On Twitter, Glimpses of a Slain Pakistani Governor’s War on Religious ‘Fanatics’ - By Robert Money - The New York Times

January 4, 2011, 11:51 AM

On Twitter, Glimpses of a Slain Pakistani Governor’s War on Religious ‘Fanatics’

By ROBERT MACKEY

The New York Times

 

In a recent update on Twitter, Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, refused to back down from his support for changing the country’s blasphemy law.

As my colleagues Salman Masood and Carlotta Gall report, the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was shot and killed by one of his guards on Tuesday.

Mr. Taseer had recently waged a very public campaign to save the life of a Christian woman sentenced to death under Pakistan’s blasphemy law and his assassin was reportedly angered by the governor’s outspoken support for changing that law, despite the objections of Islamist leaders.

Pakistan’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, told reporters: “The police guard who killed him says he did this because Mr. Taseer recently defended the proposed amendments to the blasphemy law. This is what he told the police after surrendering himself.”

Through his frequently-updated Twitter feed, Mr. Taseer was a tireless combatant in Pakistan’s online culture war, between religious conservatives and secular liberals, and his death was immediately mourned on blogs and social networks.

In an emotional post on the blog Pak Tea House, Yasser Latif Hamdani, a Lahore lawyer, wrote:

The bastards have murdered the one honest man in the whole shameful lot of bigots, fascists and idiots… Today is a most tragic day for Pakistan, for sanity and for humanity. Salman Taseer was MURDERED by religio-fascists.

Mr. Hamdani added that the governor’s killing had laid bare “the whirlpool of religious violence and extremism we are stuck in.”

As the BBC journalist Mishal Husain noted soon after Mr. Taseer’s death, readers unfamiliar with the governor’s willingness to take on what he called Pakistan’s “religious right” can scroll back through his recent updates on Twitter to get a sense of the man.

Three days ago, for instance, after street protests against proposed changes to the blasphemy law, Mr. Taseer pronounced himself:

Unimpressed by mullah rightest madrassa demo yesterday: small numbers abusive well organised no general public support

In an update posted on New Year’s Eve, Mr. Taseer declared that even though he was “under huge pressure” from the right to stop pushing for changes to the blasphemy law, he had no intention of doing so. “Even,” he added, “if I’m the last man standing.” 

A few days earlier, referring to messages from other users of the social network calling for his death, Mr. Taseer suggested that they should be filed under: “Example of a sick mind.”

On Christmas Day he wrote:

Merry Xmas to all Christian brothers and sisters all over Pakistan. We respect ur patriotism & great role u have played building Pakistan.

The evening before, he seconded the observation of another Twitter user who wrote, “we live in a country where [the] mullah brigade can get away with murder but minorities are persecuted on frivolous charges.” Mr. Taseer added:

My observation on minorities: A man/nation is judged by how they support those weaker than them not how they lean on those stronger.

Covered in the righteous cloak of religion and even a puny dwarf imagines himself a monster. Important to face. And call their bluff.

In other notes posted in the weeks before his death, Mr. Taseer compared the struggle over the blasphemy law in Pakistan to the struggle “against extremists” by people “like Rosa Parks,” called a conservative media tycoon a “psychotic nut,” and attacked Islamist clerics who support suicide bombing. In the clipped slang of Twitter, Mr. Taseer wrote in December:

My advice 2 mullahs who r telling little madrassah boys that they have a ticket 2 heaven: Grab it urself or give it 2 ur son

Mr. Taseer also used Twitter to alert his followers to remarks he made about the religious “lunatic fringe” in an interview with Pakistan’s Newsline on Dec. 23, in which he said that the country’s blasphemy law “is a man-made law, not a God-made one.”

In the same interview, Mr. Taseer explained that he had taken up the case of the Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy because “this is a blatant violation against a member of a minority community. I, like a lot of right-minded people, was outraged.” He added: “The real problem is that the government is not prepared to face religious fanaticism head on. This also gives us a bad name in the world.”

