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The British Parliamentary Human Rights Commission led by that old campaigner Lord Avebury, who has never failed to back and fight on behalf of the world’s good causes, has just this week issued an indictment of Pakistan for its deplorable treatment of the Ahmadiyya community. After reading the report of the three-member delegation that went to Pakistan late last year for an on-spot investigation, no one can possibly take General Pervez Musharraf’s claims of “enlightened moderation” too seriously. After all, what the report lists is happening under the General’s nose though, I believe, not at his instance. But since he is Mr Pakistan, and plans to remain that till the cows come home, the responsibility for what the report lists in some detail is his and on one else’s.

Last year Lord Avebury, who is the vice chair of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group (PHRG), organised a three-member mission to Pakistan which visited Rabwah, met government officials in Islamabad and recorded testimony. The ensuing report should make us feel ashamed of the direction in which a compliant or complicit, but certainly an uncaring government has allowed the country to go. Our image today is that of an intolerant society, where the radicals have a free run and where civilised people are afraid to speak up for fear of reprisals. Jihadist Islam has hijacked Jinnah’s Pakistan. The time has, thus, come to fight openly and frontally these ignorant and deluded men and their dangerous and utterly un-Islamic conduct and ideas. A country of 150 million essentially decent and tolerant people cannot be allowed to go over the abyss towards which it is being pushed.

In a foreword Lord Avebury writes that PHRG has observed with concern the rising tide of intolerance and fanaticism in Pakistan, and its dire effects on the rights and freedoms of the Ahmadiyya community. He recalls that in the early days of independence, it was possible for talented Ahmadis like Sir Zafrulla Khan, Pakistan’s first Foreign Minister, or Professor Abdus Salam, the Nobel Prizewinning physicist, to rise to the top of their professions. But today they face multiple threats to life and property, are effectively disfranchised and prevented from holding public gatherings, denied access to higher education and barred from entry to public employment except at the lowest levels. He recalls attending the launch of President Musharraf’s human rights programme in Islamabad, and expressing satisfaction on hearing of his intention to mitigate the worst effects of the blasphemy law, but this “signal of reform was greeted by an outburst of hostile invective from the small but vociferous anti-Ahmadi lobby, and the concession was withdrawn.” There has been no let-up since on the progressive tightening of the screws, or any mitigation in the flood of hate speech directed against the Ahmadis by fanatic groups.

The report notes that out of a total of 60 blasphemy FIRs recorded in 2005 against

Ahmadis, 25 were in Rabwah alone, indicating that the misuse of the law is as severe in

Rabwah as in the rest of Pakistan. Evidence was seen by the mission that the Ministry of Interior caused local police to issue proceedings against Ahmadis in Rabwah, as elsewhere, for action, including distribution of literature, propagation of their faith, and collection of funds. The principal newspaper published by the community was closed down. The community also suffers more severely in Rabwah because of the presence of a Khatme Nabuwwat mosque and a madrassa, which regularly incite hatred against the Ahmadis, leading to systematic intimidation and violence. The mullah who runs these two outfits, acknowledged to the three-member team that his followers chanted ‘Death to the Ahmadis!’, but pretended that the attack was on beliefs not persons.

Clearly, since Ahmadis are unable to vote — and are not even registered since that would mean that they deny their faith — they play no part in the local government of Rabwah, but neither are they to be found among local police or officials. The evidence shows that hardly anything is spent on public services in the town, though Ahmadis themselves club together to repair roads and drains. In Rabwah, as elsewhere, schools were nationalised by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. They were denationalised in 1996, but in Rabwah, although the Ahmadis bought the schools back, they remain in government ownership and in a derelict and dangerous state.

Lord Avebury writes, “This report makes clear the precariousness of life for Ahmadis in Rabwah, starved of opportunities for education and employment, menaced by the Khatme Nabuwwat and their rent-a crowd mobs bussed in from miles around, prevented from buying land in the town they developed. They are deprived of the right to manifest their religion in worship,

observance, practice and teaching, as laid down in the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and they are constantly under threat of prosecution under the infamous blasphemy laws. This place is not a safe haven for Ahmadis fleeing persecution elsewhere in Pakistan; it is a ghetto, at the mercy of hostile sectarian forces whipped up by hate-filled mullahs and most of the Urdu media. The authors of this report expose the reality of a dead-end, to which even more victims should not be exiled.”

To get an idea of the cooperation received from government, the report says, “Pakistan Ministry of the Interior rebuffed repeated requests for an interview. Requests were made in the weeks before travelling to Pakistan and whilst the mission were travelling.” The report does not say this, but I know that had it not been for High Commissioner Maleeha Lodhi in London, no visas would have been issued to the three-member Group. The report notes that popular sentiment in Pakistan has become increasingly hostile to Ahmadis. A senior government adviser, who did not wish to be named, explained how the population of Pakistan has become sensitised to Ahmadis since a spate of anti-Ahmadi violence in 1953. The Group was told of the vernacular press as having become virulently anti-Ahmadi. State television contains broadcasts of anti-Ahmadi rhetoric, including phrases such as “Ahmadis deserve to die.” Even in the traditionally liberal English language press, religious freedom is becoming harder to defend as journalists increasingly fear attack if they defend Ahmadis.

The report says the government has done little to alleviate the problems faced by Ahmadis: it would be ‘political suicide’ to deal with the Ahmadi problem directly and politicians will not use the example of the Ahmadis to make the case for religious tolerance. The nameless government spokesman quoted earlier told the Group that it is now beyond the power of government to reverse the situation for Ahmadis. The result is that there is no party or institution prepared to lead the debate on Ahmadis in Pakistan and, therefore, a change in public attitude is not anticipated in the near future. Nothing is more indicative of the government’s double-facedness than that it first demanded and received Ra. 1.5 crore from the Ahmadiyya community for the return of its nationalised institutions and then neither returned them to their true owners nor refunded the money.

