Civil-military jurisdictions
By Najam Sethi
The various military Acts are inherited from the colonial era. The irony is that whereas in the UK and Europe such laws have since been amended to enable civilian jurisdiction over military matters, the opposite has been happening in Pakistan during various military regimes. For example, there are no standing military courts in countries like Denmark, Germany, Austria, Holland etc. In Spain and Latin America the military courts cannot intervene in political matters. In the UK, military appeal tribunals are headed by civilian judges-advocate with experience in practicing law and further appeals lie with the High Court or the Supreme Court of UK. Even in neighbouring India, civilians subject to military law may appeal in the high courts of the states. But not in Pakistan where the high courts have no jurisdiction to accept civilian petitions against military court judgments even in peacetime.
Indeed, General Pervez Musharraf went an extra mile to beef up the Army Act in November 2007 by inserting various clauses in section 2(1)(d), including some related to the "security of Pakistan" and "ideology of Pakistan", etc., whereby the military was empowered to detain and summarily convict any civilian on any pretext even in non-martial law times. Fortunately, after the judges were restored in March 2009, the SC in the famous "Judges Case" struck down most Musharraf-related legislation after November 3, 2007, including draconian amendments in the Army Act.
The SC is hearing three petitions that have a bearing on the subject. The first refers to a case in which the DGISI and COAS accept having paid off politicians to determine the course of a general election in 1990. The second relates to disappearances of civilians in Balochistan and the third to deaths of civilians in military custody. If the SC can blithely accept the military's deposition in Memogate as a matter of "public importance" by making "national security" a fundamental right, why can't it, by the same yardstick, amend or strike down articles 199 (3) and 184 (3) of the constitution to make military law subservient to civilian law and also abolish the ISI's internal political wing as a transgression of civilian supremacy in a constitutional democracy? All the transitional populist interventions of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to date will be dwarfed in comparison to such an abiding historic legacy for constitutional supremacy.
This is an Editorial of The Friday Times Pakistan

Banned jihadi groups get their money-trains back online: Report
Banned jihadi groups have seen a revival after affiliates have started opening local and foreign currency accounts to restart their money-trains, the BBC Urdu reported on Friday.
BBC Urdu reported that it had managed to obtain a list from intelligence agencies of jihadi groups, which have been banned by Pakistan, have been opening new accounts under pseudonyms to receive funds from local as well as foreign sources.
According to the report, intelligence agencies have been monitoring Jihadi groups, as blacklisted by the Government of Pakistan.
According to the report, the funds have been traced to some groups involved in terrorist activities. They also include groups which appear to work for social welfare. However, due to their links with extremist groups, they too are being blacklisted.
Intelligence agencies have expressed their fear that following the reopening of their cash lines, these extremist groups are once again gathering momentum.
Interior Ministry sources, the BBC Urdu reported, said that as per reports from intelligence agencies, seven banned groups have been opening accounts in different banks.
The groups include Jaish-e-Mohammad, Tehreek-i-Islami, Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan, Ghazi force, Hizbut Tahrir, Jamiatul Furqan, and Khairunissa International Trust.
The reports claimed that people linked to these groups were using local and foreign currency accounts.
Those helping the banned groups include people who had been assisting the groups in receiving and transporting funds in the past.
After reviewing the reports, Federal Interior Ministry has alerted banking circles of federal investigative agencies and related authorities to collect details of such accounts from different banks, especially those with large transactions, and with foreign currencies.
Pakistan has frozen accounts of 24 banned groups, including the seven named by intelligence agencies in the leaked report.
Courtesy: The Express Tribune

Pakistan: Stop unlawful detention
I.A.Rehman
THE death of another man in police custody in Lahore the other day has again drawn attention to the fact that unlawful detention, which is almost invariably accompanied by torture, is one of the most explosive issues in Pakistan today for human rights activists and advocates of the rule of law.
The matter assumes alarming proportions and can cause political crises if people are detained for vaguely defined and arbitrarily interpreted security considerations and their corpses are dumped at odd places as casually as irresponsible citizens throw garbage at their neighbours’ doors.
Nothing demonstrates a more thorough collapse of the legal order than these cases of illegal detention, torture and death in or as a result of wrongful confinement. And the situation will not get better unless sincere and determined efforts are made to check all forms of abuse of official authority and the relevant processes are properly streamlined.