Mr. Taseer’s feed was not exclusively devoted to tweaking Islamists, though. He also used it to joke about cricket (by suggesting that Pakistan’s successful blind cricket team might be cheating), to poke at his Indian followers and India’s prime minister and even to make light of the strain placed on diplomatic relations by the leaked U.S. cables. The week the first cables were published he wrote:

Having a small dinner tonight 4 new U.S. Ambassador Cameron Muenter & Marlyn his wife. Try not 2 discuss Wikileaks.

Last month, Mr. Taseer also posted links to an animated music video by a supporter who reimagined his fight with religious extremists as a rap battle and a video interview with YouTube in which he discussed the role of new media in Pakistan.

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Karkare Murder - Call records in hand, Digvijaya wants apology - Express New Service - Indian Express.com

Maharashtra's Home Minister R. R. Patil knows more than he is disclosing. As per media reports, Karkare had already reported to him about the Saffron threats. He must go public with the whole truth and should not play games with people's lives. India's internal security is under serious threat and R. R. Patil is playing politics, even against their own coalition partners in Maharashtra. There cannot be any appeasement of terrorists, if they happen to be 'our own people'. That is a very short sighted purchase of peace that will cost big to the nation.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

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http://www.indianexpress.com/news/call-records-in-hand-digvijaya-wants-apology/733475/0

Wed, 5 Jan 2011

Call records in hand, Digvijaya wants apology

Express news service
Tags : Congress, Digvijaya Singh, conversation with Hemant Karkare, 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks
Posted: Wed Jan 05 2011, 03:42 hrs

New Delhi:

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday produced call records to validate his claims about his conversation with slain Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare shortly before he was killed in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. He also demanded a public apology from Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil for questioning his claims.


“I expect from those who had called me a liar and traitor and put question marks over my integrity that they should apologise or at least express regret,” Singh said at a press conference at the Constitution Club here.

He clarified that he had not held the press conference at party office because it concerned conversation between two individuals.

In a letter to Patil on Monday, Singh referred to their telephonic conversation on December 31 in which the Congress leader had raised objection to the Home Minister’s statement in Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha without collecting proper information that the state police had no record of his conversation with Karkare.

“Because of your statement and that of Maharashtra police, an attempt has been made through the media in the country to prove my statement false. Mediapersons also called me a liar,” Singh said in his letter stating that had the Home Minister got an inquiry done, he would not have made the statement.

“I request you to offer apology publicly or express regret,” said Singh in his letter, attaching with it a copy of the BSNL call records that showed that there was a call from Maharashtra ATS office landline number (022-23087336) to his mobile (09425015461) at 5.44 pm on November 26, 2008.

On Tuesday, Patil refused to respond to Singh’s demand for an apology, saying he will study the Congress leader’s statement first.

The call records released at Singh’s press conference on Tuesday showed that the purported conversation between Singh and Karkare had lasted for 381 seconds. Asked how it could be proved by call records whether Karkare had told him about the threat to his life due to his investigation into Malegaon blast case, Singh said, “I believe in ethics. I do not tape any phone nor do I recommend so.” He, however, asserted that he had categorically said that Pakistani terrorists were involved in 26/11 attack.

He said he had never met Karkare. According to him, after the accused in Malegaon blasts were arrested, he had called him up to congratulate him because they were the same people whose activities had drawn his attention when he was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh.

Is Saudi Arabia Opening Up? by Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes, a long time observer/scholar of Middle East affairs, is a committed Zionist and though appears to speak softly on Islam, Muslim and Arab Affairs, he is unabashedly dedicated to the Zionist mission, to study Muslim affairs and sow divisions within the Ummah.

http://www.danielpipes.org/9274/saudi-arabia-opening-up

Is Saudi Arabia Opening Up?

by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
January 4, 2011

On Jan. 1, 1996, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz became regent and effective ruler of Saudi Arabia. His 15^th anniversary this week offers an opportunity to review the kingdom's changes under his leadership and whither it now heads.