So much for President Musharraf’s “enlightened moderation” then.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

The fate of books written by holders of power while in office has generally not been a happy one. Seldom does their work outlast them and this is especially true of those who are not born writers, like Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia. This is something General Musharraf will do well to remember, regardless of what his sycophants and his inept ghost writer(s) might tell him. As long as he is in office – and from all accounts he plans to stay there till the cows come home, and then some more – he can live in the pink haze in which live all rulers, especially those whose mode of transportation to the presidential palace has been a tank. Seldom has a book by a head of state been pilloried as has been In the Line of Fire. It reminds me of the time when I cycled past a section of the Danube river in Vienna where nature lovers were hanging out to sun themselves. “Most human beings should never be seen undressed,” I said to myself. In the same way, not everyone should write a book.

In the Line of Fire also reminded me of another book – Friends not Masters – which, when it was first published in 1967, many of us refused to read, so tired by then were we of Ayub Khan’s praetorian rule. The way that book was hawked by the official media and the henchmen of the state and the manner in which it was forced down people’s throats had put us off. We condemned the book without reading it. But that was thirty-nine years ago and so one day a month or so ago, I thought I should read Friends not Masters . A friend who was visiting Pakistan brought it back. The original publishers were Oxford University Press, but the copyright it seems is now held by Mr Books, Islamabad, who have done a poor job of the reprint, while claiming that “the moral rights of the author have been asserted.” What that means I do not know. I am going to ask my friend Naeem Bokhari, my legal eagle, to work that one out for me.

Oscar Wilde said he never read a book before reviewing it because “it so prejudices the mind,” which is exactly what those who castigated Friends not Masters were guilty of. But our reasons were political and sprang from our ennui with a ruler who it was said at the time is like the “Ghainta Ghar of Lyallpur,” visible from every direction. I have now read the book and come to the conclusion that it is essential to read it in order to understand how military rule took root in Pakistan and what the early years of independence were like. Compared to Fire, Friends is well-written and thoughtful. Not once does Ayub abuse anyone or use derogatory language, nor does he recount slapping bald-headed people sunning themselves in a public park. It is a book with a great deal of dignity and class, unlike the other work. Another dissimilarity between the two is that Friends is Ayub’s work, not Qudratullah Shahab’s or Altaf Gauhar’s, as popularly believed, though they helped in framing questions that Ayub addressed. His opening line is: “This is essentially a spoken book.” He recorded his answers to the questions framed on tape and by 1965 he had a 900-page transcript, which he revised several times. Ayub was a bright, clear-headed man with a progressive outlook on Islam and social issues.

His book, though written in office, is an exception to such works since it remains readable four decades later and unlike its present-day counterpart, it provides a great deal of truthful and important information. The book begins with his birth in the lovely Hazara village of Haryana on 14 May 1907 and ends with the 1965 presidential election. It is a pity that it does not cover the event that was to lead to the separation of East Pakistan, the war of 1965. As a child Ayub used to ride a mule to school which was four miles away and run by Sikhs, whom Ayub describes as a “large-hearted people” whose rituals and Punjabi songs fascinated him. One line that he recalled from his childhood was: Sau rung tamashay takday, akhiyaan nahin rajyaan (One is never done living even after a lifetime of watching the world go by). His father wanted him to go to Aligarh and that was where he went. While there, he joined the army and sailed for England in 1926 on a ship by the name of SS Rawalpindi . Ayub wrote in his foreword, “I have woken up from sleep to see whether the sound on the window panes is the long-awaited rain. I feel parched inside when I see a drought-stricken field. The soil of Pakistan fascinates me, for it is my soil, I belong to it.”

The shenanigans of those under whose control the ship of state fell, after the murder of Liaquat Ali Khan, led Pakistan into the quagmire of military rule from which it has never escaped. The lack of principle that characterised the actions of those men, their refusal to deal with East Pakistan in a fair way and the ascendancy of the civil service bureaucracy to key positions made the business of government a farce. Sadly, it was the politicians and the jacked-up civil servants who thrust power into Ayub’s hands, who made him a member of the cabinet while he was still in the service of the state. The two men whose lust for power at all costs brought in martial rule were Ghulam Muhammad and Iskander Mirza, though the villain of the piece must remain Mirza. Ayub wrote that he only moved against Mirza because “we received information that his wife was quarrelling with him all the time: she kept telling him that he had made a great mistake, but now that it was done, he should finish off Ayub Khan.” Nahid Mirza, who wore a diamond necklace gifted to her by the notorious smuggler Qasim Bhatti, was the Lady Macbeth of Pakistan.

Ayub did both good and harm to Pakistan and in the end, when he could have had a chance to redeem himself by handing over the reins of government to the Speaker of the National Assembly, he let himself be overpowered by Yahya Khan, who had been planning to overthrow him after his stroke. Had Ayub only told the nation that the Army was trying to overthrow him, Yahya’s intrigue and conspiracy would have failed. But he did not do that, although his young law minister SM Zafar advised that course of action. I know because when the Ayub regime was tottering, Zafar came to Lahore and told some of us, including his great friend Sardar Muhammad Sadiq, of his advice to Ayub.

