Bhutto Assassination a Tragedy

Author: Human Rights Watch
Source: hrw.org

“Political violence of this nature has claimed far too many innocent lives in Pakistan and it must stop,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Benazir Bhutto was a democrat who believed in the supremacy of constitutional rule and throughout her career, sought power through the ballot box. Today, she died campaigning for votes and calling for a free election.”

Human Rights Watch called upon the Pakistani government to undertake an independent and transparent investigation into Bhutto’s assassination and fully cooperate with such an investigation.

“Given Bhutto’s public accusations of government threats against her and the absence of judicial independence in Pakistan, an independent and transparent investigation is absolutely essential,” said Hasan.

The government and security forces should ensure that fundamental rights are not violated and people are allowed to peacefully express their grief and anger.

“To prevent Pakistan’s descent into further political chaos at this delicate time, it is essential that both the government and Bhutto’s supporters follow the rule of law and remain peaceful,” said Hasan.

Pakistan Suspends Media Restrictions

Author: Griff Witte
Source: Washington Post Foreign Service

The restrictions, which had gone into effect Monday, had elicited a sharp response from print and broadcast journalists in Pakistan, as well as media advocates worldwide. The rules gave the government broad new powers to rescind television broadcasters' licenses and to seize stations that violated government regulations.

Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said the regulations had been misinterpreted and would be put on hold as a show of good faith while the government negotiates with broadcasters. "There's no intention on the part of the government to take a harsh line," Durrani said in an interview.

But Hamid Mir, Islamabad bureau chief for Geo TV, a private broadcaster here, said the government has made clear it wants to intimidate the news media, having pressured cable companies to block several stations' transmissions earlier this week. Mir said the suspension of the new rules is only temporary, and he strongly doubted that President Pervez Musharraf or his government would relent in their efforts.

"It's just stick and carrot. They will not stop until General Musharraf is reelected from this Parliament," Mir said.

Musharraf has said he wants the outgoing Parliament to extend his rule this fall for another five-year term. But his plans were complicated three months ago when he suspended the nation's chief justice, sparking a massive opposition campaign against his eight-year-old government. Since then, more than 40 people have been killed in clashes blamed on a pro-Musharraf group, and lawyers and journalists have come under attack from government forces. Independent television stations have given the crisis wall-to-wall coverage.

On Thursday, demonstrations against the government continued, with 7,000 people massing in the eastern city of Lahore to express their support for the chief justice, Mohammed Iftikhar Chaudhry.

While Musharraf continues to enjoy strong support from Washington, he has become increasingly isolated in Pakistan, with even formerly close supporters keeping their distance. On Thursday, Musharraf was quoted chastising his allies in Parliament for not defending him publicly as the calls for his resignation grow.

"I bluntly say you always leave me alone in time of trial and tribulation," Musharraf told the lawmakers, according to a report in the News, an English-language paper. "You are not delivering. You have lost the war of nerves. You all are silent upon what the media is doing. If I myself have to do everything then you are for what purpose."

The paper also reported that Musharraf looked visibly shaken and told the assembled allies, "I feel disturbed for the first time."

Durrani said the speech was intended as a "tool for motivation."

"This government has done a lot for the people of Pakistan. So everybody from our coalition should be more active" in defending the government, he said.

Also on Thursday, three top military officials denied in court papers that they had pressured Chaudhry to quit. Chaudhry had earlier asserted that he was held against his will for more than five hours on March 9 as the nation's intelligence chiefs and other top Musharraf aides pushed him to step down. Chaudhry said he resisted the pressure and was suspended instead.

But Maj. Gen. Mian Nadeem Ijaz, chief of military intelligence, said in an affidavit that he and his fellow officials "did nothing discourteous and there was no demand."

Ijaz said Chaudhry had asked Musharraf to dismiss the Parliament because it had become "a nuisance." Ijaz also accused Chaudhry of regularly seeking information about fellow judges from the intelligence agencies.

