Category Archives: Pakistan

Pakistan: ‘675 women, girls’ killed for honour in first 9 months of year

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 ADNKRONOS

last update: December 20, 12:15

Islamabad, 20 Dec. (AKI) – At least 675 Pakistani women and girls were murdered during the first nine months of the year in so-called honour killings, according to a news report, citing a senior official in the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Many of the victims were gang raped before being killed, the unnamed official said. At least 71 victims of the killings committed for allegedly defaming family honour were under 18 years old, the AFP news agency reported.

At least 19 were killed by their sons, 49 by their fathers and 169 by their husbands, AFP reported. Many of the victims were accused of having affairs or marrying without permission The Commission reported 791 honour killings in 2010 and there was no discernible decrease this year, the official added.

Pakistan: Thousands Protest Shoes Bearing Cross

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Funny, if a prison guard handles a koran in Guantanamo bay without wearing gloves the president of the USA will likely intervene. But you don’t hear so much about this:

From Eurasia News

Written by:

December 18, 2011

More than three thousand angry Christians held a protest rally in Lahore yesterday condemning sale of shoes incorporating Christian crosses.

Some Muslim leaders joined the protestors, who were wearing black armbands and headbands. Chanting anti government slogans, they burned tires on the road.

The protest ended after pastors led hymn singing.

“This is no drama. Our Christian identity has been insulted as Christmas approaches”, said Pastor Samuel King, president of the Pakistan Minorities Movement (PMM).

The group had previously confiscated 1,200 pairs of shoes, inscribed with a cross and Christmas symbols, from a shop. Its owner was arrested on November 26 but freed by police after three days.

Gulzar Nqavi, a Shia Muslim who joined the protestors, condemned the indifference of the authorities. “Many Christians visit Muslim shrines; they also hang posters of Nalain Pak (sandals of the Prophet Mohammad) in their houses”, he said.

The PMM also issued a press statement demanding the re-arrest of the shopkeeper and announced a continued movement in absence of any action. Continue Reading →

Tens of thousands rally against US, India in Lahore Pakistan

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Tens of thousands rally against US in Lahore

Hafiz Saeed, the head of Islamic organization Jamaat-ud-Dawa speaks to gathering during an anti-American and Indian rally on the grounds of the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore. -Reuters Photo

LAHORE: Tens of thousands gathered in one of the biggest-ever protests in the Pakistani city of Lahore Sunday to condemn Nato and United States over the killing of 24 soldiers along the Afghan border.

The protestors, mainly from Islamist groups and political parties, vowed they would march to the capital Islamabad if the government did not cancel agreements between the US designed to fight terrorism.

“We will hold a march towards the capital if the government does not revoke agreements of cooperation in the war against terror with the US,” said Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, a senior leader of the Pakistan Defence Council (PDC).

About 3,000 activists from the Council, which organised the rally, also acted as guards in addition to a 1,000-strong police contingent Saeed, who heads the charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa and founded the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) faction blamed by India and the US for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, warned that “we will no longer tolerate any attacks on our soil.”

”The US should not turn its missions in Pakistan into spying stations,” he said, adding that “we will respect Americans if they live in Pakistan as guests but any other agenda will not be tolerated.”Saeed called on Pakistan’s government to decide on a date that would see it take the country “out of the war against terror” and vowed “every sacrifice to preserve and uphold sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.”

Since the attacks last month, Pakistan has charged that US-led forces deliberately carried out the air strikes that killed the two dozen soldiers, but the US has insisted the November 26 incident was a regrettable mistake.

The incident came amid high tension between the US and Pakistan, whose military, long the country’s most powerful institution, has been on the defensive since the secret US raid in May that killed Osama bin Laden.

In response, Pakistan has sealed its Afghan border to Nato supply convoys, boycotted the Bonn conference on the future of Afghanistan and ordered US personnel to vacate an air base reportedly used by CIA drones.

An AFP photographer present at Sunday’s rally put the number of demonstrators at over 40,000 while two senior police officials said more than 70,000 people attended the protest.

Protestors waved the flags of their respective Islamist parties and shouted “friends of the US are traitors and long live Pakistan”.

Liaqat Baloch, a top leader of the radical Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party, told the rally: “We will not allow Pakistan to become a colony of the US.”

Taliban madrassa raided by Pakistani police. Many unwilling students in chains in dungeon.

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This is a partial article from:

From Daily Mail:

(Please click above for the whole thing)

Chained and in tears: Children found in basement as police raid Islamic school thought to be a ‘Taliban training centre’

  • 45 captives tell of visiting Taliban militants who told them: ‘Prepare for battle’
  • One cleric and two others arrested, but school head flees during raid

By DAMIEN GAYLE

Last updated at 4:36 PM on 13th December 2011

Forty-five students, among them young children, were discovered held in chains in a basement when police raided an Islamic seminary in Pakistan last night.