Ayub died feeling disillusioned with the people of Pakistan who he believed, had been ill-served by their politicians, and for whom he had done more than anyone had done for them before. It is ironic that there is not even a two-brick structure to remember the man in the city of Islamabad, which he brought to birth. The home where he lived and died was sold by his sons although they were in no great need of money. Compared to what we have had since, Ayub stands quite tall. The long-distance truck drivers who have painted his picture under the caption ‘ Teri yaad aayee teray jaanay ke baad’ may after all have a point.

What kind of an ally of the United States is Pakistan that no day passes when some top US official or member of the cabinet does not trash it for being the refuge and sanctuary of every bad egg of the world. Sometimes we are told that Osama bin Laden is in Peshawar. Had that been so, I am sure by now he would have been caught sipping green tea from the Qissa Khwani Bazar. Then someone says no he is in a cave in North or is that South Waziristan!

My first reaction to such findings is: Hey! If you know where OBL is then why don’t you go get him. Every time I read or hear that OBL is in a super-secret ISI safe-house — a friend tells me there are 28 of them in Islamabad alone, which if true explains why there is a shortage of decent housing in that town — I pull out a few more of my hair, which I must stop doing or ask Mian Nawaz Sharif to finance a hair transplant for me as well. Our government will sell its best friend down the river for free if asked to do so. Remember the luckless Taliban ambassador in Islamabad who was pushed across the Durand Line where the Yanks grabbed him. I am told this was done gratis. No money changed hands. I simply cannot believe that we have the fellow and we are not handing him over when the going price for his head is $25 million. We do most things without money. What will we not do for money, I ask you?

On Thursday, all the Big American I-types were on Capitol Hill, summoned by the new chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to provide members with their current take on ‘threats to US national security’. There was Negroponte, the I-czar who is going to make life even more miserable for Pakistan when he moves as Princess Condi’s 2IC to State. CIA chief Gen. Haydon was there, as were Gen. Maples of the super-snoop Defence Intelligence Agency and a gent each from Homeland Security and the FBI. So there under one roof was the biggest nest of spies you could gather in one place. And what did they have to say? Lend me your ears.

Negroponte who called Pakistan names only the other day — and was followed in the same vein by the un-gated Gates of Defence (and in Kabul to boot, standing next to the Green Gunga Din) — said Al Qaeda’s core elements are resilient. That he followed by another swipe at Washington’s tight, frontline ally, old Pakistan. “And they are cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders’ secure hideout in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.”

Thank you John. That is what friends are for. I mean what good is a friend if he doesn’t stab you in the back every time you turn to go to the kitchen to get him a drink. He continued, “The longer we fight this war, the better we get at inflicting serious setbacks to our adversaries.” For ‘adversaries’ please read ‘ourselves’.

Negroponte found occasion to mention Pakistan a few more times when he said, referring to the 7/7 bombings in London last year “that while the incidents might be homegrown and the recruitment base, if you will, can often be second-generation immigrants who have a Muslim background, we’ve always found some kind of linkage back to — in the instance of the UK incident it was to Pakistan, the fact that they trained in militant camps there, and that even might have been some direction coming from Al Qaeda over there.” Everybody wait till he gets to State. An Indian correspondent tells me he is going to replace the Dark Lady who plays the piano. For once he may be right.

Philip Mudd of FBI told the Committee that “what we’re seeing, whether it’s in Europe or the United States — the commonality we have is people who are using the Internet or talking among friends who — are part of what I would characterise as a Pepsi jihad.” It is only a matter of time before Coca Cola realises that it has been short-changed. I mean if there can be ‘Pepsi jihad’, why can’t there be ‘Coca Cola jihad’?

Negroponte, asked to make a prediction, said, “The main forecast I would make for you in that eventuality is that Al Qaeda would probably secure a base in western Iraq from which it would then use or could use and probably would as a platform initially for expanding its activities into Lebanon, Jordan and Syria…but then, of course, I think Western Europe and other parts of the globe would be vulnerable as well.”

In other words, no peace in our times: the War on Terror will last and last and last. And that should be good news for Gen. Musharraf.

Gen. Hayden was no less reassuring when he predicted that “I strongly believe it would lead Al Qaeda with what it is they said is their goal there, which is the foundations of the Caliphate, and in operational terms for us, a safe haven from which then to plan and conduct attacks against the West.” Osma bin Laden as Khalifa? Come on General, we deserve better. He is no Haroon-ul-Rashid and if the Caliphate is going to come back, it is Haroon-ul-Rashid of The Thousand Nights and One we want, not that man with the scraggly beard and game kidneys.

There was more good news for President Musharraf — and from Negroponte himself. “President Musharraf is a very committed partner in the war on terror. And if you look at the Pakistani record over the past several years, they have put a lot of Al Qaeda and foreign fighters out of commission during that period of time. So I’ve no doubt whatsoever about their commitment to this war.” And yet! Negroponte, asked about the North Waziristan deal, demurred, saying he would rather discuss how “we’re actively working” with Pakistan in a closed session.

Asked the same question again, he replied, “I think in closed session I’d be willing to talk to you a little bit further about some of the things we’re undertaking.” What are “some of the things” they are “undertaking”? Free lunch at the Islamabad restaurant of his/her choice for anyone who can answer that. This column is getting as long as that interminable hearing and sufficient unto the space is the prattle thereof.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

Zamurrad Malik died 31 years ago. It was a coincidence or perhaps not a coincidence that he died on Lahore’s Mall, a road that he loved and on which he had spent long evenings and in whose restaurants he had drunk hundreds of thousands of cups of tea with his friends, including the painters Anwar Jalal Shamza and Moin Najmi, whose work keeps gaining in value and fame with the passing of time.

