Archive for January, 2011
Six months after the floods
In the Keamari Town Camp for flood survivors relocated to Karachi, a woman with grey hair and strong capable hands sweeps the inside of her tent. It may be nothing more than a plastic sheet held down by four pegs, its makeshift doors flapping in the wind, but it is the hearth of her home. […]
Filed under: Child rights, Environment, Health, Social Issues | 5 Comments
Tags: Keamari Town camp, Oxfam, Pakistan, Pakistan floods, UNICEF
Power and fear
Last night I went to an unusual event in Karachi. Some of the wealthiest people of Pakistan sat next to the poorest, and when I say that, I mean it literally. Leaders of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party were invited to speak at the same stage as those of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the […]
Filed under: MInority rights, Politics, Social Issues | 10 Comments
Tags: Citizens for Democracy, MQM, Pakistan, Pakistan blasphemy laws, PPP, Salmaan Taseer assasination, Salman Taseer
We buried a man not his courage
Ten years ago Pakistan was a different place. The country had many problems, and has had since its very inception, but it was not somewhere a man would fire forty bullets into an unarmed man’s back and be lauded as a hero. In the Pakistan of today there are rows of security checkpoints at every […]
Filed under: MInority rights, Politics, Terrorism | 17 Comments
Tags: blasphemy laws, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, Maulana Fazal ur Rahman, Pakistan, Salmaan Taseer assasination, Zia ul Haq