or establishment of a constitutional court as a check on the Supreme Court. Shahbaz also stated that following the restoration, the PML-N was prepared to end the issue and remove Chaudhry once and for all by adopting legislation proposed in the Charter of Democracy that would ban all judges who had taken an oath under a Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) from serving.

To borrow MNA Anusha Khan’s own words, “only cynics who have become embalmed in their own cynicism and detached from all norms of reality” will ignore the fact that politicians make back room deals, and that long marches and street-level political dramas are not always what they seem. While the Wikileaks cables do show that the Sharifs insisted on the reinstatement of the Chief Justice in January 2009, a year later their demands had changed and the “unfaltering conviction” had transformed into a request for “face saving” as “the PML-N was prepared to end the issue and remove Chaudhry once and for all”.

The problem with selectively quoting documents like Wikileaks is that they are openly available for the public to fact check. It is natural that Anusha Khan wished to paint her party leader in a flattering light, but it is the responsibility of The News to fact check the pieces before they are published. Perhaps if The News would have upheld this responsibility, they would have saved everyone some embarrassment.

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Posted in The News | 5 Comments »

Crazy Talk Hamid Mir Aur Ansar Abbasi Kay Saath

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

Hamid Mir hosts 'Crazy Talk'

On Crazy Talk last night, Hamid Mir and Ansar Abbasi put on an incredible show. And by ‘incredible’ I mean, of course, without a shred of credibility. Also, though, I mean incredibly funny.

Earlier in the day, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif issued a statement on the raid in Abbottabad. According to Hamid Mir, Nawaz’s speech revealed groundbreaking stuff that you would not believe. According to Hamid Mir this incredible groundbreaking stuff was that drones are being flown from within Pakistan. As if this is somehow news. According to Hamid Mir, though, this is proof that government itself is responsible for all the deaths that Gilani mentioned in his own speech.

What’s missing from this groundbreaking news? Any mention of Army or ISI. It is as if Nawaz claimed that drones are being flown from PM House in Islamabad and not an Army base in Jacobabad. But Pakistan has an Army. Pakistan has intelligence agencies. So why does Hamid Mir tells his audience that Nawaz Sharif has put this responsibility for drones on the civilian government?

Of course, Hamid Mir did notice Nawaz’s statements critical of the military later in the show. But rather than criticise Mian Nawaz, Hamid Mir also says “Kuch logon ka ye bhi khayal hai ke “ Nawaz Shareef nay darasal haqeeqat mei wohi batain kari hain jo ke saddar Zardari Sahab Chahtay thay kyonkay wo bhi ander say yehi chahty hain ke fauji qayadat kay khilaf inquiry commision ki baat ho”. (Some people also think that in actuality, these statements reflect what President Zardari wanted because from inside, he also wants talks about inquiry commission against the army leadership) . This incredible fact became even more incredible when Ansar Abbasi stated that he also hears the same voices in Hamid Mir’s head and confirmed Hamid Sahib’s statement that there is a secret faction of Zardari cronies in Islamabad who are cursing the military and trying to weaken Pakistan’s security services.

First of all Mr. Hamid Mir, can you please explain who these “kuch log” (some people) are? I mean I would really like to find out who said this because I know that you didn’t just make these people up, right? Secondly, are you saying that these critical statements were put into the speech by people in the government? Of course, this makes perfect sense now. I’m sure the government’s media advisers worked furiously to finish the opposition leader’s speech in time for his press conference.

In the mind of Hamid Mir, everything Nawaz Sharif said about Pakistan cooperating with drones is evidence against the civilian government, not the military. And anything that could possibly be considered as critical of the military is evidence against the civilian government also because they hypnotized Nawaz and made him say these things. These mind control magicians are, of course, “close to Zardari”. Again, this makes perfect sense. Asif Zardari is always using his mind control magicians to convince the media to say such sweet things about him!

Ansar Abbasi then offers his own helpful advice: Any inquiry should be independent, but should also avoid giving any points to our enemies. And who are Pakistan’s enemies? According to Ansar Abbasi, number one enemy is America and number two enemy is India. No mention of the people who have killed tens of thousands of Pakistanis with bomb attacks. In some ways, this makes sense. There are plenty of awami lives to spare, but very few general’s egos.

