Pashtun Tribes Stage Unprecedented Protest in Pakistan

[Enigma_]

If he truly is an Afghani, then how pathetic do you have to be to play the victim card for Pashtuns of Pakistan. Have some shame. Everyday your country is being bombed by the US, the Taliban spare no one and there's so many other foreign powers using and abusing your population. Whereas the Pashtuns of Pakistan live in peace whilst voicing their concerns over some minuscule event. That's called a democratic act. Get lost you pathetic loser.

 

[The Diplomat]

Source is The Diplomat. Nuff said.

Just to put it out there I’m not the source. It’s the news site.

 

[hussain0216]

EDITORIAL

Shameful media blackout

FEBRUARY 8, 2018

Pakistan is perpetually on the verge of watershed moments — only to find itself sinking not swimming. The peaceful #PashtunLongMarch that started in Waziristan and has ended with the still ongoing sit-in promises to be one of the latter moments.

After all, it has all the makings of a revolution. Pashtun youth, tired of witnessing their community across the generations being persecuted by the state apparatus found themselves galvanised by Karachi police murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud — the 27-year-old shopkeeper from South Waziristan who harboured dreams of becoming a model — to say no more. Never again.

The FATA Youth Jirga was one of the organisers. And according to its representatives it had marched to the federal capital to decry, amongst other things, the picking up and ‘disappearing’ of Pashtuns at the hands of a bigoted state apparatus hiding beneath the false banner of fighting terrorism. Thus the group was there to demand due process. As of this week, the protesters were said to be at least 5,000-strong in numbers.

Yet were it not for the power of social media, Naqeebullah would likely have remained just another statistic passed off as dead Taliban. Indeed, this outreach also helped precipitate the political leadership into throwing its weight behind the demonstrators. Though we hope that this continues beyond the ballot-box. What is unacceptable, however, is that Pakistan’s fourth estate has conducted an almost blanket black-out of the gathering; particularly inexcusable given how the latter had set up tents right in front of the National Press Club.

For let us be clear, the primary function of the media is that of opposition. Not of complicity in promoting state propaganda. For, here, equivocation becomes mere matter of semantics. Thus it was the duty of media across the board to at the very least give airtime or printed space to the list of the protestors’ four demands: the arrest and punishment of Rao Anwar and his team that are responsible for killing Naqeebullah; putting an end to the incessant stereotyping and ethnic profiling of Pashtuns that gives way to extra-judicial killings; recovery of missing persons and presenting them before a court of law to hear the evidence against them, while releasing the innocent; and removing landmines from FATA.

But above and beyond all this, we, the country’s mainstream media — particularly electronic — ought to hang our heads in collective shame at the breach of trust and in the reneging on our own unwritten mandate to serve the national interest. For this blackout of a peaceful protest by civil society makes us no better than those who would try and have a reformed asset with untold blood on his hands that he will never be able to wash off give an interview to a local channel to ‘prove’ that his new leaf had well and truly been overturned. Moreover, society’s fourth pillar was happy to give coverage to the religious right agenda that saw the federal capital held hostage for almost a month towards the end of last year; while calling for the Law minister’s head on a stick.

Some sections of our industry have (rightly) cautioned against so-called trials by the media. But it seems that we have gone one step further. For what we are seeing today is the fourth estate setting the parameters of the very trial that it has decided to preside over as judge and jury. This hardly bodes well for a country that seeks to have the electorate legitimise certain militants. All in name of vengeful democracy. *

Published in Daily Times, February 8th 2018.

There is no blackout

The protest isnt big enough and the media cant fill the nations tv screens with every protest that happens in a democracy

 

[RIP Pak LAW]

they want to invade Afghanistan and take Pashtoon dominated areas in Afghanistan into Pakistan. Godspeed to them.

This idiot doesn't know a clue that PTI is staging all this against Rao Anwar.

 

[AbulHaqGhaznavi]

There is no blackout

The protest isnt big enough and the media cant fill the nations tv screens with every protest that happens in a democracy

loll wow, I even shared Pakistani source with you.

Media gave 24 hrs to cover the 500 ppl sit in of Khadim Rizvi and 5000 Pashtuns infront of Islamabad Press Club and it's not big enough. SHAME!

