Pakistan army's agent Irfan speaks about Pakistani crminal activity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJF2v3f19ds

The fascist attitude of the Iranian regime towards the natives in its s "Sistan va Balochistan".

The fascist attitude of the Iranian regime towards the natives in its south eastern province of "Sistan va Balochistan". Unfortunately, it is in farsi / persian (indeed a must read for the capable). Basically, in short, it reads: the regime has introduced a brand new "state of the art" (according to them selves)DNA testing facility in Zahedan, the provencial capital, to test the Baloch for "illegal immigration". As always its intentions are "pure and noble", and in "accordance to the locals' interests.

An interesting / shocking / rascist, nevertheless anticipated move by a persian supramist (and extremist) regime (sadly, it is a more sophisticated continuation of the policies of previous rulers, introduced by the Shahs). Annually scores of natives, Balochs, are denied national identity certificates under the pretext of being "foreigners" in their own land (ironical twist; the actual immigrants branding the natives as non-locals!). At the same time outsiders, mainly from the persian ethnic group, are encouraged to settle and start businesses in Balochistan on favourable terms . . .

http://www.nikshahr.com/post/2366 

Barack Obama pays homage to Nelson Mandela on visit to South Africa.

US president calls Mandela 'an inspiration to the world and a personal hero' and meets members of his family

 

S president Barack Obama speaks at a press conference in Pretoria with South African leader Jacob Zuma. Photograph: Gary Cameron/Reuters

Barack Obama has paid homage to Nelson Mandela in his first visit to South Africa since coming to power, describing the country's first black president as an "inspiration to the world and a personal hero".
The US president praised the "moral courage" of Mandela, 94, who remains in a stable but critical condition in hospital, and encouraged other African and world leaders to follow his example.
Referring to Mandela by his clan name, Obama praised his role in steering the country through its historic transition from apartheid to democracy: "Madiba's moral courage … has been a personal inspiration to me. It has been an inspiration to the world."
Obama met members of Mandela's family privately in Johannesburg on Saturday.
The meeting at the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, part of the former South African president's foundation, lasted for about half an hour. The White House said Obama had met two of Mandela's daughters and eight grandchildren.
Speaking earlier at a joint news conference with the South African president, Jacob Zuma, Obama said: "The outpouring of love that we've seen in recent days shows that the triumph of Nelson Mandela and this nation speaks to something very deep in the human spirit, the yearning for justice and dignity that transcends boundaries of race and class and faith and country.
"That's what Nelson Mandela represents, that's what South African at its best represents to the world, and that's what brings me back here."
Zuma paid tribute to Obama and Mandela, saying they were "bound by history as the first black presidents of your respective countries.
"Thus, you both carry the dreams of millions of people in Africa and in the diaspora who were previously oppressed," he said.
Zuma said Mandela was "critical but stable", adding: "We hope that very soon he will be out of hospital".
The prospect of a meeting between the first black presidents of the US and South Africa has receded since Mandela was taken to hospital with a recurring lung infection three weeks ago. But on Friday Obama indicated it had not been ruled out. "We'll see what the situation is when we land," he told journalists on board Air Force One.
"I don't need a photo op, and the last thing I want to do is to be in any way obtrusive at a time when the family is concerned about Nelson Mandela's condition.
"I've had the opportunity to meet with him. Michelle and the girls had an opportunity to meet with him. Right now, our main concern is with his wellbeing, his comfort, and with the family's wellbeing and comfort."
Obama is due to visit Soweto, the sprawling township where Mandela used to live, on Saturday. On Sunday he will head to Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years.
Eusebius McKaiser, a political analyst and radio talkshow host, said a meeting between Obama and Mandela would be undesirable. "Nelson Mandela is incredibly frail and in the process of possibly dying," he said.
His "bodily demise" should not be confused with his political legacy, McKaiser added, arguing that Obama should keep the latter alive through speech and action rather than "trying to engage his legacy by being physically present".
The leader of the world's dominant superpower can seldom have found himself reduced to a sideshow on foreign shores. McKaiser said: "Obama would never be overshadowed domestically in any country as he is by Madiba.
"Nelson Mandela is such a larger-than-life figure that the only way Obama seems to be able to get press coverage of his African tour is when he talks about Nelson Mandela. That's quite remarkable when you consider the geopolitical importance of the US presidency."
Obama and the first lady have a busy schedule over the weekend, but media reports said it could be torn up should Mandela die.
An Obama camp source quoted in South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper said: "If something happens, we're not going to continue with some of the events. At this point, we're watching the news closely on Mandela."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/29/barack-obama-nelson-mandela

Sabah Sarawak Keluar Malaysia (SSKM): Doris Jones Part 1

Baluch Youths and the Baluch Liberation Movement - Part 3.

One of the salient features of colonialism is the monopoly of education. Provision of education in the language dictated by the imperial authorities can also synergistically reinforce the colonial rule. In a manner reminiscent of the extinct nations, delivery of education completely in the language of the colonial state is another calculated policy to obliterate the invaded nation gradually. Substituting the native language with a colonial language is a malignant expedient policy.

By destroying the native language of the subjected nation, the colonial rulers are well aware that they can steadily weaken the subjugated nation’s resistance and their demand for breaking free from the bondage of colonialism. They are conscious of the fact that language is the interconnecting network of a nation’s cultural, moral, aesthetic, legal, social and economic identity. The occupying states know well enough that a national identity would not be annihilated easily without destruction of the native language of the occupied nations. They know that the youths of the subjugated nations cannot be indoctrinated with a false history and identity without the destruction of their native languages.

