Egypt forces clash with Copt protesters, 24 dead

CAIRO: A curfew was imposed overnight in Egypt’s capital after 24 people, mostly Coptic Christians, died in clashes with security forces in the deadliest violence since President Hosni Mubarak’s fall.

More then 200 people were injured in fighting that erupted during a protest by Copts on Sunday, prompting a curfew in central Cairo, said official statements broadcast on public television.

At least five of the dead were mown down by a speeding army vehicle, a priest from the minority Coptic community said, while an AFP correspondent saw other bodies with gunshot wounds.

Some activists blamed government-backed provocation for the bloodshed which has triggered fears of worsening sectarian strife.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf appealed for Egypt’s Muslims and Christians “not to give in to sedition because it is a fire which burns up everybody”.

As the military police gave assurances that calm had returned to the capital, Sharaf warned on public television that Egypt was “in danger” following the most serious clashes since Mubarak was ousted in February.

Sharaf, appointed by the military council that took power after mass protests led to Mubarak’s downfall, heads a caretaker government ahead of elections the council has pledged will be democratic.

A 2:00 am (0000 GMT) to 7:00 am curfew was declared in the area from Maspero to Abbassiya square, while security was stepped up around parliament and other official buildings in central Cairo.

“These events have brought us backwards… instead of moving forward to construct a modern state on a healthy democratic basis,” Sharaf said.

The clashes broke out during a demonstration in the Maspero district on the Nile, an AFP correspondent said after counting bodies at a Coptic hospital.

Amid scenes of mayhem at the hospital which was filled with grieving relatives, a priest named Daud told AFP at least five of those killed were mowed down by an army vehicle.

“Here is the brain” of one of them, he said, pointing to white matter in a plastic bag next to the body and disfigured face of a dead man. “Wael, wake up my dear Wael. Speak to me,” sobbed his sister in despair.

Other bodies bore gunshot wounds.

State television reported that three soldiers were shot dead and dozens of their comrades wounded as angry Copts wielding batons protested over the burning last month of a church in Aswan, southern Egypt.

“They fired at my colleague. He was standing next to me  Christians, sons of dogs,” one wounded soldier said on the television.

Later Sunday night, hundreds of Muslims and Coptic Christians exchanged blows and threw stones at the hospital treating the wounded from the earlier clashes, an AFP journalist witnessed.

The hospital morgue housed the bodies of those killed.

Some 200 to 300 protesters marched on the hospital to meet up with several hundred Christians already gathered there, including family members of the dead and wounded.

Several cars were set on fire in a wide street next to the hospital, and protesters were tapping the cars to make petrol bombs.

Users of social networking sites such as Twitter said the earlier clashes were provoked by thugs at the scene, while state television was accused of fanning anti-Coptic sentiment.

The prime minister said on his Facebook page, “What is taking place are not clashes between Muslims and Christians but attempts to provoke chaos and dissent.”

The protesters clashed with anti-riot police and soldiers guarding the state television building, after thousands took part in a protest march from the Shobra district.

A standoff degenerated as the demonstrators started hurling stones and set fire to two cars, an AFP correspondent said. The television channel said that an army vehicle was burnt.

Security forces fired into the air to disperse the crowd, and dozens of people fled.

“Down with the marshal,” the demonstrators chanted on the march to Maspero, referring to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who heads the military council.

Copts complain of systematic discrimination, but since Mubarak’s fall, tensions have also mounted between the military — initially hailed for not siding with Mubarak – and groups that spearheaded the revolt, which say the army is reluctant to carry out genuine reforms.

Sectarian clashes are frequent in Egypt, where the Coptic minority, which makes up about 10 percent of the Muslim-majority country’s 80 million people, has often been the target of attacks.

Hundreds of Copts took part in a protest last Tuesday outside the state television building over the September 30 burning of a church in the southern province of Aswan, demanding that its governor be sacked.

The church in Merinab village was attacked after governor Mustafa al-Seyyed was reported as saying Copts had built it without the required planning permission, according to state television.

The caretaker cabinet has pledged to reopen closed churches and ease church building restrictions.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/10/egypt-forces-clash-with-copt-protesters-24-dead.html

Ex-naval chief Bokhari named to head NAB

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari named on Sunday Admiral (retd) Agha Fasih Bokhari, former chief of Pakistan Navy, as chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to fill the office lying vacant for several months and make the country’s premier accountability organisation functional.

The nomination of Admiral Bokhari surprised many observers in the capital because some other persons were reportedly being considered for the post. The NAB became dysfunctional on July 20 on the orders of the Supreme Court which said that the organisation could not function in the absence of a chairman.

“President Zardari has nominated Admiral Bokhari and sent a summary to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for his appointment as NAB chairman,” President’s Spokesman Farhatullah Babar said.