 

[hussain0216]

allow them to return to Waziristan and pull out the Army

Cant pull out army, in fact all security organisations need to be strengthened in the area because of risks from Afghanistan

the arrest and punishment of Rao Anwar and his team that are responsible for killing

Reasonable demand after a fair trial

putting an end to the incessant stereotyping and ethnic profiling of Pashtuns that gives way to extra-judicial killings;

Partially reasonable demand, but most suicide bombers or terrorists are from Afghanistan then we need a strategy to increase

recovery of missing persons and presenting them before a court of law to hear the evidence against them

and removing landmines from FATA.

Reasonable demand but depends on area snd military need

 

[Dalit]

This has nothing to do with being Pashtun, Punjabi etc. Every ethnic group in Pakistan has some sort of grievance and oppressive story to tell. Some are indeed true and some are just plain BS. Does injustice exist? Heck injustice exists everywhere. Ask an African American, a Latino or some other immigrant living in some place. Ask the white Americans and Europeans who feel marginalized in their own country by immigrants. I could go on and on. The world is filled with miseries.

Should the Pakistani media be reporting on this? The truth is that the Pakistani media doesn't know sh!t. They are immature and inexperienced. They should be reporting on a whole host of issues, but only report rubbish. Are they complicit? That is too far fetched.

If he truly is an Afghani, then how pathetic do you have to be to play the victim card for Pashtuns of Pakistan. Have some shame. Everyday your country is being bombed by the US, the Taliban spare no one and there's so many other foreign powers using and abusing your population. Whereas the Pashtuns of Pakistan live in peace whilst voicing their concerns over some minuscule event. That's called a democratic act. Get lost you pathetic loser.

Screw this Afghan. His country is being bombed every day by the Americans and the Pashtun are marginalized in Afghanistan. He comes here to shed crocodile tears and gather sympathy. He thinks he can blend in and garner support for his wetdream i.e. Pashtunistan. We know the score.

 

[hussain0216]

loll wow, I even shared Pakistani source with you.

Media gave 24 hrs to cover the 500 ppl sit in of Khadim Rizvi and 5000 Pashtuns infront of Islamabad Press Club and it's not big enough. SHAME!

Yes 5000 people is a reasonably small protest

A cricket match can have 30,000 to 50,000 people for example

Whilst some protest demands are completely reasonable and a effective government should immediately seek to address those demands you cant expect media to fill our screens with every protest

I dont know why you want wall to wall coverage of a small protest

 

[Handshake]

ta indian yay..da khra zoya ya.

I think indians got better things to do than pretend to be an Afghan and backing Afghans and/or Pakhtuns. Rise and shine

Yep like afghan girl rapped in indian consulate in kabul. True indian have better things to do and they like white skin as well.

I hope the Pashtuns get justice but most importantly some peace. They've been bleeding since even before the war on terrorism. I have seen articles in pakistani newspapers only about extremists protesting the decision on Shahid Mashaal but in reality it's protests about the killings of Shahids Masood and Mashaal and FATA IDPs abused on the regular.



It has been over a week since thousands of ethnic Pashtuns from Pakistan’s tribal areas marched toward the country’s federal capital. Since then, they have been observing a sit-in protest, braving not only the cold weather, particularly during the night, but also the colder response from Pakistan’s 24/7 Urdu language television channels and print media.

Their key demands include: arresting and punishing the police officer who allegedly kidnapped and killed a young shopkeeper from Waziristan tribal region in Karachi in a fake police encounter; remove all the landmines from Waziristan and the rest of the tribal belt; produce all the so-called “missing persons,” tribesmen who have allegedly been taken into custody by the state security agencies; remove the security check posts, where tribesmen have to prove their identity each time they enter their villages and towns; and put an end to frequent curfews on the movement of locals in the name of security.

The Pashtun protest, unprecedented in the history of Pakistan, is an eye-opener for Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership, who have been dealing with the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) as a strategic space, rather than recognizing the genuine needs and rights of its inhabitants.

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The tribal areas have the lowest literacy rate in Pakistan, very few or no employment opportunities, poor health facilities, and an even worse communication system. The normal Pakistani judicial system is not applicable in the tribal areas; the only road leading to justice is the office of the British-era political agent or the outdated jirga system, under which tribal elders decide cases ranging from petty crimes like theft and the land disputes to blood feuds. Jirga justice has been used to justify cruel rituals such as “honor killings” and “swara” (giving a girl, irrespective of her age, to the aggrieved party to settle a blood feud).