People move from smaller towns to the big city. Zamurrad, being the original man he was, moved from Lahore to Sialkot, which was our good fortune because that is how we met him. In the backwaters of the Sialkot of the 1950s, although we had in it a perfectly integrated city, we knew little of Lahore. It was Zamurrad who introduced us to the moveable feast Lahore was and always will be. He also introduced us to literature, suggesting what books we should read and what Western painters we should become familiar with. Not always were Zamurrad’s efforts a success. For instance, when he asked Izo Massey if he had read Dostoevsky, Izo replied, “Zamurrad, you know very well I don’t read Urdu books.”

While Zamurrad’s forte was literature, so intense was his intellectual curiosity and so deep his sense of wonder at the mystifying phenomenon of knowledge, that he would read anything and everything. From Kant to Toynbee to Gibbon to Freud, down to the entire published work of PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie, he had read it all. He knew a great deal about Marxism and communism and he never had any illusions about their being the panacea for mankind they were believed by many to be. Zamurrad was long dead when the communist states crumbled, falling on to themselves, but he would not have been surprised at all. He would often say, “Maula, this thing is not going to last.” Zamurrad was also the only man I have met who had read Dante’s The Divine Comedy and who knew all of TS Eliot – both his criticism and his poetry.

I first heard of Munir Niazi from Zamurrad. They had become friends in Sahiwal, which was still Montgomery, and several of Munir’s couplets that I remember to this day, I first heard from Zamurrad. That was poetry written in Munir’s first flush of youth and it has the intensity and passion of first love. Zamurrad once told me that Niazi’s favourite expression when referring to someone he did not like was “ shikra ”, which is a bird of prey, whose one great gift to literature is the poem by Shiv Kumar Batalvi, in which it is the central symbolic figure. I don’t think any of us had then heard of Shiv Kumar Batalvi who came from Narowal, as did the great movie director and writer, Kedar Sharma. Batalvi’s poem which Zamurrad would have liked is the lament of a girl who befriends a bird of prey – symbolic of the heartless lover – who refuses to be fed unless it is the flesh of the woman who loves him. One day he flies off into the skies, never to return and always to be longed for.

Zamurrad had the most ingenious theories anyone could think of. Every third word, he once said, in the Oxford English Dictionary means “genus of fish”. It doesn’t but what an original observation. He also said that if you look with care, every human being bears a resemblance to one animal or the other. This theory of his can be tested. I know of several pigs, dogs and horses in human form but discretion being the better part of valour, I will refrain from naming them. Zamurrad’s working vocabulary of English was awesome and he was the only person I have seen who would go to the dictionary not to look up a word but to actually read it. He had the most beautiful handwriting, both English and Urdu, and he was a stylist in any language he chose to write in. In his later years, he began to write poetry in Punjabi and he learnt Gurmukhi, which he said, alone carries all the sounds of Punjabi. Amrita Pritam admired Zamurrad’s work.

In 1990 when I was living in Vienna – where I often thought of Zamurrad because I had first “seen” Vienna through his eyes, given his devotion to Freud, before I actually set foot in the city – I asked my cousin Shahid Malik, who then worked for BBC in London and now works for Auntie Beeb in Lahore, what he remembered of Zamurrad who was both his English teacher in Siakot and his friend. Zamurrad loved the company of the young and he never talked down to them. He listened to what they had to say. Shahid, who grew up in Wah where he took his intermediate, had to leave Wah because the town had no degree college at the time. He was sent to Sialkot where there was family to join Murray College, but he ended up in Jinnah Islamia College, where Zamurrad then taught and where an older cousin who was a buddy of Zamurrad took Shahid.

Here is how Shahid recalls his first encounter with Zamurrad. He was not in his classroom but occupying a corner table in the college tuck shop, with a cup of tea and a Cavendar cigarette, which he always wet before lighting. When our cousin Mian Amin introduced the young Shahid as a bright boy who had taken a first division in Inter, Zamurrad was not impressed. “I have a prejudice against first divisioners so I am going to test him.” The test involved translation of three Urdu sentences in English. They were: ‘ Tum ussay kis hud tuk jantay ho ?’ ‘ Apni qameez kay button bund karro’ and ‘ Wo apna kaam khatam kur chukka ho-ga. ’ Shahid was afraid he would be asked desi vegetable names in English. He got all three answers right. Many people who think they know English should give themselves the Zamurrad test to be quite sure that they do. Zamurrad then drank down another cup of tea and said to Shahid, “Yaar, don’t mind this, but I can tell you many professors of this college would have got the answers wrong. It this those people who drove Tajammul to suicide.” Tajummul Rathore, a brilliant teacher of English and philosophy, ended his life for reasons that remain unclear to this day.

Shahid writes, ‘I never felt at any time that there was any difference of age or position between us two. He would hardly teach much in the class. He also told us that nothing ought to be taken too seriously, except that when you go home, you should spend three or four hours reading. One or two teachers reported to Mian Amin that I was cutting my classes, but Zamurrad when asked said, “I know he will do all the reading he needs on his own.” We would meet after college hours, sometimes in Amelia Hotel, at other times in Eat More restaurant in the cantonment. Zamurrad would call these meetings “our conference.” Holidays were spent drinking tea in these restaurants and talking about poetry, politics, the chemical ingredients that make up a human being and every subject under the sun.’

I end this by translating a snatch from Zamurrad’s Punjabi poem on Amrita Sher-Gil, who died at the age of 28 in Lahore, and whose ashes were entrusted to the Ravi.‘ When we consigned your dust to the Ravi, we made you a promise/We vowed to complete the story of your uncompleted life/The Ravi still flows and it will keep flowing/Lahore lives and it will keep living/And the three village damsels you left in that painting/Remain where you left them, waiting for you to come/As do we. You see, we promised.’

