[WSMDiscuss] Fundamentalist violence explodes in Pakistan; religious puppet-masters pull Pakistan's strings

[Brian]

https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/prophet-muhammad-depiction-rage-explodes-in-pakistan/ <https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/prophet-muhammad-depiction-rage-explodes-in-pakistan/>
Prophet Muhammad depiction rage explodes in Pakistan

Radical TLP group lays siege to Pakistani cities after government arrests its leader and reneges on a vow to expel France's top envoy

by FM Shakil <https://asiatimes.com/author/fm-shakil/> April 16, 2021   - Asia Times
PESHAWAR – Fierce street clashes have crippled Pakistan’s biggest cities this week when Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) activists took to the streets after police arrested the radical Islamic group’s chief Saad Hussain Rizvi.

At least 14 people have been killed, including four police, and over 500 injured, again including around 300 police, since Monday as club-wielding religious fanatics have wrought havoc across major urban areas.

The government banned the group on Thursday under anti-terrorism laws, a move that could further galvanize its followers and drive its more radical members into more shadowy attacks on state targets. 

On Friday, authorities blocked social media sites for at least four hours in a bid to quell the spiraling unrest.

TLP, which advocates for the imposition of sharia law across Pakistan, has demanded specifically that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government cut diplomatic ties with France, recall the Pakistan ambassador from Paris and expel the French ambassador over the republishing of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that TLP considers blasphemous.

The government agreed to implement the party’s demands in a November written agreement, with Minister for Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadri and Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed signing on behalf of Khan’s administration. It was signed to defuse a previous TLP street action in Islamabad.

The government was bound under the agreement to expel the French ambassador within three months, refrain from appointing any ambassador to France and release all detained TLP members. It had also agreed not to lodge any new cases against the religious party’s leaders or workers after it agreed to call off its November sit-in.

The TLP claims that Khan’s government has reneged on the agreement by refusing to expel the French envoy and arresting its leader Saad on Thursday in the northern city of Lahore. 

In a video message on Tuesday, TLP naib emir Syed Zaheerul Hassan Shah exhorted the party’s supporters to “come out on the roads” against the government and “jam the entire country.”

The unrest is causing diplomatic ripples. The French embassy sent an email to all French nationals and companies in Pakistan on Thursday advising them to leave the country temporarily after violent anti-France protests paralyzed large parts of the country.

“Due to the serious threats to French interests in Pakistan, French nationals and French companies are advised to temporarily leave the country,” the embassy said in an email to French citizens.

Khan’s government deployed paramilitary forces on Tuesday in Punjab to quell the disturbances. The police and rangers say they have achieved some success in restoring order and clearing roads and intersections but fierce clashes with protestors have continued.

Reports indicated that traffic has come to standstill on all major highways in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, causing a disruption in oxygen supplies to hospitals where Covid-19 patients are being treated.

A senior police official in Punjab told Asia Times that the government has apparently begun some behind-the-scenes talks with the TLP to restore peace and reach a settlement before the situation spirals out of violent control.

The police source said that over 2,000 TLP activists have been rounded up by authorities and booked under anti-terrorism laws.

TLP was founded in 2015 by Khadim Hussain Rizvi <https://www.dw.com/en/khadim-rizvi-pakistani-clerics-funeral-flouts-coronavirus-rules/a-55684271>, a firebrand cleric who died of Covid-19 in November last year; his son Saad Hussain Rizvi succeeded him.

The far-right group’s core ideology revolves around the “finality” of the Prophet Muhammad and the protection of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. The religious-based party staged a sit-in at the country’s capital Islamabad for over three weeks in 2017.

In November last year, the TLP paralyzed Pakistan’s capital when thousands of radical clerics rallied on the outskirts of Islamabad. That protest was defused by the agreement the TLP claims the government has failed to honor.
Jan Achakzai, a geopolitical analyst, politician and ex-adviser to the Balochistan province government told Asia Times that the ban on TLP would not resolve the issue because it is a religious-political group with strong roots in the masses.

“Our experience tells us that whenever we ban an entity it emerges with a new credential. This is the case with the Awami National Party, Pakistan People’s Party and many other political and religious entities,” he said.  

Achakzai said that unless the TLP’s ideology and narratives are challenged, it would continue to operate albeit under a different name.