“The president also sent a letter to Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan for consultation as required in the NAB ordinance,” he said. Sources said the law ministry had sent a summary nominating Admiral Bokhari for the post to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani a few days ago.

The prime minister accepted the summary and forwarded it to the president for approval. Under the NAB ordinance and directives of the apex court, the government has to consult the leader of opposition over the appointment of NAB’s chairman.

The leader of opposition has not taken any decision on the issue, but his party’s spokesman Mushahidullah said the opposition party would not accept the decision because NAB’s chairman should be a non-political person.

He also levelled allegations of corruption against the retired admiral. However, he later withdrew the allegations and said he had confused his name with that of another former Navel Chief.

The PML-N spokesman said his party’s leadership would hold a meeting to discuss the nomination.

He did not confirm that Chaudhry Nisar had received a letter from the president in this regard and said that his party would respond in accordance with the constitution.

It may be mentioned that the leader of opposition had rejected the name of Justice (retd) Syed Deedar Shah for the post but despite that the government appointed him as NAB chairman in October 2010. But three months later Justice (retd) Shah was removed by the Supreme Court which said he had been appointed without ‘meaningful’ consultations with the opposition.

Earlier, the government was considering the names of recently retired judges of the Supreme Court, Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Sardar Raza Khan and former chief justice (retd) Abdul Hameed Dogar and Punjab Governor Latif Khosa for the office.

But all these names were dropped in favour of Admiral (retd) Fasih Bokhari who retired as four star naval officer after serving as Chief of Naval Staff from 1997 to 1999.

He is a graduate of the French Naval War College and held several high posts in the navy.

The post of NAB chairman has been lying vacant since the removal of Deedar Hussain Shah in March this year.

NAB suspended its operations on July 20 after the expiry of the 30-day deadline given to the government by the Supreme Court to either appoint a chairman or wind up the organisation. The government ignored the deadline and pleaded in the apex court that it could not appoint NAB chairman till the apex court decided its petition seeking a review of the removal of Justice Shah.

The Supreme Court rejected the government’s plea and ordered that its June 21 judgment would prevail (under which 30-day deadline was given).

On June 22, a three-member bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, disposed of a constitutional petition filed by Al-Jehad Trust challenging the appointment of Javed Kazi as deputy chairman of NAB and told the government that if it failed to fill the vacant posts of the bureau’s chairman and prosecutor general in one month, the deputy chairman would be barred from exercising the delegated powers of NAB chairman and the bureau would become non-functional.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/10/ex-naval-chief-bokhari-named-to-head-nab.html

Is circular debt the real issue?

By Salman Khalid and Kamal Munir 

PAKISTAN has been facing a series of power crises over roughly the last two decades. However, since 2007, the situation has deteriorated rapidly.

As a result of severe electricity shortage, industry, commerce and agriculture have all taken serious hits with the country’s growth prospects dimming significantly. At the same time, residential consumers have had to endure over eight-to-12-hour blackouts in major cities. The situation is even worse in rural Pakistan.

Surprisingly, the total energy produced in the country has actually decreased nearly 10 per cent between 2007 and 2010.
This is primarily due to lower-capacity utilisation, which in turn has been the result of ‘circular debt’, a concept that has been bandied around freely over the past few years as the primary problem that besets energy production in Pakistan.

However, despite its dominance of policy discourse, circular debt is not the fundamental issue here. The two most glaring reasons behind the present mess Pakistan finds itself in are the 1994 energy policy and the resultant extreme over-reliance on expensive imported fuel mix.

It is easy to forget that the roots of the present power crisis can be traced to almost two decades back with the advent of the highly generous 1994 power policy for independent power producers (IPP). At that time the country’s electricity generation relied on a fuel mix of approximately 70:30 in favour of hydro versus thermal. This changed dramatically over the next decade with the fuel mix going to 30 per cent hydro and almost 70 per cent thermal by the end of 2010.

This dramatic shift in generation source occurred because the 1994 power policy (and later the 2002 power policy) did not discriminate on fuel source being employed and made the country hostage to fluctuations in international oil and gas prices (the country does not possess either commodity in sufficient quantity).

The cost of this strategic policy-level folly can be understood with the following comparison. As per the National Power System Expansion Plan 2010-2030, as of 2010, Wapda (employing hydro production) generated electricity at Rs1.03/kWh ((1.2 cents/kWh) while public-sector thermal power plants provided the same at Rs8.5/kWh (10 cents/kwh).

However, the IPPs (primarily thermal) provided the same at Rs9.58/kWh (11.2 cents/kWh). As a result, the average blended cost of generation was Rs6.6/kWh (7.7 cents/kWh) in 2010 which further increased to Rs9.81/kWh (11.5 cents/kWh) for the end consumer due to line losses and theft in the transmission and distribution systems.

