Anybody wanna be president?
“No one wants to rule in Islamabad right now. The economy is a mess, and the International Monetary Fund is pushing the federal government to impose deeply unpopular taxes. These parties will continue to oppose new taxes and a military operation in North Waziristan. The [Pakistan Peoples Party] government will be sandwiched between the US and IMF on one side and the opposition parties on the other.’’ -- Arif Rafiq, a political analyst based in Washington
Whoever they are they get my vote.
"Killing of Pakistani politician stuns nation; Progressive governor of Punjab slain" by Karin Brulliard, Washington Post / January 5, 2011
KARACHI, Pakistan — The tightening grip of Islamist extremism in Pakistan was violently highlighted yesterday with the assassination of one of the country’s most outwardly progressive politicians by one of his police guards, who told investigators he was incensed by his boss’s stance against a controversial antiblasphemy law.
It was an INSIDE JOB?
The killing of Salman Taseer, the razor-tongued governor of Punjab Province, stunned the nation and further rocked Taseer’s ruling Pakistan People’s Party, which is struggling to keep its government afloat following its key ally’s defection to the opposition Sunday.
Related: Pakistani party says it may leave coalition
Update: Key Party Rejoins Pakistani Coalition Govt
The secular PPP condemned the slaying and promised a swift investigation, but its weakened political position undermines its ability to loudly defend Taseer’s views or crack down on extremists.
Related: Throwing More Dirt on Bhutto's Grave
This is starting to have the same type of feel to me.
In timing that underscored those limitations, Taseer was gunned down in an upscale area of Islamabad as Pakistan’s main opposition party was across town demanding that the government agree within three days to implement a list of changes or risk collapse. After the killing, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, said it would allow three additional days for the changes, including a slash in government spending and the reversal of unpopular fuel price hikes.
Taseer was a chief ally of President Asif Ali Zardari, who in 2008 appointed him governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and wealthiest province. But the PML-N rules the province, making Taseer’s assassination a blow to government influence there.
As the embattled, pro-US Pakistan People’s Party sought in recent days to win back defecting allies, including a small Islamic party, it had already said it would not support a proposal to change the blasphemy statutes. That left Taseer one of the few vocal champions of the move, which hard-line religious organizations had labeled a Western conspiracy.
They are not the only ones thinking that (keep reading).
On Dec. 30, Taseer had posted on his Twitter account: “I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I’m the last man standing.’’
The laws have drawn scrutiny since a Christian woman was sentenced to death in November for criticizing the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Taseer had called for her pardon, leading religious groups to denounce him as an apostate and burn effigies of him during a nationwide strike last week in support of the law. One Muslim cleric has offered $6,000 to anyone who kills the woman, who remains in jail.
I read things like that with such sadness.
Who benefits when Christians and Muslims fight?
Even as Pakistani television stations were dominated yesterday by commentators condemning rising religious intolerance, supporters of Taseer’s arrested guard, Mumtaz Qadri, 26, created a page for him on Facebook.
We just had that here in AmeriKa this past weekend.
Page visitors called him a hero and praised his “awesome job.’’ No major unrest over the killing was reported, but authorities said they were on high alert.
“This shows how the religious extremists want to impose their agenda to terrorize the society,’’ Shahbaz Bhatti, the federal minister for minorities affairs and also a proponent of changing the laws, said in an interview. “This cowardly act cannot stop us who are raising our voice.’’
I know how they feel.
Yet in a country where Taliban militants increasingly flex their muscles through bombings, religious hard-liners have great power to intimidate even though polls show that their views are not widely shared.
I'm always amazed at how similar our situations are in both countries.
Last week’s strike by Islamic organizations drew few supporters to the streets, but shops in major cities closed — and many merchants said they did so under threat.
Human rights activists say the blasphemy laws are also abused by extremists, who use them as a tool to persecute minorities or opponents by bullying police and courts into arrests and convictions. The laws were strengthened during the 1980s rule of Islamist military dictator General Zia ul-Haq.
Wasn't he still a U.S. ally?
Oh, I see; helping bring down the Soviets was one thing....