The rot starts with disregard for lawful procedures at the time of arrest. There was a time when almost all arrests were made under warrants issued by competent authorities and arrest without a warrant was an exception to the rule. Now arrest without warrant has become quite common. Indeed, in instances of preventive detention or detention on suspicion of terrorist acts or terrorist intentions the victims are rarely, if ever, shown warrants.
Political activists are fully aware of the scandalous practice under which police used to detain them on the strength of blank detention forms (signed in advance by district magistrates). Many problems are likely to be solved if cases of arrest without warrant are reduced to the extent possible, because it may not be feasible to eliminate them altogether.
Another departure from civilised norms that has become increasingly evident is that people are taken into custody by men in plain clothes. It is generally assumed that it is necessary for the Crime Investigation Department personnel and other intelligence functionaries to avoid being identified while performing their duties.
This is not only absurd but also a violation of the victim’s right to be treated in accordance with the law. There is no reason why all those enjoying the power to effect arrests cannot do their job in their official uniforms or why they cannot disclose their names and ranks. This will obviate the possibility of arrests being made by agencies/individuals who do not have due authority.
Then every year scores of cases come to light in which arrest/detention is not recorded. If the detainee is held at a police station or a duly notified detention centre a common excuse for non-registration of arrest is that the person has only been summoned to help in an inquiry or that he is being held with a view to persuading a wanted offender to surrender.
The condition that anyone invited to help investigation must be given written notice for attendance is not honoured. In such cases redress is not very difficult as the détenu can be recovered by a court bailiff or during a magistrate’s visit to the lock-up (that needs to be made frequent).
The situation often becomes much more serious when somebody is detained at a secret detention centre/ safe house/ torture cell. At such places there is no limit to torture or the price that may be demanded for freedom. The families of the détenus fear the worst. One has met many old men and women who plead that their relatives may be charged with something so that the fact of their detention (and a possible bar to their liquidation) could be established.
It should not be difficult to realise that arrest without warrants or by unauthorised persons, detention without record and internment at an unauthorised and/or secret place deprives a citizen of his fundamental right to due process, causes anxiety to his family and undermines people’s allegiance to the state.
Respect for a lawful regime demands that all competent institutions/ services/ agencies should notify the people of their detention centres and they should be obliged to detain people only at such places. These centres must be visited without prior notice by the higher officials and also by district and high court judges. The sessions judges in particular must be advised to regularly visit such centres. In addition, organisations of lawyers and human rights activists should be allowed access to all places of detention.
Pakistani officials take pride in making a mockery of the legal requirement that each death in custody is judicially probed.
Either no inquiry is held or the formality is disposed of perfunctorily. In any case the findings are seldom made public. Not only the administration but the judiciary and parliament also need to use their powers to ensure that each death in custody or each recovery of the dead body of a person believed to have been detained by state functionaries is properly probed and the victim’s family granted due protection. Their entitlement to compensation must also be strictly honoured.
The primary reason for advocating a radical revamping of the arrest and detention regime is the urgency of establishing an order based on due respect for the basic human rights of all Pakistani citizens, and all other persons who may happen to be present in Pakistan at any time. However, the need to repair the country’s image in the eyes of the larger human family also has become quite pressing.
Not only the higher echelons of the government but also officials at the various administrative tiers at both the federal and provincial levels should realise that Pakistan can no longer enjoy the privileges of a state beyond the international community’s radars. They should learn to pay due respect to the citizens’ fundamental rights as recognised in the constitution and in international human rights instruments, at least the ones Pakistan has ratified.
The contradictions between Pakistan’s laws and practices and international humanitarian law/ international human rights law will have to be removed in order to satisfy public opinion both at home and abroad. The sooner the law-enforcement personnel start respecting the citizens’ right to protection against unlawful arrest, detention, torture, involuntary disappearance and death in custody (acknowledged or denied) the better it will be for all parties, the state and the law-enforcement agencies included.
Courtesy: Dawn.com

Pakistan: The tale of civilian survival
By Cyril Almeida
SOMETHING astonishing has just occurred in Pakistan, in case you missed it: nothing.