Ansar Abbasi continues to say that there are people in foreign capitals who tell him and his colleagues to write against the Army and ISI to push the agenda of Washington. This is when Hamid Mir cuts him off and says “Aur gandi galiyan deitay hian- Gandi galiyan deitay hian! Asif Zardari kay qareebi saathi fauji leadership ko gandi galiyan deitay hain leikin public kay samnay kuch aur kehtay hain” (And they use abusive language! They use abusive language! Asif Zardari’s close aides use abusive language for Army leadership but say something else in front of the public). Really? So are you saying Mr. Hamid Mir that you are such good friends with Zardari and his inner circle that you know what they say when they’re not in front of public? And you can see that with such authority because you hang out with them and chill on weekends discussing all of this over chai biscuits and samosas?

And finally, when one of the guests Haider Abbas Rizvi mentions that when 9/11, London bombings and Madrid bombings happened, no body asked for resignations of their intelligence heads, Hamid Mir cut him off and mentioned that there is a difference that in 9/11 terrorists entered US and that helicopters from another country did not enter airspace. Even though he later admitted that there was a security breach, my question for Hamid Mir is: Are organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Afghan Taliban, or the Haqqani network and their allies not working diligently to kill innocent civilians? Have they not claimed the lives of more than 30,000 Pakistanis? Are they not in our country uninvited? The answer to all these questions is yes, but then why is Hamid Mir so hesitant on calling these terrorists organisations out for what they really are? Why is Hamid Mir forgetting that a bigger breach of sovereignty was carried out by these terrorists plaguing our nation?

At the end of the episode, I felt exhausted. Partly I was tired from laughing and partly it was from the mental gymnastics that were required to bend logic into such contortions necessary to understand what Hamid Mir and Ansar Abbasi were trying to say. One thing is certain, whether or not Nawaz gets his enquiry, no one will be any wiser for listening to this type of Crazy Talk.

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Posted in Geo TV | 5 Comments »

The News vs. The News On Deedar Hussain Shah

Sunday, October 10th, 2010

The News (Jang Group)Yesterday’s edition of The News (Jang) included another example of politicized reporting that even contradicts other reports in the same newspaper.

Ansar Abbasi’s top news story, “New NAB chairman, a Jiyala from A to Z” accuses President Zardari of appointing a political crony as the new NAB chief. His report calls Deedar Hussain Shah “controversial” and includes statements that PML-N through Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan found the candidate unacceptable.

But another report by Rauf Klasra in the same paper, “Nawaz trusted the new NAB chairman”, describes this new opposition to Deedar Hussain Shah as NAB chairman as like a tiger changing its stripes.

The court documents show that Nawaz and his legal team were satisfied with the role of the SHC CJ, Deedar Hussain Shah, because they believed that in line with the norms of justice, he neither allowed a speedy trial of Nawaz nor he formed a full bench like his successor.

Deedar Hussain Shah, when he was the SHC CJ, had actually appointed a three-member bench comprising Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, Justice Rabbani and another judge, to hear the Nawaz case and the former prime minister was quite satisfied with this bench and its proceedings. After reading these papers, it becomes quite obvious that Deedar Hussain Shah was sent to the Supreme Court because General Musharraf was unhappy with him during the trial of Nawaz Sharif.

The official record shows that Nawaz’s legal team had praised the then SHC CJ Deedar Hussain Shah in the petition no. 172/2000, which was filed to challenge the speedy trial and formation of a full bench by the new SHC CJ. The petition was filed on June 27, 2000, challenging whether Sindh High Court registrar could constitute a full bench for hearing of anti-terrorism appeals under Rules 2 and 5 of the high court.

Nawaz Sharif’s lawyer had complained in writing to the SHC after the elevation of Deedar Shah as the SC judge followed by the appointment of the new SHC CJ that the role of secret agencies had suddenly become important in proceedings that had greatly disturbed Nawaz. He complained in the petition that after the appointment of the new SHC chief justice, inconveniences had been created by four intelligence agencies.

But, today after the lapse of 10 years, the PML-N leaders have come out to attack the same judge and challenged his appointment as the NAB chairman on grounds that once he was a PPP worker and had contested election on its ticket. But Nawaz’s legal team and leaders did not question him or his past political affiliation as they had found him a professional judge who did not allow secret agencies to disturb the court’s environment or form a full bench or order his speedy trial as it was done later.

The documents revealed that with the elevation of Deedar Hussain Shah to the SC in April 2008, Nawaz Sharif was not happy, telling the court in writing that when he (Deedar Shah) was the SHC CJ, environment of the court was smooth, orderly and peaceful. Deedar Shah had also worked with Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary and had retired without any complaint against him as he enjoyed a good record as a judge.

