Current Projects
Australian Acting High Commissioner visits CRSS- Sabawoon program at Radio Pakistan,Peshawar
The Acting High Commissioner of Australia, H.E Jurek Juszczyk, visited on Monday 29 June, 2015, the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) “Sabawoon” program at the Radio Pakistan office and studios, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He was welcomed by the CRSS and Radio Pakistan teams, and briefed by Aized Ali, Director Media & Communication, CRSS and Shamsul Qamar, Sabawoon Executive Producer (CRSS). Sabawoon (a pushto language program) meaning ‘New Dawn’ has been a successful CRSS ongoing project since 2011 in partnership with the Radio Pakistan. The programs are produced and aired five times a week, Monday to Friday, between 3:00 and 4:00 pm, simultaneously from three FM stations of the state-broadcaster - Radio Pakistan – in Peshawar; AM 1170 KHz, FM 101.5 and DI-Khan 711 KHz. The main objective of the programs is to promote liberal, progressive, democratic discourse for de-radicalization in the society, and address radicalized mindset through an alternative narrative embedded in the universally practiced democratic, inclusive values. Other objectives of the shows include: to empower the women towards their political, economic and social rights; to promote a culture of tolerance and coexistence and to counter the religious extremists’ narrative of exclusion and bigotry; to raise awareness among the youth and women about the benefits of a democratic and developed society by engaging influential people of the areas for a discourse on social, political and development issues impacting their daily lives. The Acting High Commissioner was given an overview of the CRSS initiatives. The CRSS takes pride in being one of the few civil society organizations that took up radio as a means for community-focused strategic communication on issues such as militancy, counter-radicalization, promoting democratic values, harmony, and tolerance all over Pakistan, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. These shows highlight the sanctity of the Federal...
The Role of Human Rights in Counter-Terrorism Strategies
The Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD) held a side event on June 25, 2015 during the UN Human Rights Council summer session at Geneva, Switzerland. The discussion also looked at the challenges of incorporating the human rights perceptive into national security strategies at a policy level, but also at the tactical level. As well as to address the role of the UN Human Rights Commission and civil society organisations in pursuit of implementing effective safeguard mechanisms. The title of the event was to explore as to what extent human rights should factor into strategic decision making and counter-terrorism policies. The session was moderated by Dr. Josè Sanmartin, Alicante University, Spain; and addressed by the Syrian intellectual and human rights activist Dr. Haytham Manna and Mr. Imtiaz Gul, Executive Director, CRSS. Both Manna and Gul were given a set of questions to address. Both agreed that geo-politics had given birth to state-sponsored terrorism and extremist movements which have become existential threat to many states and destabilizing for others. They pointed out that terrorism and extremism, coupled with bad governance, had led to marginalization of youth and minority groups in many countries. The increasing marginalization born out of conscious political motives is also preventing real mitigating strategies, they said. At the same time the status quo in countries such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, Egypt is also pushing many young me into radicalization which eventually prompts them to join Al-Qaeda or ISIL. Drone attacks, torture as an instrument of policy, illegal renditions and circumvention of law by setting up detention centers in third countries, they said, also flew in the face of the West's oft-peddled rule of law advocacy, the speakers pointed out. Dr.Manna underlined the need for redefining the social contract in some of the embattled countries and the imperative for connecting the common people with the government through a more...
Now or Never
Recall that famous speech of Altaf Hussain’s in which he exhorted his community to sell their TV sets and buy arms. The MQM was never a political party in the accepted sense of the word. Beneath its surface lurked the spectres of violence and terror. The Taliban, who arrived on the national scene much later, were able to terrorise the tribal areas along the Pak-Afghan border. Altaf Hussain’s success was more spectacular. He terrorised and held in his iron fist Pakistan’s largest city and only port, its commercial and business capital, the exit and entry point of all its exports and imports. For well over three decades he was the unchallenged king – the less charitable would say the don – of Karachi and much of urban Sindh. No martial law could compete with the hold the MQM exercised over the Karachi media – no media house, no TV channel, no newspaper, daring to go against the whims and wishes of this self-proclaimed ‘secular and liberal’ party. Just as in days gone by, newspapers would not name the ISI, much of the national media would refer to the MQM in an oblique and roundabout manner. And when Altaf Hussain got it into his mind to deliver another of his interminable telephonic addresses, he could go on for hours – yes, hours – and his rambling, often punch-drunk discourses would be carried live by all TV channels. This was the extent of his power, and this the glory. Now it hasn’t gone but it is under unprecedented threat, with an ongoing murder investigation and money laundering charges not before a Pakistani court – which would have been easy to settle – but before the London authorities. The MQM also faces internal pressures. The over-touted former mayor of Karachi, Mustafa Kemal, has embraced the safer shoreline of Dubai. The MQM coordinating committee has been shuffled and reshuffled in recent months. And two suspects in the Imran Farooq murder case are in the custody of the authorities, awaiting the recording of their testimony. If all this was not...
