PML-Ulema talks & MQM’s stance

CH. SHUJAAT Hussain, Pakistan Muslim League (Q) President, and his team have not done anything wrong by discussing on Sunday with a delegation of eminent Ulema headed by the illustrious religious scholar, former Supreme Judge Maulana Mohammad Taqi Usmani. As to where the Women Rights Protection Act was considered as offending against Quranic injunctions. It is an admitted fact that the Huddod laws were introduced in the country some 27 years back. Several Governments in which Muttehida Qaumi Movement had a share thereafter ruled this country but no one had the courage or clout to touch these sensitive laws. It of course goes to the credit of the ruling party that it pinpointed several lacunae in these laws It was felt that these lacunae had to be removed as the original Hudood laws were being exploited by various quarters including the police to oppress women victims of rape.
Huddod laws were man-made and so is the Women Rights Protection Bill passed by both Houses of Parliament and signed into law by the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan the other day. President Pervez Musharraf or for that matter Ch. Shujaat does not claim to be a religious scholar to be able to give an authoritative opinion on a particular law being Islamic or un-Islamic. The WP Bill was passed by the Parliament after detailed deliberations by the legislators belonging to various political parties. Its passage served to draw the line between progressive and retrogressive forces. However, WP Bill is also man-made and its drafters may have erred somewhere. There is therefore no harm in consulting those who have a better understanding of the Holy Quran and Sunnah. President Musharraf has repeatedly declared that the new law was not against Quranic injunctions as the ruling party never wanted to legislate against specific provisions of the Holy Quran and Sunnah.
However, the MQM has taken, though strangely enough, strong exceptions to the PML-Ulema dialogue for what it says having been left out and has declared that it would launch a protest agitation today. It is indeed intriguing as to why MQM tries to put pressure on the ruling PML on one or the other issue. There appears to be no logic in its protest because once PML has firmed up its position it will surely take its allies into confidence before initiating any legislation. Is it political blackmail or some other motive? The ruling party for reasons best known to its high-ups has been tolerating MQM mavericks for too long. It is time MQM was told to put its own house in order because the masses in the province of Sindh particularly in Karachi have lots of complaints against the provincial administration dominated by MQM.
 

Death of a dissident

The mysterious death of Alexander Litvinenko throws a harsh spotlight on the Russian secret services. The controversy has engulfed Russian President Vladimir Putin, forcing him to publicly deny any involvement in the killing. That’s probably true: Mr. Putin loses far more than he gains from this incident. But he is responsible — either by design or by omission — for empowering the security services and creating an environment that blurred the lines between state and personal interests. Mr. Litvinenko once worked for the FSB, a successor agency to the KGB, handling domestic security concerns in Russia. He first received public attention in 1999 when he claimed at a press conference that the FSB had ordered him to kill Mr. Boris Berezovsky, a high-profile Russian oligarch who had the temerity to challenge Mr. Putin by backing an opposition political party. (Mr. Berezovsky’s readiness to cross the president forced him into exile in London.)
Mr. Litvinenko later published a book in which he claimed the FSB had carried out apartment bombings in Moscow in 1999 so that Chechen terrorists would be blamed. The case has never been solved. (Shortly after those attacks, security officials were arrested with bomb-making materials in another apartment building; they claimed they were conducting a security test.) Mr. Litvinenko was forced to flee Russia after being charged with treason and he received political asylum in Britain. Most recently, Mr. Litvinenko was looking into the death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a fearless investigator of Russian government abuses in Chechnya who was murdered contract style in the doorway of her apartment building Oct. 7.
On Nov. 1, he spent an evening in London with two former Russian associates and later met an Italian journalist. Shortly afterward, he fell ill and checked into a hospital. British health officials determined that he had been poisoned with polonium 210, a radioactive isotope. On Nov. 23, he died, leaving a vitriolic last statement in which he blamed Mr. Putin for his death. Since then, traces of the isotope have been detected at around a dozen sites in the London area — including Mr. Litvinenko’s home, the sushi bar where he met his former associates and Mr. Berezovsky’s office — and on at least two British Airways jetliners. Mr. Litvinenko’s wife and the Italian journalist have tested positive for small amounts of the radiation; neither was showing symptoms of poisoning over the weekend.
Mr. Litvinenko’s suffering — lurid photographs from his hospital bed, his hair gone, his face gaunt, were splashed across the front pages of British newspapers — apparently compelled Mr. Putin to make a statement at a meeting with European Union leaders in Helsinki. Mr. Putin expressed regret over the tragedy, but insisted that talk of Russian government involvement had “nothing to do with reality.” The presence of polonium makes it hard to dismiss Mr. Litvinenko’s death as a mere accident. Mr. Litvinenko had been a nuisance with his allegations against the president. But he was only a nuisance and it would not take much to realize that an assassination attempt of this type would cause even more controversy.
But that does not mean that rogue elements of the security services, either in or out of the government, were not involved. One hallmark of Mr. Putin’s term in office has been the willingness to put former colleagues in positions of power throughout his administration. Mr. Litvinenko’s allegations were potentially dangerous if they exposed the readiness of political and business entities to blur the boundaries between state and private interests. The individuals who benefit from this situation could have taken action on their own.

—Japan Times