“Their demands, including the expulsion of the French Ambassador, were irrational and the government simply cannot meet them. This is a well-entrenched group that should be contained ideologically. A mere blanket ban would not solve the problem,” he added.

The opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which suffered a massive electoral loss due to TLP’s registration as a political party in the 2018 elections, has interestingly opposed the far-right group’s ban. 

PML-N Senator Musadik Malik told Asia Times that his party did not ban the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf when it triggered unrest during its tenure. “Our government did not ban the PTI when it attacked the parliament, Pakistan Television and other government offices in 2014,” Malik said, adding that there was no provision in the law to ban a political party. 

Opposition party Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) has also objected to the government’s decision to ban TLP. JUI-F senior leader Hafiz Hamdullah asked that if the TLP was now a “terrorist group”, then why did the government ink a written agreement with terrorists.

While the terrorism brand is debatable, TLP supporters have not shied from violence.

Hotels, restaurants, private homes, government and public offices have been smashed up with bricks and clubs in the last five days of unrest. TLP protesters have beat police with iron rods, sticks and clubs and even used firearms to disperse police.

They also took a dozen police officials hostage in Lahore, but later released them to law enforcement agencies. Observers wonder if such extreme tactics will be intensified now that the government has banned the hard-line group.

*******
https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/religious-puppet-masters-pull-pakistans-strings/ <https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/religious-puppet-masters-pull-pakistans-strings/>
> Religious puppet-masters pull Pakistan’s strings
> 
> Imran Khan played the extremism card against Nawaz Sharif, so what has his government learned from the chaos?
> 
> by Imad Zafar <https://asiatimes.com/author/imad-zafar/> April 16, 2021
> For an entire week, Pakistan has witnessed another spell of religious extremism as faith merchants create anarchy in the name of blasphemy of Prophet Muhammad.
> 
> Hundreds of police were brutally beaten by the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehreek-e-Labbaik_Pakistan> (TLP) mob. Many from the ranks of TLP lost their lives or were injured.
> 
> The country was thrown into chaos only over a TLP demand to expel a French diplomat. Such was the situation that the French embassy in Pakistan had to warn  <https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/france-advises-citizens-leave-pakistan-after-serious-threats-sources-2021-04-15/>its citizens to leave Pakistan as they were under enormous threat.
> 
> The TLP has long been demanding the expulsion and urging the masses to boycott French products after caricatures of Prophet Muhammad were published in a French publication.
> 
> One wonders why the TLP or any of its sympathizers did not protest or campaign for the return of thousands of Pakistanis living in France to seek a better life.
> 
> In any case, life is back to normal again in Pakistan as a massive crackdown was launched against the TLP and the government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has approved the summary to ban <https://www.dawn.com/news/1618391> the extremist outfit of TLP.
> 
> In fact, TLP assets are also going to be frozen. On Thursday night, TLP chief Saad Hussain Rizvi shared a note <https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/820701-in-note-shared-by-gill-supporters-of-banned-tlp-asked-by-chief-to-end-protests> from jail urging followers to stop the protest and leave the sit-ins.
> 
> This is not the first time a religious outfit has choked the country over its demands. From Muhammad Tahir-Ul-Qadri  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Tahir-ul-Qadri>to Khadim Hussain Rizvi <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khadim_Hussain_Rizvi> and now his son Saad Rivi, all have exploited the religious sentiments of their cults in the near past and almost paralyzed governments.
> 
> Though there is no doubt that banning TLP is a good gesture, the question arises what Prime Minister Imran Khan and his PTI have learned from this debacle.
> 
> It is not long since Khan, in opposition, backed TLP against Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz ( PMLN).
> 
> PMLN legislators were held to be blasphemous <https://www.samaa.tv/news/2017/11/watch-attack-video-pml-n-mna-javed-latif/> for only changing one word with another in the electoral form <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-protests-idUSKBN1DA1GC>. Whether Khan and his colleagues stop using religion for petty political gains remains to be seen.
> 
> The TLP created by the establishment will not be affected too much by the ban. It has a cult following, and in a country where critical thinking is considered a sin and where knowledge is referred to as blasphemy, there can never be a dearth of followers for the faith merchants.
> 