Chaudhry's lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, called the accusations "absurd."

The government suspended Chaudhry because of alleged abuses of office, which Chaudhry has denied. His backers have said he was targeted because he threatened Musharraf's plans to consolidate power.

Bush, Sarkozy to Musharraf: Hold elections, step down from military

Author: CNN
Source: CNN

My message was very plain, very easy to understand: The United States wants you to have the elections as scheduled, and I want you to take the uniform off," Bush said of his telephone conversation with Musharraf earlier in the day.

On Saturday, Musharraf imposed an emergency order in the country -- suspending the constitution and arresting hundreds of human rights activists and lawyers -- in what he said was a necessary move to fight terrorism.

Sarkozy agreed that the elections must take place as scheduled.

"We need to have elections [in Pakistan] as swiftly as possible," he said. "This is a country of 150 million people, which happens to have nuclear weapons. This is very important for us that one day, we shouldn't wake up with a government, an administration in Pakistan which is in the hands of the extremists."

Call to bring bandwidth tariff at par with international rates

Source: www.paktribune.com

President Ispak, Waqar Ahmed Abidi talking to Business Recorder said that the measures taken by the authority were helpful but not entirely to their satisfaction and resolved to continue to strive for the rights of the consumers.

He said that the neighbouring country, India had the highest rates throughout the world and the rates in Pakistan even after the recent reduction were higher than India's.

He said that India had already earned the goodwill in the international market of information technology and was getting handsome business in the form of outsourcing, offshore servicing and call-centres etc, besides their software exports were far greater than Pakistan.

In such a situation India could afford higher rates but Pakistan, which was an emerging country in the industry and was yet to mark its place on the world map could not catch up with the competitors with such higher rates and the monopoly of PTCL.

"Reducing bandwidth tariff lower than India is must for the country to be in the competition and gaining a favourable position in the market," Abidi observed.

Lamenting the PTCL's monopoly, he said even the internal bandwidth or domestic bandwidth rates were higher than the international and added that a link to London from Karachi was cheaper than to establish a connection from Karachi to Islamabad.

He said that ever since the announcement of the broadband policy by the government of Pakistan, the ISPAK started its efforts to ensure the correct environment for the realisation of the goal set in the policy. The stumbling block for a way was always the PTCL, which created numerous hurdles in the way of the progress of the broadband in the country.

In the first quarter of 2006, ISPAK approached the PTA armed with world-wide data and bench marks. ISPAK kept on pursuing the case very seriously pointing out the factual position where the position had been altered, either through changing circumstances in the telecom market or where the facts were not clearly elaborated.

"ISPAK is very thankful to the PTA for affording us an opportunity to express our point of view and for taking appropriate action in the best interest of the country and its expanding economy," Abidi said.

Speaking about the outcome of this step, he said that this reduction would enable the spread of DSL from the corporate houses to the domestic market and the students could benefit from it as well as new business avenues would be opened.

He further said that availability of the DSL in the domestic market would help women in particular to be involved in the business activities even staying in their houses, as the internet has now become a very popular and strong medium of offshore outsourcing.

Abidi maintained that the bandwidth rates should be as much affordable that the DSL could be accessible by all even in the rural areas. This would give a boost to the cottage industry, he said and quoted the example of India where dairy sector was established and has flourished through the Internet.

He, however, appreciated the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) for reducing the bandwidth tariff in the country and added that the monopoly of PTCL should be checked and the tariff should at least be equivalent to those prevailing in the international market.

Restriction on coverage

Source: www.thenews.com.pk

According to several recent reports, the government is displeased at the media being allowed into hearings of various standing committees of the National Assembly and the Senate and is considering prohibiting journalists from attending their proceedings. The reason for this has to do with the fact that recently some startling revelations came to light in meetings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on various matters concerning the public interest. This information tended to embarrass the government and certain ministries -- in most cases deservedly, such as the revelations regarding the sugar cartel which came to light during a PAC meeting -- and hence the pressure now to bar the media from covering the proceedings of the parliamentary committees. Individual heads of standing committees have complained to the press that they are being threatened by unnamed officials if they continue to allow the media to observe the proceedings.

