What could Bacha Khan teach Pakistan in light of the Pashtun Long March? “I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against it. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is forgiveness and righteousness. No power on earth ...

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday, during the Naqeebullah Mehsud extra-judicial killing case hearing, granted protective bail to Rao Anwar and directed the former Malir senior superintendent police (SSP) to appear in court on Friday. The case was being heard by a three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar at the Islamabad registry. Earlier, the SC had given ...

In the last weeks, Islamabad witnessed an outpouring of extreme anger and fury from Pakistan’s Pashtun dominated areas. Thousands of protestors including University students, rights activists, and political workers converged at the National Press Club to condemn extrajudicial killings, disappearances of Pashtuns youth, loss of lives in landmines, forces’ arrogance on security check-posts, curfews and harassment of tribesmen on the ...

EDITORIAL: Pakistan, if, was made by our forefathers, the forefathers of Pashtuns, and if it was their dream, they wouldn’t have made such a Pakistan where their children are not safe, where their children are being bitten by terrorists coming out of snake pits and biting them. If Pakistan was made by Pashtuns’ forefathers, and if they would have kicked ...

KABUL: The former President, Hamid Karzai was right in his decision to further pressurize Pakistan and this was the core reason behind divergence with US administration, the former US envoy to Kabul, and Iraq said. Zalmay Khalilzad in an interview with Voice of America, said, “The former President Hamid Karzai, being a national leader, was right in his stand against ...

The taboo subject of missing persons is back in the national conversations. Muzzling information and punishing those who reported on it has not worked. This past fortnight Pakistan witnessed unprecedented mobilisation by the youth of tribal areas. Thousands protested seeking justice for Naqeebullah Mehsud brutally killed in a fake encounter by Karachi police — all in the name of counter ...

Leading human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir passes away in Lahore ISLAMABAD: Renowned lawyer and human rights activist Asma Jahangir passed away in Lahore on Sunday due to a cardiac arrest. Jahangir, 66, was a human rights lawyer based in Pakistan and was Pakistan’s first woman to serve as the President of Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan. Family sources have confirmed that ...

More than a week of peaceful protest by thousands of Pashtun activists ( mostly from Waziristan and FATA) in front of Islamabad Press Club may or may not succeed in forcing the government to accept their reasonable demands but it has definitely redefined Pashtun political discourse in Pakistan. The contradiction between ever growing socio political awareness brought by urbanisation and the utter political disempowerment is the ...

It has been a week that thousands of Pashtuns man, women, youth have gathered outside the press club in Islamabad highlighting human rights violations against their community. The march began with demand ‘justice for Naqibullah’ A young Pashtun shopkeeper killed in a fake police encounter on January 13 in the financial heart of Pakistan, Karachi and claimed that he was ...

KABUL: President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Friday announced his support to the peaceful anti-terrorism and anti-extremism movement in Pakistan. On his social media account, the president wrote: “The civic movement aimed to build united front against extremism is historic and based on the principles of Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan’s philosophy of non-violence.” I fully support the historical #PashtunLongMarch in Pakistan. The ...