NEW DELHI TIMES R.N.I. No 53449/91 DL-SW-1/4124/20-22 (Monday/Tuesday same week) (Published Every Monday) New Delhi Page 24 Rs. 7.00 28 December 2020 - 3 January 2021 Vol - 30 No. 48 Email : [email protected] Founder : Dr. Govind Narain Srivastava ISSN -2349-1221 Pakistan using OIC as instrument Positivity is the best mood created Often in life, we feel bitter, resentful, and furious or to simply put it, of Political Islam the feeling of being pessimistic towards life. We prepare ourselves The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), for the worst to reduce tensions and expectations as a mechanism formerly the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, for protecting ourselves from the many disappointments and pains was founded in 1969, consisting of 57 member of reality. states-49 countries being Muslim-majority countries. This 51-year-old organisation, with a population of It’s what some would call the wisdom of seeing the glass half 1.81 billion (2018 estimate), GDP (Purchase Power empty. Every one of us is often worried and sad and it’s perfectly Parity) $27.949 trillion... normal to have regrets about certain things in life... By Dr. Ankit Srivastava Page 3 By Dr. Pramila Srivastava Page 24 By NDT Special Bureau Page 2 Karima fled Pakistan for her Indian Prison Reforms US sanctions on Turkey was life, only to see it end in Canada long over-due Perhaps in the distant future when Balochistan attains its Penitentiary is an integral part of Criminal Justice System The Ottoman Empire perished a century ago in the second long-sought-after freedom from Pakistan’s... of any country. Prison system has been there... decade of the Twentieth Century. Turkey’s... By Tarek Fatah Page 2 By Sujay Dhawan Page 4 By Himanshu Sharma Page 5 For critical insights One Year* Five Year* Subscribe Rs. 350 Rs. 1500 To Subscribe E-Paper Whatsapp +91 9999 331 600 * Details on Page 21 1 twitter@NewDelhiTimes facebook.com/newdelhitimes www.NewDelhiTimes.com 2 28 December 2020 - 3 January 2021 Opinion NEW DELHI TIMES USCIRF places Pakistan on violators of religious freedom list blasphemy in Pakistan, with half of them Pakistan has been reprehensible. On the name is not in the list and why the world ◆ By NDT Special Bureau facing life sentence or death. Junaid Hafeez contrary, the US recognizes India as the firm is not supporting them on Islamophobia. @NewDelhiTimes suffered five years of solitary confinement upholder of religious values and tolerance. Pakistan must learn to respect other and was eventually persecuted for posting religions, then lecture the world. Preachers [email protected] blasphemous content online! are in the dock now. Pakistan’s silence against China on human rights violations of he recent report of the US Commission The United States also designated Al Uyghur Muslims has exposed its duplicity T on International Religious Freedom Shabaab, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, the over religious rights for minorities. People (USCIRF) has created furore in Pakistan. Houthis, the ISIS, the ISIS-Greater Sahara, around the world are civilised and cultured The Federal Government Commission, an the ISIS-West Africa, and (surprisingly!) unlike Pakistan. advisory body, as usual released the USCIRF the Taliban, which could complicate the US report in Washington. On December 7, under efforts to finalise the peace deal at Doha. Pakistanis should understand what their the US International Religious Freedom leaders have done to its images in the world. Act, Secretary of State Pompeo published Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the More embarrassments are in pipeline. report designating Pakistan, China, Iran, ISIS-Khorasan, designated earlier as Entity Proselytising religions like Islam and Pakistan incessantly harps on others’ Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, of Particular Concern (EPC), didn’t appear Christianity believe in conversion of other religious freedom. Nigeria, North Korea, Myanmar and Eritrea due to total loss of their territory. Sudan religions to its fold. The Indian Constitution as “Countries of Particular Concern” and Uzbekistan were removed “based on provides freedom to propagate one’s own Pakistan’s blasphemy law is disgusting and (CPC). These countries are “engaging in or significant, concrete progress” by them. religion. That provided Islamists and unacceptable. Its true face is now shown tolerating “systematic, ongoing, egregious Christian evangelic a vast fertile ground for to the world. Pakistanis are never worried In its 2020 report released in April 2020, the violations of religious freedom”. Pompeo conversion. about religious freedom in their own USCIRF had noted a drastic turn downward also placed Comoros, Cuba, Nicaragua, country. They wear blinders, the world does in religious freedom conditions in India and They have grossly misused the Indian and Russia on a special watch list where