The male students, some said to be as young as 12 but appearing even younger, were found in what amounted to a dungeon at the Madrassa Zakarya in the Sohrab Goth district of Karachi.

Led barefoot from their prison, captives told officers they had suffered regular beatings and been hung upside down as a form of punishment.

Freed: Young Pakistani students sit a room after being rescued following a police raid on Madrassa Zakarya in Karachi last nightFreed: Young Pakistani students sit a room after being rescued following a police raid on Madrassa Zakarya in Karachi last night

A young student cries after being rescued. Pakistani police found 45 students found chained in the basement during the raid A young student cries after being rescued. Pakistani police found 45 students found chained in the basement during the raid

A young student carries his belongings as he leaves the madrassa after the raid last nightA young student carries his belongings as he leaves the madrassa after the raid last night

Others said they had been visited by Taliban fighters and that 10 of their fellow students had disappeared in recent months.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073562/Forty-students-held-basement-chains-police-raiding-Islamic-seminary-thought-Taliban-training-centre.html#ixzz1gRQfTIfs

Pakistan says U.S. drones in its air space will be shot down

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MSNBC

By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news service reports

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan will shoot down any U.S. drone that intrudes its air space per new directives, a senior Pakistani official told NBC News on Saturday.

Asghar Achakzai / AFP – Getty Images file

Pakistani security personnel examine a crashed US surveillance drone inside Pakistan in August.

According to the new Pakistani defense policy, “Any object entering into our air space, including U.S. drones, will be treated as hostile and be shot down,” a senior Pakistani military official told NBC News.  Continue Reading →

Veena Malik’s explosive photo shoot

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From European Son

Model and actress Veena Malik caused outrage in Pakistan earlier this month after appearing naked (although with the body carefully positioned to preserve modesty) on the cover of FHM magazine.

Part of the reason for the outrage was the nudity; part was the fake tattoo of the initials “ISI” on her arm. The initials refer to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, the now notorious intelligence agency that has been suspected of colluding with al-Qaeda, and of aiding Osama bin Laden near Islamabad.

Ms. Malik announced that she planned to sue FHM, claiming that the photo was doctored, and her clothes removed without her knowledge or consent. FHM deny the charge and say they have video footage of the photo shoot… read more.

Karzai says Kabul attack was plotted in Pakistan

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Despite this, we can all rest easy knowing that no matter how many bombings in Afghanistan against Muslims for being the wrong flavor of Muslims, when it comes to a war between any Western nation and Pakistan, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan.

Washington Post:

View Photo Gallery — A suicide bomber killed at least 48 people in Kabul, the Afghan capital, on Tuesday after detonating explosives outside a packed Shiite mosque as throngs of worshippers observed a religious holiday.

By Ernesto Londoño, Updated: Wednesday, December 7, 9:27 AM

KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday that the suicide bombing targeting Shiite worshipers in Kabul that killed dozens was plotted in Pakistan.Speaking at a hospital where victims of Tuesday’s attack outside a shrine in the Afghan capital were being treated, Karzai said he would demand answers from the Pakistani government about the bombing.


Continue Reading →

Pakistani model’s tattooed nude photo in Indian magazine causes uproar

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H/T Bear

Other posts about this wonderful woman here on Vlad:

attempt on her life

 

 

The Nude picture of her in question here

From Yahoo.com

 

ISLAMABAD – A Pakistani actress who posed in the nude for an Indian magazine with the initials of Pakistan’s feared and powerful intelligence agency on her arm has triggered fury across this conservative nation.

Veena Malik’s photo on the website of FHM India, in advance of its publication in the magazine’s December issue, has been lighting up social network websites since earlier this week.

Many here anticipate a backlash, as nationalists and Islamists regularly stage rallies against anything they deem an insult to Islam or to the national honour. India and Pakistan have fought three wars, and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency or ISI has been accused of sponsoring terrorist attacks inside India.

Malik has broken Pakistani religious and national taboos in the past. She is a target for conservative ire and a heroine to some Pakistani liberals. Continue Reading →

American aid worker Warren Weinstein kidnapped in Pakistan

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The Telegraph:

An American contractor has been kidnapped at gunpoint from his house in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

American aid worker kidnapped in Pakistan

Police and security officials gather outside the residence of an American citizen after he was kidnapped in Lahore Photo: REUTERS/Mohsin Raza

10:13AM BST 13 Aug 2011

Warren Weinstein, 63, was snatched at dawn in the upmarket neighbourhood of Model Town, just two days before he was due to end his four-year-long post in Pakistan and return to the US.