> Those who shape the foreign and political narratives on the basis of self-created religious interpretations are the main beneficiaries of religious exploitation.
> 
> Whenever religious extremism suits them, an outfit like TLP or Lashkar-e-Taiba <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashkar-e-Taiba> is launched.  Enlightenment and modernism are introduced when religious doctrine does not serve their interests.
> 
> This demand-and-supply formula serves the interests of the establishment but not the country as a few individuals always shape the narratives with their own understanding of the world. It has been proven wrong on every occasion.
> 
> From Zia’s Islamisation to Musharraf’s fake liberalism, every doctrine brought more extremism and intolerance in the country. Not only the recent debacle of TLP but also the U-turn of the establishment on peaceful ties <https://tribune.com.pk/story/2294910/uae-is-mediating-between-india-and-pakistan-says-senior-diplomat> with India are examples.
> 
> When Nawaz Sharif said Pakistan needed to fix its own house first and tried to make friendly ties with India he was declared a traitor and pro-Indian through an organized propaganda campaign.
> 
> However the Jammu and Kashmir fiasco, when the world did not not buy Pakistan’s narrative, and changing realities in the proxy battlefield of Afghanistan forced the establishment to say what Sharif was called a traitor for saying.
> 
> Sharif, too, was accused of blasphemy and the same TLP was used against him.
> 
> This shows how the double standard is acceptable in the country and why there is no hope that the invisible quarters will learn from their mistakes.
> 
> The mullah and establishment alliance is deep-rooted and there is no way any political party can challenge this. Sharif and his party survived because Sharif is popular in Punjab and enjoys a good reputation among the few sects of Sunni Muslims.
> 
> Had it been any other political party or leader accused of treason and blasphemy, the individual would have been killed by an extremist or the party would have vanished from the political scene.
> 
> So, the problem remains even after the ban on an outfit like TLP. How will the dirty games of playing religious and treason cards be stopped?
> 
> Even the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) sword of blacklisting the country is not powerful enough to stop a few generals from playing these kinds of game.
> 
> Of course, the current TLP protests will not have gone unnoticed by the world and this will make it harder for Pakistan to get off the FATF grey list or move its perception that it is not a radical state.
> 
> But then, who here is actually thinking about the interests of the country? Those in power define the rotten, stone-age narrative to control the population. The population, fed on fabricated religious and euphoric slogans of treason, is happy with the delusion.
> 
> There seems no way out of this situation, as those who create outfits like TLP and can accuse anyone of treason in a second have a monopoly over the controlled media and literature in the country.
> 
> The recent Forces law <https://www.dawn.com/news/1617241/forces-criticism-bill> passed by the hybrid regime has barred journalists and common people from naming those responsible for economic, political and foreign failures.
> 
> Imagine a country where criticism of those responsible for shaping the narratives of a country can not be criticized and those criticizing can be held for two years, whereas religious fanatics are free to roam freely and choke the country at will.
> 
> This shows the priorities of those calling the shots. A mob of fanatics burning properties and creating chaos is acceptable to the deep state but journalists or dissenting intellectuals who want to highlight the roots of the problem are not acceptable.
> 
> The TLP ban won’t be effective unless the establishment and mullah alliance is brought to an end.
> 
> To move forward, the country needs a pluralistic society with freedom of expression and basic human rights, not the rhetoric of religious slogans and treason certificates.
> 
> The road to normalcy is long and far away. The TLP may have been used and ditched like other sects but the question is how long the country will remain in the hands of those who, through shaping the narratives, have brought ignorance and extremism.
> 
> The bigger question is how long and why the world will tolerate a society that has nothing but religious narratives from the past and an extremist mindset against people in the world who do not agree with their religious-cultural or nationalist views. 
> 
> The US dollar-sponsored proxy war era is gone and Riyadh is getting out of the mindset of nurturing the Islamist organization for the sake of its control.
> 
> Wars will be fought now between economies. The weapons will be knowledge, information technology, corporations, and the latest education.
> 
> When it comes to these fields Pakistan remains far behind and we have seen in the past four days, in the form of TLP fanatics choking the country, that we have only guns and an extremist mindset to compete in the age of knowledge-based economies.
> 
> *************



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.openspaceforum.net/pipermail/wsm-discuss/attachments/20210416/77d68ae5/attachment.htm>