The roughing up of New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall by intelligence hoods in her Quetta hotel room on 19 December and the despicable treatment given her photographer has brought shame to Pakistan. I have been speaking to the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York as to what response their protest to the interior minister Aftab Sherpao has received. As of Friday 12 January, CPJ had heard nothing and was not expecting to hear anything either. That sums up the gangsterland that parts of Pakistan have become.

The intelligence establishment in Pakistan is now a government within a government, a dread entity that has gone rogue, that recognises no law, respects no rules, is bound by no code of conduct and brings the people of Pakistan, in whose name it acts, nothing but disgrace. In the last sixty years there has been only one attempt to look into the state of the intelligence establishment in Pakistan and to see how it could be reformed. Strangely enough, this exercise was ordered by Gen. Yahya Khan, though nothing came of it. Both that committee and the government that had appointed it were overtaken by the cataclysmic events that reached their blood-soaked climax with the breakup of Pakistan in December 1971.

For the last six and a half years, Pakistan has been under a military government and under military governments, not only intelligence agencies but all public servants are known to throw accountability to the winds. Military governments are by their very nature unaccountable since they dance around the commands of a single individual. The question is where will reform start and how? So corrupted and power-drunk have, what the Urdu press calls ‘sensitive institutions’, become that they will have to be dismantled as they exist and rebuilt in accordance with law and a code of conduct.

Carlotta Gall is the daughter of Sandy Gall, a British television reporter who was in and out of Pakistan during the Afghan war and though he is now retired, there are many in Pakistan who know him as a friend. What happened to her is shameful in the extreme. CPJ told me that her great concern is not for herself but for Akhtar Soomro, the Pakistani photographer, who was handled with great brutality and who remains in fear of the hoodlums who beat him up and dealt with him as if he were a common criminal. In a letter Ms Gall sent out to Aftab Sherpao and some others, including CPJ, she detailed her ordeal in dispassionate language.

She wrote, “At 9.43 pm (on 19 December), I was speaking on the telephone when men broke open the door of my room and four men entered the room and began to seize my belongings. One snatched my handbag and when I tried to take it back, a second man punched me twice in the side of the face and head with his fist. I fell backwards onto a coffee table smashing the crockery. I have heavy bruising on my arms, on my temple and my cheekbone and swelling on my left eye and a sprained knee. The men searched my belongings, took my three notebooks, my laptop, my satellite telephone, two cell phones (although they gave one back when it rang) and several other papers and items. They were extremely aggressive and abusive. The leader, who spoke English, refused to show any ID, said I was in Quetta without permission (she wasn’t), that I had visited Pashtunabad, a part of the town, which he said was not permitted, and that I had been interviewing the Taliban.”

They also told her that Akhtar Soomro was a Pakistani and they could do to him what they wished. In other countries, being a citizen has advantages: in Pakistan it seems to be becoming a liability.

Tariq Azim is emerging as the government’s ‘damage control guy’ because by midnight that day, he had managed to have Ms Gall’s belongings returned and her colleague released and his equipment restored to him. While on the one hand, the government has made no statement, those who roughed up the two journalists were obviously government agents, otherwise how would Tariq Azim have managed to get done what he got done?

CPJ’s Asia programme director Bob Dietz told me that the attack on Ms Gall and her colleague is typical of what has been happening increasingly to Pakistani journalists. Virtually all the incidents have gone unexplained and apparently un-investigated by the government. This week, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Many Pakistani journalists are intimidated and reluctant to speak publicly about their attackers. But the few incidents that have been made public follow a similar pattern.”

Dietz cited several cases that should make us hang our heads in shame. There is

Mehruddin Mari, a Sindhi journalist who was held illegally for four months with the government saying it knew nothing about it. The killing of Hayatullah Khan in NWFP remains unexplained, but everyone knows who his killers were. He was the eighth journalist to be killed in Pakistan since the murder of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.

When a CPJ delegation visited Pakistan last year, government officials promised to make public all information they had on CPJ’s lengthy list of unexplained cases. “Now, almost six months later, they still have no explanations,” Dietz wrote. He added, “Talk to officials in Pervez Musharraf’s government and you will hear how the media are freer now than they have ever been. And while there has been an explosion of television and radio stations in a country with an already well-established print tradition, a pattern of brutal attacks is silencing those journalists who pursue stories that make the government uncomfortable. Today, many Pakistani journalists fear their government’s intelligence agencies more than any Islamic militant.”

I should close this with the reminder that you are reading this in a newspaper whose editor Najam Sethi was abducted from his home, beaten up, kept in solitary confinement and physically and psychologically traumatised, though not by this government, but it could well have been this as that government. The fact is that as long as the intelligence establishment in Pakistan is not dismantled and rebuilt, what happened to Najam Sethi and Hayatullah and Mehruddin will happen again and again and again.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

Seven buds floated down from the orange tree/And landed on the bare, deserted garden path,’ wrote Munir Niazi in a collection called Six Coloured Doors, which he dedicated to “Beauteous Pakistan.” One collection he dedicated to God, another to the Prophet, (pbuh) yet another to Imam Hussain, one each to his father and mother and one, oddly enough to Qudratullah Shahab, but that was before the publication of and Shahab Nama is, therefore, forgiveable.