The only time that the Pakistani state has truly engaged the tribal areas or its inhabitants were when FATA residents were needed to fight Pakistan’s wars — be that the 1948 fighting in Kashmir, the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, the strengthening and backing of the hardliner Taliban militia in the early 1990s, or providing a support base for the Taliban jihad in Afghanistan.

Decades of state neglect have inflicted immense damages on the lives of the tribal people. However, their worst suffering began following the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Since then, the people of FATA, which is composed of seven tribal districts spreading alongside Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan like a crescent, have been the worst-affected populace in Pakistan and the region.

Sandwiched between the Taliban and their al-Qaeda guests and the Pakistani security agencies, the tribal peoples’ houses were razed and businesses destroyed in the name of anti-Taliban operations; their mosques and hujras (Pashtun guest houses) were bombed by the Taliban and al-Qaeda; their elders were brutally targeted with bombs and beheadings. People were uprooted from their villages and towns and forced to live in tents in chilly cold and scorching heat for years.

Despite suffering such a heavy price for events beyond their control, the tribal people are still not comfortable in their homes and towns, even though the Taliban have been pushed back across the border in Afghanistan by the Pakistani security forces. It is against this backdrop that they finally decided to raise a forceful voice and demand an end to their plight.

Naqeebullah Mehsud, an aspiring model from Waziristan who was killed in allegedly fake police encounter last month, proved the watershed moment. The ongoing protest by the Pashtun tribesmen is significant from several points of view, with their quest for justice and recognition of their political and human rights at the top of the list.

One of the key slogans being raised by the sit-in participants is a demand for recognition of their basic human and political rights. Naqeebullah Mehsud’s killing is just the tip of the iceberg. Notwithstanding the various colorful official ceremonies organized in Islamabad or highly guarded places in the tribal areas in the name of the welfare of the tribesmen, a sense of deprivation and alienation is widespread among the FATA people and this often echoes in the lower and upper houses of Pakistan.

Naqeebullah Mehsud was arrested and investigated by police officer Rao Anwar simply because he and his family had migrated to the city of Karachi in the hope of earning a better life for their next generation. When his family recovered his bullet-riddled body, police officials declared Naqeebullah Mehsud an accomplice of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the group responsible for shooting the Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai and targeting children in a military-run school in Pakistan’s northern city of Peshawar in December 2014.

It seemed likely that Rao Anwar, reportedly backed then and now by some powerful hidden hands, would avoid any punishment, as had happened before, but this time, Naqeeb’s stylish pictures on social media raised a storm in the cities. The issue was soon picked by online media and the storm soon reached his native town of Waziristan, where people were already prepared for an outburst.

The younger generation of tribesmen, thanks to a higher degree of political awareness due to their unwanted displacement as a result of anti-Taliban military operations, were already leveling the ground to demand their rights. Naqeebullah Mehsud’s killing provided them a joint platform.

Since then, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has already ordered the arrest of the fugitive police officer, but the protesters and their supporters have genuine questions about the role of the government and its security agencies. Addressing the people, prominent anchor and journalist Hamid Mir urged the government to arrest Rao Anwar. “If you are unable to arrest him, let us know his whereabouts and we will go after him to bring him to face justice,” Mir said, addressing the government and state security agencies.

Undetonated landmines and security check points have long been resented by the tribesmen in corner meetings, polite demands, and peaceful protests. However, this time the Pashtuns have forcefully raised the issues, despite the reported unhappiness of the military leadership (the army has yet to release a statement on the protests). According to reports, an estimated 80 people, including adults and children, have been killed by landmines in Waziristan over the past few years.

As for the military checkpoints, the Mehsud tribesmen believe the Taliban have been routed and there is no reason for security personnel to block them from entering their own villages in the name of security. “Authorities should stop imposing curfews and beating civilians,” said a pamphlet distributed among the protesters.

As the protesters in Islamabad were delivering speeches and chanting slogans for the due rights of the tribesmen, hundreds more set an alleged Taliban office on fire in Dera Ismail Khan city, located on the periphery with South Waziristan. The Taliban group was accused of killing a young man from the Wazir tribe. In the highly charged environment, the tribesmen stormed a house allegedly used by the pro-government militia and set it on fire. Later, they were recorded on video chanting slogans such as “death to good Taliban.” Good Taliban refers to those allegedly supported by the Pakistani authorities.