It should be noted that the above numbers underestimate the true cost because the cost of energy from old power plants is substantially lower due to repayment of debt. Most new thermal IPPs are charging in the range of 15-18 cents/kWh at current oil prices. As a result, tariffs will substantially increase further as the world economy comes out of recession over the next few years and oil/gas prices jump (with the US trying to print its way out of recession).

Even after adjusting for debt repayment, power production through indigenous hydro resources comes out much better than what we are given to believe.

The estimated cost of energy stands at 1.6 cents/kWh for Kalabagh dam with a vast majority of new hydros expected to come under 4.5 cents/kWh as per a recent NTDC (National Transmission and Despatch Company) report. Furthermore, the country has so far completely failed to develop its coal reserves (only 30MW coming from coal) which are estimated at 175 billion tonnes (the second largest in the world). Engro estimates a tariff of 10-12 cents/kWh for Thar coal-based power production based on the current policy. Incredibly, the world average for coal-based power production in the energy mix is 40 per cent while it is only 0.1 per cent in Pakistan.

To make matters worse, many of the thermal IPPs set-ups under both the 1994 and 2002 power policy are of inefficient design (single cycle rather than more efficient combined cycle) since these policies provided cost plus equity return of 15 per cent irrespective of the efficiency of the technology/fuel source being used in the power plant.

Many of these IPPs would normally be used for load-balancing (matching sudden jumps in demand etc) in other countries and would fall low in the merit order for power plants used but are instead employed for satisfying standard base demand in Pakistan. One begs to question the wisdom and/or sincerity of the policymakers of the country who completely ignored two of the biggest energy resources available locally which cost substantially less than the options they opted for.

Some people provide the excuse regarding the political deadlock over the Kalabagh dam and hence the need for Pakistan to go to the oil/gas-based IPP route. But what stopped the policymakers from going down the coal route, let alone hydro projects apart from the Kalabagh dam? Why couldn’t the Diamer-Bhasha dam or the Bunji or Doyian dam be commenced in the early 1990s instead of a Hubco?

Circular debt is a red herring. The core problem lies in wrong policy choices made in the early 1990s that have continued since then. These choices, made for whatever reasons (pressure from the World Bank, corruption, incompetence) have shifted Pakistan away from self-reliance in energy generation and landed us at the mercy of daily fluctuations of the international oil/gas markets and choked industrial progress in the country.

Taking subsidies away is not the solution. Electricity should not only be available to the wealthy! The provision of affordable electricity is the basic right of every citizen.

In a country that has unparalleled resources to generate electricity the present situation is unacceptable. Printing money to clear circular debt will hardly deliver us from this problem. For Pakistanis to be able to get an affordable, sufficient, long-term energy supply, the sustainable solution lies in revisiting the ridiculous power policies of 1994 and 2002 and exploiting other, more sensible sources of generation.

Salman Khalid has managed investments in power generation in Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia. Kamal Munir teaches Strategy and Policy at the University of Cambridge.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/10/is-circular-debt-the-real-issue.html

Terrorized Silence

by Baber Sattar

If you are an “aashiq-e-Rasool” (devotee of the Prophet), should you be able to get away with murder? Can we, as a society, justify the cold-blooded murder of Salmaan Taseer by Mumtaz Qadri, merely because this killer believed he was discharging a divine duty? Can a citizen be allowed to execute another summarily in pursuit of a self-defined higher ideal of ‘justice’ not recognised by law, and can such logic be inducted as a valid justification for murder? Isn’t that the story of all psychopaths who pose a threat to society? Must we become apologists for vigilantism and crimes perpetrated in the name of religion, honour and tradition?

Notwithstanding what construct of justice and mode of reasoning one employs, the demand of the mullah brigade (and the anarchist band of lawyers who pelted flowers at a murderer and later ransacked the court that awarded him the death sentence) that Qadri must go scott-free is neither just nor reasonable. The argument against punishing Qadri is that in violating the law, he was actually meting out justice. Or in other words, meting out justice in the name of religion should be treated as justification (like self-defence) for an action that is otherwise a crime (i.e. killing a fellow citizen).

Law, most people agree, doesn’t have the moral authority it claims. But for any legal system to be credible and effective, the pursuit of morality in breach of law must attract penal consequences. What the law does is publicly declare certain rules that everyone is required to abide by. These rules might seem unjust at times, but they are binding. If you break a signal because you’re rushing to the airport to catch a flight, you are doing so with the knowledge that the challan or ticket that you might get as a consequence is an acceptable cost. But you cannot show up in court and justify your defiance of the law because a personal need or calling overrides traffic rules.