Underachievement and low skills of children under occupation are the inevitable concomitant of giving unfair disadvantage to these children by denying them to be educated in their mother tongue. From the account which has been given it follows that colonial rulers in pursuing this policy will proactively undermine the potential abilities of these children and will damage their future prospects forever. One matter of great importance that bears the full force of this impervious malicious design is that the potential contributions of these children to their homeland will be lessened severely. In addition, they cannot express their demands and democratic rights fully when they reach at their rebellious age. They will be less confident and even may show a sense of inferiority complex about their origin, culture, language and the past history. This will be followed by being engulfed by a gloomy cloud of capitulation, despondency, failure, dependency and servitude behaviour.

Another instrument of prolonging subjugation is by means of spreading addiction among the youths of the subjected nation. Baluchistan is a tragic case where thousands of Baluch youths are the victims of this deliberate criminal policy. Traditionally Baluch have been strongly against the use of addictive drugs.

This terrible malaise in Baluchistan has taken root in the last thirty years. During the same period we see the birth and growth of a whole new nationwide national democratic liberation movement in Baluchistan. Both the occupying Islamic states of Pakistan and Iran have been using this instrument of destruction to undermine the potential power of Baluch youths from playing a role in the liberation movement.

Falling in the dungeon of addiction will also give spurious self-justification to the colonial rulers. These rulers would claim in their propaganda machine that if it were not for their presence in Baluchistan a larger number of Baluch youths would descend into this quagmire. In other words they imply that Baluch people are irresponsible, unreliable and unable to remedy their social defects themselves. By splitting this fabricated deceit down the middle, the colonial establishment hang the both sides of this falsehood over the neck of the Baluch nation. They lay the blame all together on the Baluch as the cause and effect of their devastation. But this accusation is far from reality. The truth, in its totality, is obviously more complex but the hand of occupying states in spreading this malaise at the same time is undeniable. There are many historical records, cases and conclusive evidence of colonial powers direct involvement in employing addiction as an instrument of suppression.

One of the main causes that some Baluch youths are turning to illicit drugs is due to the presence of chronic level of unemployment. The Baluch youths live in a real predicament that is designed and implemented by these states. On one hand the Baluch youth are unable to acquire proper education and hence cannot get a proper job. Out of desperation these youths resort to drugs and petty crime.

The shattered state of education is so apparent that even the occupying establishments have been admitting their gross negligence and underinvestment in this sector. The crisis is so big that it cannot be hidden. The rareness of educational institutions and the poor quality and paucity of resources allocated to this sector is too visible that it cannot escape one’s attention. Compounding this problem is the fact that as Baluchistan is kept so poverty stricken - only very few Baluch families are able to afford even the type of education that is currently available. Among Baluch students there are also those students who are prevented from continuing their education since these youths or a member of their families are known to be a member of Baluchistan resistance movement.

Furthermore, the occupying states, their security forces and their proxies have created an unstable and insecure environment that is not conducive for Baluch youths to peruse their education in Baluchistan. The degree of insecurity and prospect of not getting anywhere with one’s education is such that their education will not just help them in their social, economic, intellectual, cultural well-being - instead it may bring them more misery, unemployment, poverty, displacement and conflict with corrupt Sardars, colonial and religious authorities. The causal consequence of this policy comes to nothing less than the negation of an effective culture of learning.

Even if you pass all these stages and you happen to be a well-qualified for the few jobs that are offered in the public sector your chance of getting one is almost second to none. These jobs tend to go to the cronies of the occupying states and security forces who tend to be non-Baluch. For those small numbers of Baluch that happen to get a job in this sector, they either get it by accident or are carefully selected. The number of these individuals is usually insignificant. Those who are selected by the colonial rulers are among specific social groups. The hard core of this group is tend to be selected from the most timid, subservient, religious, ignorant, corrupt, and criminal section of Baluch society. These individuals are not at all concern about the human and democratic rights of Baluch people and nation.

A little reflection on the stringent conditions of colonial policy of education in Baluchistan shows that it is fragmentary and replete with contradictions. This can hardly be called a satisfactory educational system. Many of its functions run counter to the interests of Baluch youths and Baluchistan. After all, its underlying purposes consist of two complementary elements. The primary purpose is to keep educational system as underdeveloped as possible and secondly to employ the scanty education provided to promote their colonial beliefs.

The prevalent colonial geopolitical systems in Baluchistan can maintain their domination so long as the Baluch youths are not legally, socially and politically informed about their democratic rights, interests and well-being. That is why, at one level, most of those lucky Baluch youths who completed their education find themselves in a dead-end situation. Soon after completion of their education they discover a life that involves isolation and unemployment. At another level, they are lacking the skills that their parents and grandparents employed for their survival. So they are being barred from both worlds. The severe economic hardship then leaves not many options in their disposal. The struggle for bare necessities and survival will unavoidably distract their thoughts and daily activities away from their rights and their opposition to subjugation. This is exactly what the colonial powers and establishment wish for. The end result of this policy only prolongs the period of bondage and subjugation.

To be continued…

Dr Shahswar K is a Baloch political and Human Rights activist, and the co-ordinator of International Voice for Baloch Missing Persons in United Kingdom. He is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at London Metropolitan University, UK. He is the author of "Money and its Origins".
http://balochwarna.com/features/articles.82/Baluch-Youths-and-the-Baluch-Liberation-Movement---Part-3.html#.Uc9oCscukws.facebook 

ISLAM will Collapse in 10 Years : Ex-Muslim .