Terrorism, Governance and the Police
Would the Pakistani military and the paramilitary forces be performing the policing and anti-corruption function had the police and affiliated institutions been autonomous? Would the police be more professional and effective had the political elite supported the Police Order 2002? Perhaps yes. Should the police have a federally unified service structure to be able to effectively fight the religion-motivated trans-nationalist monster of radicalisation? Can the police today really cope with the multiple crises that the Pakistani society is caught up in? And would the police in Pakistan be able to work as the primary bulwark against crime, corruption and terrorism without real political will? Probably not. This is the conclusion of two recent publications on the correlation of governance, counterterrorism and the police. The rise of terrorism and the increasing reliance on the police for governance issues, including massive protocol duties, have only added to the problems that the police faces. Two recent research studies, “Politics of Police Reforms in Pakistan” (Rozan) and “Counter-Terrorism and Pakistan Police: capacity and challenges” by the Centre for Research & Security Studies Pakistan, have attempted to highlight how the absence of political will and resistance to reform from within has stunted the growth of a professional, people-friendly deterrence force, and instead has rendered the police as a feared, rather than favoured, state institution. These studies draw on the rich experience of prominent working and former police officials and jurists, and underscore that following the tragic events of 9/11, Pakistan had the opportunity to strengthen, standardise and harmonise its policing laws that rested on the Police Act of 1861. General (retd) Pervez Musharraf did attempt to bring about some change through the Police Order of 2002. But subsequent changes to the Order in 2004 defaced it. Also, Balochistan and Sindh went back to the Act of 1861, while Punjab...
Minority Matters
One year after a landmark Supreme Court judgment asking the government to protect religious minorities, there has been little progress on its implementation One year ago, on June 19, 2014, former chief justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani gave a landmark judgment asking the government to protect the rights of Pakistan’s religious minorities. He ordered the government to implement seven steps: 1. Constitute a task force at a federal level to develop a strategy for promoting religious tolerance 2. Develop appropriate curricula for primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education that promote religious harmony and tolerance 3. Curb hate speech in social media 4. Constitute a national council for minorities 5. Establish a special police force to protect the worship places of minorities 6. Enforce the 5 percent minority quota in government jobs 7. Prompt action, including registration of a criminal case, whenever constitutional rights of religious minorities are violated or their worship places are desecrated The judgment also bound the Supreme Court to continuously pursue the implementation of the judgment by saying that “the office shall open a separate file to be placed before a three member bench” to ensure that “this judgment is given effect to in letter and spirit”, and that it may also “entertain complaints/petitions relatable to violation of fundamental rights of minorities in the country.” The National Action Plan devised after the Army Public School massacre in Peshawar addressed the protection of religious minorities without taking into consideration this judgment. One year later, the federal government has not taken any measures to constitute a “task force” to deal with religious intolerance. According to the Express Tribune, the Punjab higher education department informed the SC bench hearing under this case last December that a committee had been constituted that had given seven recommendations on curriculum reforms. The SC bench was told that “myopic...
