GOP Vixen

WPW: Pervez's big problem

Check out my World Politics Watch column today on Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf (here in all his Cracker Jack general medals glory), caught "Between a Rock and a Revolution":

"There's an old, really twisted game enjoyed by many journalists: picking which newsmaker will bite the dust next. While aging or druggie celebrities are often fingered first, the global battle of Islamists vs. Infidels adds a whole new crop of candidates to the pool -- namely, Western-leaning leaders who walk around with perpetual targets on their heads.

Like Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who is proving to have nine lives -- or at least a handful thus far, considering the assassination attempts he's escaped -- and whose sudden support of the United States was instrumental in coalition forces being able to rout the Taliban so quickly in neighboring Afghanistan. In return, he's gotten to kibbutz with President Bush and received perks such as the right to buy dozens of F-16s from Lockheed Martin -- a sale that, according to a letter from Condoleezza Rice obtained by Reuters last week, only comes with the condition that 'no aircraft or munitions will be delivered until U.S. officials have determined that all security measures are in place.'

Last week, Imtiaz Sheikh, vice president of the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), opined in Karachi that Pakistan's Parliament and four provincial assemblies will vote to keep Musharraf. The graduate of St. Patrick's High School in Karachi may hang around for a while, if world events don't give political -- or coup-inspiring -- ammunition to his enemies.

As pundits gab about what effect recent conflict in the Middle East will have on midterm elections in the United States, another pressing question is what effect Israel's battles with Hezbollah and the Palestinians will have in other simmering Islamist hotbeds. Will American support for Israel sway moderate voters in 97-percent-Muslim Pakistan to more strongly support an Islamist coalition that would refuse to bed with the Infidels? Is the Lebanon war a strong signal to Musharraf that he can't walk a fine line between a liberalized state and a theocracy forever?

Or -- knowing that his regime is in their sights, too -- is it a wake-up call for Musharraf to stop offering any bit of comfort and shelter to Islamofacsist elements in Pakistan and show that his support for the War on Terror isn't a halfway effort?"

Read the whole thing!

Kinder, gentler journalists

The Pakistani government journalist is out to "soften up" 33 "negative" journalists (as if all journalists aren't negative), hoping to get some better press coverage by buttering up critics. More:

"In a major PR exercise, the government of Shaukat Aziz has prepared a list of 33 columnists, writers and reporters in the English and Urdu print media of Pakistan and assigned its top 'spin doctors' to neutralise the 'negativism' of these writers by making them 'soft and friendly'.          

Understandably, no editor or owner-editor has been so targeted, suggesting that the government thinks it best to directly deal with the troublesome writers than indirectly through their prickly bosses.

The glib new information minister, Mohammad Ali Durrani, will lead his team of spin doctors along with the affable information secretary, Shahid Rafi, to work on the targeted columnists and reporters and 'soften' them up so that their criticism of the Aziz government’s policies and decisions is muted.          

The top Urdu columnist, Irshad Haqqani of Jang, is to be 'softened' up by two top government stalwarts – Information Minister Durrani and the principal information officer   (PIO) of the federal government, Ashfaq Gondal.

Mr Rafi is also tasked with buttering up Khalid Hasan, the Washington-based correspondent of Daily Times and The Friday Times.                    

The others from Daily Times on the government’s 'soft' hit list are Kamran Shafi (columnist) and Irfan Ghauri (reporter). Khaled Ahmad, the contributing editor of TFT, figures prominently in the line-up.

The military’s chief media manager, Major General Shaukat Sultan, has been asked to chasten Kamla Hyat, a human rights activist and columnist of The News. ..."

The Daily Times muses that now that the program is exposed, the government may abandon it. Of course, they may have found the task of creating warm and fuzzy journalists next to impossible. Unless "softening" these troublesome journalists really meant taking them in a dank basement with a lead pipe.

GOP Vixen: No Pakistani government can ever make us "soft and friendly"!

Stoning gets easier in Pakistan!

Pakistan's Daily Times newspaper has the scoop on the government's review and adjustment of Islamic law:

"... The government has decided to retain all Islamic punishments in the Hudood Ordinance, including stoning to death (rajam), lashing and amputation for various offences, but has proposed procedural amendments regarding their applicability.

Daily Times has learned that the Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights has almost finalised the draft of a bill for amendments to the Hudood Ordinance of 1979, with the objective of removing all 'legal and procedural lacunae' in it. Sources in the ministry said that the bill was likely to be presented in the next session of the National Assembly.

... The bill proposes that laws concerning zina (adultery, rape) and qazf (wrongful accusation) be combined as one ordinance, as both offences are interlinked.

