Tag Archives: Pakistan

The Saudi-isation of Pakistan

A Pakistani magazine article from earlier this year.

Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.

Posted in International Affairs, Islamism, Secularism | Also tagged | 19 Comments

Hizb ut-Tahrir and its Nuclear Ambitions

Here at the Spittoon we have covered HT’s attempts to destabilize and even mount a coup in Pakistan, an HT member’s assault on Quilliam’s director, the various unpleasantries of HT’s ideology yet even their copyright violations have so far failed to convince me (as all these matters have the Tories) that HT deserves to be designated an illegal organisation.

It is indisputable that HT’s rejection of free speech, democracy, equal rights, secularism (and on and on and on) is deeply unhelpful in British society. Their rejection of the key values (and democratic institutions) which bind our society together is certainly not something that should go unchallenged, but is this enough reason to ban them?

Well, this week the argument for banning has got that little bit stronger. Pakistan’s Daily Times reports:

Nuclear scientist among held Hizbut Tahrir activists

Posted in International Affairs, Islamism | Also tagged | 6 Comments

Stop calling us terrorists, or we’ll blow you up

News reaches us of a serious irony deficiency afflicting the Taliban in Pakistan. The Daily Times reports that the offices of private TV channels, press clubs around the country and offices of the print media have all been warned that they may be the next target of terrorists.

What had they done wrong?

a Taliban group also sent two letters to the Lahore Press Club – one on October 12 and the other on October 14 – warning that if the media “does not stop portraying us as terrorists … we will blow up offices of journalists and media organisations” [...] The group said that Taliban should be referred to as mujahideen.

This is a clear demonstration of the fallacy of the argument that demonisation of Muslims in the press (which does occur) causes terrorism. Demonising Muslims is intrinsically wrong, but it does not cause terrorism. Extremist ideologies cause terrorism.

Posted in International Affairs, Islamism | Also tagged | Leave a comment

Hizb ut-Tahrir Attempts Coup in Pakistan

The Sunday Times reports:

British militants are pushing for the overthrow of the Pakistani state. Followers of the fundamentalist group Hizb ut-Tahrir have called for a “bloodless military coup” in Islamabad and the creation of the caliphate in which strict Islamic laws would be rigorously enforced.

Members of the group, which describes itself as the Liberation party in Britain but is banned in Pakistan, revealed last week that it had targeted the country as a base from which to spread Islamic rule across the world.

The Sunday Times has obtained the names of a dozen British Hizb ut-Tahrir activists based in Lahore and Karachi, or commuting between Britain and Pakistan. There are believed to be many more.

Oh, and remember Tayyib Muqeem – the ex-boxer who could only give the weakest explanations for assaulting Maajid Nawaz in Lahore a few months ago – well it turns out that he is even more unpleasant than previously suspected.

Posted in International Affairs, Islamism | Also tagged , | 11 Comments

al-Qaeda would use Pakistani nuclear weapons – surprised?

The leader of al-Qaeda (AQ) in Afghanistan, Abu al-Yazid (aka Abu Saeed al-Misri – the Egyptian), has said they would use Pakistan’s nuclear weapons to fight against the ‘Serpent’ United States of America.

God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans

Oh no…

Interviewed by Al-Jazeera, Abu al-Yazid also commented on AQ’s future strategy:

The strategy of the … organisation in the coming period is the same as in the previous period: to hit the head of the snake, the head of tyranny — the United States.

That can be achieved through continued work on the open fronts and also by opening new fronts in a manner that achieves the interests of Islam and Muslims and by increasing military operations that drain the enemy financially.

Posted in International Affairs, Terrorism | Also tagged , , | Leave a comment

Breaking News: Pakistan Mosque Attack Kills 30

The BBC are reporting that upwards of 30 people have been killed in a bomb attack on a mosque near the Swat valley in north-western Pakistan. It appears to be part of a wider offensive timed to coincide with U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke’s visit to the country, as Reuters report:

“Earlier on Friday, police arrested suicide bombers in Islamabad and nearby Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s interior minister said, as U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke consulted the country’s leaders on what needs to be done once the army wipes out the Taliban in Swat valley.

Roadblocks have multiplied in recent days in both the capital and Rawalpindi, where the army is headquartered, over fears of attacks in retaliation against the Swat offensive.”

Posted in Feature, Terrorism | Tagged | Leave a comment

Pakistan: an Islamic State since 1973

A recent article by Ali Eteraz in Dissent Magazine deserves to be flagged up in the light of recent events.

Most people in the world, including some Pakistanis, live under the illusion that the country is secular and just happens to have been overrun by extremists. This is false. Pakistan became an Islamic state in 1973 when the new constitution made Islam the state religion. Under the earlier 1956 constitution Islam had been merely the “official” religion. Nineteen-seventy-three, in other words, represents Pakistan’s “Iran moment“—when the government made itself beholden to religious law. Most western observers missed the radical change because the leader of Pakistan at the time was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a whiskey-drinking, pseudo-socialist from a Westernized family. Those that did notice the transformation ignored it because the country was reeling from a massive military defeat in 1971, which led to half the nation becoming Bangladesh.

Posted in Islamism, Secularism, Sharia | Also tagged | Leave a comment

Hizb-ut Tahrir and the ‘butcher of Buner’

Hizb-ut Tahrir (HT) Britain, a global Islamist revolutionary group calling for the establishment of an Islamic state (Khilafah), has recently issued a press statement titled ‘Brown welcomes the butcher of Buner to Downing Street’ – denouncing Pakistani President  Zardari’s visit to the UK. Taji Mustafa HT Britain’s media representative said:

“The whole reason why the British, American and other Western governments sponsor brutal tyrants such as Zardari is because they fear the growing call in the Muslim lands such as Pakistan for Islam and the re-establishment of the Khilafah. Their strategy revolves around the simple objective of preventing Muslims from controlling their own political destiny…”

Posted in Human Rights, Islamism | Also tagged , | 10 Comments

The Taliban’s perversion of sharia law

(This article of mine was originally published in the Guardian’s Comment is Free: Belief, 3 May 2009)

In the Malakand region of Pakistan, the Taliban have started correcting the “moral wrongs” of society by banning women from shopping in public areas, as it is believed to be obscene. They have have punished men by shaving their hair and moustaches for listening to music, seen as un-Islamic. As non-Muslims living under sharia law, the Sikh community in Orakzai Agency is being forced to pay 15m rupees, approximately £130,000, in tax to live in peace. If Sikhs refuse, then the Taliban will occupy their properties.

The Taliban are, of course, not the first to attempt to implement sharia law. Governments in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and northern Nigeria have implemented “Islamic” laws that have resulted in systematic human rights abuses by employing medieval punishments for transgressing God’s “boundaries”, such as death for apostasy and stoning for adultery. The implementation of such sharia laws leads people to question the compatibility of Islam and human rights.

Posted in Human Rights, Islamism, Sharia | Also tagged , , | Leave a comment
  • Categories

  • Archives