Pashtun rights group accuses Pakistan army of abuses

News

Pashtun rights group accuses Pakistan army of abuses

2018-04-30 11:20 Last Updated At：17:43

A Pakistani human rights group that has accused the military of widespread abuses as it battles Islamist militants in Pakistan's rugged border region with neighboring Afghanistan has emerged as a force among the country's Pashtun minority, drawing tens of thousands to rallies to protest what it contends is a campaign of intimidation that includes extrajudicial killings and thousands of disappearances and detentions.

The group's charismatic leader, 25-year-old Manzoor Pashteen, has become the face of the country's oppressed Pashtun, charging that in the name of its "war on terror" the military has used indiscriminate force as it hunts for Taliban hideouts in the tribal regions where the Pashtun dominate, imposing collective punishments like bulldozing the homes of family members of suspected militants and punishing entire villages for extremist attacks.

The catalyst for the group's creation was the police killing in January of Naqueebullah Mehsud, a 27-year-old ethnic Pashtun and aspiring model who was shot dead in the southern port city of Karachi, where many displaced Pashtuns have relocated after being displaced by the military operations in the tribal regions. The authorities originally said Mehsud fired first during a raid by security forces on a militant hideout, but later acknowledged he was unarmed and had been targeted simply because he was Pashtun.

His death ignited protests by Pashtuns, who accused Pakistan's security forces of racial profiling, seeing all Pashtuns as Taliban simply because many insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan are recruited from among Pashtun tribesmen.

Within weeks what began as a small group of about two dozen had morphed into a popular movement. Known as the Pashtun Protection Movement, it has drawn huge crowds to rallies where Pashteen leads the charge, accusing the military of detaining thousands of Pashtuns in internment camps for months or even years without charges and intimidating residents at the dozens of checkpoints scattered throughout the tribal regions.

Residents, he said, were scared silent, too afraid to criticize the army tactics.

"Punishment is all about sending a message to keep silent," Pashteen told The Associated Press in an interview in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province and home to the majority of the country's ethnic Pashtuns. "When we began we were fed up with life, treated like we were not human. One thousand percent we were sure we would be killed."

Even his father pleaded with him to end his campaign against the military. "He told me that it would be trouble not just for me, but for my family," Pashteen said.

Yet, as his small group of followers took their grievances from the tribal regions to Peshawar and eventually to the capital, Islamabad, "people joined us," he said. "For many years our people have wanted to do something. They were looking for a leader."

Wearing his signature red embroidered cap and a dark, well-kept beard, Pashteen seems an unlikely leader.

Trained as a doctor, he is a pacifist, who refuses — despite prodding from family and friends — to carry a weapon in his car for protection in an area where guns proliferate and are considered a birthright. His protests are peaceful, he said, adding he has just two demands: The establishment of a peace and reconciliation commission to address the grievances of Pashtuns, including extrajudicial killings, and that the thousands of people in detention centers be brought to trial if they are accused of a crime or be released.

"The military has become a state within a state," Pashteen said.

Public criticism of the army, considered the most powerful institution in Pakistan, is risky and rarely tolerated. At the same time, the ascendency of the Pashtun Protection Movement poses a public relations nightmare for the army at a time when it is ramping up its effort to project success in the tribal areas, claiming to have defeated extremism and boasting that terrorist hideouts have been wiped out.

"The protesters aren't just politely critiquing the military. They're relentlessly assailing it and linking it to terror in ways rarely done before," said Michael Kugleman, deputy director of the Asia Center at the Washington-based Wilson Center. "The protesters, with their focus on indignities and injustices in the tribal areas, are undercutting a narrative the military is trying to project about peace and normalcy returning to the tribal belt after many years of war."

Infuriated by Pashteen's outspoken criticism, the army has accused him of being backed by "foreign powers," a term usually used to refer to neighboring Afghanistan or rival India. The army has also turned its intimidation tactics against his movement, pressuring news organizations throughout the country to ignore it and setting intelligence agents on university professors to try to force them to identify students attending protests. One political analyst was told his weekly column, in which he urged dialogue with Pashteen's movement, could not be published because the newspaper was "under pressure" to remove it.

"The military believes that (if) these protests get any air, they can turn from small fires into massive political conflagrations, so the best tactic is to deprive them of oxygen from the start," said Daniel Markey, director of the Global Policy Program at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. "And, to be sure, they are operating in a challenging and contentious political climate."

Political chaos has marred much of the last year in Pakistan. Its prime minister was unseated on corruption charges, and handed a lifetime ban from participating in politics. Pashteen's attacks on the military come as Pakistanis prepare to go to the polls later this year and could undermine the army's traditional ability to influence the elections.

"The army tends — also something we've seen before — to want to control or manage political outcomes as much as possible," Markey said.

The journalists' advocacy group, Reporters without Borders, issued a statement last week complaining about the military's efforts to muzzle Pakistan's media and nearly 100 Pakistani journalists signed a petition condemning censorship.

"After a week with several cases of overt press censorship in Pakistan, Reporters Without Borders ... reiterates its solidarity with the country's journalists and deplores the way the military continues to impose its diktat on the media," the statement said. "The latest subject to be placed off limits is the Pashtun (Protection) Movement, which has been organizing protests in defense of Pakistan's Pashtun minority and denouncing human rights violations by the military targeting Pashtuns."

Mosharraf Zaidi, whose column was pulled by a local English language newspaper, said the supporters of Pashteen's movement are mostly young and educated. They have known only war and chaos, he said, and most know or are related to someone who has been killed or taken either by militants or the military.

