Since coming to power in state elections nearly three years ago, a coalition of radical Islamist parties here in North-West Frontier province has faced a few stumbling blocks on the road to creating a model Islamic state.
First, they made it illegal to play music on city buses, but that law seemed to fall flat on its face. Caravans of luridly painted buses still cruise the streets of Peshawar, tinny pop music pouring out of their windows.
Then they banned mannequins in shop windows, but shopkeepers shrugged it off. The mannequins quickly returned to the bazaar, displaying stiff smiles.
PHOTO: AFP
The Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, as the coalition of religious radicals is called in Urdu, did succeed in closing the two pubs that served alcohol (though only to non-Pakistani foreigners). Some of their foot soldiers went on a free-for-all, vandalizing advertising billboards that displayed pictures of women. And the coalition banned musical performances at a government-owned concert hall.
But high unemployment, dysfunctional schools, a dearth of doctors in the countryside, women dying at alarmingly high rates in childbirth -- these problems it has been thus far unable to tackle.
Now, in the latest tussle over the influence of religious radicals in Pakistani society and politics, the Islamist-led provincial legislature has passed a bill that would empower religious police to ensure that the people of Frontier province comply with "Islamic values and etiquettes" in everyday life. The authors of the law assure that the hisba police and a government-appointed cleric who would adjudicate cases would use persuasion, not force, though skeptics wonder how voluntary it would be.
The bill has prompted a shrill outcry against what critics call the potential Talibanization of the province. Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, keen to cast himself as a moderate, has spoken against the bill, and his government has appealed to the Supreme Court to decide whether it complies with the federal Constitution. The Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday and Tuesday, but has not yet issued a judgment.
In Pakistan, shariah, or Islamic law, already regulates civil matters like marriage, divorce and inheritance. But the federal Constitution guarantees personal freedoms, which, critics say, the hisba law would violate.
The most controversial provision of the "hisba" bill -- roughly meaning accountability -- is the appointment of a "mohtasib" -- roughly meaning ombudsman -- in each of the 84 counties and districts in the province. The mohtasib would have authority to regulate a broad spectrum of public and private life, from making sure Muslims offer daily prayers and children obey their parents, to stopping bribery of government officials and child labor. It would be up to the mohtasib to interpret Islamic "values" in each locality. He would have a police force at his disposal. There would be no appeal.
"The law is very clear," argued Bushra Gohar, who runs an organization here that promotes women and children's rights. "The mohtasib does have extraordinary powers to be judge, jury and executioner. No one can appeal. No one can question."
Pakistan's attorney general, Makhdoom Ali Khan, said he worried that such a law would allow each ombudsman to interfere in the lives of Pakistani citizens and essentially install a parallel judiciary.
"These are broad, vague, generalized powers to the ombudsmen to virtually regulate every sphere of human activity," Khan said.
The state's top politician, Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani, has brushed off detractors, saying that the mohtasib would only recommend, not enforce, proper Islamic behavior. Besides, he said on a recent night, as though it would reassure, most of the hisba police force would be drawn from the ranks of existing police.
"Our idea is to give people access to justice," Durrani said.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Concerns about disease spread from corpses has run up against friends and families’ desire to bury their dead as infection spreads in the area Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week. No one was hurt in the attack, according to reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections fled the facility and are unaccounted for, a hospital director said. Angry residents arrived at the clinic in the
INSURGENT ACTION: A local independence movement in Balochistan, alleged by Pakistan’s government to be backed by India, claimed responsibility for the strike A suicide bomber detonated an vehicle-borne IED near a railway as a passenger train passed through the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta yesterday, killing at least 23 people and wounding over 70, officials said. The explosion caused two of the train cars to overturn and catch fire, according to footage shared online. The attack happened in an area where security forces are usually stationed, badly damaging several nearby buildings and smashing more than a dozen vehicles parked along the road, according to witnesses and images circulating on social media. Doctors at local hospitals said they had received the wounded, with 20 in critical
RSS