"میر محمد علی تالپور کا بلوچ نوجوانوں کےنام 1 پیغام"

"میر محمد علی تالپور کا بلوچ نوجوانوں کےنام 1 پیغام"

بلوچ نوجوان اپنی جوانی ضایا نہ کریں بلکہ اپنی جوانی کو آزادی کے عظیم مقصد کے لیے سرف کردیں، پڑھئے اور اچھی اور معیاری تعلیم حاصل کریں، کیونکہ آننے والے دنوں میں بلوچ قوم کو شعوری و تعلیمی لوگوں کی سخت ضروت ہوگی، ہماری عقل، تعلیمی صلاحیتں، قابلیئت ذاتی اثاثہ نہیں بلکہ قومی اثاثہ اور قومی امانت ہیں، لہٰذا ان کو قومی زندگی کی تعلیم اورمقصدیت کے لیے بروئے کار لائے اور نوجوان اپنی تمام تر عمل تعلیم اور شعور کے زریعے۔۔
جدوجہد کو ایک قومی فرض سمجھ کر اسے بخوبی نبانے کی کوشش کریں اور ان کو سمجانا ہوگا ہماری محنت کا ایک ہی ثمر ہے وہ آزادی، " "We Can Nom Afford To Relex" ہم یہ نہیں کرسکتے کہ کام چل رہا ہے بس چلنے دو بلکہ بلوچ نجوان کو محنت کرنی ہوگی اور ہر گزرتے دن کے ساتھ وہ نئی تعبیر اور بہترین حل کے بارے میں سوچے اور اس کو درایافت کریں، بہترین علم حاصل کریں، متعدد رائے اور ایک دوسرے کو ساتھ ساتھ لے کر چلیں۔۔!!!

Balochi Short Film GARR GARR ( گڑگڑ ) With English Subtitles - The Ending

The Face of Buddhist Terror against Muslims - TIME Magazine cover.

Why Afghans want Indians to stay and Americans to leave.?

Just remember what many Tories thought of Nelson Mandela in the apartheid years

Great Nilson Mandela 

As the vigil continues outside the hospital, we don't know how close to the final freedom Nelson Mandela is. But after the strange denials that this old, sick man is dying I want to talk not with pity but of his power. Before the pygmy politicians line up to pay tribute to this giant, I want to remember how he lived so much for so many. Part of my memory is that he was not a living saint to the very people whose staff will now be writing their "heartfelt" speeches.

Really, I have no desire to hear them from leaders of parties who described his organisation as terrorist, who believed that sanctions were wrong, whose jolly young members wore T-shirts demanding he be strung up. Of course, not all Tories were pro-apartheid, but I can already feel the revisionism revving up.

So we must recall how it really was. The struggle against apartheid was the one thing that unified the left. I came to it accidentally. Isn't that how politicisation happens sometimes? Via extraordinary people, unlikely meetings, chance encounters?

Like this one: in 1981 I had just come back from travelling around South America and got a job in a care home with Haringey Social Services in north London. Some of the local kids were in big trouble – the girls were on the game at 14, the boys breaking into houses and stealing cars. A large, in every sense of the word, African woman became my ally there. She was always encouraging them to be lawyers despite their constant truanting. We were an unlikely pair, but she believed in "discipline" and I believed in "manners" so we would talk late into the night. She was one of the poshest people I had ever met – she drank Perrier water, which at that time was exotic beyond belief. Sometimes she would weep after receiving calls from South Africa and talk of murders and assassinations. Sometimes she would take me out for cocktails and get diplomatic cars from embassies to take me home. Her name was Adelaide Tambo, the wife of Oliver. They were the exiled leaders of the ANC.

I began to know what this meant. How Mandela had ridden to power in 1952 in the Defiance Campaign, how he was harassed and, of course, finally taken to Robben Island. To that tiny cell. The Tambos had to leave much later. One night she called me as she was locked out of her house in Muswell Hill. "Can't you just break a window? "No Suzanne," she said. "The windows are all bullet proof glass." That's how they lived.

This personal introduction to the ANC is my story but everyone I knew opposed apartheid. Indeed, who could support such barbarism? This was more than racism – there is only one race, called the human race. Botha's regime did not regard black people as humans but as animals.

By 1984 Jerry Dammers had written Free Nelson Mandela. But apartheid continued to exist, propped up by the Tories. Some of their elder statesmen, such as Norman Tebbit, still see Thatcher's policy as a success. David Cameron denounced it in 2006, saying she had been wrong to condemn the ANC as terrorists and to have opposed sanctions. Too late for those veteran campaigners such as Peter Hain, who had seen the massacres in the townships and knew it was a life-or-death struggle.

Indeed, when I saw Mandela in later years having his garden surreally being "made over" by Alan Titchmarsh or being cuddled by random Spice Girls, I wondered if they had ever heard Gil Scott-Heron's Johannesburg (1975) or been at the anti-apartheid demos outside the South African embassy where we were all kettled.

When we hear Cameron's inevitable tribute, don't forget that in 1989, aged 23, he went on a "jolly" to South Africa paid for by a firm that did not want sanctions busted. This does not mean he supported apartheid, but by then it would have been impossible not to know of the regime's brutality. Many people knew, and boyotted South African goods.

I see Dylan Jones, a Cameron fan, has written a book on Live Aid, defining the 80s as caring: more anodyne revision. The key concert of the 80s was the more political and consciousness-raising Free Nelson Mandela one, not long after. Mandela himself was there on stage with that smile that came from the centre of the Earth. The glare of his grin made us cheer and cry. The glare of the sun, when he was breaking rocks in Robben Island, had permanently damaged his eyesight, but not his mind. When he walked to freedom he wrote, that unless he left bitterness and hatred behind, "I would still be in prison."

This is wonderful, but do not let his story be rewritten, do not let those who opposed his struggle pretend they didn't.

"There is no passion to be found playing small," he said. He told his own people to recall the past. I ask simply, before we are inundated with those who want to bask in his afterglow, that we remember our own past too. It is sad, but let him go. I just wanted to remind you of how it was before he passes and before the "official" rewrite of history begins. Forgiveness is possible. Forgetting isn't.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/26/remember-tories-nelson-mandela-apartheid

Today in labor history: “Wobblies” founded in 1905.