Zaidi said he had hoped Pashteen's movement "would prompt an honest discussion about our (decades-old) relationship with violent extremism."

Pro-Palestinian banners. Blazing Olympic rings. Workers' May Day rallies confront turbulent times

2024-05-02 13:38 Last Updated At：14:00

ISTANBUL (AP) — Workers and activists around the world marked May Day with largely peaceful protests Wednesday over rising prices, low wages and calls for greater labor rights. Pro- Palestinian sentiments were also on display.

Police in Istanbul used tear gas and fired rubber bullets to disperse thousands of people who tried to break through a barricade and reach the main Taksim square in defiance of a ban. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said at least 210 people were detained.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has long declared Taksim off-limits for demonstrations on security grounds. In 1977, unidentified gunmen opened fire on a May Day celebration there, causing a stampede and killing 34 people. On Wednesday, a small group of trade union representatives lay a wreath at a monument to victims.

May Day, which falls on May 1, is observed to celebrate workers’ rights. It's also an opportunity to air economic grievances or political demands. “Tax the rich,” one banner in Germany read. “Don't touch the eight-hour workday!” another read in Sri Lanka.

In Paris, police fired tear gas as thousands of protesters marched through the French capital, seeking better pay and working conditions. Police said 12 officers were hospitalized after a homemade explosive was set off on the sidelines of the march and at least 45 people were detained after instances of scattered violence

A group of protesters set makeshift Olympic rings on fire to show discontent with the Summer Games that start in less than three months. France’s unions have warned of a strike during the Games if the government does not adequately compensate people forced to work during summer holidays.

Pro-Palestinian groups joined the Paris rally, chanting slogans in support for people in Gaza. There were similar scenes in other parts of the world. In Greece, pro-Palestinian protesters joined May Day rallies, waving a giant Palestinian flag as they marched past the Greek parliament. Others displayed banners in support of pro-Palestinian protesting students in the United States.

“We want to express our solidarity with students in the United States, who are facing great repression of their rights and their just demands,” said Nikos Mavrokefalos at the march. “We want to send a message that workers say no to exploitation, no to poverty, no to high prices,” he added.

Several thousand protesters joined the Athens marches as labor strikes disrupted public transport across Greece. The largest union demands a return to collective bargaining after labor rights were scrapped during the 2010-18 financial crisis.

In the German capital, around 11,600 people marched through the immigrant neighborhoods of Kreuzberg and Neukoelln, waving Palestinian flags and holding banners that read “No weapons for Israel” or “Free Palestine,” German news agency dpa reported.

Throughout Latin America, workers marched to protest austerity measures and demand higher wages. In Argentina, unions galvanized crowds to vent their rage over libertarian President Javier Milei’s economic policies, which they say benefit the wealthy while inflicting pain on the poor and middle class.

“Paying rent is difficult, buying rice is difficult, everything under this guy (Milei) is difficult,” said 40-year-old garbage collector Leandro Rosas, trailing protesters down the street with a broom because this May Day, he said he couldn’t even surrender a shift’s pay.

Meanwhile, Bolivian President Luis Arce joined the workers’ march and decreed a 5.8% increase in the national minimum wage, a bid to mobilize support as a worsening economic crisis raises the specter of social unrest. The thousands-strong protests in Santiago, Chile, turned violent in some areas as security forces unleashed water cannons and tear gas on corwds, drenching and dispersing protesters who vandalized shops and government buildings.

In Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ratified a law that extends income tax exemptions to those earning up to two minimum wages per month, or about $544.

“In our country there will be no tax breaks to favor the richest, but to favor those who work and live off their wages,” Lula told a crowd sweltering in the sun at a soccer stadium in São Paulo.

In Nigeria, where inflation is the highest in 28 years, at over 33%, unions demanded bigger salary increases. In South Africa, pro-Palestinian demonstrators joined May Day events and in Kenya, President William Ruto called for an increase in the country's minimum wage.

In Lebanon, pro-Palestinian marchers mingled with workers demanding an end to a miserable economic crisis. “Politicians do not feel the pain of the worker or the economic conditions,” said one demonstrator, Abed Tabbaa. In Iraq, protesters demanded better wages, the reopening of closed factories and the end to privatization of certain businesses.

Tens of thousands Sri Lankans paraded through the capital as the country struggles through its worst economic crisis, two years after declaring bankruptcy. Discontent has grown over efforts to increase revenue by raising the price of electricity and imposing taxes on professionals and small businesses.

In South Korea's capital, thousands of protesters shouted pro-labor slogans at a rally that organizers said was meant to step up criticism of what they call anti-labor policies pursued by President Yoon Suk Yeol's conservative government.

“In the past two years under the Yoon Suk Yeol government, the lives of our laborers have plunged into despair,” Yang Kyung-soo, leader of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, said in a speech. Union members criticized Yoon’s recent veto of a bill aimed at limiting companies’ rights to seek compensation for damages caused by union strikes.

In Japan, more than 10,000 people gathered in Tokyo, demanding salary increases to set off price increases.

Indonesian workers demanded protections for migrant workers abroad and a minimum wage raise. They gathered amid a tight police presence, chanting slogans against the new Job Creation Law and loosened outsourcing rules.

In the Philippines, hundreds of workers and left-wing activists marched to demand wage increases and job security amid soaring food and oil prices. Riot police stopped them from getting close to the presidential palace.

Turnbull reported from Paris and Kim from Seoul. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed.