Death penalty is not the answer
The focus must be on enhancing rape conviction rates and taking steps to rehabilitate and empower survivors
BY: Maya John Amid belligerent demands for capital punishment for rapists, on Sunday the President signed an ordinance that introduces the death penalty for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12. But this clamour for introducing the most stringent punishment has conveniently sidestepped the more cogent criticism of the systemic failures in […]
Pakistan’s long #MeToo moment
Over the past few months, Pakistan has witnessed a growing trend of women speaking up publicly about sexual harassment.
BY: Rabia Mehmood One would think that a woman going public with accusations of sexual harassment against a man and then facing a severe backlash would not be so common in 2018. But in Pakistan, it keeps happening. On April 19, Meesha Shafi, a Pakistani pop-star, put up a thoughtful Twitter statement accusing Ali Zafar, […]
Syria and the beginning of a new Cold War
Russia and the West are transferring their increasingly hostile confrontation to Syria.
BY: Yury Barmin Recent US-led coalition strikes in response to an alleged chemical attack in Douma, a suburb of Damascus, had Western analysts hoping for a tectonic change in Washington’s policy on Syria. Russia, on the other hand, was fearful that its previously unchecked influence in the battlefield was coming to an end. The results […]
A sweeping agenda
Pick a different combination of events, choose another set of circumstances. The outcome is always the same.
BY: Cyril Almeida TRY and put the pieces together. It’s not the easiest — partly because we don’t have all the pieces yet and partly because the last pieces may not have been shaped yet. But a picture sure is emerging. It ain’t pretty. This isn’t about Nawaz. Not solely about him anyway, and maybe […]
Omar at university of California
BY:Rayees Masroor “We want to take you to the International Criminal Court, right now!”, “You, your father and grandfather are all war criminals”- This is how the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah was welcomed at the University of California, Berkeley. In a video clip that has gone viral in Jammu and […]
Rape as a political tool in India
The brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl from a Muslim minority group is not just about gender violence.
BY: Mariya Salim The gruesome rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Kathua district of Indian-administered Kashmir is a chilling reminder of how sexual assault is used as a tool to instil fear among those belonging to the minority communities in India. There have been many Indians, especially on social media platforms, who […]
The myth of appeasement
Muslims face rapid socio-economic decline. Yet, any move in their favour is made to look illegitimate
BY: Christophe Jaffrelot , Kalaiyarasan A In the current debate on the place of the Muslims in India, one variable has not been factored in — their socio-economic situation — as if the dominant repertoire had shifted for good towards the politics of symbols and identity. In socio-economic terms, Muslims are losing ground rapidly, even […]
Eyeless in Gaza
BY:Uri Avnery Write down: I, Uri Avnery, soldier number 44410 of the Israel army, hereby dissociate myself from the army sharpshooters who murder unarmed demonstrators along the Gaza Strip, and from their commanders, who give them the orders, up to the commander in chief. We don’t belong to the same army, or to the same […]
The banishment of Nawaz Sharif
Pakistan’s Supreme Court has become morbidly activist, its chief justice luxuriating in an exaggerated pantomime of anti-politician ‘justice’ while a mountain of case backlog grows in the courts.
BY: Khaled Ahmed On April 13, the Supreme Court of Pakistan decided that ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, earlier controversially disqualified from office, would not be able to contest elections for the rest of his life. The lifetime ban came from Article 62 (1)(f), a remnant of the judicial irrationality of General Zia’s Islamising dictatorship, which […]
Bombs won’t save Syria’s children
BY:Will Bunch With so many crazy contradictions illuminated by the rocket’s red glare and the bombs bursting in air over Syria on Friday night – the lack of any coherent American or allied policy in that nation’s ruthless 7-year civil war, the lack of any legal justification for the United States to attack the regime […]