A Month’s Lifeline: No Prisoners to be sent to the Gallows during Ramazan
As many as 180 convicts in the country have been executed during the last six months. The Ministry of Interior Affairs has now announced a moratorium on executions till Eidul Fitr out of respect for Ramazan. In a notification issued on June 13, the ministry imposed the moratorium and requested all provincial governments to comply with the order. Punjab has been leading in the number of executions carried out so far, 153, followed by Sindh, 15, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 5, Balochistan, 5, and Mirpur Central Jail (AJK), 2. Of these, 23 were convicted of terrorism and 25 were tried under the Anti-Terrorism Act for heinous crimes including multiple murders, murder-robbery and gang rape. The remaining 132 convicts were executed on orders passed by additional district and sessions courts for crimes including robbery, kidnap for ransom, rape, and murder to settle personal scores. Tipu Salman Makhdoom, an advocate of the Supreme Court, said Pakistan had alienated itself in the comity of nations by lifting the moratorium on death sentence. He said several international human rights organisations had condemned the policy and Pakistan risked losing the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Plus status. “Our criminal justice system is marred by police torture, poor legal representation, and unfair trials…these are some of the reasons behind the barrage of criticism against death penalty.” Makhdoom said there were also cases which failed to meet international standards for fair trial – these include cases in which the police adds Section 7 of the ATA to FIRs that have nothing to do with terrorism. Yet the courts do not question this practice, said Makhdoom. “Frequently, confessions are obtained through torture.” As many as 8,000 prisoners have been languishing in various prisons of the country waiting for black warrants to be issued – many of them have been in jails since the ’90s. As many as 5,472 death row prisoners, including 47 women, are incarcerated in the 25 Punjab prisons....
Perils of Covert Operations
The debate over the June 9 raids by the Indian Army’s Special Forces against two northeastern insurgent groups on Myanmarese territory has produced two main reactions. The first, from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s diehard supporters, is triumphalist; it trumpets the operation’s “great” success. The second reaction defends covert operations in principle, but believes that publicising them is unwise, even self-defeating. The first view’s proponents defend bellicose rhetoric and hashtags like #ManipurRevenge and #56inRocks used by junior information minister Rajyavardhan Rathore. They hold it was necessary to publicise the operation’s details – against military rules – because India must send out a signal not just to the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang), but to all the “hostile elements in the neighbourhood” that its national security approach has undergone a sea-change under its “56-inch-chest” leader, who wants to end “a thousand years of servility masquerading as civility”. This argument is puerile. It comprehensively misunderstands both history– India as we know it was not one nation for a thousand years – and contemporary geopolitics. Military machismo and cross-border adventures aren’t the chosen means through which nation-states express strategic confidence. And it’s not by violating their neighbouring states’ sovereign borders that they build healthy relations with them, which are key to their own security. After the Khaplang faction killed 18 of India’s Dogra Regiment troops on June 4 in Manipur, India could have conducted a joint operation against the Naga guerrillas with the Myanmar army, with which it has had good relations even during the long years of Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s detention. India entered into ceasefire agreements with both the Isak-Swu-Thuingaleng-Muivah (IM) and Khaplang factions of the NSCN in 1997 and 2001. It had ample opportunity to renew the ceasefire with Myanmar-based Khaplang which ended in March. Alternatively, it...
A Tale of Two Brothers
On December 16, 2014, Sher Shah and Ahmed Shah left their home to attend classes at the Army Public School in the Peshawar Cantonment, just two kilometers from their home. Only Ahmed returned. Sher was killed along with 140 others. He was sixteen. That morning, the Taliban militants jumped over the boundary wall in the back of the school, and laid siege to several buildings in the school compound. It was revealed later that the barbaric incident included indiscriminate firing into crowds of young children, and immolating teachers in front of their students. All in all, 141 people were killed, 132 of them children, in one of the most atrocious, heinous attacks in Pakistan’s history. The event forever changed the security landscape in Pakistan, leading to the National Action Plan (NAP) to combat terrorism and extremism. Tufail Khattak, their father, was home that day. When news first broke out of a siege on television, he rushed to the school to try and find his boys. “It was madness,” he says. “The Army had cordoned off the area. Parents were clambering over one another to gain any information about their children.” In a state of confusion and panic, Khattak made calls to relatives and dispatched a few to the local hospitals, including Lady Reading Hospital and the Civil Military Hospital. “I saw parents receive news of their children’s death, people were crying, people were pleading for information, no one knew anything.” A few hours later, Khattak received a call from his younger son, who had been rescued from a different gate at the school. Ahmed had borrowed a stranger’s phone and dialed his father. Khattak asked him if his brother was with him. “He was mostly incoherent, but he had not seen his brother, that much was clear. I can’t explain how that felt, knowing one of your sons is alive and the other is missing.” By this point in the siege, most of the children had been rescued by authorities. Those missing were steadily being reported as dead. “It took us a...
