Pakistan At the Precipice: I- Human Rights in Islam

Pakistan is at the edge of precipice. Ex commando President Gen. Musharraf is walking the divide-and-rule tightrope. That he may fail and fall, does not apparently bother him. That Pakistan may fail and fall is a thought oblivious to him and his Corps Commanders. This is an attempt to understand and explain Pakistan and Musharraf’s conundrum. Desicritics will present this in three parts on successive days.

I – Human Rights in Islam
II – MIF Kakistocracy: Military-Industrial-Feudal complex
III – Vision for Coexistence

We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism. - Rigoberta Menchu, Guatemala Nobel Peace Prize Winner, 1992

Human Rights in Islam

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was voted on at the UN General Assembly on Dec 10, 1948 in Paris. It passed 48-0 with 8 abstentions (six Soviet Bloc states, South Africa and Saudi Arabia).

It was met with reservations by some Muslim states for its perceived failure in not taking into account the cultural and religious fabric of the non-Western nations.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference unanimously passed the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, August 5, 1990.

The West criticized it for its heavy reliance on Sharia.

Sharia is a way of devising laws based on the Qur’an, the Sayings of Muhammad (pbuh) and centuries of deliberations and precedents contributing to a wealth of Muslim Jurisprudence that encompasses all aspects of a Muslim’s life.

Article 1:
(a) All human beings form one family whose members are united by their subordination to Allah and descent from Adam. All men are equal in terms of basic human dignity and basic obligations and responsibilities, without any discrimination on the basis of race, colour, language, belief, sex, religion, political affiliation, social status or other considerations. The true religion is the guarantee for enhancing such dignity along the path to human integrity.
(b) All human beings are Allah's subjects, and the most loved by Him are those who are most beneficial to His subjects, and no one has superiority over another except on the basis of piety and good deeds.

Creeping Fundamentalism

In the past thirty days, hundreds of citizens have been killed in Peshawar, North Waziristan, Islamabad, Balochistan and other places in Pakistan by both the suicide bombers and the government.

While the government was responsible for the greatest number of casualties in the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) fiasco, with allegations of the use of the controversial White Phosphorus incendiary bombs, the blame for the civilian deaths cannot be entirely apportioned to the Musharraf Administration.

Part of the land occupied by the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa, billed as the largest madrasa (seminary) for women in the Muslim world, belonged to the National Book Foundation. Its Chairman had filed an FIR (First Information Report) against this illegal occupation for the record. The construction and encroachment over this land were also without proper permits and safeguards.

Informed circles who speak on conditions of anonymity tell us that the Ghazi brothers were ‘planted’ by the Agencies.

In 2002, arms and ammunition were discovered by the Islamabad Police at a check post. The two brothers, Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his elder brother Abdul Aziz were saved by the intervention of Federal Minister of Religious Affair Mr. Ijaz ul Haq. He is the son of former President Zia ul Haq, who also patronized the two brother’s late father Maulana Abdullah.

It should also be noted here that every major religious party head in Pakistan publicly denounced these two brothers’ attempt to create a ‘state within a state.’