The army was poised to engineer the ouster of yet another civilian government, the plot was in an advanced state of execution and yet, somehow, incredibly, unbelievably, the political government is still with us, crowing about calling elections on its own terms.
In the inscrutable world of politics here, the non-coup — soft, hard, fluffy, whatever — seems to have come down to the choices of two men: Gen K and YRG.
Let’s start with Gen K. From most angles, the chief appears to have suffered another defeat. He upped the ante and came away empty-handed. That is not supposed to be the fate of army chiefs.
Three extraordinary public interventions on memogate — the Supreme Court statement and two ISPR ripostes — meant the chief had staked his reputation on getting a result. In this game, at this level, win and you win big; lose and your defeat hangs heavy, an embarrassment known to one and all.The more difficult question: why did Gen K lose this round? Part of
the answer is YRG, but we’ll get to that in a bit. The other part appears to be the general himself.
For those with a pathological hatred of all things uniformed, the general’s reversal is barely comeuppance for an institution that is genetically programmed to refuse to share.
Arguably, no civilian government had given as much to the army as this PPP government has: pay raises, budget demands, foreign and national-security policies, extensions. And when the government had a chance to go for the jugular, after May 2 or PNS Mehran, it stood back and allowed the army to recover.
And yet this government found itself under withering attack. The army just doesn’t like to share, goes this theory. There’s a merciful corollary, though: the generals aren’t very bright. Failing to recognise that Pakistan had changed, that gone are the days a few tanks and a handful of soldiers were enough to take over, the generals used an old playbook.
They thought that if they roared, the civilians would scurry away and the army could rejig the system to suit its needs. Instead, like in a cartoon of yore, the lion roared, the ground shook, the leaves quivered but the mouse standing in front of the lion stared into its maw unruffled. And when the roar ended, the mouse poked the lion in the eye.
Vaulting ambition but not very bright — that’s one explanation for why the army tried and failed to get the government.
Another, less popular theory, is that Gen K is walking a tightrope. His commanders have been furious, demanding that a corrupt and incompetent government be sorted out and that Gen K do whatever it takes. But Gen K knows the unholy mess the army would be wading into: if it were that easy to fix Pakistan, someone would have done it by now. And maybe, just maybe, the general understands that it isn’t the business of the army to fix Pakistan.
The problem, though, according to this theory, is that Gen K’s commanders mock him privately, suggesting his hesitancy has everything to do with being a compromised chief who took an extension and has to return the favour. So when the commanders push hard, as they have in recent months, particularly over memogate, Gen K has to try and placate them.
But, in a tale of many, many twists, Gen K’s options were limited by his attempt to steer clear of the mud pit of politics during his tenure as chief. Folks like the MQM and the PML-Q have been kept at arm’s length, which meant that when it came to unravelling the government, the old dominos didn’t fall like they once would have.
So which is it: is Gen K the general who tried and failed or the general who didn’t really want to succeed? The answer, as with so much else, depends on what you feel about the army.
But there was another player, an unexpected protagonist: the prime minister.
Perhaps the army camp was so focused on AZ and breaking him, they didn’t anticipate a counter-attack from YRG. Here, after all, was a man derided for much of his tenure as a second-fiddle weakling content to pad the family nest and protect his base in Multan.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Whatever acts of defiance Gilani was known for before, nothing comes close to staring down an army high command looking to strike. The potential costs were obvious — see how Husain Haqqani has suffered — and the benefits nebulous at best — who has fought and won against the army before? And since YRG wasn’t
known for being especially close to AZ, it made little sense to put himself in the line of fire when everyone knew the real target was AZ.
But Gilani’s stunning defiance opened an unexpected front with the army, one they didn’t appear prepared for. The PM did make one mistake, which allowed the army to push back a bit: the claim that the army and ISI chiefs had acted ‘unconstitutionally and illegally’ appears to have been prompted by Gilani’s limited understanding of proper procedure. Other
than that, when the army roared, Gilani roared back louder, causing consternation and confusion in the opposing camp.
So, between the general who didn’t do what was expected of him and the prime minister who did what wasn’t expected of him, appears to lie the tale of civilian survival against army machinations.