This sudden change of opinion is well documented and makes for an important news story. When citizens hear that one politician is challenging the appointments of another, they must have the knowledge of history to determine if these challenges are being made in good faith, or are political theatre only.

Despite The News having access to all the information about Mian Nawaz Sharif praising Deedar Hussain Shah for so many years, Ansar Abbasi seems to have ignored this information and did not even ask probing questions to get to the heart of the matter. He simply repeated, in very political terms, the opposition talking points.

By calling Deedar Hussain Shah a ‘Jiyala’ (PPP activist) through-and-through, Ansar Abbasi is acting like an opposition agent, not a journalist. Please, we have enough political operatives – what we need are journalists.

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Posted in Jang, The News | 28 Comments »

Waj S. Khan's Real Estate Rumours

Friday, August 27th, 2010

I love email. It makes communication fast and easy. No more standing around waiting for the post office to open if you only have a computer and an Internet account. Unfortunately, it’s the perfect way to spread all sorts of rumours and smears. “Hey, I was just forwarding an email!” That roughly translates to, “I want to gossip, but I don’t want to be responsible for whether or not its true!” In fact, it is such a problem that there are entire websites dedicated to debunking these “urban legends” that get circulated in emails. A good friend of mine often tells me that, “if it is in an email someone forwarded you, chances are it is not true!”

I also really like Wajahat S Khan. I think that, among the TV personalities out there, he is a pretty reliable guy. Of course, everybody makes mistakes. I think Waj made a pretty big mistake today with a post on his blog today about a “confidential email” claiming that Zardari bought a million pounds flat in London. Why is Waj spreading rumours and political propaganda?

This “confidential email” is simply another smear against Asif Zardari, as is clear from its closing lines:

This is a small reminder to the sick people in Pakistan, who were against the throwing of the shoe to a “Respected President of Pakistan abroad”!!!

They are purblind to the realities of the damage this man called Zardari has done to the nation.

But what damage would Zardari have done by buying a flat in London, if that is even the case? And why is Waj publishing a rumour that even declares that it doesn’t know the facts? The email itself says that “The final bid was made by mobile phone from inside a bullet proof car”. Is Asif Zardari the only man to own a mobile and a bullet proof car? What kind of proof is this?

Frankly, it’s quite disappointing that Waj saw fit to promote this sort of obvious political propaganda on his blog. As a respected journalist, he lends such obvious political smears an air of authority that they do not deserve. Why did he not exercise his investigative skills and do more research rather than simply repeating an obvious political rumour?

But let’s get to the meat of this email rumour, shall we? Actually, let’s see if there’s really any meat there, or if it’s just a mess of mashed pulses mixed with a handful of masala meant to fool the unsuspecting.

First, is it really newsworthy if Asif Zardari buys a flat in London? Look at other leaders. Pervez Musharraf owns a flat worth many millions of pounds. In fact, many Pakistani politicians own London flats.

The meeting took place at his apartment on the ninth floor of the Castleacre, Hyde Park Crescent.

The cost of the accommodation certainly runs into millions of pounds. Musharraf would not talk much about how he mobilised funds to purchase this because the money was ‘pooled’ by his own lecturing resources, his US-based son, Bilal, and the assistance from a friend that was not named.

It is the same locale, a few meters from the picturesque Hyde Park, where fabulously rich Pakistani politicians like Nawaz Sharif, still have or had apartments. As I reached the high security multi-storey plaza twenty minutes before the appointed time, I was greeted by a well-built Pakistani, wearing the traditional Safari suit of the same colour, and was told that Sahib has just finished his physical exercise, spanning one and a half hours.

Actually, the Sharif family are quite the wealthy landowners in London, with several properties worth millions of pounds each.

Of these, the Sharif family residence, three flats at 17 Avenfield House, 118 Park Lane alone are worth around 12 million pounds (Rs1.6 billion). According to documents available, Flagship Investments Limited, one of the companies run by the Sharif family in London, owns property worth around 10 million pounds in Central London. This does not include the value of the company’s offices. Hasan Nawaz Sharif, the son of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, is listed as the director of company on official documents. According to its website www.flagshipinvestments.co.uk, the company refurbishes and redevelops luxury residential properties in top end Central London locations. Sought after properties in Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Kensington and Bayswater are their primary focus. The company’s address listed on the website is Stanhope House, Stanhope Place, Marble Arch – one of the city’s priciest neighbourhoods. However, according to documents, the company moved to Tower Bridge House on St Katherine’s Way in November 2007 – a much more upscale property located near the bank of the River Thames.