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The Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the "Wobblies," was founded at a 12-day convention in Chicago, June 27, 1905.

The "Continental Congress of the Working Class" established the industrial Workers of the World with cooperation of sections of the Socialist Labor Party/Socialist Trades & Labor Alliance, Socialist Party of America, Western Federation of Miners, and survivors of the International Working People's Association.

Participants included the legendary William "Big Bill" Haywood, head of the Western Federation of Miners. Other prominent early IWW organizers included Lucy Parsons, Eugene Debs, "Mother" Mary Jones, Frank Little, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn - whom Joe Hill dubbed the "Rebel Girl." Flynn later became a leader of the Communist Party USA.

The IWW was a pioneer in labor and socialist organizing. It advocated industrial unionism and called for "one big union" that would overthrow capitalism through general strike action. However, it opposed political action, believing that transformation of society would stem from strikes and street protests.

The Wobblies advocated for equality. Its famous motto was, "An injury to one is an injury to all."

At its peak, the IWW membership was about 40,000, with especial strength in the west. Its numbers declined in the 1920s and beyond due to a number of factors. These included splits in the organization, government suppression of "reds" and "agitators" in general, emergence of the Communist Party which championed political as well as labor organizing, and changes in the industries and labor force where it had its greatest strength.

The IWW had a major impact on the organization of America's major mass production industries, on other later social struggles, and on American culture. The Wobbly movement produced famous songs still sung today, with the most famous being the union anthem "Solidarity Forever."
http://www.peoplesworld.org/today-in-labor-history-wobblies-founded-in-190/

California man faces 13 years in jail for scribbling anti-bank messages in chalk.

Published time: June 26, 2013 04:07 
Edited time: June 27, 2013 08:59

Jeff Olson, the 40-year-old man who is being prosecuted for scrawling anti-megabank messages on sidewalks in water-soluble chalk last year now faces a 13-year jail sentence. A judge has barred his attorney from mentioning freedom of speech during trial.

According to the San Diego Reader, which reported on Tuesday that a judge had opted to prevent Olson’s attorney from "mentioning the First Amendment, free speech, free expression, public forum, expressive conduct, or political speech during the trial,” Olson must now stand trial for on 13 counts of vandalism. 

In addition to possibly spending years in jail, Olson will also be held liable for fines of up to $13,000 over the anti-big-bank slogans that were left using washable children's chalk on a sidewalk outside of three San Diego, California branches of Bank of America, the massive conglomerate that received $45 billion in interest-free loans from the US government in 2008-2009 in a bid to keep it solvent after bad bets went south. 

The Reader reports that Olson’s hearing had gone as poorly as his attorney might have expected, with Judge Howard Shore, who is presiding over the case, granting Deputy City Attorney Paige Hazard's motion to prohibit attorney Tom Tosdal from mentioning the United States' fundamental First Amendment rights. 

"The State's Vandalism Statute does not mention First Amendment rights," ruled Judge Shore on Tuesday.

Upon exiting the courtroom Olson seemed to be in disbelief. 

"Oh my gosh," he said. "I can't believe this is happening." 

Tosdal, who exited the courtroom shortly after his client, seemed equally bewildered. 

"I've never heard that before, that a court can prohibit an argument of First Amendment rights," said Tosdal. 

Olson, who worked as a former staffer for a US Senator from Washington state, was said to involve himself in political activism in tandem with the growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement. 

On October 3, 2011, Olson first appeared outside of a Bank of America branch in San Diego, along with a homemade sign. Eight days later Olson and his partner, Stephen Daniels, during preparations for National Bank Transfer Day, the two were confronted by Darell Freeman, the Vice President of Bank of America’s Global Corporate Security. 

A former police officer, Freeman accused Olson and Daniels of “running a business outside of the bank,” evidently in reference to the National Bank Transfer Day activities, which was a consumer activism initiative that sought to promote Americans to switch from commercial banks, like Bank of America, to not-for-profit credit unions. 

At the time, Bank of America’s debit card fees were among one of the triggers that led Occupy Wall Street members to promote the transfer day. 

"It was just an empty threat," says Olson of Freeman’s accusations. "He was trying to scare me away. To be honest, it did at first. I even called my bank and they said he couldn't do anything like that." 

Olson continued to protest outside of Bank of America. In February 2012, he came across a box of chalk at a local pharmacy and decided to begin leaving his mark with written statements. 

"I thought it was a perfect way to get my message out there. Much better than handing out leaflets or holding a sign," says Olson. 

Over the course of the next six months Olson visited the Bank of America branch a few days per week, leaving behind scribbled slogans such as "Stop big banks" and "Stop Bank Blight.com." 

According to Olson, who spoke with local broadcaster KGTV, one Bank of America branch claimed it had cost $6,000 to clean up the chalk writing. 

Public records obtained by the Reader show that Freeman continued to pressure members of San Diego’s Gang Unit on behalf of Bank of America until the matter was forwarded to the City Attorney’s office. 

On April 15, Deputy City Attorney Paige Hazard contacted Freeman with a response on his persistent queries. 

"I wanted to let you know that we will be filing 13 counts of vandalism as a result of the incidents you reported," said Hazard. 

Arguments for Olson’s case are set to be heard Wednesday morning, following jury selection. 

http://rt.com/usa/california-man-13-prison-banks-237/

Custos of the Holy Land: Fr Franҫois Mourad killed by Islamist insurgents in al-Ghassaniyah

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) - "Fr. Franҫois Mourad's killing of is a sad occurrence and a blow to all the friars of the Custody of the Holy Land," said Fr Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land, as he spoke with AsiaNews about the Syrian clergyman who died on Sunday in al-Ghassaniyah, a predominantly Christian village in Jisr al-Shughur District, Idlib province. His funeral was celebrated yesterday in the small village of Kanaieh, a few kilometres from where he was killed.

Until yesterday, there were two versions of the murder, the first spoke about a stray bullet, the second of an actual attack carried out by Islamist insurgents against the Monastery of St Anthony in al-Ghassaniyah.

"The second is the most reliable version," Fr Pizzaballa said. "From the photos and the testimony of our religious, the rebels attacked the village in past few weeks, forcing most residents to flee."

The Monastery of St Anthony was the only safe haven, where Fr Franҫois lived along with some Franciscan friars, four nuns and ten lay Christians. But on Sunday, rebels part of a fringe extremist Islamic group, stormed that place too."

According to the Custos of the Holy Land, Islamists broke into the convent, looted it and destroyed everything. When Fr Franҫois tried to defend the nuns and other people, the gunmen shot him dead.

"Right now, the village is completely deserted," Fr Pizzaballa said. "Rebels have moved there with their families and occupied the houses still standing."

"Let us pray that this absurd and shameful war ends soon and that the people of Syria can get back to a normal life soon," he said.

Hailing from a village in the province of Latakia in northwestern Syria, Fr Franҫois Mourad, 49, was trained by the Franciscan Fathers in the Holy Land.

Feeling called to a more contemplative life at the end of the 90s, he left the Franciscans to complete his studies with the Trappists of Latrun (Palestine).

Once back in Syria, he was ordained priest by the Syriac Catholic bishop of Al-Hasakah on the Syrian side of the Al-Jazira region.

In recent years, he launched a new monastic foundation, inspired by Saint Simon and founded a small monastery of contemplative life in Hwar, Aleppo province, devoting himself to the training of some young postulants, all Syrians.

He was in Hwar until this year when fighting between Islamic rebels and regime forced him to take refuge in al-Ghassaniyah, on the Orontes River, guest of the local Franciscan monastery.

Until his death, he worked together with the friars to bring relief to the Christian and Muslim residents of the area. (S.C.)

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Custos-of-the-Holy-Land:-Fr-Fran%D2%ABois-Mourad-killed-by-Islamist-insurgents-in-al-Ghassaniyah-28294.html

Oslo: Bso azad and BUC protest camp in front of Norwegian Parliament in Oslo. BSO Azad Organizer waheed baloch delivered leaflets.

IVBMP protest at Trafalgar Square London on occasion of International Day Against Torture (26 June 2013).

 

 




 

26 June Protest as the International Day against Torture in Karachi

BRHSO protest in Karachi

26 June Protest as the International Day against Torture Göteborg ( Sweden ).

26 June Protest as the International Day against Torture Göteborg ( Sweden )

United Nations has designated 26th June as the International Day against Torture. This day is designated to emphasize the importance of the right to personal dignity and security for all individuals around the world. It is the day to remember that each person’s rights are protected and guaranteed within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On 26 June 1987 the Convention against Torture came into force. It was an important step in the much-needed process of globalising human rights and acknowledging that torture, and all forms of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, are absolutely and universally illegal. In 1997, the United Nations General Assembly decided to mark this historic date and designated 26 June each year as International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.Women fall victim to torture in different ways, as highlighted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's global campaign to end violence against women, launched in February 2008, and by other recent initiatives concerning violence against women, such as United Nations Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict. Certain forms of gender-specific violence perpetrated by State actors, as well as by private individuals or organizations, clearly amount to torture, and it is now recognised that gender-specific violence falls within the definition of torture in the Convention against Torture. Highlighting the significance of this day the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said: "This is a day on which we pay our respects to those who have endured the unimaginable. This is an occasion for the world to speak up against the unspeakable. It is long overdue that a day be dedicated to remembering and supporting the many victims and survivors of torture around the world." Like other occupied Nations around the world the Baluch people have also been facing torture, death, destruction, extra judicial killings and arrests and enforced disappearances since the illegal occupation of their motherland by the states of Iran and Pakistan. Both Islamic states have committed unprecedented atrocities in Baluchistan. Many hundreds of Baluch political activists have been tortured and killed under torture in detention. Those who have survived the ordeal are left with permanent emotional and physical disabilities. At present around 15,598 Baluch political and student activists have been forcefully disappeared by Pakistani state intelligence agencies. more than 680 dead bodies have been found. “In 2013 alone, Many Baloch every day Pakistani intelligence agencies disappeared, and June  has not ended yet ,by Pakistani state intelligence agencies. Hundreds are behind bars for crimes they did not commit. The situation of the Baloch people is not any better under Iranian occupied Baluchistan. No single day goes by without arrest, imprisonment, torture and execution of a Baloch person. Hindus been executed , killed and force marriage and Christian been killed abd houses were brunned and all minority been killed . minority were been killed .Christian houses were burned .Christian have not right to do any thing.hindus girls been forced marriage by Islamic extremists. Hindus are major migration’s from Balochistan and sindh. Hindus living these house because of extremism and security problem. Many families move to India 

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Hundreds are behind bars for crimes they did not commit. The situation of the Baluch people is not any better under Iranian occupied Baluchistan. No single day goes by without arrest, imprisonment, torture and execution of a Baloch person. He strongly condemned the Human Rights Organisation for their silence on the gross torture and mistreatment of thousands of Baloch political and student activists at the hands of Pakistani intelligence agencies. He appealed all free born and human loving people to raise voice against the Human Rights violations in Balochistan.  To expose the atrocities of Iran and Pakistan against to express your opposition against any type of torture and to show your solidarity with the victims of torture. At present there are several Baloch activists in the custody of Iranian Intelligence services and after the harrowing death of the two Baloch, their families’ fear that the rest of the activists might also been killed in the same manner. sensory deprivation, painful shackling, severe beatings, electric shocks, induced hypothermia, exposure to bright lights and eardrum-shattering sounds 24 hours a day, denial of medical care, proper food or enough of it, excruciating force-feeding to hunger-strikers, induced psychological trauma, forced sodomy, threats and bites by snakes, being blindfolded and hung from the ceiling by their wrists, and subjected to repeated humiliations, indignities and barbarism for months, even year. This is the tale of Pakistanes long tradition of inflicting abusive barbaric treatment of Baloch which claimed yet another life among the thousand it had taken previously. The Asian Human Rights Commission and Amensty and other Human right orgnizations has already reported that  torture cells are run by the Pakistan army,and crime Pakistani and Irani state.