Encirclement?
Modi’s plans against Pakistan are not good for the region. Phone calls by Narendra Modi to Nawaz Sharif, Hasina Wajid and Ashraf Ghani on June 16 notwithstanding, there is little doubt that if an encircle-Pakistan plan ever existed, its execution is nearly complete – at least as of now – pushing the prospects for resumption of a normal India-Pakistan dialogue further away. The string of statements from Modi, his foreign and defense ministers, as well as Ajit Doval, the former spymaster and now the national security advisor, in the last three weeks, the vitriolic Pakistan-bashing in Kabul, and the continued demonization of Pakistan in Dhaka reflect a well-knit string of fire around Pakistan. This encirclement – if planned the way it appears today – does not bode well for the south Asian region, with a fragile Afghanistan still caught up in the vicious cycle of the religiously-driven insurgency. Unfortunately, Afghanistan has upstaged Kashmir and emerged as the critical link in what could be called the triangle of tribulation consisting of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan – a region currently being stoked by the nationalist Modi, ably supported by an intelligence mindset. Coincidentally, Modi’s Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina Wajid minces no words and spares no opportunity in demonizing Pakistan. Her narrative revolves around Pakistan-bashing – wherever and whenever possible. And this fits into nationalist Indians’ recipe on how to deal with Pakistan. “We all have to remain vigilant so that those Pakistani collaborators (Khaleda Zia’s BNP) can’t get back to power, kill people and play with the fate of the masses,” the prime minister told a discussion organized to commemorate the “Martyred Intellectuals Day” on December 14. In February 2014, Doval had practically outlined what we see today – in the 10th Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture to Indian students at SASTRA University. Ajit Doval advocated the use of what he termed a “defensive offensive mode”, a “fourth...
Cyber-Crime Bill: 'Angels' play the Devil’s Advocate to defend Civil Liberties
When young students can get up in front of an audience and argue in favour of a new law theyoppose, you know democracy and tolerance are at work. This was the beauty of a debate held on the new cyber-crime bill on Tuesday by people who want us to make informed decisions about the laws that govern us. We will present both sides and you decide if this law protects your rights or violates them, they said. The debate was organised by the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan (Pilap), which was created in 2011 on the lines of the American Civil Liberties Union, whose biggest victory was desegregating America’s schools in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Pilap hopes to be able to not only identify issues but also create a mechanism for their resolution, explained its lawyer Summaiya Zaidi. For example, they have filed a petition to increase the budget for the judiciary to enhance the capacity of courts. Read: Voicing concern: Cyber crime bill continues to attract criticism The idea for a debate on the cyber-crime bill came from a young lawyer, Hassaan bin Shaheen, of the Debating Circuit, Karachi’s only debating union. Bin Shaheen, lawyer Yelmaz Mujtaba, IBA student Sarosh Hasan and LUMS student Humza Jami were arguing for the bill. Opposing it were IBA student Abdullah Qureshi Abdullah, law student Kazi Haseeb, McGill student Sabir Ikram and LUMS student Saif Shahid. The judges were Pilap president Saad Amanullah Khan, Madiha Latif of Bolo Bhi and Ahmed Karim of Cedar College. Arguing in favour of the bill, Mujtaba referred to the attack on the Army Public School. “Pakistan is in the middle of a civil war,” he said. “Terrorists use the cyber sphere and the power of the internet in order to perpetrate heinous crimes.” The only problem, argued Kazi Haseeb, is that the new bill strikes at a person’s right to criticise the government. “If we are in a state of war, isn’t it more important to criticise the [government and agencies]?” he asked. Saif Shahid added...
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I am also a member of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. Recently, we held a meeting with the Director General of Radio Pakistan and we told them to initiate such local programs (like Constituency Hour) in regional languages to educate and inform people. Even Indian Radio can be heard in FATA which is being used for propaganda purposes and must be closed. Therefore, we should launch some standard and quality programs like CRSS that will change the taste of the listeners.