The company’s website lists several properties, which include Flat 8, Burwood Place – London W2, worth 700,000 pounds (Rs96.6 million); Flat 9, Burwood Place – London W2, worth 900,000 pounds (Rs124.2 million); 10 Duke Mansions, Duke Street, London W1, worth 1,495,000 pounds (Rs206.31 million); Flat 12a, 118 Park Lane, Mayfair – London SW1, worth 475,000 pounds (Rs65.55 million); Flat 2, 36 Green Street – London W1, worth 800,000 pounds (Rs110.4 million); and, 117 Gloucester Place, London W1 (value not listed). The website also features a piece of real estate near the Buckingham Palace, which is valued at around 4,450,000 pounds. In addition, one of the properties listed on the website – 841 Neil Gwynne House, Slone Avenue – is said to be the residence of one Waqar Ahmed, listed on the documents as the Company Secretary of Flagship Investments Limited.

MQM’s Altaf Hussain owns multiple million pound properties in the UK. Evan PTI’s Imran Khan’s massive property which includes a private cricket ground for his sons was paid for with the proceeds from a London real estate deal.

Like most world leaders, Asif Zardari is wealthy. This should not be any surprise. And while it is a popular for his political opponents to spread rumours about his wealth, it is also a fact that Asif Zardari was a very successful businessman long before he ever met Benazir Bhutto and got involved with politics.

While there is no evidence that Asif Zardari is the buyer of this flat, the buyer, however anonymous right now, will come to be known. All properties in the UK have to be registered, so even if it is bought in the name of a company, the owner will be easily traceable. Why not wait until the registration is complete to say who the buyer is? Is it because this is now political opportunity to undermine the credibility of the President? That’s fine for political operatives, but not for serious journalists. I expect better, Waj.

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Posted in Blogs | 11 Comments »

Ahmed Quraishi and Flood Contributions

Friday, August 20th, 2010

Ahmed QuraishiAhmed Quraishi’s latest blog post for Express Tribune (why are they giving this discredited conspiracy theorist a platform?) is either a c-grade comedy routine or further evidence that Ahmed Quraishi is willing to ignore facts when they are inconvenient to his political agenda.

Ahmed Quraishi, by his own admission, is a political consultant who is “not a journalist anymore” and supports the jihadis. In short, he is a propagandist. So perhaps it should be no surprise that his blog post today accuses Pakistan’s “rich political elite” of “refusing to budge” and donate to flood relief, except that this claim is so easily demonstrated to be false, we wonder why he even bothered to write it.

According to Ahmed Quraishi,

The Pakistan Army donated one day’s salary of its soldiers, who mostly come from poor backfgrounds, for the relief effort. No politician is yet to take a similar step.

Only problem – that is false. Actually, it was widely reported earlier this month that parliamentarians and cabinet members have donated one-month salary to relief efforts, and 17-Grade government officials will donate one-day salary. Is it too much to ask that Ahmed Qurashi at least read the newspaper before he writes for one?

Ahmed admits in his post that President Zardari has personally donated Rs.6 Millions and the Sharif family has donated Rs.10 Millions to relief funds. His complaint there is both the old “do more” line with the added insult of insinuating corruption by saying that “no one knows how this amount will be spent”.

Ahmed then goes on to condemn MNAs and MPAs both because they have not “been seen in the affected areas helping people or distributing aid”, and for being “shameless politicians …quick to jump in front of visiting TV crews”. Typical Ahmed Quraishi – you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t also!

Ahmed Quraishi’s column is embarrassing for the author as well as the Express Tribune that agreed to publish it. It is based on easily disproven misinformation and scandalous insults backed by no evidence whatsoever.

This leaves only one question. How much, pray tell, has Ahmed Quraishi done to help?

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Posted in Express Tribune | No Comments »

The News (Jang) Uses Double-Standard for PPP, PML-N

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

The News (Jang Group)The News has had a difficult time lately with its star journalists using double standards for politicians that they like and don’t like. Mostly this has been making excuses for PML-N and giving no mercy to PPP. This would be fine if it was only on the opinion page, but rather it has been more and more affecting the entire newspaper. The latest example exposes a bias across the entire news team.

PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif is given front-page coverage for speaking out against the PA resolution against media,when it is his party that is responsible for the measure. Shahbaz Sharif (PML-N) also receives prominent coverage for speaking out against the same resolution despite his party being the source. Meanwhile, PPP MNA Sherry Rehman is only covered briefly inside the newspaper for her statements against the resolution.

But it is not simply this giving more coverage to one political party taking a popular position (in effect an attempt to convey that the other party is not speaking out), there is a distinct double-standard at work if you look at how the newspaper treats PML-N and PPP.

The coverage of PML-N leaders speaking out against the resolution that their own members passed is meant to demonstrate this this was the action of some rogue MPAs who were not following the party line. In fact, The News takes this PML-N talking point at face value in their editorial today.

PML-N leader has called for the expulsion of the mover of the resolution, member of his own party and has accused him of trying to cover up his crime of faking his degree. Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that he ‘cherishes the free media as much as he likes an independent judiciary in the country.’ A belated damage control effort within PML-N appears to be underway.

Obviously, it is possible for some MPAs to act out of turn and The News is perfectly happy to give the benefit of doubt to Nawaz and Shahbaz.

But when it comes to PPP, the standard is different. Instead of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, The News takes the position of ‘assumed guilty’! In an adjacent editorial about a leaked letter that is allegedly by NAB Prosecutor General Irfan Qadir questioning the reinstatement of CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry, The News lays the blame firmly on the PPP.

If they were not the views of the government of Mr Gilani, then whose views were they and what was afoot with Mr Qadir seemingly playing a lone game? NAB is under the control of the Law Ministry which itself is piloted by Law Minister Babar Awan. Presumably the Law Ministry is accountable to somebody at a higher level and who else would that be but the prime minister – unless ministers have been given a freehand? Babar Awan increasingly seems to be a law unto himself.

…

So where does this leave Mr Gilani and his statement that Mr Qadir’s views were not those of his government? They might not be the views of his government, but again, his might not be the only government operational today; which might also explain why the law minister is able to act as he pleases – above or below the law.

Do you see what they have done? Nawaz and Shahbaz are praised for speaking out against out-of-line party members, but PM Gilani is insinuated to be a liar and the government is to be held accountable for any misplaced comma of a PPP member. This is a double standard so obvious that it is hard not to think that The News is acting not as journalism but as propaganda to promote one political party over another.

That is not all. Other so-called ‘journalists’ for The News continue to use innuendo to smear politicians they don’t like (PPP only).

Tariq Butt begins his column about the selection of a new NAB chief by insinuating that PM Gilani is trying to appoint a ‘crony’.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani is incapacitated under the case law and statute to appoint a crony as the chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) because he has to convince two other key consultees about the credentials of such a nominee before notifying his selection, legal experts say.

The remainder of the article discusses the legal process and requirements for appointing chairman of the NAB. There is no presentation of any evidence that Gilani or anyone in government is trying to appoint anyone but the best, most qualified person. Instead, Tariq Butt simply assumes this is the case and smears the PM by implying as much.

The pro-PML-N bias of The News is easily proven today. Obviously, editorial pages are for opinions and the authors can take whatever position they choose. But when the opinions of the reporters and editors are so obviously using double standards and those double standards begin to color the entire reporting – that is not journalism but is political propaganda.

Perhaps Jang Group needs to update the name of its English-language newspaper from The News International to The News (PML-N). Then the readers would at least know what to expect. Better, though, would be for Jang to require some objectivity and fact-based reporting so that The News can be useful to the entire nation, and not only one political party.

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Posted in Jang, The News | 4 Comments »

Is Shaheen Sehbai reporting the news, or trying to manipulate it?

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Shaheen Sehbai’s article in The News today crosses the line from reporting to attempting to influence the public perception of current events. I would not even call this analysis, as mostly it is Shaheen Sehbai making statements without any evidence or sources. I suppose this should come as no surpise after Imran Aslam, president of International Media Corp which owns the Jang Group, admitted that they use anti-government bias to boost their ad revenue. But when are we going to at least require some facts and evidence before allowing all such rumours and biases to be published as if they were facts?

The ridiculousness of Shaheen Sehbai’s latest article is immediately apparent from the title alone. Because he does not make a point that is easily turned into a headline, the editors at The News ended up stringing together a series of statements. At 38 words long one cannot help but laugh.

