As the debate over illegal immigrant workers who were heading towards Europe via sea, rages on, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has drawn global attention towards intolerance and racism that is unfolding in many European countries. Hussein recently took on the London tabloid The Sun, which referred to migrants as “cockroaches” in an article published on April 17. Hussein has asked all European countries to take a firmer stance on racism. He said that under the guise of freedom of expression, a vicious cycle of vilification, intolerance and politicisation of the immigration issue, as well as of marginalised European minorities, is being allowed. The Sun article described migrants as “a plague of feral humans” and said that some British towns were “festering sores, plagued by swarms of migrants and asylum-seekers shelling out benefits like Monopoly money”. The columnist also advocated using gunboats to stop migrants, threatening them with violence, and said “drilling a few holes in the bottom of anything suspiciously resembling a boat would be a good idea too”. This xenophobic take on the issue even in the face of at least 700 people drowning in the Mediterranean is symptomatic of a latent intrinsic rejection of foreigners by some sections of European society. The post-9/11 Islamophobia has woken up the monsters of intolerance and rejection of foreigners — whom the conservatives view as economic asylum seekers. It is not an unjustified fear but to use this to stir up hysteria even against legitimate victims of conflict is reminiscent of the anti-Semitism that the world witnessed in Nazi Germany. Hussein has talked about the happenings in Hitler-led Germany where the Nazi media, including Hitler himself, used to refer to Jews and communists as rats and cockroaches. Here I would like to draw on a similar instructive episode in the US. On April 22, Brooklyn College held a talk by Pamela Geller, who compared Muslims to pigs and savages....

As the debate over illegal immigrant workers who were heading towards Europe via sea, rages on, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has drawn global attention towards intolerance and racism that is unfolding in many European countries. Hussein recently took on the London tabloid The Sun, which referred to migrants as “cockroaches” in an article published on April 17. Hussein has asked all European countries to take a firmer stance on racism. He said that under the guise of freedom of expression, a vicious cycle of vilification, intolerance and politicisation of the immigration issue, as well as of marginalised European minorities, is being allowed. The Sun article described migrants as “a plague of feral humans” and said that some British towns were “festering sores, plagued by swarms of migrants and asylum-seekers shelling out benefits like Monopoly money”. The columnist also advocated using gunboats to stop migrants, threatening them with violence, and said “drilling a few holes in the bottom of anything suspiciously resembling a boat would be a good idea too”. This xenophobic take on the issue even in the face of at least 700 people drowning in the Mediterranean is symptomatic of a latent intrinsic rejection of foreigners by some sections of European society. The post-9/11 Islamophobia has woken up the monsters of intolerance and rejection of foreigners — whom the conservatives view as economic asylum seekers. It is not an unjustified fear but to use this to stir up hysteria even against legitimate victims of conflict is reminiscent of the anti-Semitism that the world witnessed in Nazi Germany. Hussein has talked about the happenings in Hitler-led Germany where the Nazi media, including Hitler himself, used to refer to Jews and communists as rats and cockroaches. Here I would like to draw on a similar instructive episode in the US. On April 22, Brooklyn College held a talk by Pamela Geller, who compared Muslims to pigs and savages....

As the debate over illegal immigrant workers who were heading towards Europe via sea, rages on, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has drawn global attention towards intolerance and racism that is unfolding in many European countries. Hussein recently took on the London tabloid The Sun, which referred to migrants as “cockroaches” in an article published on April 17. Hussein has asked all European countries to take a firmer stance on racism. He said that under the guise of freedom of expression, a vicious cycle of vilification, intolerance and politicisation of the immigration issue, as well as of marginalised European minorities, is being allowed. The Sun article described migrants as “a plague of feral humans” and said that some British towns were “festering sores, plagued by swarms of migrants and asylum-seekers shelling out benefits like Monopoly money”. The columnist also advocated using gunboats to stop migrants, threatening them with violence, and said “drilling a few holes in the bottom of anything suspiciously resembling a boat would be a good idea too”. This xenophobic take on the issue even in the face of at least 700 people drowning in the Mediterranean is symptomatic of a latent intrinsic rejection of foreigners by some sections of European society. The post-9/11 Islamophobia has woken up the monsters of intolerance and rejection of foreigners — whom the conservatives view as economic asylum seekers. It is not an unjustified fear but to use this to stir up hysteria even against legitimate victims of conflict is reminiscent of the anti-Semitism that the world witnessed in Nazi Germany. Hussein has talked about the happenings in Hitler-led Germany where the Nazi media, including Hitler himself, used to refer to Jews and communists as rats and cockroaches. Here I would like to draw on a similar instructive episode in the US. On April 22, Brooklyn College held a talk by Pamela Geller, who compared Muslims to pigs and savages....

Pakistani politicians, their advisers and bureaucrats are masters of creating deception. Their propensity to inflict crises and shoot themselves in the foot in self-defence also knows no limits. Their latest feat is the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill, 2015. Let us take a look at Section 31 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill. It says that the government could block access to any website “in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality …” Such critical draft legislation passed through the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication under the chairmanship of Captain (retd) Muhammad Safdar, who is not a legal expert with a sharp critical eye for legal lacunas. Committee members did not bother to look into thequestionable wording contained in Section 31 and chose to adopt the Bill in its current form with some cosmetic changes. Without providing adequate definitions to phrases such as “friendly relations with foreign states”, “decency or morality”, etc. the Minister of State for Information Technology, Anusha Rahman, defended the draft bill terming it “necessary to prevent unauthorised acts with respect to information systems”. The intention, she argued, was to effectively prevent cybercrime but the proposed bill continues to draw criticism, and rightly so, by human rights groups. They have called it a direct infringement of the individual’s right to privacy and freedom of expression. Some have even called it a “disaster”, and have asserted that it has apparently been drafted by somebody with inadequate knowledge of the nuances of language and little comprehension of technology. The draft bill lacks safeguards protecting the right to privacy and freedom of expression, which is a violation of Pakistan’s obligations under international human rights laws. It allows the government...

Pakistan will have to overcome a number of challenges to meet the expectations of its ‘iron brother’ President Xi Jinping’s two day visit marked the formal launch of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. What he actually said during his various speeches was simply a reiteration of his vision on regional and global connectivity through rail, road and maritime links across the world. When the Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Central Asia and Southeast Asia in September and October of 2013, he raised the initiative of jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road (hereinafter referred to as the Belt and Road). At the China-ASEAN Expo in 2013, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang emphasized the need to build the Maritime Silk Road oriented towards ASEAN, and to create strategic propellers for hinterland development. A document titled ‘Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road’, issued by China’s joint National Development and Reform Commission (of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Commerce) released on 2015/03/28 says: “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor are closely related to the Belt and Road Initiative, and therefore require closer cooperation and greater progress.” The document reassures that the initiative is not only in line with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter but also upholds China’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence: mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. The Belt and Road Initiative has also seen the China-led emergence of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and a new Silk Road Fund – with a total of some $90 billion established as seed capital by China itself, with a further $60 billion available from other funds....