I first heard of Munir Niazi as a student at Murray College in Sialkot from Zamurrad Malik, who had landed in the city from Montgomery where Munir then was and where he lived until 1960. Another friend of his from those days – and one he was greatly fond of – was Mehdi Naqvi, who at six feet plus in his dark glasses cut a more handsome figure than any actor we could think of. Zamurrad told us about this poet in Montgomery who wrote poetry of the kind never written before and who refused to suffer fools. Munir’s word for those he did not approve of – and the list always remained long – was shikra, a bird of prey. “O shikray,” he would call out, if annoyed. That was another Munir Niazi thing. Unlike most of us, it was not behind the back that he talked but right out in front, and for the whole world to hear, in case it was interested.

Two or three of Munir’s verses that Zamurrad recited to us, I remember to this day. One was: Uss simt challo tum bhi aye bichray huvay logo: Jis simt ye veeran si chup chaap sarak jaaye (O’ you who have lost their way, follow this forlorn, silent road wherever it leads). And the other: Khilta tha kabhi jis mein tammanna ka shagoofa: Khirki vo barri dayr se veeran parri hai (Where once the blossom of desire bloomed, since long that window has lain deserted). There simply was no poet with Munir’s imagination nor another who saw the splendour of nature and the miracle of spring and summer rain with his clear eye. His genius for describing the beauty and mystery of a lone flower, a floating leaf, a song bird with paradise wings was Wordsworthian.

I have many memories of this unique man. Before Zulfikar Ali Bhutto set out for the Simla Conference in the summer of 1972, he held a string of meetings with people ranging from trade unionists, students, industrialists to poets and writers. The venue for them all was Murree, which 36 years ago was a cleaner, greener place than it is today. The literary group included Munir Niazi. As ZAB’s press secretary, I sat in on those meetings. During one such, someone brought me the message that Munir Niazi was on the Mall looking for me. When I finally found him sometime later, he asked why he had been brought up all the way from Lahore and why there was no “fire water” around. How I managed to obtain that certain creative fuel, I no longer remember, but I am quite sure I did, somehow or the other.

In 1984, a year after Munir published his collected poems, I asked my friend Akhtar Mirza to get me a copy and have Munir sign it. I have had the book since the day it arrived in Vienna, where I then was. It contains the following notation in Munir’s hand, ‘Akhtar Mirza, meeting you after so many years brings back for me times when Khalid Hasan, Mehdi Naqvi, Kalim Akhtar and Zamurrad Malik were young. Rastay mein aik bhooli huvvi shakl dekh kar: Aawaz di tau lub pay koi naam bhi na tha’ (On coming upon a forgotten face one day on the road, I called out, no name would come to my lips). At the back of the dust jacket of that edition, published by Maktaba-e-Munir, is a facsimile of that classic Munir ghazal written out in his hand: Kitab-e-umar ka ik aur baab khatm huva: Shabab khatm huva ik azab khatm huva (Here ends another chapter in the book of life: Youth has ended, and with it the agony).

In a foreword to one of Munir’s collections, Muhammad Salimur Rehman wrote, ‘Munir Niazi’s poetry bears three great symbols: wind, evening and death. It is said that in the other world, there is a huge tree which wears the colours of both spring and autumn. When the wind blows, it takes away some of its yellowing leaves.’ One of Munir’s lines is: Drakhtoon ke pattay hawa lai gai (The wind came and took away from the trees their leaves). Or, is there a truer picture drawn of Pakistan than in Munir’s celebrated couplet about the movement forward being fast and the progress slow. It was also Munir who in a moment of disillusionment wrote: Iss shehr-e-sangdil kau jalla daina chahiyye: Phir iss ki khaak kau bhi urra daina chahiyye (This stone-hearted city should be burnt down and its ashes blown away).

Several people have written about Munir after his sudden death but let me just quote two. Munnoo Bhai writes in The Express , ‘Much talk there always has been about Munir Niazi’s “narcissism”’. In one TV interview Munir Ahmed Sheikh said to Munir, ‘Munnoo Bhai has said that you will only offend Munir Niazi if you express a word of praise about Ghalib’s poetry to him.’ Munir Niazi replied, “He is right. In order to protect myself from banshee spirits, I have built high walls of narcissism around myself.” When he once asked me if it was true that it was Iqbal who had dreamt up Pakistan and I said yes that was so, he declared, “In that case, I’ll have to do the necessary myself because only a poet can fulfil a poet’s dream.” When Munir Niazi announced that he was going to establish a “genuine writers’ colony,” I asked, “Khan sahib, since you will confine your colony to genuine and real writers, that means apart from you, no second writer will qualify for it.”

The other column I would like to quote from is Khalid Masood Khan’s ‘A man alone’ in Jang . Munir was invited to a mushaira in Mianwali. He agreed with a fan to take a leisurely afternoon train from Lahore to their destination. Liquid refreshments of the right kind were arranged by the fan but when he arrived at the station, he learnt that Munir had taken an earlier train with another fan named Prof Ahmed. He returned home disappointed. On arrival at Mianwali, Munir said, “God bless this man Prof Ahmed. He picked me up early and it was after a long time that I found morning breaking over Lahore. Hundreds of birds were singing in the trees. The roads were free of the noise and pollution of those cursed rickshaws and there was a pleasant breeze blowing, though it is summer. The platform at the station was practically empty and the coolies were not forcibly lifting people’s luggage. There was no rush on the train and no more than three or four of us were in our carriage. God bless Prof Ahmed!”

But when someone pointed out that his other fan with the “right” refreshments had turned up at the appointed time and returned home in disappointment, Munir said, “Look at this Prof Ahmed. He neither slept himself, nor let me get some sleep. When we left the house early in the morning, the roads were being swept and all the dust from Lahore’s streets ended up coating my face. Then he put me on that train of ill omen with not a living soul in it. There was just this Prof Ahmed and two or three other illiterates. Someone should ask this fellow if the city had run out of human beings that he snatched me up so early, in the bargain screwing up not only my morning but the entire day.” Then he laughed loudly and patted Prof Ahmed on the shoulder.