Those opposed to the law considered bad or unjust can either try and get it changed, or defy it. But when such defiance is with complete knowledge of the penal consequences that will follow, the punishment that results is not unfair.

Can we placate the frothing mullahs by adding an all-encompassing provision within Pakistan Penal Code holding that anyone whose religious beliefs are incensed by actions of another could legitimately inflict violence on such person? If the mullahs wish to make Qadri their hero for defying the law and killing a fellow human in pursuit of his belief-system, and hang his garlanded photo in their drawing rooms for their kids to emulate, there can be no accounting for such personal choice other than social censure.

But when they come out on the street and use violence to force our legal system and the society to accommodate violent crime and bigotry within the fold of rule of law, such coercive attempt to adulterate the legal system must be resisted forcefully.

There are many in Pakistan who believe that our blasphemy law is unjust, not because they support blasphemy, but because the law in its existing form is liable to abuse and has been abused continually.

The mullah brigade is not interested in a rational debate over the merits of the blasphemy law, as it exists and is applied in Pakistan. But its approach to scuttling debate has been considered and cunning. At step one is the argument that retaining the existing malfunctioning legal provisions related to blasphemy is essential to preempt impassioned ‘aashiq-e-Rasool’ from taking law into their own hands. In other words if law doesn’t allow persecution of those accused, the resulting vigilantism will be justified.

Step two is to condemn all critics of our blasphemy law as blasphemers themselves, who then become legitimate targets for the bigoted brigades. So if Salmaan Taseer is standing up for someone accused of blasphemy, he automatically transforms into a blasphemer and is liable to be killed.

And at step three is the assertion that when the killing of one human being by another is motivated by a higher ideal, such as executing the divinely ordained task of defending the honour of the Prophet, the law should make allowance for such self-assumed duty. As Mumtaz Qadri killed Salmaan Taseer in genuine pursuit of his religious ideals, the criminal justice system ought to treat intent behind such murder as benevolent.

The mullah brigade wishes that crimes of bigotry and hatred in the name of religion be declared as no crimes at all because the underlying intent cannot be deemed guilty. The reasoning being employed here, if accepted, would justify the genocide of non-Muslims and religious minorities in Pakistan. It would legitimise the targeted killing of Hazaras by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Balochistan and Shias across Pakistan, and it would condone the slaughter of innocent citizens by the Taliban. The logical outcome of such train of thought is thus ghastly. It would wipe out the possibility of discussion, debate or divergence within the realm of religion.

Such a move for homogeneity in the belief-system of Pakistanis while incapable of succeeding will certainly foster further anarchy and violence. If every Pakistani believes that he/she has a license from God to enforce his/her religious convictions on others, such mindset excludes the possibility of ours being a pluralistic society. If you legitimise violence inflicted on others in the name of religion or declare that the intent to harm others when driven by religious fervour is absolved of guilt, you are merely corrupting your system of justice from within by leaving no objective criteria to determine criminality.

And once you endorse that (i) any individual can assume agency and act as judge, jury and executioner in relation to another citizen if so commanded by his personal religious belief, and (ii) some actions/opinions against established religious dogma, or cultural/tribal values or entrenched concepts of honour are so wrong that any person associated with them doesn’t even deserve the protection of due process of law, you are sounding the death-knell of rule of law and constitutionalism.

But the mullahs are not interested in debating any of this within the sphere of religious thought or on the temporal plain as exhibited by the fact that they killed both Mufti Sarfraz Naeemi and Salmaan Taseer.

The nature of radicalism and intolerance being advocated, practiced and defended by the mullah, if left unchallenged, will gravitate toward more violent extremism. As the mullah’s instrument of persuasion is violence, it works seamlessly when the state chooses to step aside as an indifferent bystander. The ordinary citizen is incapable of confronting the bigotry and coercion of the mullah because no level playing field exists. If you dare to confront the mullah you do so at the peril of being declared an apostate, infidel or heretic, and such a label instantly denudes you of your most fundamental entitlement: the right to life and liberty.

The violent mullah and his reign of terror are not natural products of evolution. They are byproducts of our state policies and priorities. Religious militias cannot sustain themselves unless condoned by the state and treated as part of the national security paraphernalia. Armed religious groups cannot operate freely across Pakistan intimidating people, perpetrating violence and radicalising the society, unless the state conceives such harm as acceptable loss in pursuit of strategic objectives. And religious extremists cannot continue to brainwash our youth, if the state regulates the curriculum of madrassahs and provides free education to all children as our constitution mandates.

Unless the state changes its policy and our civil, military and thought leaders exhibit the courage to stand up to self-proclaimed agents of God, the coercive consensus on issues related to religion will develop into a conformist consensus, leaving little hope for progressive change.

Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu

Source: http://thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=71401&Cat=9&dt=10%2F7%2F2011