There may yet be another round and the old order could find itself restored still. But savour for now the unexpected, if not near-miraculous. Pakistan doesn’t often produce pleasant surprises.
The writer is a member of staff.
Courtesy: Dawn.com

Kashmir: Failure of militancy
The inspiration in this respect was the armed success of the mujahideen against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. The mujahideen were an armed movement of various Islamist groups driven by the philosophical dictates of Political Islam.
According to most political historians, the years between 1988 and 1997 were a vital period in the history of movements advocating Political Islam.
But it was a paradoxical event because this is also the period in which modern Political Islam witnessed a kind of an upsurge that also eventually led to its own downfall.
Modern Political Islam is closely associated with three central figures: Pakistan’s Abul Ala Madudi, Egypt’s Syed Qutb and Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.
Political Islam, also called “Islamism,” is a collection of ideologies advocating Islam as a political system. It must be noted that there is a difference between Political Islam (whose advocates are also called Islamists), and Islamic Fundamentalism.
Islamists do not shun western science and philosophy like the fundamentalists do. Instead, Islamists have been known to advocate the thorough study of western intellectual, political and cultural trends in an attempt to challenge them through their understanding and interpretation of Islam.
This has made the writings of Islamists rather fascinating. However, the discourse between Islam and Western secularism that the Islamists present eventually mutates from being an absorbing, intellectual exercise into becoming a somewhat frail ostentation, especially when the Islamists use the discourse to derive a suggestive political program.
For example, at the culmination of their otherwise well-informed intellectual discourses, Abul Ala Madudi (who in turn inspired Syed Qutb), ended up suggesting the reinstatement of the traditional caliphate system in place of Western political and economic systems like democracy and socialism.
Of course, in spite of the sound intellectuality behind their discourses, it was rather casually forgotten by the Islamist intellectuals that the history of the caliphate system that they were using to justify their argument too was riddled with the cynicism and cut-throat politics that they were decrying about the so-called western political ideologies.
When questioned and criticised in this regard, the Islamists suggest that the “true implementation of Islamic Law (the sharia),” will take care of such an eventuality. It’s just like saying that had Stalin not distorted Marxism, Communism would have been the finest politico-economic system. It’s a hurried, vague and Utopian assumption.
The truth is that the founding members of modern Political Islam were first and foremost interested in positioning Islam against Marxism and Socialism.
This was because at the time of these learned gentlemen, Socialism and Marxism were the two ideologies that were influencing Muslim nationalists the most (in the 1950s and ‘60s).
For example, Syed Qutb’s “Muslim Brotherhood” was opposed to Gamal Abul Nasser’s “Arab Socialism” in Egypt, and against “Ba’ath Socialism” that was taking root in Iraq and Syria.
The “Islamic Socialism” behind the Algerian independence movement against the French too was looked down upon.
On the other end, Maududi’s Political Islam became the basis of movements against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s “Islamic Socialism” in Pakistan and against the left-leaning dictatorship of Sukarno in Indonesia in the 1960s.
It was ironic that thanks to the dynamics of the Cold War, Islamists found themselves in the “American camp” due to Nato and the United States’ opposition to Muslim leaders who were considered to be anti-West, “Socialist” and thus pro-Soviet Union.
As a result throughout the Cold War the Islamists’ radical anti-West angle largely remained to be nothing more than a literary and an intellectual exercise, whereas the political and active sides of the ideology were mostly reflected through movements against the left (Marxism, Socialism, Arab Socialism, Islamic Socialism, etc.).
This is at least one reason why when Political Islam, even in countries where it managed to find some implementation (such as Pakistan and Sudan in the 1980s and Afghanistan in the 1990s), only managed to generate superficial changes.
What’s more, due to the ethnic, tribal and religious pluralism of the societies in which Political Islam aspired to implement itself as a singular concept of “true Islam”, caused huge social and political fissures and fractures.
Political Islam’s consequent failure to produce the desired results that its intellectuals had promised, and also its doctrinal involvement in the armed “jihad” in Afghanistan, generated the creation of modern-day Islamic militancy.
This militancy too faced the same problems in trying to triumph with a singular concept of Islam and the sharia in the face of the social and religious complications that run across Muslim countries.