Muslim mob in Sweden disrupts a documentary showing.

Muslim mob in Sweden disrupts a documentary showing, beat the director, chant 'Allah O Akbar' and force the organizers to shut down the event. Watch as the non-Muslims in audience sit silently throughout the bullying with fear written all over their faces. Do you blame them if they have Islamophobia? Please show this or share it with your lefty liberal jounalistic friends.

DOMA Ruling Clears Path for Binational Couples..US Supreme Court.

 

DOMA Ruling Clears Path for Binational Couples.

Marriage equality supporters rally in front of the Supreme Court on March 26, 2013, as the court hears oral arguments in the challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Among the legal barriers that today’s dramatic Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage sends tumbling down is the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage-based immigration benefits. As Congress debatesimmigration reform, the rights of LGBT immigrants and their U.S. citizen partners have been a central sticking point, with Republicans threatening to kill the immigration bill if Democrats insist on legislating LGBT rights. Today’s historic decision, striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, largely puts that debate to rest, by allowing gay and lesbian U.S. citizens to apply for legal residency for their partners. 

“DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority in a 5-to-4 decision. “The federal statute is invalid.”

Immigration through marriage has long been a core component of U.S. citizenship policy. Under existing law, U.S. citizens in opposite-sex marriages can sponsor their immigrant husband or wife to come to the U.S. or remain here with legal authorization. But same-sex couples have been excluded and countless partnerships have been thrown into limbo. 

Twelve states currently have laws that permit same-sex marriage. This limits the reach of the court’s decision, because the remaining 38 states retain heterosexist marriage laws. The decision does not create a constitutional right to marriage and thus does not immediately impact laws in those states. But the decision is likely to have a ripple effect, as states may now move to pass marriage equality laws. And the court’s DOMA decision means that marriages performed in one of the 12 states that recognize same-sex unions will be considered valid for federal benefits, even if couples reside in another state. 

The rights of gay and lesbian couples to sponsor non-citizen partners for immigration visas became a central area of debate in the ongoing immigration reform deliberations. For several years, Democrats in Congress have introduced stand-alone legislation that would allow U.S. citizens to petition for a green card for their same-sex partners, married or not. That legislation, which gained small Republican support, never made it far, but many hoped that immigration reform would include LGBT rights provisions.

Earlier this year, President Obama urged Congress to include same-sex couples in immigration reform legislation. And the White House’s own outline on immigration reform recommends “[treating] same-sex families as families by giving U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents the ability to seek a visa on the basis of a permanent relationship with a same-sex partner.”

But when the bi-partisan group of eight senators introduced their immigration reform bill into the Senate Judiciary Committee in April, it included no such measure. And despite broad stated support from Democrats to amend the bill to include LGBT provisions, Democrats agreed to scrap those commitments when key Republicans said they’d bail on the bill if the committee included equality proposals. “You will threaten the entire product,” Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said at the time.

After making the decision to table his same-sex couple amendment, Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, proposed the same-sex marriage amendment last week on the Senate floor. Few observers think that provision has a chance of passage in the current effort to garner Republican support for the bill. Instead, advocates of equal rights for all couples took to watching the court for a remedy. The Supreme Court decision today changes the calculus for Democrats like Leahy, basically making the decision for lawmakers. Whether conservative elected officials like it or not, married same-sex couples will have the same rights as opposite-sex couples to sponsor non-citizen husbands and wives for green cards.

 

 

 

http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/06/same_sex_couples_immigration_doma.html

(Mis)Understanding Balochistan.

By Mahvish Ahmad 

Mahvish Ahmad

When the Pakistan state looks at Balochistan–from Islamabad, or Raiwind, or Lahore, or from the commercial capital, Karachi–it assumes it has the right to decide how events in the country’s largest province ought to be interpreted. Certainly, it has had the power to silence the Baloch in the mainstream national conversation. Sometimes, the muffling of Baloch voices is deliberate: last, the offices of the Balochi newspaper, Daily Tawar, was ransacked and burned, allegedly by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). At other times, it is unintentional. Most observers and pundits sitting at the center in Islamabad take little time in understanding the province.

The failure to accurately understand the conditions in Balochistan was reflected in the pronouncements by commentators and activists last week as they lamented attacks carried out by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) in a way that appeared to treat both events as equal.

They are not.

On June 15, 2013, there were three attacks in Balochistan, Pakistan’s most resource rich, but sparsely populated, province. In the early hours of that morning, BLA separatists attacked a residence once used by Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Jinnah’s residency is featured on Pakistan’s 100 rupee notes, and is seen as a symbol of Pakistani nationalism in Balochistan. The attack left one police officer dead, and took place in Ziarat, 3 hours outside of the province’s capital, Quetta.

Later that day, the LeJ, a Sunni sectarian organization, carried out two separate attacks. A female suicide bomber mounted a university bus carrying explosives, killing 15 students, most of them women. They followed up the attack on the bus with an offensive against a hospital complex where the wounded had been taken. When it was over, 25 were dead.

It was the attack on a historical site, however, far more than the killing of the police officer at that location, or the targeted attacks on students and the wounded that drew the attention of Pakistani politicians. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, and Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed, decided to skip the funerals of these victims, instead choosing to visit Ziarat. The integrity of this quintessential symbol of Pakistani nationalism seemed to be their highest priority.