Section 17 of the Zina Ordinance regarding the mode of execution of the punishment of stoning to death will be amended. The condition of four eyewitnesses for the imposition of this hadd punishment will also be withdrawn. A new sub-section would be inserted in the ordinance, prescribing a mode for whipping and suggesting the material of which the whip should be made.

The bill proposes the deletion of Section 10 of the Zina Ordinance, so that a person accusing another of zina without proof would automatically be charged by the state for qazf (wrongful accusation)."

Just remember that this is what Islamic fundamentalists want the evil West to live under -- Islamic law with its stonings and amputations and whippings (with new whip regulations in Pakistan).

Pakistan blocks thousands of blogs for Muhammad cartoons

From Reporters Without Borders:

"... Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) ... block(ed) access to twelve websites which posted the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed which appeared in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten.

The PTA on 28 February ordered Internet Service Providers to block the website blogspot.com (or blogger.com), taking down thousands of weblogs hosted by this tool.

... This order from the PTA comes around ten days after a petition calling on the government to ban the spread of 'blasphemous content' through the Internet, was submitted to the Supreme Court. The court on 2 March formally asked the government to take such a step. 

The bloggers network Global Voices, which revealed the case on its site, has been posting information about campaigns launched by bloggers to condemn the filtering.

Local access providers have applied the PTA decision by blocking access to all sites whose URL incorporates blogspot.com, that is all sites hosted by this service. It is however technically possible to ban access solely to a blog causing a problem."

I'd say Pakistan is the problem, not the blogs.

'Class, we're going on a field trip to behead some infidels...'

Kids usually like cartoons, but not in Pakistan. From the Daily Times:

"About 5,000 children chanting 'Hang those who insulted the prophet' rallied against caricatures of Prophet Muhammad on Tuesday, with some torching an effigy of the Danish premier and coffins representing Denmark, Israel and the United States.

At least 5,000 demonstrators, mostly aged between five and 12 years and wearing school uniforms, marched through Karachi chanting 'God is Great', police and witnesses said.

... Accompanied by their teachers, the children were bussed in from local schools, including madrassas, witnesses and officials said.

Some waved placards with the slogans ‘Down with Denmark’ and ‘Boycott Danish products’ as they marched for about half a kilometre from the National Stadium.

One group then set ablaze a cloth figure representing Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister of Denmark, and burned plywood coffins emblazoned with the US, Danish and Israeli flags, an AFP photographer said."

And that, dear readers, is the crazy psycho world's-gone-to-hell story of the day! (By the way, I think the swashbuckling kid in the photo needs a time-out... He's like 9 and scares the hell outta me!)

Another bright day in Pakistan!

I just love this Daily Times, "A New Voice for Pakistan." Their headlines paint a picture of the country unlike any other. Today's:

Rockets fired at military, tower

Pakistan develops short-range missile

No end to violence against women

Bird flu fear hits households

First bird flu death?

‘Education is the only way out’

Five dead, six injured in separate incidents

LHC calls Gogi Butt for five people’s murder

Islamabad — the cinema-less city

Church set on fire in Sargodha

Ash Wednesday

Pakistan: One hot garden spot

I always enjoy finding new and unusual news sources. The other day I stumbled upon the Daily Times, "A new voice for a new Pakistan," from which I grabbed the Pakistani mosh pit photo from the earlier post. You can tell a lot about a newspaper from its headlines -- even if it's a wire story, there is still a copy desk writing the headlines for the page designer, so the paper invariably infuses its "lean" into everything on the page. But in this case, you can tell a lot about just how nice a place Pakistan would be to visit:

Man axes mother to death

Commuting with ill-mannered conductors

Kite string cuts girl’s throat

Text of the Supreme Court Order on kite flying

Girl burns sister to death

6 more bombings rock Loti and Pirkoh

Pakistan tests Hatf-II missile

Churches attacked in Sukkur to avenge ‘desecration’

Oh, and you can't watch the National Geographic channel and 30 other sports, news and entertainment cable channels because they're "contrary to national interest."

I'd like to state for the record that this negative portrait of Pakistan in no way defuses my life goal of taking a whirlwind tour of the 'Stans (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan).

Pakistani protests apparently driven by terror-war opposition

After the dinner-party airstrikes in Pakistan a few days ago, protests were reported in the area. Not surprising. But I took a closer look at photos Al-Jazeera was showing of one protest:

My first thought: How many of those border villagers can write that perfect English on the signs? Then I noticed the "MMA" in the corner: Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. Basically, a coalition against President Pervez Musharraf that opposes Pakistani cooperation in the War on Terror and an Islamist party that wants to establish a theocracy. Not quite the common Pakistani taking to the streets in droves.