DAWN - Editorial; June 8, 2002

Published June 8, 2002

Probing Gujarat carnage

THE belated decision by a US body to probe the horrific anti-Muslim pogroms in the Indian state of Gujarat will be welcomed by human rights groups everywhere and bring some solace to the families of victims of that terrible tragedy. There was widespread dismay that the US had not spoken out forcefully enough against the chilling and systematic attacks on Muslims when these were at their peak in April. According to official figures, some 1,000 persons were killed by rampaging mobs during the attacks. However, independent reports suggest that the figure is actually closer to 2,500, with almost 100,000 persons forced to flee their homes and live in makeshift refugee camps. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which reports to the US president and Congress, has decided to hold a hearing on June 10 to examine new evidence suggesting that the Gujarat state government itself had planned and executed the terrible bloodbath. A report by India’s official National Human Rights Commission hinted at this complicity when it claimed that there was a “serious failure of intelligence and inaction by the state government” during the anti-Muslim riots that gripped India’s prosperous western state. Sections of the Indian press not only accused the BJP state government of Chief Minister Narindra Modi of not doing enough to stop the carnage but also of playing a part in inciting violence against the Muslims. Police personnel and state government functionaries were accused of encouraging or looking on as the violent mobs engaged in an orgy of violence that brought back memories of the carnage during partition. Hundreds of women were raped, people hacked to death or burnt alive during the peak of the violence. What struck observers most was the systematic manner in which Muslim homes and properties were singled out for attack by heavily armed men carrying electoral lists and mobile phones. This was clearly not a spontaneous outpouring of rage, but a cold, calculated and systematic example of ethnic cleansing. Even today, thousands of Muslim families are leading a miserable existence in refugee camps while Muslims across India are gradually moving out of Hindu-dominated areas to Muslim ghettos. Gradually, a system of apartheid is developing, threatening to tear India’s social fabric apart. Through all this, Narindra Modi, the man accused of masterminding the carnage, remains chief minister despite angry calls from most opposition parties for his dismissal. The union government has not only refused to sack Modi but has been lukewarm in condemning the excesses that took place in Gujarat. New Delhi also feels relieved that the hovering threat of war between India and Pakistan has drawn world attention away from the tragedy in Gujarat, where anti-Muslim violence is still continuing. The decision by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to reopen the case and look at new evidence should put Gujarat back into the spotlight. Human rights violations of the scale that took place there cannot be simply forgotten. It is the duty of the world community to act against crimes against humanity wherever they occur and bring to justice those responsible for the gruesome and systematic massacre of innocent men, women and children.

End of her ordeal

THE conviction earlier by a sessions court, and now the acquittal of Zafran Bibi by the Federal Shariat Court, are reminders of how ambivalent and flawed the Hudood Ordinances are in law. She was charged with adultery and sentenced to death by stoning by a Kohat court. The entire case was riddled with allegations of rape and counter-allegations of adultery. There was also the question of admissibility or otherwise of certain evidence depending on the sex of the testifier: the testimony of a man — Zafran’s father-in-law — as opposed to Zafran’s own — which was the basis of her conviction. It was only after Zafran Bibi’s jailed husband testified to his wife’s innocence that the shariat court reversed the judgment. Some 70 per cent of the total women prisoners in Pakistan have been convicted under the same law.

The Hudood Ordinances of 1979 are so heavily loaded against female and minority witnesses that they make a mockery of justice and the principle of equality before law. This bias is so pronounced that a woman’s and a non-Muslim’s evidence is simply not admissible against a Muslim man accused of rape. Is it any wonder, then, that women who are unable to prove rape are convicted on charges of adultery while their alleged rapists go scot-free? The chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology went on record last month, saying that faults and human errors could not be ruled out in the way the ordinances were being interpreted and enforced. It is time the Permanent Commission on Status of Women, which has been assigned to review all such laws that are patently unfair to, or discriminatory against, women, forwarded its recommendations to the government to help correct all such glaring anomalies in the said laws.

In the name of security

POLICING borders and enforcing immigration laws is the prerogative of any nation but to do it in the manner ruled by the US Justice Department will only create more problems than it will solve. The plan to fingerprint tens of thousands of visitors from Middle Eastern and mainly Muslim countries and to require them to report to the US immigration authorities after a stay longer than 30 days is part of the Bush administration’s effort to keep a stricter check on foreigners in America. However, the scheme smacks of racial and ethnic profiling because visitors from specific countries are being targeted. US citizens, too, with origins in these particular countries — including almost half a million Americans of Pakistani descent — would feel like second-class citizens. In fact, four have recently filed lawsuits against airlines’ discriminatory action of offloading them simply because they looked Middle Eastern.

Since September 11 many changes have been put in place by Washington to increase security for American citizens. This poorly conceived and controversial plan could well be counter-productive and face opposition from even within the US government. Washington would have done better by concentrating on reforming the immigration system, especially the crucial stage where consular officials working in foreign embassies screen visa applications. This would be more useful since it would deal with any would-be terrorists before they enter America. One way of improving screening would be to give consular officials access to the vast databases maintained by US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, something that is currently not the case. For example, US officials working in embassies overseas did not know that some of the alleged September 11 hijackers had overstayed previous visas to America nor, perhaps, the CIA believed that some were linked to Al Qaeda. The fingerprinting scheme seems like a quick fix but an ineffective ploy to soften the domestic criticism that the FBI and the CIA have been facing these days over their widely believed failure to follow on the lead indicating the presence of Al Qaeda militants in America. Asking foreign visitors to submit to fingerprinting will perhaps give only Americans an illusion of enhanced security. It will also subject many innocent travellers to the US to the kind of humiliating and intrusive checks that many Americans travelling abroad would find enormously offensive.

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