At a press conference on the attacks held by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) after the attacks, Pakistan’s ruling party failed to mention the LeJ, or the police officer killed at Ziarat. Social media feeds swelled with laments mourning the loss of the Quaid’s, or Jinnah’s, residency, at least in equal measure as, if not more than, they mourned those who lost their lives. The attack on the residency already has a Wikipedia page with far more detail—including domestic and foreign responses—than the shorter page dedicated to the attack on the students and patients of Quetta.

And, when Interior Minister Nisar appeared on the parliament floor, he insisted that a newly-formed Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probe both attacks—as if an attack on a building were the same as the loss of 25 lives.

***

The PML-N’s coalition partner in the National Assembly, the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), has been refreshingly critical of Nisar’s decision to equate the BLA and LeJ attacks. Unlike the National Party, which called a strike to mourn both attacks, the PkMAP’s secretary general, Akram Shah, pointed out that the residency was a “symbol of slavery.” Originally built by Sir Robert Groves Sandeman, the colonial British officer who ruled Balochistan until his death in 1892, the residency “reminded the Baloch and Pashtuns of the long period when they were slaves of [the] British empire.” Sandeman successfully established a colonial policy that turned the Khan of Kalat and Baloch sardars into agents of the British crown, in exchange for an allowance that covered their personal expenses. That policy persisted long after the creation of Pakistan. Balochistan did not become a full-fledged province until 1970, and the legal loophole that allows sardars to maintain a personal police force, the Levies, can be traced back to Sandeman himself.

Shah made bold remarks. But, there is a more complex issue at hand than Ziarat’s historical lineage.

To understand Balochistan and properly analyze the violence of these attacks, we must turn to the larger context of violence and counter-violence in the province. And, we must acknowledge that when it comes to exercising force, the state is just as bad as the militant organizations that we love to hate.

***

In Balochistan, Jinnah is seen as a man who ordered the Pakistan Army to annex Balochistan and force it to join Pakistan in 1948. The forcible inclusion of Balochistan in Pakistan ran counter to Baloch wishes: only a group of British-appointed tribal sardars in Balochistan’s northern Pashtun belt agreed to join Pakistan in a July 1947 conference, where neither the Khan of Kalat—then the ruler of the Kalat state in present-day Balochistan—nor its sardars were included. The only body, similar to a representative assembly was the two-chamber Kalat Assembly. It declared that Kalat did not want to join the new state. Only 29-years-old, Ghaus Bux Bizenjo, the father of the National Party (NP) leader, Hasil Khan Bizenjo, clarified.

“I do not propose to create hurdles for the newly created state in matters of defense, external affairs and communications. But we want an honorable relationship and not a humiliating one. We don’t want to amalgamate with Pakistan.”

The Baloch narrative does not end here.

In fact, the current Baloch uprising is the fifth in Pakistan’s history. This is not the first time that the Pakistani state has signaled an interest in negotiations. The Pakistan Army has, several times, promised safe passage to Baloch rebels in exchange for peace negotiations. Instead of living up to their word, however, our state’s security forces arrested and hanged Baloch rebels. One of the more circulated stories is that of 90-year old Nawab Nouroze Khan Zarakzai, the chief of the Zehri tribe, who led a strong guerilla force of 750 to 1000 men. According to the Baloch, the army had promised the abolition of the One Unit Plan, a return of the Khan of Kalat (whom they had arrested), and amnesty to the guerillas. But, when Nouroze Khan returned with his men, they were arrested and his son and five others were hanged on treason charges. The Baloch still memorialize the date of their hanging on July 15th every year. They call it Martyr’s Day.

Two years after losing East Pakistan—now Bangladesh—then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was set F-14 fighter jets with Irani pilots by the Shah of Iran, Muhammad Reza Shah Pehlavi, to carry out operations in Balochistan. One brigadier, who took part in the 1973 operation in Balochistan, told me that his unit “sprayed bullets on a village to pacify the residents. We never got any trouble from them after that,” the brigadier grinned.

Bhutto also dismissed the democratically elected National Awami Party (NAP) government in Balochistan on charges of treason. Some of Balochistan’s most influential leaders, including Ghaus Bux Bizenjo, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, Sardar Attaullah Mengal, and Sher Muhammad Marri were tried in the Hyderabad Conspiracy Trial, which lasted from 1975 to 1979.

Today, the Pakistan Army is the primary suspect in the hundreds of tortured and mutilated bodies that have turned up in Balochistan.

This is why the commander of the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), Dr. Allah Nazar, has said he appreciates dialogue, but only under the supervision of the United Nations. “Otherwise, we are not going to sit with the state on the negotiation table,” says Dr. Nazar. The BLF had earlier demanded that Pakistan ensure the safe passage of international observers across the province for the May 11 elections. Their demands beg the question: Why are rebel groups more willing to trust international organizations than the Pakistani state?

In the last few weeks almost everyone—from Pakistan’s politicians to its media organizations, and its liberal activists to its political analysts—has celebrated the coming of a new democratic dawn in Balochistan. The rise of PkMAP’s Mehmood Khan Achakzai as Balochistan’s governor, and the National Party’s (NP) Dr. Abdul Malik Baloch as its chief minister, is a significant and important step forward in the way that the center has dealt with Balochistan.

Yet, the new face of the provincial government’s leaders has more to do with a shift in establishment policy than a genuine change in the situation on the ground. Although the reports are difficult to verify, up to 49 Baloch have either gone missing or turned up dead since the May 11 elections. The Pakistan media has been unwilling to accurately report on this issue in the fear that it might undermine Balochistan’s newest crop of politicians—a group, of which Pakistan’s liberal elite is particularly fond.