All this is extremely unfortunate and settling. And there are various reasons for that. For starters, the purpose of parliamentary committees is to act as a check and monitor on various government policies and programmes by enabling members of parliament -- the true representatives of the people, so to speak -- to summon senior functionaries, including ministers, and ask them questions. In most civilized and democratic countries, the hearings of these parliamentary committees are open to the media (barring the rare case where the classified or sensitive nature of the matter requires a closed-door meeting). And there are several solid reasons for that. The media acts like the eyes and ears of the public and allows the latter to see and judge the performance of both their elected representatives and state functionaries. This is an excellent way of holding accountable elected representatives and government bureaucrats because after all the policies that they formulate are supposed to be for the maximization of the public good and the funds that are used to finance the implementation of such policies is paid by the taxpayer.

There is also an important element of freedom of information in this matter. The flow of information – a true measure of a democratic dispensation -- is a very tightly-controlled commodity in this country. Governments have generally kept a tight leash on the flow of information in the belief that that this would be a good way of keeping their grip on power and preventing the public from knowing of any errors of commission or omission. The result has been that journalists often have no choice but to rely on second-hand or anonymous sources for stories that relate to issues of public or national interest. Access to proceedings of parliamentary committees allows them to have first-hand official information and bringing it to the public's knowledge is usually a most effective check on government's wrongdoing, misuse of authority by state functionaries and in containing official corruption.

In today's world, and with the Internet being a vast (and always growing) storehouse of information, those who think that barring the media from covering parliamentary committees is a brilliant exercise in damage control should think again because it can only be counter-productive. If anything, the message that this sends to people both in and outside the country is that it amounts to plain censorship and that the government must have something to hide. Or why else would it want to restrict journalists from covering proceedings of parliamentary committees when the issues discussed are all related to public policy? The rest of the world is moving towards allowing the media (and not just state-owned channels) greater access to parliamentary proceedings. Regrettably, we seem to be moving backward on this score. The prime minister has recently said that we have all the "elements of a democracy". In a democracy, the prime minister would know since he is a well traveled person, the media is allowed unfettered access to parliamentary proceedings, including those of parliamentary subcommittees. The government should give up any thought of placing such a restriction on the media. In fact, it should open up proceedings of all National Assembly and Senate standing committees to the press if it truly believes in transparency and accountability.

TV channel reporter, cameraman freed on bail

Source: www.dawn.com

Jacobabad --- Television reporter Mukesh Rupeta and cameraman Sanjay Kumar were granted bail by the second civil judge and judicial magistrate here on Friday.

They were booked under section 419, 465, 471 of the PPC, 3-A of the Official Secret Act 1923 by the SHO of the Airport police station on behalf of the state.

The counsel for Mukesh moved the bail application which was granted by the court and both the reporter and the cameraman were released after submitting surety bonds of Rs25,000 each.

Mukesh and Sanjay were taken to the Jacobabad Press Club where they were greeted by their colleagues.

AP adds: Mukesh Rupeta and Sunjay Kumar were detained on March 6 for filming at the Jacobabad airbase.

Geo TV for which they worked welcomed their release and urged the government to drop the case against them.

"These two journalists had been implicated in a false case and we think that this case should be withdrawn," said Geo TV spokesman Azhar Abbas.

Hours before Friday's decision, Rupeta told the AP that he and his colleague had been treated like criminals or terrorists while in detention.

"Those who were holding us looked like intelligence agents. When they were beating me, I asked myself whether I am a Pakistani," Rupeta told The Associated Press, speaking by cell phone from a police hospital where he said he was being treated for malnutrition.

Abbas declined to say who had been holding the men since March. But Rupeta's family claimed they had been 'illegally' held by sensitive spy agencies before being transferred into police custody.

Interior Ministry officials declined to say who had been holding the journalists.