“Somebody knocked on the main door. They offered meals to the guard, who politely refused,” said Tajamul Hussain, a police official.

“Five more men climbed into the house using the back door, overpowered the guards and tied their hands behind their back. They asked Weinstein’s driver to knock on his bedroom door. When the US citizen opened the door, they snatched him.”

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the abduction. Kidnappings in Pakistan are common, both by criminals and the Pakistani Taliban and other Islamic militant groups, which use the ransom money to fund their activities.

Mr Weinstein was working as the Pakistan country director of Virginia-based development company J.E. Austin Associates. He described his work as supervising a four-year $11 million “competitiveness project”, funded by the American government, which was involved in dairy, horticulture, furniture, and medical equipment projects.

Please click through to The Telegraph for the rest of this story

Pakistan asks US to vacate Shamsi airbase within 15 days

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Dawn.com

Pakistan asks US to vacate Shamsi airbase within 15 days

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani chairs the meeting of Defence Committee of the Cabinet at Prime Minister House on Saturday. – Photo by APP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday ordered the United States to vacate a controversial airbase within 15 days and closed Nato supply lines into Afghanistan permanently in response to a deadly cross-border Nato air strike.

The order refers to Shamsi, the remote desert outpost in southwest Pakistan reportedly used as a hub for covert CIA drone strikes, which Pakistan previously told the United States to leave in June.

Pakistan would also review all its diplomatic, political, military and intelligence activities with US and Nato. Continue Reading →

List of banned words in Pakistani txt msgs reaches 1700

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You can no longer text someone in Islamabad that you are flogging the dolphin apparently. I guess you will have to download one of the 50 or so apps that allow you to instant msg with other smart phones without using the txt service. Might be a good time to invest in Skype. If they are a public company of course.

H/T Snaphanen.DK

From IBN:

Islamabad: If Pakistan’s telecom regulator has its way, millions of mobile phone users may be unable to send text messages with “offensive” and “obscene” words like crap, damn, hobo, flatulence, gay, lesbian and slime from Monday.

These words are part of a list of nearly 1,700 words and terms that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has deemed as offensive, and wants mobile phone operators to filter from SMS text messages.

Operators have been directed to start blocking text messages containing these words from November 21.

The move has been greeted with ridicule and derision, particularly by Pakistan’s vociferous users of internet forums and micro-blogging sites like Twitter.

Since the PTA’s lists of offensive English and Urdu words and terms containing 1,106 and 586 items respectively became public a few days ago, it has become the butt of jokes on the web.

While the English list has 148 items containing a four-letter swear word, it has had many scratching their heads by including words and terms like athlete’s foot, deposit, black out, drunk, flatulence, glazed donut, harem, Jesus Christ, hostage, murder, penthouse, Satan and “flogging the dolphin”. Continue Reading →

Birmingham Men Charged With Terror Offences

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sky.com

Police officers in BirminghamThe charges relate to suspicion of fundraising for terrorist purposes and of travelling to Pakistan for terrorist training

11:05pm UK, Friday November 18, 2011

Four men from Birmingham have been charged with terrorism offences, West Midlands Police said.

Khobaib Hussain, Ishaaq Hussain and Shahid Kasam Khan, all aged 19, along with 24-year-old Naweed Mahmood Ali will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Saturday morning.

They were arrested at their homes in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham on Tuesday.

Police said the men were charged in connection with Operation Pitsford, a major counter terrorism investigation.

The four are accused of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts, including collecting money for terrorism and travelling to Pakistan for terrorism training.

Pakistan to block text messages about sex, Jesus Christ

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From RIAN.RU

Pakistan to block text messages about sex, Jesus Christ

Pakistan to block text messages about sex, Jesus Christ

© RIA Novosti. Alexei Nikolskiy

18:48 18/11/2011
NEW DELHI, November 18 (RIA Novosti)
Tags: PTA, Pakistan

Cell phone users in Pakistan will soon be unable to send text messages including sexual terms and the words Jesus Christ, the Dawn News TV channel reported on Friday.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ordered operators to block texts featuring any of a list of 1,500 words in a document dated November 14, the TV station said.

“All the texts containing the words from the list, must be blocked,” Dawn quoted Anjum Nida Rahman, a spokeswoman for Telenor Pakistan, as saying.

The list of the banned words includes sexually explicit words as well as rather neutral terms like “idiot” or “fart”. The ban on the word ‘Jesus Christ’ has raised concerns about religious freedom.

The PTA’s letter said the order was legitimate according to the 1996 law preventing people from sending “false, fabricated, indecent or obscene” information via mobile phones.

The document also stated that the freedom of speech can be restricted “in the interest of the glory of Islam.”