This is particularly disconcerting given the reality of voter turnout in Balochistan in the 2013 elections. While Pashtuns in Balochistan turned out in record numbers in Quetta and the northern belt, the Baloch basically “did not vote” according to Malik Siraj Akbar, the editor of The Baloch Hal. Of the 14 provincial assembly seats that were being contested in southern Balochistan—home to the new chief minister as well as the middle-class uprising led by the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF)—only four constituencies saw an increase in voter turnouts, bringing voter turnout numbers back to 1997 levels. One constituency went from a 43 per cent voter turnout in 2008, to a 1 per cent voter turnout in 2013. In Chief Minister Malik Baloch’s own constituency, only 12 per cent turned out to vote, an almost 30 per cent drop from the 2008 elections, when the entire crop of nationalist parties, from the NP to the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) and the PkMAP, had boycotted the elections. If we look at numbers from the 1988 elections onwards, this is the highest drop in voter turnout southern Balochistan has ever seen.

Separatists say that the voter turnout was a direct result of their call for a complete shutter-down strike and boycott of the May 11 election. Dr. Abdul Malik Baloch says that voters felt threatened, and were too afraid to show up and cast their ballot. And, some policy analysts say that the main reason for low turnouts was simple logistics: polling booths are few and far between in the vast expanse of the Balochistan province.

Whatever the real reason is, however, it is fundamentally irrelevant. What is relevant is that the voter turnout numbers among the Baloch reveal the vast gap between the people that we claim are represented by politicians in Quetta, and the new leadership in the provincial government. The fact is that the Pakistani media, politicians and activists choose to ignore clear-cut statistics, that they fail to draw obvious links between what these numbers mean for Quetta and that they continue to turn a blind eye to the dumping of mutilated-beyond-recognition bodies.

For many observers, politics only exists within the confines of the nation state. As a result, only those who have a place in provincial assemblies or the parliament in Islamabad are considered legitimate representatives,. Anyone who falls outside these limits is ignored. Pakistan’s mainstream pundits have become so used to mimicking the language of the state that they either forget to include voices from beyond the halls of parliament, or deliberately fail to do so because they are afraid that bringing them into the conversation will undermine the integrity of Pakistani nationalism.

***

Neither of these attacks occurred simply as external forces outside of the state.

Army cantonments occupy around half the city’s territory, according to a source from the Frontier Corps (FC). Twenty-seven platoons, or almost 1000 soldiers, from the paramilitary force patrolled the streets alongside the police in 2012. It is near impossible to drive more than 10 minutes before being stopped by a boy in khaki asking for identification; yet, several attacks on the Hazara community have taken place less than 100 meters away from checkpoints, according to Asmatullah Niaz, the chairman of the Hazara Student Federation (HSF).

There are only two possible explanations: either the security forces are incapable or complicit. Interior Minister Nisar himself, seemed to hint at the latter when he recently asked how “Quetta could be the repeated victim of terrorist attacks with police, FC, security and intelligence agencies on every corner.”

Niaz says that the security establishment allows militant groups to operate with impunity because it helps divert attention from the widespread separatist uprising that has taken hold among the Baloch. The security establishment sees the LeJ as a strategic asset in an area close to the Afghan border as NATO troops plan to step down their presence next year. According to Ayesha Siddiqa, a leading security analyst, the LeJ and other militant groups were raised during the 1980s and integrated in the security agencies tactical planning as they pursued a policy of resisting India. “These jihadis will disappear the day their creators run out of uses for them,” says Siddiqa.

So, the state is complicit in a form of violence aimed at creating sectarian divisions as spectacles at the expense of Pakistanis. In context and ideology, the BLA attack differs from the LeJ attack. The attack on Jinnah’s residency is the expression of a subjugated people rather than an attack by an asset of the state.

The BLA issued a press release following its exploit that has received scant or no attention in the Pakistani press. That press release called on “their Pashtun brothers to build a monument in tribute to Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Abdul Samad Achakzai.” Both Pashtun stalwarts are significant figures in the history of progressive Pakistan. With all of their faults and limitations, these two men are seen as the forefathers of two of Pakistan’s most secular and progressive political parties: the Awami National Party (ANP) and the PkMAP. By highlighting them, the BLA underlines a broadly left, secular and importantly anti-colonial history—one with which they associate today. Indeed, the BLA spokesman followed up with a statement that declared that the BLA can only think of negotiations after destroying “the symbols of invaders on Baloch land and regained our national geography and national identity.”

The attack on the Ziarat residency, where the BLA replaced the Pakistani flag with their own, is an indirect invitation directed at us: ‘See Pakistan from our eyes.’ Any negotiation that wishes to be long-lasting needs to do just that: Seeing the history of the state within Balochistan. Indeed, that is what the Baloch recall whenever the Pakistani state approaches the Baloch and its rebels. Even those nationalist leaders that are favorites of Islamabad, like Dr, Abdul Malik Baloch, Akhtar Mengal and Mehmood Khan Achakzai, were raised with narratives of betrayal. The political response that the NP, PkMAP and the BNP-M choose to express might be vastly different from those of the rebels. But most Baloch are well-acquainted with tales of a Pakistan that goes against its own word, and continues to ignore the materiality of the corpses that pile up: parents burying their sons; sisters burying their brothers, and babies made fatherless.

To equate the LeJ and BLA attacks is to see through the eyes of the Pakistani state rather than those it subjugates. When lives are at stake, we must turn that lens back where it belongs: on the state. (Courtesy: Tanqeed)

Mahvish Ahmad is a journalist and lecturer in political science, and the co-founder of Tanqeed. A shorter version of this article was originally published in The News on Sunday (TNS). The parts that do not appear in TNS are not a result of their editorial policy, but because the writer added, and edited, the article after print.

Republished in The Baloch Hal on June 26, 2013