Taseer lamented the power of the religious mob in an interview last summer following massive bombings on mosques belonging to Ahmadis, who identify themselves as Muslims but are barred by the Pakistani constitution from “posing’’ as such. Taseer — whose appointed position gave him little power in Punjab — condemned the provincial government of Sharif’s center-right PML-N for what he called its tolerance of radical religious groups. “Extremist people are not in the majority,’’ Taseer said at the time. “This is a very narrow minority. . . .’’
Yup!
Authorities said Taseer’s guard, a member of an elite Punjab provincial police force that provides VIP security, shot the governor multiple times outside the Kohsar market in Islamabad.
It wasn't a "terrorist?"
--more--"
"Pakistani politician and his suspected assassin both lauded; Reactions hint of deep divide facing key ally" by Karin Brulliard, Washington Post / January 6, 2011
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The opposing responses underscored the deep cultural fractures in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where moderate voices are often drowned out by hard-line clerics, an increasingly intolerant public, and a persistent Islamist insurgency. Though the weak government led by Taseer’s secular Pakistan People’s Party regularly denounces religious extremism, it has done little to dampen it.
We better invade quick and fix it, Americans!
Taseer, the governor of Punjab Province, was shot more than two dozen times outside an upscale marketplace in a wealthy area of Islamabad, the capital. Authorities said Mumtaz Qadri, 26, a member of the elite police force assigned to Taseer’s security detail, surrendered and confessed afterward. Photos taken at the scene showed him smiling.
This is really starting to stink, this lone gunman story.
While thousands of top party officials and workers gathered for Taseer’s state funeral in the eastern city of Lahore, lawyers showered rose petals on Qadri as he arrived at an Islamabad courthouse. A national group of 500 religious scholars, meanwhile, praised his deed and issued an ominous warning to those who mourned Taseer.
“One who supports a blasphemer is also a blasphemer,’’ the group said in a statement, which warned journalists, politicians, and intellectuals to learn from the killing. “What Qadri did has made every Muslim proud.’’
Police said they were investigating whether Qadri acted alone....
Governments never go down that road -- which is why I'm suspicious right from the get-go.
One Islamabad police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said preliminary investigations revealed that Qadri had been planning the attack for days. The official also said a top police official in Rawalpindi had previously rejected Qadri for assignment to a special counterterrorism police force because of concerns about his militant religious views.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!
That disclosure renewed questions about the vetting of security forces in this nuclear-armed nation, which the United States relies on — and funds with billions of aid dollars — to support the war in neighboring Afghanistan. One senior security official said there was no cause for concern....
Smelling MORE and MORE like an INSIDE JOB to me!
President Asif Ali Zardari, a close friend of Taseer’s, said the killing might have been a conspiracy against Pakistan....
And he is NO ISLAMIST RADICAL!
--more--"
Do you remember some mention of fuel hikes in that last piece?
"Pakistani government rescinds hike in fuel price" by Karin Brulliard, Washington Post / January 7, 2011
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Reeling from the loss of key coalition partners and the assassination of a ruling party governor, the Pakistani government capitulated to the opposition yesterday by announcing that it will reverse a recent fuel price increase.
The decision signaled the weakened position of the besieged government led by President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party, which has been squeezed by threats from opposition parties to force its collapse. Though the move amounted to a possible lifeline for the government, it was just one of several demands made by opponents, who are likely to continue to drive the agenda....
We get our orders from Israel.
--more--"
Related: Pakistan tops group’s list of journalists’ danger spots
Also consider:
[Pakistan is at the point where it cannot go on as a coherent nation until it answers the one question that has been gnawing away at it for decades--Which Islam will it follow? Will the first Islamic state continue to follow the traditional Quran-based belief system that her ancestors have always accepted or will it continue to accept the new state version of Islam, the radicalized Wahabbi version of Islam transplanted into Pakistani society by the US and the Saudis? One is the religion of Peace and Harmony, while the other is a license to hunt "Kafir," the unbelievers. Which Islam? ] -- Pakistan elite silent after Taseer assassination