US-led coalition forces used the base to support operations in Afghanistan after the 2001 invasion that toppled the Taliban regime.

Ash in Pakistan

Pakistan Health ministry has all set to cash in on the popularity of the Bollywood Queen and for that they already have invited her to kick-start polio immunization campaign in the country.
"This year, we plan to build up excitement in the next round of polio campaigns scheduled for the last week of September by inviting two polio ambassadors of the region, namely Aishwarya Rai and Pakistani pop star Javed Ahmed," says Pakistan health minister Mohammed Nasir Khan.

Pak, India to set up high-speed communication link

Source: www.onlinenews.com.pk

India and Pakistan agreed to set up a high-speed communication link between Amritsar and Lahore but failed to reach a pact on New Delhi getting a reciprocal most favoured nation status from Islamabad.

The two sides, also decided that applications for opening of branches from each other's banking firms would be processed expeditiously but kept issues like liberal visa norms and the further opening up of land routes for trade under abeyance.

The decisions were reached during the second round of bilateral deliberations on economic and commercial cooperation that were held here since Tuesday under the composite dialogue process.

Commerce secretary S.N. Menon led the Indian delegation at the two-day talks, while the Pakistan side was led by acting commerce secretary Syed Asif Shah.

This was the third meeting between the two nuclear neighbours in a week under their ongoing composite dialogue process.

The two sides had held talks on conventional confidence building measures (CBMs) Monday, while last week was devoted to the issue of nuclear CBMs and ways to avoid an accidental war between the two South Asian nations.

According to a joint statement issued after Wednesday's talks, the two sides agreed to hold aviation talks in Pakistan in September to review the existing air services agreement, besides reviewing their shipping protocol of 1975.

"The second meeting of the joint study group would be convened at an early date in Islamabad," the joint statement said, referring to the panel formed under the commerce secretaries of the two sides to look at ways to improve trade ties.

"The joint working group (JWG) meeting would be preceded by the meeting of the sub-groups on non-tariff barriers and customs cooperation and trade facilitation to formulate recommendations for consideration by the JSG," the statement said.

The proposal to expeditious process applications from banks was in line with the decision taken during Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to India in November 2004 to open branches of scheduled commercial banks in each other's country.

Europe’s First Pakistani Film Festival Planned in UK

Source: www.pakpositive.com

This film festival is a chance to let people know what film-making in Pakistan really has to offer and by bringing feature films, ocumentaries and shorts to the UK it will offer a unique opportunity to savour the experience of a socially-engaged documentary/art-film sector as well as the entertaining and cultish world of commercial cinema in Pakistan. Based in Lahore, the latter is known affectionately and somewhat ironically as, ‘Lollywood’!

PTCL directed to pay damages to IT sector

Source: www.paktribune.com

The board of directors on Thursday directed the management of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) to assess the sector-wise damages to the IT industry and ensure payment for its losses.

The two-day meeting, which concluded here on Thursday, decided in favour of payment of damages to the IT industry which was crippled due to 11-day outage of Internet in the country. However, the board ìleft it over to the companyís management to decide the compensation formula and its mode.î

Despite no legal obligation on the PTCL for damages payment, the board decided in favour of the industry as the company had failed to ensure 50 per cent back-up via satellite in the absence of an alternate fibre optic cable.

The capacity of the Pakistan Internet Exchange and FLAG Virtual POP combined rests at 1208 Mbits while the satellite back up at the time of crisis was 102 Mbits which was later raised to 306 Mbits, thus only making 25 per cent of the total fibre capacity instead of the required 50%.

The board has not put a timeline for payment of compensation to the industry, which estimates the losses to fall in the range of $45 million. However, the boardís meeting spent most of its time in brainstorming the companyís budget for the fiscal year 2005-2006.

One of the board members said the decision was taken on the basis of enormous ethical and moral ground, which the PTCL had to address to. The IT & Telecom ministry has already written to the PTCL in support of payment of compensation.

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