While the protest for justice and basic human and political rights has generated a higher degree of awareness among the tribe people on the one hand, on the other, it has also provided them a chance to shed the mantle of being pro-Taliban, pro-jihad, and extremely religious. After all, the disinformed world sees the hapless tribe people as the cause of trouble. They are generally considered as the supporters of terrorism. The fact is that they are victims of terrorism.

thediplomat/ 2018/0 2/pashtun-tribes-stage-unprecedented-protest-in-pakista n/

Kabuli hate pukhtoon as well so what you gonna do with them ?

 

[Taimoor Khan]

I like most Pashtuns will always raise our voice, and just because they're killed there it makes it okay to kill them here.

We know your intentions.

You lot talk a lot of cr@p about Pakistan on issues which are really non of your business. A trait you learned from your Indian masters.

Rest assured, case of Mashal has already been taken to its logical end and the culprit sentence the death penalty.

As for Naqibullah, his case has made one of the most powerful police officer in Pakistan to be on the run as fugitive. The country highest court is dealing with this. It cannot get any higher then this within the justice system of Pakistan.

You should better be concerned on how Pakhtuns in Afghansitan, despite being in majority are under the thumb of Farsawan of north. So you got the American occupiers and their minions like India on top of the food chain, then Farsawan hold on the Kabul regime, and then come the Pakhtoons down the packing order. This is your pathetic state in Afghanistan.

 

[AbulHaqGhaznavi]

Yep like afghan girl rapped in indian consulate in kabul. True indian have better things to do and they like white skin as well.



Kabuli hate pukhtoon as well so what you gonna do with them ?

looks likes your riding the chinese, chinese consulate full of hos like you. You must like small ones haha

We know your intentions.

You lot talk a lot of cr@p about Pakistan on issues which are really non of your business. A trait you learned from your Indian masters.

Rest assured, case of Mashal has already been taken to its logical end and the culprit sentence the death penalty.

As for Naqibullah, his case has made one of the most powerful police officer in Pakistan to be on the run as fugitive. The country highest court is dealing with this. It cannot get any higher then this within the justice system of Pakistan.

You should better be concerned on how Pakhtuns in Afghansitan, despite being in majority are under the thumb of Farsawan of north. So you got the American occupiers and their minions like India on top of the food chain, then Farsawan hold on the Kabul regime, and then come the Pakhtoons down the packing order. This is your pathetic state in Afghanistan.

your views of government of Afghanistan is skewed to fit your narrow narrative.

 

[Handshake]

looks likes your riding the chinese, chinese consulate full of hos like you. You must like small ones haha

here is the proof.
I wonder why you still on this thread if you have no clue what you talking about.
Za charta bachabazi oka, da khpal da bachpan badal da khalko na wakhla
.
Translation of pushto language.
Go and do some bachabazi,take your childhood revenge from other afghan kids.

 

[Taimoor Khan]

your views of government of Afghanistan is skewed to fit your narrow narrative.

The Farsawn northern Alliance has been the top dog since the Afghan occupation by America. They helped America to occupy Afghansitan afterall and they have been rewarded by yanks. And this aint going to change till Americans leave Afghanistan. They control Army and intelligence which is where the real power comes from.

 

[AbulHaqGhaznavi]

here is the proof.
I wonder why you still on this thread if you have no clue what you talking about.
Za charta bachabazi oka, da khpal da bachpan badal da khalko na wakhla
.
Translation of pushto language.
Go and do some bachabazi,take your childhood revenge from other afghan kids.

da napak zoya, wlar sa khpal qoum di badal wakhla, hara wraz di ghay

The Farsawn northern Alliance has been the top dog since the Afghan occupation by America. They helped America to occupy Afghansitan afterall and they have been rewarded by yanks. And this aint going to change till Americans leave Afghanistan. They control Army and intelligence which is where the real power comes from.

loll, that's why the cheif is Pashtun of NDS, all commandos are majority Pashtuns, the President is Pashtun, the National language is Pashto and I can go. You can use these cards on Taliban madrasa educated, not school educated.

 

[Handshake]

da napak zoya, wlar sa khpal qoum di badal wakhla, hara wraz di ghay

Kha da russian na paida .
When idiot's has no argument left then they act like a whore.

Guy's he is not pushtoon.
The way he talks pushto is much diffrent then our and afghan pushto.