The politics of Raiwind and the Mian brothers; Sharifs fear mly intervention if they go all out against Zardari; sticking to principles may cost them Punjab govt; with Zardari on the rampage, will the Army be sucked in?

The headline is so ridiculous that it even necessitated shortening words like ‘military’ and ‘government’ to make it fit! Actually, though, the ranting style of the title is perhaps a perfect way to introduce the incoherent rambling that follows.

But let’s take a look at the meat of the matter and decide whether or not Shaheen Sehbai is actually reporting or just making stuff up.

Shaheen Sehbai for the PML-N

Shaheen Sehbai right out of the gate sounds like an official spokesman for PML-N. He claims that the Sharif brothers are caught in a ‘Catch-22′ because they are faced with wanting to maintain order to avoid a military coup while also wanting to stand by their ‘principles’ in opposing the present government. Consider how this is framed by Sehbai:

Their dilemma is complex and not an easy one to resolve. If they go all out against Zardari, they think the military camel will again get the chance to put its neck in the political tent, ultimately driving out the genuine residents into a hot desert sun.

If they do not stop Zardari & Co from the massive plundering of state institutions and misuse of political authority, they run the risk of being left out and have to face the genuine criticism of being the friendly opposition, with the PPP running away with everything.

Shaheen Sehbai refers to the ‘Mian brothers of Raiwind’ but I almost expected him to start calling them the ‘Farishtein brothers’ or maybe just ‘the Angels of Punjab’. How else can one describe it when Nawaz Sharif is described as having “confined himself into such a cocoon of self-righteousness that he has ignored the pressing needs and absolutely essential political maneuvers that he must have already made to keep his party in power”. Suddenly Nawaz Sharif is a dervish, whirling away the days while the evil mastermind is plotting and scheming from Zardari house.

Shaheen Sehbai's "Angels of Punjab"

I will not list the controversies that surround the Sharif brothers. Certainly, they are no angels. But who in politics is a perfect angel? Or has Shaheen Sehbai challenging Ahsan Iqbal as the new PML-N Secretary of Information?

Meanwhile, while he praises the purity of the ‘Angels of Punjab’, Shaheen Sehbai has no problem throwing accusations of the worst sort against the nation’s president. What, for example, does Sehbai mean by “the massive plundering of state institutions and misuse of political authority”? Certainly a writer with the years of experience that Shaheen Sehbai has knows better than to make such accusations with no facts or evidence. If he has some facts about plundering or abuse of authority, please write about those incidents specifically so they may be brought to light. But to simply make serious accusations without being able to point to some specific incident is not reporting, it is only slander.

Shaheen Sehbai Looking Into the Future

And Shaheen Sehbai does not stop there. He goes on to accuse Zardari of plotting to withdraw the 17 March 2009 Executive Order which restored the judges. Again, where is the evidence for such a serious claim? Is Shaheen Sehbai’s crystal ball telling him some magical rumours again? Later in his column Sehbai drops even any pretense of honesty and, instead of pretending there is a rumour about withdrawing an Executive Order, he claims that the government is “threatening to withdraw their Executive order and throw them on the street by Rehman Malik’s executive power”. Who has been threatening? Who has done this alleged act? Or can Shaheen Sehbai not even remember his storyline from a few paragraphs before? First it comes from his crystal ball, then it becomes a threat of Rehman Malik? This is not journalism, this is simply fiction writing.

What is worst, though, is when Shaheen Sehbai tries himself to instigate a military coup. What else could he be attempting when he writes lines like, “the PPP is not worried about any military intervention as privately Zardari and the main PPP stalwarts boast that they have used the Sindh Card in such a way the Army will never dare to touch them again”. Are these ‘PPP stalwarts’ boasting privately to Shaheen Sehbai that the party dares challenge the military? Or his he, perhaps, simply making it up?

Of course, this is nothing new to Shaheen Sehbai who has long tried to instigate the military and government to go to war with each other. For Shaheen Sehbai, they are all just carrom men for his own game playing.

Judge Jury and Executioner

media executioners

Unfortunately, playing political games in the media can have real consequences. We are not all wooden pieces in a parlour game, we are actual people. When so-called journalists like Shaheen Sehbai write these political diatribes that they masquerade as ‘news media’, they can have a dastardly influence on real events.

