Stand with Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement & Free🇵🇸. Ex PTI Lahore (2012-16). PhD in Politics, Columbia '15; Wellesley '03. Prof at El Colegio de México. Pakistani.
Aug 26, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
"In 2014, Pakistani national Hafiz Saeed Khan was chosen to spearhead IS-K province as its first emir. Khan, a veteran Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan commander, brought along other prominent TTP members—including the group’s spokesman Sheikh Maqbool..." csis.org/programs/trans…
"IS-K’s early membership included a contingent of Pakistani militants who emerged in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province around 2010, just across the border from the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan."
Jul 5, 2021 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
English translation of enclosed letter (as it should be widely read):
Open Letter to General Qamar Javed Bajwa
July 4, 2021, Karachi Central Jail
History will absolve me!
After 7 months of imprisonment, I was released temporarily to attend the budget session of parliament. (1)
Meanwhile, I came to know through social media that you told members of parliament during the in-camera briefing on “National Security” that if I apologized to you, then I would be released! (2)
Apr 20, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
What's even more vile is potentially covering for the suspected killers & saying that the investigation is a "sensitive matter" whose details couldn't be disclosed. Tahir Dawar's son, @AmjidDawar, called for an international inquiry as the govt wasn't pursuing the investigation.
When he first disappeared, the details of which @AzazSyed shared in his column below, a PTI spokesman said that it was fake news & that he'd soon return safely:
His body was later found with torture marks in Afghanistan close to a Pakistani check-post.
Apr 18, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Not only did ISI tell Justice Qazi Faez Isa that it didn't have the mandate to investigate TLP's finances (when it has assumed the mandate for literally everything else) but Chief Justice Nisar delayed the hearing for 5 months enabling TLP's electoral rise. All roads lead to GHQ.
"ISI did not disclose the 'source of livelihood, place of work, address, funding'...of the TLP leadership...we had inquired whether they paid income tax or had bank accounts. ISI responded...that it did not have the mandate to gather such information." dawn.com/news/1462177
Mar 21, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Mujibur Rehman's 7th March 1971 speech with English subtitles. (1)
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.
Mar 10, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
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.
Mar 10, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
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
Oct 5, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
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"
Oct 4, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
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.
وہ بتوں نے ڈالے ہیں وسوسے کہ دلوں سے خوف خدا گیا
وہ پڑی ہیں روز قیامتیں کہ خیال روز جزا گیا #Zia #BhuttoJudicialMurder (2)
Sep 30, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
There were many honest, well-meaning people in PTI. If #PDM invited PTI nazryati leaders to join, they could reveal inside story. Justice r Wajihuddin, Hamid Khan, Javed Hashmi, Tasneem Noorani, Fauzia Kasuri, Naz Baloch, & Firdaus Naqvi saw how PTI was hijacked by fauji proxies.
America's complete surrender just confirms that the Taliban's treatment of women was just a pretext to invade Afghanistan. US policymakers didn't care about Afghan & Pakistani lives then nor do they now. But local progressives know what Taliban Project means. Aurat March, 2020:
"He (Justice Seth) has written that we direct all law enforcement agencies to arrest Musharraf & punish him according to the law. He has further written that if he is found dead, his corpse be dragged to D-Chowk& hanged for 3 days" thenews.com.pk/latest/585731-…
In light of this:
A mega-thread on @ManzoorPashteen in honor of the latest propaganda video. I first heard him speak at an April 2018 jalsa in Lahore & have been following his speeches ever since. When even former PMs could only criticize the army in euphemisms, he told the truth, without fear.
In any democratic transition, there needs to be bargaining between a regime & its challengers. But given our history, PPP & PML-N just cut a deal to be next chosen ones, in a system that's still dominated by army. PML-N, with its elite Punjab base, is enmeshed w garrison state.
One just needs to dig a little into the background of its leaders to see how many of them entered politics due to connections from Zia era. PML-N benefited from judicial murder of Bhutto & its leaders are linked to judges, Generals, etc. Unchallenged, it acts like a dictatorship.
Sep 23, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The funny thing is that they already have. Almost everything that we're told not to think or say aloud, lest we get charged for defaming the army, or compromising 'national security', has already been leaked by retired officers. #PDM#APC2020
They could do this by including reps of grassroots social movements ranging from PTM to students' movement to peasant groups to industrial workers to women's rights groups to Shia & other ulama. Political parties lack street power so it's in their best interest to be inclusive.
The #PDM should include a Citizen Oversight Committee that can keep political parties on track. There's a trust deficit between politicians & citizens, which is what the military exploits by throwing its weight behind popular movements. PTI dharnas *did* have popular support.
1/ Root cause of Pakistan's problems is its "state within the state", which has now become a "state above the state." It (i.e. army) manipulates elections & has destroyed Pakistan's credibility in the international community.
2/ @NawazSharifMNS says that Lt General Asim Bajwa, as a Corps Commander of the Southern Command, conspired to overthrow the Balochistan govt, in order to influence the Senate elections. He asks why there hasn't been an inquiry into the sources of his family's wealth.