I am going to end this on lines from one of Munir’s poems: Kya kya manzar dekhay mein nay/Kaisi jaghoon par ghooma/Kaisay makanoon mein din katay/Kin logoon mein baitha/Ye manzar bhi yaad aaye-ga/Aur kissi mausam mein/Aur kissi darya ke kinaray/Aur kissi aalam mein (To think of the sights I saw/the places I roamed/the houses in which I spent my days/the people I moved with/of all that I’ll carry memories/in another season/on the bank of another river/in another world).

I have always been an avid reader of advice columns in Urdu newspapers and they have never ceased to amuse and astonish me. The large Pakistani community in America — no one really knows what its size is but it is greater than the US Census Bureau believes — gets a good deal of its news from the Urdu language weekly papers that can be picked up free of charge from any Pakistani grocery store or eating place. These broadsheets are no longer shoe-string operations. They are money-makers, thanks to the extensive advertising they carry, including that from ghost masters, star-gazers, palm readers, black magic practitioners and spiritual fixers.

Every paper also carries various advice columns. One such column carries questions and answers from Mufti Muneer A. Akhoon, formerly of the Binori Mosque in Karachi, and now of upstate New York. Pakistanis living here obviously consider him their guide and master.

Chaudhry Abdul Mannan from New York wants to know as to how a woman can engage in trade or get an education, when even her voice is subject to strict purdah. The Mufti confirms that even a woman’s voice has to meet the same criteria as her body, namely not to be heard by unauthorised men. However, in times of need, as long as she keeps her face covered, it is permissible for her to talk. But her tone must remain harsh and unfriendly so that men are not encouraged to feel attracted towards her. Some men, the Mufit overlooks, may be attracted by just such women. What then? Perdition?

Mrs Kalsoom Anwar from Houston, Texas, writes, “I am 52 years of age and there is a particular dream that comes to me repeatedly. I dream that I am having sex with my father who died 22 years ago. I also find myself bedding my brother. Both of them were deeply religious and men of faith.” Mufti Muneer Akhoon’s answer, “Your dream means that you stand to benefit from both these men, either in terms of your credit in the book of God or through material means. There is absolutely no need for you to worry on this count. However, your faith will have to remain steadfast.” Was that Dr Freud turning in his grave, bitter?

Samina Fazal from Brooklyn, New York, says she has lived in America for the last six years but is frightened out of her skin by a strange shadow that stalks her all over the house. She wants to know what she can do. Mufti Akhoon replies, “Your house appears to be under the occupation of jinns and evil spirits.” He proceeds to suggest various Quranic passages that she should read several times a day. She should also sprinkle water all over her house but she must blow on it after reading the recommended texts. All residents of the house should also drink some of the sanctified water. This exercise has to be repeated for 41 days but there should be no breaks. Obviously, if she forgets to blow on the water or to drink it, the evil spirits will get her goat.

Saira Khan from Virginia is much troubled because she has just been divorced, has two children and is facing financial hardship. She wants to know what she should do. The Mufti recommends that after morning prayers, she should recite Sura Fateha 70 times on the first day, cutting the recitations by 10 every day. After reciting the last segment, she should start all over again. This holy routine she should continue for seven weeks. “Thereafter, just watch how assistance comes your way from treasures of the unknown,” Mufti Akhoon predicts.

Nasreen Shah from New York wants to know if after she has performed her ablutions, will she have to perform them gain if in between she has napped briefly. The lady is assured that she need not wash herself again, as here loss of consciousness was involuntary. But what if it wasn’t? The Mufti is silent like the sphinx on that one.

Mrs Khan from Chicago asks if clothes washed in a washing machine remain pure or impure. Or should they be washed by hand three times to make them pure? She is told that if an article of clothing is “impure” (whatever that means), it should be washed by hand and only then put in the washing machine with the pure clothes. Adil Farooq from Virginia is troubled because he works for a life insurance company and he is not sure if his income is halal or haram. The Mufti answers that since life insurance is “generally gambling and usury”, it is haram, but if one lives in a land where life without insurance is not safe or if there is a legal obligation to get insured, then it is permissible. But the insurance bought must be just sufficient, not excessive. Also any income derived from insurance should be spent on charity.

Arsalan from Chicago asks if it is permitted to wear a necktie. He says he has been looking for a job and obviously has failed to get one because he has been appearing for his interviews without a necktie. His friends have advised him to wear one next time he appears for an interview. What should he do, he wants to know? Mufti Akhoon tells him that if he believes the necktie can earn him his livelihood, he should wear one. But if he believes that God alone is man’s sustainer, then he should continue to hope for “rizq-e-halal” but “without committing the sin of wearing a neckie” The Mufti asks: why are so many necktie-wearing people without work? And why are so many not wearing neckties gainfully employed? He also advises the young man from Chicago to recite a certain Quranic verse 71 times every day. I think we can assume that Arsalan from Chicago is still unemployed.

Twenty-four year old Saima from California can’t find a husband. She wants to know how that can be rectified. She is told to recite a certain Quranic verse eight times after late evening prayers and another verse 11 times. This has to be continued for 80 days and “God willing, a virtuous and proper match will materialise.” Had Saima asked me, I would have suggested she send an email to Mustansar Hussain Tarar of Shaadi Online. MFT is the man who always used to run into doe-eyed, dreamy looking women with cascading hair in mountain hideouts when he used to travel. He would surely have found Saima a Green Card seeker by now.