Jawed Naqvi, writing for Dawn today, tells the story of a media frenzy in India that may result in a man’s death. The man in this case is Afzul Guru, convicted for having some part in the attack on Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001. Though his conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2004, his execution has been postponed while the government hears a petition for clemency due to questions of whether or not he received a fair trail. But here is where things get problamatic.

A notable aspect of the Supreme Court’s judgement centred on its conclusion that the death sentence on Guru was expected to placate “the collective conscience of society”. Now there is only one way in which the collective conscience of the society can be divined without a referendum or an election. It is through the media. The Express evidently is among the chief keepers of the public conscience. Another as it turned out was the NDTV news channel.

Just a few weeks ago NDTV was airing the views of “we the people” who were adamant demanding the public hanging of Guru and Mumbai attack convict Ajmal Kasab. Some wanted their eyes to pop out of the sockets, others pleaded that a jail sentence would better ensure that the recipients went mad with their suffering. As soon as the mercy petition was filed for Guru, NDTV immediately aired his confessional interview. The interview was rejected by the Supreme Court as material evidence. But the keepers of India’s collective conscience – its media – continued to use it to mobilise public opinion against Guru’s mercy plea. Human rights activists saw it as an attempt to influence the Presidential pardon adversely.

Now consider the following passage from Shaheen Sehbai’s column:

Another key confusion which refuses to go away is the perceived threat in the minds of the Sharifs, or Nawaz Sharif in particular, about the threat of military intervention. The Army has walked away from politics and Zardari has realized and capitalized on this, at least so far. He has taken positions which otherwise would have been difficult but he is now confident he can handle the Army. Nawaz Sharif is not so confident, but why?

The answer to this question is simple. Nawaz thinks he would be the one to lose more if a situation was created in which the Army walks back in. But with this fear in mind, he has stopped even playing the normal role an opposition should play. The massive loot and plunder and the spate of stories of corruption, misuse of authority, wastage of funds etc is all going by default with no one to challenge it effectively either in parliament or on the streets. Press conferences and TV interviews cannot stop this rot and this has not yet been understood by Nawaz Sharif.

The Army-PML-N relations and any misunderstandings if they had, should have been cleared when Shahbaz Sharif and Ch Nisar Ali Khan met the Army chief openly, and secretly, several times. Why has that not happened is a mystery but the Sharifs have to realise that the way Zardari is on the rampage, he will ultimately suck the Army in, whether the Sharifs like it or not. So why not check Zardari politically before he makes it impossible and the only way then left is through an outside intervention.

How can this be read as anything but a dangerous attempt to influence both the PML-N to force a coup d’etat?

The Devil in the Detail

And this is where the truth finally comes out. Shaheen Sehbai tells what his true intentions are in the closing paragraphs.

The answer to all this PML-N confusion and dilemma is for Nawaz Sharif to come out of his cocoon, stop worrying about the Army intervention, stand strongly behind the judges and the judiciary, a free media and confront the government by political moves and hard criticism where needed.

The political moves must include forgetting the Charter of Democracy for the moment as it is already irrelevant in the present context, throw the PPP out of his coalition in the Punjab by getting the PML-Q people back through a face-saving formula, giving them importance and attracting others, re-arranging the decks in the NA by forming alliances and mending fences with MQM, ANP and JUI and doing the political act of throwing out the PPP through the democratic process.

It is hard for me to demand that the Charter of Democracy should be buried, as I am one of its initiators, but when signatories do not adhere to the agreements, it becomes redundant by itself. The Sharif brothers must wake up before Zardari and Associates who are claiming that 2013 will the year the PPP will sweep the Punjab, becomes a reality.

Even his ‘Angel’ Nawaz Sharif is merely a carrom man for Shaheen Sehbai’s strategy to instigate a coup d’etat and throw the Charter of Democracy in the dustbin. He would like Nawaz to play his role in the game quickly, though. For Shaheen Sehbai fears that in the 2013 elections, Punjab voters might elect PPP. I suppose this is just too much democracy for Shaheen Sehbai when voters elect the wrong party!

Shaheen Sehbai doesn’t have to be pro-democracy. He can even be pro-coup if he really wants to. This is a democracy and he has the freedom to believe what he wants and vote how he wants. That is his right. But making up stories and using his privileges as a Jang employee in an attempt to manipulate events is both unethical and irresponsible. That’s not journalism, it’s just propaganda. Please, stick to real journalism and stop playing games with people’s lives.

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Posted in The News | 5 Comments »

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