The Saudi king, Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, 86.

His is perhaps the most unusual and opaque country on the planet, a place without a public movie theater, where women may not drive, where men sell women's lingerie, where a single-button self-destruct system can perhaps destroy the oil infrastructure, and where rulers spurn even the patina of democracy. In its place, they have developed some highly original and successful mechanisms to keep power.


Three features define the regime: controlling the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, subscribing to the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, and possessing by far the world's largest petroleum reserve. Islam defines identity, Wahhabism inspires global ambitions, oil wealth funds the enterprise.

More profoundly, wealth beyond avarice permits Saudis to deal with modernity on their own terms. They shun jacket and tie, exclude women from the workspace, and even aspire to replace Greenwich Mean Time with Mecca Mean Time.

Not many years ago, the key debate in the kingdom was that between the monarchical and Taliban versions of Wahhabism – an extreme reading of Islam versus a fanatical one. But today, thanks in large part to Abdullah's efforts to "tame Wahhabi zeal," the most retrograde country has taken some cautious steps to join the modern world. These efforts have many dimensions, from children's education to mechanisms for selecting political leaders, but perhaps the most crucial one is the battle among the ulema, the Islamic men of religion, between reformers and hardliners.

The arcane terms of this dispute make it difficult for outsiders to follow. Fortunately, Roel Meijer, a Dutch Middle East specialist, provides an expert's guide to arguments in the kingdom in his article, "Reform in Saudi Arabia: The Gender-Segregation Debate." He demonstrates how gender mixing (ikhtilat in Arabic) inspires a debate central to the kingdom's future and how that debate has evolved.

Current stringencies about gender separation, he notes, reflect less age-old custom than the success of the Sahwa movement in the aftermath of two traumatic events in 1979 – the Iranian revolution and the seizure of the Grand Mosque of Mecca by Osama bin Laden-style radicals.

When Abdullah formally ascended to the monarchy in mid-2005, he ushered in an easing of what critics call gender apartheid. Two key recent events toward greater ikhtilat took place in 2009: a change of high government personnel in February and the September opening of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (known as KAUST), with its ostentatiously mixed-gender classes and even dances.

The Saudi crown prince, Sultan bin Abdulaziz, 82.

Debate over ikhtilat ensued, with jousting among royals, political figures, ulema, and intellectuals. "Although the position of women has improved since 9/11, ikhtilat demarcates the battle lines between reformists and conservatives [i.e., hardliners]. Any attempt to diminish its enforcement is regarded as a direct attack on the standing of conservatives and Islam itself."

Meijer concludes his survey of the debate by noting that "it is extremely difficult to determine whether reforms are successful and whether the liberals or conservatives are making gains. Although the general trend is in favor of the reformists, reform is piecemeal, hesitant, equivocal and strongly resisted."

The state under Abdullah has promoted a more open and tolerant Islam but, Meijer argues, "it is obvious from the ikhtilat debate that the battle has not been won. Many Saudis are fed up with the inordinate interference of religious authorities in their lives, and one can even speak of an anti-clerical movement. The liberals, however, speak a language that is alien to the world of official Wahhabism and the majority of Saudis and is therefore hardly likely to influence them."

In brief, Arabians are in mid-debate, with the future course of reform as yet unpredictable. Not only do elite and public opinion play a role, but, complicating matters, much hangs on the quirks of longevity and personality – in particular, how long Abdullah, 86, remains in charge and whether his ailing half-brother crown prince, Sultan bin Abdulaziz, 82, will succeed him.

Saudi Arabia being one of the world's most influential Muslim countries, the stakes involved are high, not just within the kingdom but for Islam and for Muslims generally. This debate deserves our full attention.

Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.