WARPED ATTITUDES

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/04/24/warped-attitudes/

• How many acid attacks must take place before something is done to prevent them?

Three girls in Gujrat, two of them sisters and all fellow students at university, were critically hurt when acid was thrown over them at a bus stop a few days ago. Their attackers were three men on a motorbike. One of the men was the uncle of the two sisters who were hurt, the other his friend. These two escaped while the third man was caught and handed over to the police.

The reason for the attack was that one of the victims had refused a proposal of marriage.

All three girls were taken to hospital with severe burns.

According to a report in one of the newspapers, ‘between 150 to 400 cases of acid attacks are reported in Pakistan every year. As many as 80 per cent of the victims are women, and almost 70pc are below 18’.

How many attacks must take place before something is done to prevent them?

As horrifying as the attack was a comment following the report in one of the English newspapers, a comment that has since been removed. The comment said: ‘Were they accompanied by male relatives? If not, they deserved it.’ That comment had also been ‘recommended’ by other readers.

Deleting the comment was probably required, since it was, to put it mildly, inappropriate, but deleting it will not remove the attitude. It is such attitudes that cause such attacks, and like a weight tied around a body, sink the country to the bottom of a murky pond. Please don’t point out such attacks happen elsewhere too. That does not excuse what happens here, nor are we in a position to point fingers.

The illustrious person behind the comment lives in an imaginary place where it is required and possible for every woman to have a male protector. It is not required, nor is it always possible. The commenter also missed the fact that one of the attackers was an uncle of one of the victims. Therefore, since uncles invariably tend to be male and related, a male relative did accompany her, and he was the one to attack her.

In other similar cases, the attacker is often a brother, a husband, father or another male relative. Earlier this year a man in Malakand threw acid on his wife and daughter for example. These attackers possess a twisted sense of honour, and are driven to act by something the victim does that is supposed to have damaged that honour. Marrying the man of her choice, for example. Therefore the woman must either be killed or defaced to repair that damage. This is called an ‘honour’ killing. It is time it is called something else, because labels matter.

The rest of the narrative consists of the usual drivel:

In a brainstorming session organised by the HRCP, it was reported that ‘As many as 98 percent of the cases filed by acid attack victims are never decided due to existence of various loopholes in the law’

‘The Punjab chief minister and the inspector general of police directed the police to arrest the suspects within 24 hours.’

And:

‘The chief minister has demanded immediate action to be taken against the perpetrators and has also called for the victims to be provided with the best medical care.’

So, in addition to being a place where such incidents take place with sickening regularity, Pakistan is also a county where the police needs to be directed to do its job, in other words to arrest criminals. It is also a place where (the CM imagines) it is possible for criminals to be caught within a randomly issued deadline. Although that ‘immediate action’ may not taken unless ordered might well be true. It is a moot point who gets at the butt end of that action though.

In addition, Pakistan, for the CM of one of its most populous provinces, is a place where he must order the best medical care for injured persons, otherwise the best medical care will be withheld.

May it be pointed out that what good medical care is available is thanks to the efforts of individuals rather that the government. It is Shaukat Khanum, the Aga Khan Hospital, the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, the Ghurki Hospital, that provide the best care, not the mismanaged government hospitals with their appalling standard of hygiene.

In a brainstorming session organised by the HRCP, it was reported that ‘As many as 98 percent of the cases filed by acid attack victims are never decided due to existence of various loopholes in the law’.

Acid has proven itself to be a weapon as much as a gun or bomb. As suggested by another reader, its sale must be monitored, and made part of a wider de-weaponisation campaign. It is not sufficient for chief ministers and inspector generals of police to ‘take notice’ of such tragedies.  The public certainly notices them. The officials’ job is to act against them. Failing this, they will be failing in their job, as they have.

DIGNITY OF OFFICE?

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/04/17/dignity-of-office/

• Somebody remind them

A judge should always behave in such a manner as to preserve the dignity of the office and the impartiality, integrity and independence of the judiciary.

Global Code of Judicial Ethics 2015

Approved at the International Conference of Judicial independence

There are after all varying degrees of education and values among a country’s population, with resultant questionable professional standards. It is when officials in positions of authority and responsibility also subscribe to those questionable professional standards that the country is in trouble. Sadly, it appears to be an increasing tendency for these officials, persons you would think were educated and trained beyond such behaviour, to overstep their remit, and to do so in an exceedingly ill-considered manner. And most people love it. Which is probably why these officials do what they do, to play to the gallery, like the POTUS who shoots absurd Tweet, after Tweet, after Tweet, topping it with ‘Mission Accomplished!’ after a bombing spree.

In the recent exchange between the CJP and the minister of railways, if readers were able to retain their breakfast long enough to scroll down to the comments, they’d have found several ‘Shabaashes’ for the Head of the Pakistan Judiciary, and several comments expressing the wish that ‘May the Almighty Bless the CJP’. Amen. Although ‘May the judiciary rest in peace,’ would be more applicable.

In case it slipped his mind in the course of his jihad with the minister’s father, as mentioned by the CJP, one may remind the Honourable Chief Justice of Article 3.5 quoted above, which says that judges should always behave in a manner consistent with the dignity of the office and the impartiality, integrity and independence of the judiciary. Although whether there is any dignity, impartiality, integrity and independence left in that branch of government, or any other, is debatable.

The chief justice also slipped up when he praised Lalu Prasad Yadav of India, and held him up as an example. The said Mr Yadav has been convicted of being implicated in three scams, and has recently been jailed for the third

Seeing that the minister of railways is a public servant, may one also remind him of general standards expected of a public servant? Those standards do not include boasting about who his father was. No one cares, or at least no one should care. The only recommendation required is that public servant’s own performance, which is what the CJP has been calling into question in such a refreshing manner.

