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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | Human Rights |
|---|---|
| located: | Afghanistan, Pakistan |
| editor: | Shadi Khan Saif |
The forces of terror behind the crippling unrest in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past many years continue to brutally intimidate peoples’ bids for peace and democracy at the grassroots level.
In Afghanistan, it was a devastating Taliban attack in the summer of 2018 targeting a crowd of civilians returning from a local wrestling competition that gave birth to the Peoples’ Peace Movement in Helmand province. With impediments beyond imagination coupled with life threats, the PPM peace marchers from one of the most insecure corners of the war-devastated country mobilised the common people to raise voice against the war.
The determined peace marchers of Afghanistan spark a ray of hope when, on their request and during their short stay in Kabul, President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani declared unilateral, unconditional ceasefire against the Taliban for eight days in mid-June in 2018.
The movement on Saturday blamed the Taliban for kidnapping their members in Logar, besides persistent threats.
In Pakistan, the grassroots Pashtun Tahafuz Movement came into being in pretty much identical circumstances in the marginalised tribal belt a couple of years back. Members of the PTM blame Pakistan’s security establishment of promoting a war-economy in their areas for alleged strategic influence peddled through the proxy Taliban in Afghanistan.
Two elected parliamentarians of the PTM were held in prison for months over their criticism of the state policies in this connection. After literally snatching the independence from the local media in regard to coverage of the PTM, the state forces in Pakistan last year moved on to ban foreign media outlets in a clear bid to make situations vague for the masses so that the audience may be supplied with selective interpretations.
On Friday, October 17, the head of the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) Asia programme was denied entry into Pakistan and deported in an identical bid to curb the free press.
The Voice of America’s Pashto and Urdu services remains banned for covering the PTM, an indigenous movement by the ethnic Pashtun minority in Pakistan against forced disappearances, extra-judicial killings and other forms of persecutions and discrimination.
Image: reporterly