So much so that by the late 1990s, Political Islam had devolved into what we now call “Islamic fundamentalism,” and/or stripped clean off its intellectual moorings and reduced to being an ideology of pure terror and having a myopic and narrow understanding of Islam and of the West. Entities like the al Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban and the many militant outfits that were active in Kashmir (Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba), are clear examples.
So it was heartening to hear Kashmir leaders like Bhatt and Yasin distancing themselves from those aspects of the movement that have caused nothing more than bloodshed, pain and chaos, more at the cost of the Kashmiris’ rather than their ‘occupiers.’
Courtesy: Dawn.com

Katju dubs Rushdie ‘sub-standard’ writer
Salman Rushdie is a “poor” and “sub-standard writer” who would have remained largely unknown but for his controversial book Satanic Verses, according to Markandey Katju, till recently a judge of the Supreme Court. Justice Katju, who is now the Chairman of Press Council of India, criticised the admirers of the India-born author based in Britain, saying they suffered from “colonial inferiority complex” that a writer living abroad has to be great. “Salman Rushdie dominated the Jaipur Literature Festival. I do not wish to get into the controversy whether banning him was correct or not. I am raising a much more fundamental issue,” he said in a statement in New Delhi.
“I have read some of Rushdie’s works and am of the opinion that he is a poor writer, and but for Satanic Verses would have remained largely unknown. Even Midnight’s Children is hardly great literature,” Justice Katju contended.
He went on to add that the “whole problem with the so-called educated Indians of today is that they still suffer from the colonial inferiority complex. So whoever lives in London and New York must be a great writer, while writers living in India are inferior.”
On the controversy surrounding Mr. Rushdie during the festival which ended on Tuesday, he said, “I am not in favour of religious obscurantism. But neither do I wish to elevate a sub-standard writer into a hero.”
Referring to the Jaipur festival, Justice Katju said one would have expected “serious discussion on literature, particularly indigenous literature” of the likes of Kabir, Premchand, Sharat Chandra, Manto, Ghalib, Faiz, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Subramania Bharti.
“Kabir and Tulsidas are no good because they lived on the ghats of Benaras, whereas Rushdie is great because he lives on the ghats of the Thames! This is the mental level of our ’intellectuals and ‘literati’,” the former Supreme Court judge said.
Justice Katju maintained that the whole history of the great Indian literature, rich in its variety, from Valmiki and Vyas to modern times should have been discussed. There could also have been a discussion on foreign writers like Dickens, Shaw, Victor Hugo, Balzac, Flaubert, Upton Sinclair, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorki and Pablo Neruda, he said.
“Instead the total focus at Jaipur appeared to be Rushdie. Two personalities linked with films were projected as ‘the finest poets’ in India, though to my mind their work is of a very inferior order. This is the low level to which the Jaipur Festival sank,” Justice Katju contended.
He said India is facing massive socio-economic problems today and literature should address these.
“The struggle which Kabir waged against narrow sectarianism, which Sharat Chandra waged against the caste system and women’s oppression, which Faiz waged against despotism, which Subramania Bharti waged for nationalism and women’s emancipation, which Dickens and Gorki waged against exploitation and social injustice — these are the matters which should have been discussed at Jaipur. Instead, Rushdie dominated most of the show,” he said.

The battle must go on
By Zubeida Mustafa
SUCH are the paradoxes in Pakistan’s politics, that at a time our politicians are locked in a grim power struggle in Islamabad, the same gentlemen joined hands to pass unanimously the women’s commission bill last Thursday.
Whether this show of unity on a matter concerning women should be interpreted as an act of chivalry or a demonstration of ‘woman power’, it will be widely welcomed. One must, however, admit that it was the clout of the women’s caucus and the determination of the speaker — also a woman — to get the treasury and opposition benches to forge a consensus that ultimately carried the day. The bill is expected to have a smooth sailing in the Senate.
This certainly has been an uphill struggle. When the commission was set up in July 2000, it was widely felt that its mandate was too weak to allow it to function as an effective body. This view was confirmed in July 2001 when Aurat Foundation and Shirkat Gah organised an international conference where representatives from abroad briefed the participants about the powers wielded by similar bodies in their countries.
It became increasingly clear that the announcement made with great fanfare by Gen Musharraf was no more than a gimmick.