not. First it chose China as friends and now had downgraded India to its lowest ranking soil. Hinduism is a highly tolerant religion governments engage in or tolerated “severe China defines Pakistan. The world now truly of “countries of particular concern” (CPC) which accepts sects of all faiths and doesn’t violations of religious freedom”. understands Pakistan, warts, and all. It can and categorised it as a “Tier 2 country” but convert others into its own. Minorities are no longer befool others. the current December 7 notification has always safe in India; they never leave and The Commission noted that religious removed India from the CPC. their numbers are growing. Is it not the proof Intolerance is increasing globally, so are freedom conditions across Pakistan who is for and against the minorities? How the acts of religious and sectarian violence. had continued to trend negatively. “The Pakistan has been complaining to the will Pakistan advise India on minorities? Pakistan is promoting instances of intolerance systematic enforcement of blasphemy and world on Islamophobia and lecturing India Pakistan should stop blaming India for and in-fact is its chief propagator. Pakistan anti-Ahmadia laws, and authorities’ failure on minority’s rights. The terror country the minorities, it should look after its own is deeply intolerant of other religions except to address forced conversions of religious advocates Islamist causes around the world backyard. its own version of Islam. Religious freedom minorities - including Hindus, Christians, and ignores all conversions and religious should be respected. Pakistan may disagree and Sikhs - to Islam, severely restricted persecutions in its own backyard, thereby Pakistan encourages mass conversion, with the USCIRF designations due to its freedom of religion or belief.” Nearly absolutely negating religious freedom. forcible marriages and religious prosecution own myopic reasons, but the list is genuine, 80 individuals remained imprisoned for Indiscriminate use of blasphemy laws in but gets surprised and angry why India’s very accurate and without any bias. Karima fled Pakistan for her life, only to see it end in Canada Baloch youth faced and who were being at his downtown Toronto office. He turned Karima is not the first Baloch in exile to die hunted by Pakistan’s military. Since I was out to be the quintessential gentleman and in a suspicious drowning. On May 2, 2020, a ◆ By Tarek Fatah a columnist on these pages, they asked me scholar. He listened to my story and shocked fellow Baloch living in exile in Sweden met Author & Columnist, Canada to look into how someone in Ottawa would me with his complete understanding of a similar fate. @TarekFatah assist Karima Baloch, her colleague Lateef the role of Pakistan’s military, both in [email protected] Johar and two other friends to escape certain Afghanistan and Balochistan. Sajid Hussain, 39, was a Baloch journalist death in Pakistan and find asylum in Canada. in exile and he too fell in a river north of erhaps in the distant future when He promised me that he would do his utmost Stockholm and then too, a spokeswoman P Balochistan attains its long-sought- to save these lives, and he kept his word. for the Swedish prosecutor’s office said an after freedom from Pakistan’s occupation, a As a result, Karima arrived in Toronto in autopsy did not point strongly to foul play filmmaker will be inspired to make an epic 2015, free of the patriarchy that held her in the death of the journalist, but journalism called “Karima, the story of Balochistan.” back and able to fight for the freedom of her groups expressed skepticism and concern. native Balochistan. Already thousands of men and women are An exiled critic of Pakistan has suggested on the streets of the Balochistan capital I had the privilege of chatting with her for Pakistan’s security agency ISI has developed Quetta, upset at the way Karima is being hours as she immersed herself in a society its own method of eliminating exiles by depicted as a suicide victim. where political differences were settled in drowning victims as a way of drowning out I say this not because Karima was like a debate, not death. evidence, just as Russia’s secret service uses daughter to me, but because in her, I saw untraceable poison to silence critics. She had a purpose and kept asking “what can the first Baloch woman who like Germany’s we do sitting here in Canada.” Impatient, Rosa Luxembourg and Rani Lakshmibai My advice to Toronto Police is they should within months of her arrival she made an of India stood out on their own, not in the stop trying to push Karima’s death as a uninvited surprise appearance at an Amnesty shadows of their fathers or husbands. closed chapter of a woman who committed The panic in their eyes convinced me I event in Toronto and raised the Balochistan suicide. My sources tell me her body was Karima Baloch rose from the people with had to do something.