The local media has been eviscerated but maybe the next time a foreign journalist interviews @ImranKhanPTI, they can ask him why the media regulatory authority lets Orya Maqbool Jan falsely accuse the women's movement of blasphemy on TV, when vigilante murders are a real threat.
His party took advantage of a similar blasphemy campaign by TLP against PML-N. Military intelligence agencies refused to answer Justice Qazi Faez Isa's questions about the right-wing TLP's sources of funding.
It should be investigated who is behind the most recent campaign.
In past, blasphemy card has been used against army's critics -- everyone from bloggers to TV channel GEO to politicians. Anyone, in PK or abroad, who buys our Generals' promises to end extremism/militancy should remember that this is how they stay in power
In centering the Baloch struggle against disappearances by the military, the #AuratMarch has directly called out the army for rights abuses & threatened its propaganda machinery. The links between these right-wing groups/blasphemy-avenging mobs & agencies should be investigated.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
It's also been a strategy of intel agencies to intimidate citizen movements into silence so they don't organize across ethnic & class lines against military domination. Progressives & conservatives see one other as the enemy, while they get off scot free w plausible deniability.
They unseated Nawaz Sharif partly by using proxies in the judiciary & media, & partly by facilitating TLP, whose main focus was a blasphemy campaign against PML-N. In many constituencies, PTI only won due to the margin of votes diverted to TLP.
They deliberately inject poison.
Thread tracing fake blasphemy allegations by pro-establishment "strategic assets":
Dishonesty & hypocrisy are almost a way of life in our society, to preserve the facade of perfect heterosexual union & family. They'd rather force gay men to marry women(& vice versa), stay closeted & lead double lives(sometimes acting homophobic to fit in) than to tell the truth
I've heard of several divorces of women who unknowingly married gay men, often through an arranged marriage. These men never admitted their sexual preference so their wives had added burden of wondering why their husband wasn't attracted to them.
Ruining lives is OK for society
I've also heard from a gay friend in Lahore about how he looked up his date's Facebook profile after their first meeting only to find that he had a photo of his wife and kids. And this person was using a dating app to meet young men.
Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report 1971: "After analysing the evidence brought before the Commission, we came to the conclusion that the process of moral degeneration among the senior ranks of the Armed Forces was set in motion by their involvement in Martial Law duties in 1958.."
"...that these tendencies reappeared and were, in fact, intensified when Martial Law was imposed in the country once again in March 1969 by General Yahya Khan, and that there was indeed substance in the allegations that a considerable number of senior Army Officers had not only"
"...indulged in large scale acquisition of lands and houses and other commercial activities, but had also adopted highly immoral and licentious ways of life which seriously affected their professional capabilities and their qualities of leadership."
Taliban may be part of Afghan society but they wouldn't be nearly as powerful were it not for the safe havens, logistical, & military support provided by Pakistan's army. America should never have invaded Afghanistan in the first place nor should it have funded Afghan mujahideen.
The entire chain of events of the last 20 years - Islamist militancy, occupation of Muslim countries under guise of War on Terror, Islamophobia & discrimination against Muslims - was set in motion by America's Cold War strategy in Afghanistan & its alliance with Pakistan Army.
John F. Kennedy praises President Ayub Khan for being "a powerful force for freedom" in the region. Ayub was the first military despot to be propped up with foreign aid but not the last. #فوج_نہ_ہوتی_تو #PDM