The National Commission on the Status of Women (NSCW) lacked the capacity to bring about the emancipation of women and the elimination of discrimination against them.
Hence it was demanded that the powers and independence of the women’s commission should be enhanced to optimise its performance. The participants of the Islamabad conference also called for greater transparency and accountability in the commission’s selection and working.
It took more than a decade and a lot of hard work and advocacy to get the government to consider a change in the status quo.
The new body with the simple nomenclature of the National Commission for Women will certainly have more teeth in some respects as compared to its predecessor. It will be autonomous with the power to raise its own finances. Its composition will be more representative. Thus a bipartisan parliamentary committee will give a list of nominees from which the prime minister will select the members.
The prime minister will appoint the chairperson with the agreement of the leader of the opposition. This would hopefully ensure that the working of the commission is not hamstrung by inter-party conflict. Autonomy should allow the commission to bypass the red tape of bureaucracy and proceed to take up issues it feels are urgent.
The bill adopted by the National Assembly is significant in another way. The commission has been empowered to take up complaints of violations of women’s rights and even hold an enquiry into the matter if it is not being attended to. It can also inspect jails to check on female prisoners. In effect it will have the powers of a civil court. The ordinance of 2000 did not grant this power to the NCSW which could only monitor such violations and individual grievances, and then undertake initiatives for better management of justice and social services through the concerned forums.
In respect of the commission’s power of reviewing and monitoring the laws, policies and programmes of the government in the light of their implications for gender equality, empowerment of women, political participation and representation, the new law upholds the provision of the previous ordinance. It can also recommend repeal, amendment or new legislation as its predecessor could do. As before, it is authorised to sponsor research and maintain a database on gender issues as well as recommend the signing or ratification of international instruments.
The catch in all these provisions is that the commission can only make recommendations. It has no power to enforce its own views. When Justice Majida Razvi was the chairperson of the NCSW she had the Hudood Ordinances reviewed and the commission very strongly recommended their repeal. Her appeal fell on deaf ears. It was only later that the injustice inflicted on women by the Hudood Ordinances was neutralised by adopting the Women’s Protection Law of 2006. Will an autonomous commission have more powers of implementation? Most unlikely.
India’s National Commission for Women has been described as a strong body and yet one of its former members, Syeda Hameed, writes in her book They Hang, “The stories I tell are, of course, stories of women abused and violated by men wielding brute power. But they are also about the National Commission for Women, the nation’s apex body for women vested with the power to summon the highest functionaries of the land and seek redress — yet it remains ineffective for the most part … Perhaps it was ignorable or ignorance combined with indifference, but the truth of the matter is that the commission’s reports and jurisdiction are not binding on anyone, and its jurisdiction stops at its front door.”
Our commission can expect no better treatment from the male-dominated administration. But there is still hope. If the chairperson is an active and experienced person as the incumbent (Anis Haroon) is, she can use her office to draw public attention to the issue that needs to be addressed.
Working in close liaison with women parliamentarians the National Commission for Women can make an impact on the laws.
In other words the battle has to go on. But every victory helps create greater awareness and should be used in the campaign to mobilise women at the grass-roots. That is where lies the strength of the women’s movement wherever it may be.

ISI chief secretly meets Musharraf in Dubai: sources
ISLAMABAD: Lt General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the chief of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), held a secret meeting with former President General (retired) Pervez Musharraf in Dubai advising him not to visit Pakistan, sources told DawnNews on Monday.
“General Pasha, who has remained very close to the former president, held a meeting with him (Musharraf) in Dubai and advised him not to return to the country as the situation is not conducive for his return,” said an insider while requesting anonymity from this correspondent.
The Senate on Monday also passed a resolution demanding the arrest of the former military ruler on his return. Interior Minister Rehman Malik also announced that Musharraf would be arrested the day he landed in Pakistan.
The sources claim that Pasha strictly advised Musharraf to not to return.
It is yet not clear whether the meeting was held on the directions of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party government or if it was a private meeting. However the sources insist that it was a private meeting between the two.
The sources also claim that Pasha enjoys a long history of relations with the former dictator.
In 2008, during the last year of Musharraf as president, Pasha was appointed to the key posting of Director General (DG) of Military Operations Directorate. Later General Kayani, after becoming the chief of Army Staff, promoted him as Lt Gen and appointed him the chief of the ISI.
Currently two important cases against Pervez Musharraf have been registered in Pakistan. An Anti Terrorists Court (ATC) in Rawalpindi has already declared Musharraf a proclaimed offender in the Benazir Bhutto murder case. Musharraf was also nominated in Akbar Bugti’s murder case in Balochistan.
The sources also claim that Musharraf, after meeting with the ISI Chief, called a meeting of his party on January 25th for revisiting his decision to return to Pakistan.

Contempt case: Gilani's contempt hinges on Zardari's immunity
Islamabad; Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani arrived at the Supreme Court smiling and waving to the television cameras outside, amid a heavy security presence which included helicopters.
But perhaps it wasn’t just the police protection that gave the premier a sense of security and comfort. After all, he was appearing before the court with Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan by his side.
And that security was not misplaced.
Aitzaz, a well-respected practitioner and held in high regard for his role in the 2009 lawyers’ movement, sparred with the seven-judge bench over the central issue of President Asif Ali Zardari’s immunity. The lawyer held them off, with neither conceding an inch, before proceedings were adjourned until February 1.
“In the Constitution, there is complete immunity for the president,” was Gilani’s explanation to the court for not writing to Swiss officials to restore graft cases against President Zardari in line with the NRO verdict.
The PM’s voice was confident and respectful. Across the bench, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa was pleased to see him, terming Gilani’s appearance as his submission to the majesty of law.
“I have come today to show my respect to this court,” Gilani said. “It will not give a good message to proceed against a president who is elected by a two-thirds majority … There is complete immunity for head of states everywhere.”
According to the judges, the central legal issue is Article 248 of the Constitution, which ostensibly provides immunity to the president from money-laundering cases abroad. Justice Sirmed Jalal Osmani put this issue to Ahsan, asking: “How do you link the writing of letter to immunity?”
In response, Ahsan said he would like to avoid the question of immunity, for he was confining his submissions to proving the PM’s innocence.
The PM, Ahsan argued, decided not to write the letter on the advice of the ministry for law, justice and parliamentary affairs. He added he would show the court that the NRO judgment could not be implemented because of the constitutional bar on initiating criminal proceedings against the president.
Holding a number of stapled court orders, Justice Khosa observed that the government had delayed implementation for two years – but only now had cited immunity as the reason.Ahsan was nimble in response again, saying he was not raising the question of immunity because his argument related to the fact that the prime minister acted in good faith. The court, he argued, would have to determine if Gilani was guilty of wilful disobedience or not.
The judges, though, would not be swayed.
Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan said that Article 248 served as the basis of the PM’s disobedience. Justice Khosa observed that if the court found that the immunity existed, it could discharge the notice issued to the PM. “What would you do if the case is otherwise?” Justice Khosa asked.
Ahsan, ever tactful, said he would do what the Constitution required him to do.
Justice Osmani asked Aitzaz to raise the matter before the court if he thought the PM was justified in his belief in presidential immunity as the basis for not complying with the court order. Aitzaz hit this one straight back across the court. He said he would not raise the matter, but the court could do so on its own. “Why must the court raise the question of immunity?” Justice Osmani asked.
Aitzaz said that immunity for the president extended even outside Pakistan and no one could push “a person into the fire of foreign cases.” He cited the cases of Fidel Castro and Muammar Qaddafi as relevant guidelines.
The bench had an answer for Aitzaz’s tricks: Justice Osmani observed that if the counsel addressed the court on the question of immunity, then he would not have to demonstrate that the PM acted in a lawful manner.
Just as they the tide began to turn, Aitzaz tactfully called ‘time out’, asking the court to grant him a few days to chalk out his case. This was granted, but not before Justice Osmani declared that next time they would “grab the bull by its horns.”
Talking to reporters outside, Aitzaz said he would satisfy the court on the question of immunity because the judges had insisted upon it.
Among those also present were Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan and PML-Q leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.
After the hearing, members of various bar associations chanted slogans in support of the court.
Courtesy: The Express Tribune

Open the gates, please
While we are reeling from the ongoing Memogate scandal (it seems to preoccupy our every waking moment), I wonder how many people realize the origin of the suffix 'gate' being attached to the infamous Memo. Yes, dears, we have latched onto something that had an equally invidious background, involving a president, senior government officials, deceit and a cover-up.
In the early 1970s, a break-in at the Watergate complex in Washington, DC was traced back to the White House and the President of the United States. The scandal, with resulting denials, investigations and near-impeachment, led to the resignation of Richard Nixon. Columnist William Safire is credited with using the suffix 'gate' for various emerging scandals, though none of them had the severity or impact of the original. As a result, there are over 50 scandals that have been 'gated,' so to speak.
Our scandal, dubbed 'Memogate,' also involves a president and senior government officials, with potential deceit and cover-up ensuing. Whereas the original Water Gate had a character named "Deep Throat" providing inside information to reporters Woodward and Bernstein, our source of information is less subtle; in fact he is willing to grace TV screens and appear before the Supreme Court. Sadly, however, ours is not the first 'Memogate'; that distinction belongs to an incident involving CBS Anchor Dan Rather who presented on TV a forged memo concerning George W. Bush's military record. Rather had to resign his position.
So, what else do we have in our neck of the woods that would qualify - good, bad or ugly - for the suffix 'gate?' Plenty, in my opinion. Here's a sampler:
Veenagate: it appears that Veena Malik's naked ambitions have finally been exposed (I couldn't avoid those words), and that, too, for an Indian fashion publication. The resulting brouhaha has me baffled: is it the nudity or the fact that she did it for an Indian magazine? Would the outrage be the same if it were for a Brazilian or Italian glossy? Or did it have something to do with the ISI tattoo and hand-grenade?
What I found particularly amusing was Veena's vacillations between admitting to "doing a bold shoot," and her insistence that the photos had been 'morphed.' "She's getting technical on me," I thought to myself. The controversy had the desired effect, boosting magazine sales for FHM and recognition value for Ms Malik. In direct proportion, she has been demonized and ostracized, excommunicated and flagellated, but we must give the brave lady full credit for the way she has fought back. She's been on every talk show and defended not just herself, but every other woman in Pakistan who has fallen (or will fall afoul) of the self-righteous brigade. Hats off to Veena.
Imrangate: or should we say 'floodgate'? What's happened to good old Immi? Fifteen years in the political wilderness and now this sudden surge of popularity that is manifest in everyone and his brother rushing to join the PTI bandwagon? Good for him. He'd done an outstanding job as a cricketer and philanthropist but had floundered as a politician.
I feel sorry for all those who have stood by him for 15 years and are now getting swamped by the has-beens and wannabes rushing to join the PTI (or Pakistan-Tehreeki-Imran, as a writer in DAWN put it). He has been calling his momentum a 'tsunami', with his focus on "change for the future by breaking with the corrupt past." So how does he hope to achieve all of this by allowing everyone who has been in previous dispensations to join the fun? He has the distinction of having three former Foreign Ministers in his fold now, so this begs the question: Who will look after domestic affairs?
Democracygate: Cynics in Pakistan equate democracy with bad governance and corruption, an opposition that rants and raves but has no answers, and a public willing to take to the streets for just about anything but a cause. Because of the titanic promises made to us at election time, we expect miracles to be performed and are disappointed when they do not materialize. The elected, 'democratic' government sees conspiracies in every move, and foreign governments play 'Big Brother' with aid and advice.
We make noises about the perceived threats to our sovereignty when we are given 'advice' by Western governments, but have no qualms in accepting the intervention of 'friendly' countries when it comes to providing asylum to our politicians and generals, or to negotiating political "settlements" between them, or "guaranteeing" their safe returns to the motherland. We don't even blink when they come to shoot our endangered birds. Yes, 'Democracy-gate' is a big, huge, monstrous scandal in Pakistan.
Hairgate: There are at least three notable politicians who've had their scalps 'rejuvenated' to preserve their looks, and several others who are currently sporting toupees. The rest like to dye their hair much like government officials, military officers and PIA crew. Why are we so insecure about growing old? One politician I can exempt here - he is extremely attractive to women and so would like to retain that advantage; after all, females make up 50% of our population and could come in handy at the election.
Leon lives in a glass house in Karachi
Courtesy: Friday Times