The incident leads to some interesting points, namely the inability of the public to understand the difference between justice and interference. And the inability of both the public and the judiciary to appreciate the importance of due process.

While it is important for justice to be done, and what is as important, for justice to be seen to be done, the matter does not end there. A certain method must be followed by means of which an offender must be dealt with, following the prescribed procedure. This is called due process. If this is ignored it in itself leads to injustice.

The honourable chief Justice crossed several lines in the course of taking notice of the ministry of railway’s performance, when for example he said he was doing ‘jihad’ in this matter. No sir, this is not a personal matter, you are simply doing your job.

The CJP asked the minister if the court was supposed to allow the minister to remain in his office without contesting elections for twelve years.

It is not up to the honourable chief justice or the court to ‘allow’ a government official to be in office or not. It is up to the people who elect the government to deal with such matters. One expects the CJP to be aware of this.

The chief justice also slipped up when he praised Lalu Prasad Yadav of India, and held him up as an example. The said Mr Yadav has been convicted of being implicated in three scams, and has recently been jailed for the third.

Probably the CJP’s most vulgar stance was when he made oblique references to some place the minister had visited some days ago, to his ‘body language’ at that place, and the ‘type of tea’ he had there. Whither dignity of office?

He also accused the minister for not coming up to the standard of his father, and mentioned that he, the CJP and the minister’s father had ‘done Jihad together.’

The term jihad keeps cropping up. Where does it come into the matter of the performance of the Pakistan railways and its officials?

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/04/11/wheres-the-difference/

Where’s the difference?

For all that they are so viciously against each other, the similarities between right-wing segments of society in Pakistan and the US are astounding. As are the issues created by the two. These similarities would be funny if they were not so disturbing, mindless, violent, destructive, a threat to peace everywhere in the world. It would be wise to perceive these similarities and concentrate on our own shortcomings instead of unceasingly pointing to the other.

Five years ago, at the age of fifteen, Malala left this country, forced to do so for reasons that need not be restated. Two years later, at the age of seventeen she became the youngest recipient of the Noble Peace Prize, awarded for her struggle for the right of children to education regardless of gender. Being female and an outspoken one at that, she instantly became one of the most reviled persons in the country of her birth.

Using the prize money, Malala set up a school for girls in her home town in Swat. The parents of the students at this school are haunted by the genuine fear that militant extremists will target the school as they did its founder, and for the same reasons. They have requested the authorities to deploy security services to protect their children.

Governments are elected to serve the people and to protect their interests. Sadly, the interests they end up protecting are most often their own, which is well understand by groups that play on this tendency

Meantime in the US roughly eighteen shootings have occurred on school campuses this year alone. That averages to about three a week. Fear also haunts parents in the US who wonder if their children are safe in school as they have a right to be, but clearly are not. The government including the president, asked to take measures to make schools more secure, responded by suggesting that teachers should be equipped with guns to provide that security. It is a response that puts that country to shame.

In the US, members of groups that refuse to allow controls on weapons are much more often conservative than liberal.

In Pakistan conservatives are invariably involved in terrorist attacks, ‘religious’ extremists who are armed, and support violence in the name of religion.

In many of these cases, the victims are girls/women and education, the two components of society that appear to attract the ire of conservatives most often. Yet women and education more than anything else help promote peace. When education and women are not allowed to thrive as they should, the entire society suffers. This makes extremism and radicalism the enemy of us all.

Extremism and radicalism, wherever you find them, thrive amidst ignorance. In which case it is ignorance that must be targeted from every angle if anything is to change in this country, or anywhere in the world. And those who support radical extremists should be viewed with suspicion wherever they may be. Schools that educate and do not promote violence must be protected and supported in every way.

In Pakistan, security, the right of every citizen appears to be the right of government officials alone. The entourage that follows ministers and other servants of the people has no right to exist. Those resources should instead be involved in protecting the people, and specifically students since in both the US and Pakistan, countries that on the surface appear so disparate, students take their lives into their hands to gain an education.

In different ways and in the absence of action from their governments, the people of both countries are trying to play a role in minimising weapons. In Pakistan there is ‘Citizens Against Weapons’, a group that is pushing for a weapon free Pakistan and demands the ‘complete withdrawal of weapons from every citizen, regardless of rank, status or affiliation,’ a commendable and ambitious effort.

In the US, the latest shooting in a school in Florida led to the death of seventeen students by a fellow student who is said to have used an AR-15 rifle, a semi-automatic weapon made for military use. He was later arrested and confessed. Afterwards students took the matter into their own hands and demanded that the government protect them. They called for a clamp down on access to weapons. Student led demonstrations called ‘March for our Lives’ across the US and in other countries took place in March this year. In the US alone, turnout was around two million, the largest the US has ever seen.

Commendable as they are, and even though they may prevail on the powers that be to take action to some extent, these movements are not likely to get very far, and are likely to be slow to produce results both in the face of government inaction, and the degree of weaponisation in society.

Governments are elected to serve the people and to protect their interests. Sadly, the interests they end up protecting are most often their own, which is well understand by groups that play on this tendency.

It is a shame that students are forced to demand security from the very people who have been entrusted with ensuring it. And no, this is not something that happens just out there in the US, it is happening right here in Pakistan as well. It is time to examine our own failings and realise how closely they resemble those whom we love to condemn, and work to improve this country that was formed at midnight, as Malala said, but has never managed to shake off the darkness enveloping it.