To close, anyone who wants to know how the Pakistani-American community lives, should know that it is doing well but the ghost masters and spell casters are doing even better.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

The other day Maulana Fazlur Rehman, whose religious credentials, unlike his father’s, have neither been tested nor known, said that while he and his alliance will time their resignations in line with their strategy, in the interim, he would be like the Taliban inside parliament.

What is it about the Taliban that so fascinates the clerical establishment, the zealots of the right wing and retrogressive religious parties, masquerading as the political opposition, that they want Pakistan to take the same road to perdition? Have they not seen how the Taliban wrecked Afghanistan? Have they failed to notice what the Mullahs have done to Iran? It is strange that there are people in Pakistan who want the Taliban or their clones to take over a country that was created through a grand democratic movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The other day, there came to light 30 rules issued by “the highest leader of the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan,” or Mullah Omar. They should be read by those who consider the Taliban God’s agents on earth, forgetting that they have done more harm to Islam and Muslims than all their past, present and future enemies put together.

It is said that the Thirty Rules were formulated by 33 members of the Shura, with Mullah Omar presiding. Every “Mujahid,” is to strictly abide by all 30 of them. So without more ado, here they are: ‘This Book of Rules is intended for the Mujahideen who dedicate their lives to Islam and the almighty Allah. This is a complete guidebook for the progress of Jihad, and every Mujahid must keep these rules; it is the duty of every Jihadi and true believer.

1) A Taliban commander is permitted to extend an invitation to all Afghans who support infidels so that they may convert to the true Islam.

2) We guarantee to any man who turns his back on infidels, personal security and the security of his possessions. But if he becomes involved in a dispute, or someone accuses him of something, he must submit to our judiciary.

3) Mujahideen who protect new Taliban recruits must inform their commander.

4) A convert to the Taliban, who does not behave loyally and becomes a traitor, forfeits our protection. He will be given no second chance.

5) A Mujahid who kills a new Taliban recruit forfeits our protection and will be punished according to Islamic law.

6) If a Taliban fighter wants to move to another district, he is permitted to do so, but he must first acquire the permission of his group leader.

7) A Mujahid who takes a foreign infidel as prisoner with the consent of a group leader may not exchange him for other prisoners or money.

A provincial, district or regional commander may not sign a contract to work for a non-governmental organisation or accept money from an NGO. The Shura alone may determine all dealings with NGOs.

9) Taliban may not use Jihad equipment or property for personal ends.

10) Every Talib is accountable to his superiors in matters of money spending and equipment usage.

11) Mujahideen may not sell equipment, unless the provincial commander permits them to do so.

12) A group of Mujahideen may not take in Mujahideen from another group to increase their own power. This is only allowed when there are good reasons for it, such as a lack of fighters in one particular group. Then written permission must be given and the weapons of the new members must stay with their old group.

13) Weapons and equipment taken from infidels or their allies must be fairly distributed among the Mujahideen.

14) If someone who works with infidels wants to cooperate with Mujahideen, he should not be killed. If he is killed, his murderer must stand before an Islamic court.

15) A Mujahid or leader who torments an innocent person must be warned by his superiors. If he does not change his behaviour he must be thrown out of the Taliban movement.

16) It is strictly forbidden to search houses or confiscate weapons without the permission of a district or provincial commander.

17) Mujahideen have no right to confiscate money or personal possessions of civilians.

18) Mujahideen should refrain from smoking cigarettes.

19) Mujahideen are not allowed to take young boys with no facial hair onto the battlefield or into their private quarters.

20) If members of the opposition or the civil government wish to be loyal to the Taliban, we may take their conditions into consideration. A final decision must be made by the military council.

21) Anyone with a bad reputation or who has killed civilians during the Jihad may not be accepted into the Taliban movement. If the highest leader has personally forgiven him, he will remain at home in the future.

22) If a Mujahid is found guilty of a crime and his commander has barred him from the group, no other group may take him in. If he wishes to resume contact with the Taliban, he must ask forgiveness from his former group.

23) If a Mujahid is faced with a problem that is not described in this book, his commander must find a solution in consultation with the group.

24) It is forbidden to work as a teacher under the current puppet regime, because this strengthens the system of the infidels. True Muslims should apply to study with a religiously trained teacher and study in a mosque or similar institution. Textbooks must come from the period of the jihad or from the Taliban regime.

25) Anyone who works as a teacher for the current puppet regime must receive a warning. If he nevertheless refuses to give up his job, he must be beaten. If the teacher still continues to instruct contrary to the principles of Islam, the district commander or a group leader must kill him.

26) Those NGOs that come to the country under the rule of the infidels must be treated as the government is treated. They have come under the guise of helping people but in fact are part of the regime. Thus we tolerate none of their activities, whether it be building of streets, bridges, clinics, schools, madrassas or other works. If a school fails to heed a warning to close, it must be burned. But all religious books must be secured beforehand.

27) As long as a person has not been convicted of espionage and punished for it, no one may take up the issue on their own. Only the district commander is in charge. Witnesses who testify in a procedure must be in good psychological condition, possess an untarnished religious reputation, and not have committed any major crime. The punishment may take place only after the conclusion of the trial.

28) No lower-level commander may interfere with contention among the populace. If an argument cannot be resolved, the district or regional commander must step in to handle the matter. The case should be discussed by religious experts or a council of elders. If they find no solution, the case must be referred to well-known religious authorities.

29) Every Mujahid must post a watch, day and night.

30) The above 29 rules are obligatory. Anyone who offends this code must be judged according to the laws of the Islamic Emirates.’

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