The law june 2017 issue (5)

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OPINION

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by : Bina Shah

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Where is the law?

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CONFESSION: I’m tired of hearing about women’s empowerment in Pakistan when the government is breaking all its promises made to Pakistani women on the topic of safety and security from gender-based violence. While debates rage about the Panama Papers, the situation in Karachi, CPEC, and the state of affairs in IHK, the issue of ‘honour’ killings has been swept under the rug. All the feel-good news about women entrepreneurs and girls’ education drives pales in comparison to the image of women’s bodies in funeral shrouds that appear on our newspaper pages with depressing regularity.

The latest news that British citizen Samia Shahid was raped before being allegedly honour-killed by her father and former husband reminds us that women are no safer than they were before this summer. After the media uproar over Qandeel Baloch’s murder in July everyone is curiously silent about the larger issue of violence against women and the particular issue of honour killings. Perhaps it’s a form of collective guilt, but there isn’t enough whitewash in the world to cover up the blood of Pakistani women spilled with such impunity by their brothers, fathers, husbands and uncles.

Today, business continues uninterrupted of men murdering women for

honour and suffering no repercussions. A parliamentary committee approved two bills on honour killing back in July, which addressed both honour killings and convictions for rape; the nation was told the bills would be voted on “in a matter of weeks”. Yet months have passed and no vote has been held, nor does it seem to be on the horizon in the foreseeable future.

The hoopla around the anti-honour killing bill was enacted merely to show to the international community that the government was “doing something” about the problem. In July we were told that the bill would not even be opposed by the religious parties, who usually block laws written to protect women and girls from abuse and violence in our heavily male-dominated society. But instead of an anti-honour killing law, what Pakistan got was a cybercrime law in August, pushed through parliament and the Senate as if their lives depended on it.

The issue of ‘honour’ killings has been swept under the rug.

I can’t imagine the frustration of Senator Sughra Imam, who has spent much of her parliamentary career the past two years trying to get a bill tabled which eliminates the loopholes and lacunae in the parts of the Pakistan Penal Code which already address honour killings. It must be extremely disheartening to be a parliamentarian, to make Herculean efforts to bring about

good laws, and then see all that effort go to waste simply because the government does not deem it a priority after saying exactly the opposite.

The proposed honour killing law must be made watertight, so that the crime of honour killing is non-compoundable, meaning that the parties cannot enter into a compromise and have the accused acquitted of the crime. On the other hand, it also has to make sure that anyone committing Bina Shah is a writer and columnist in Karachi; she is an honour killing doesn’t change their plea and the author of the novel Slum claim it was a murder over something else, a doChild and A Season for Mar- mestic argument, for example, in order to escape punishment under this particular law. tyrs. Twitter: @binashah MNA Nafisa Shah is in the process of publishing a book on honour killings in upper Sindh, based on field research she conducted for her PhD at Oxford.

Her experiences as a journalist and as district nazim of Khairpur, make her one of the foremost experts on the practice of honour killing in Pakistan today.

In upper Sindh, she observed the practice had become something of a business: men who killed their wives for honour would forgive the man co-accused of the so-called “affair” — if the coaccused paid a fine or supplied the “widower” with a new bride from his own family. However, in most cases, Shah says in an interview with a magazine, “honour acts as a mask for instrumental coldblooded violence”.

She knows that the key to stopping honour killings is not just legislation, but community engagement, mediation that doesn’t involve using women as barter, and the wholesale protection of women. According to Shah, “The state, the law, and the power elite are jointly implicated in the immunity that the family and kin enjoy in taking lives of men and women accused of damaging family honour.” Implementation of the law, prosecutions, and convictions promise to be extremely challenging in a country whose legal system is already under tremendous pressure, and there’s already a sense of defeat before the law has even been passed, which might explain the lack of impetus behind it. But millions of Pakistani women haven’t yet lost hope that they may be the recipients of justice from a country that has promised them equality and protection. As terrible a crime as honour killing is, it would be equally criminal to show, by refusing to pass an anti-honour killing law, that their hopes are misfounded, and that being killed for honour is just another one of the indignities you have to live with because you are a Pakistani woman.

Bina Shah is a writer and columnist in Karachi; she is the author of the novel Slum Child and A Season for Martyrs.

Twitter: @binashah

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JUDICIARY ON TRIAL

Chairman of The Law Foundation

Justice SaeeduzZaman Siddiqui

Former Cheif Justice of Pakistan, Honorable Governor of Sindh by: Jawaqid A. Siddiqui (Advocate)

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h e Law Foundation grieves the sad demise of an upright, man of p r i n c i p l e s a n d f a m e d j u r i s t i n his own right. Under his Chairmanship, The Law Foundation re g u l a r l y p u b l i s h e d T h e L a w M a gazine for the last ten years. Under his Chairmanship TLF unde r t o o k m a n y p u b l i c i n t e r e s t l i t i g a t i o n i n The High Court and Supreme Court. Conducted seminars on ma n y p u b l i c i s s u e s a n d r e p r esented in intern a t i o n a l s e m i n a r s . I t i s m o s t grieved loss to T h e L a w F o u n d a t i o n a n d t o legal fraternity a s a w h o l e . O n l y r e c e n t l y, on Universal C h i l d r e n D a y, u n d e r h i s p atronage a very w o r t h y s e m i n a r w a s h e l d a t Bahria Auditoriu m a n d a f r e e l e g a l a i d w a s announced. The M a n a g i n g Tr u s t e e J a w a i d A. Siddiqi, Adv o c a t e , a n d Tr u s t e e s A d m i r a l (rtd) Tanveer A h m e d , S y e d S a m i A h m a d , Nasir J.R. Shaik h a n d a n a c t i v e s u p p o r t e r Shaukat Omri a n d v e r y a c t i v e S e c r e t a r y o f The Law Founda t i o n Q a m a r J a w a i d S i d d i q i being grieved m e e t f o r r e m e m b r a n c e o f n oble soul of Just i c e S a i d u z z a m a n S i d d i q u i .

The Law Found a t i o n w i l l p l a n a r e m e mbrance. May he b e b l e s s e d e v e r a n d r e m a i n guide light to o t h e r j u r i s t s a n d a d v o c a t e s .

SaeeduzZaman S i d d i q u i ( 1 D e c e m b e r 1938 – 11 Janu a r y 2 0 1 7 ) ( p r o n u n c i a t i o n ‘sa’eed -uz- zam ’ a n ’ ; a l t e r n a t i v e l y S a i d u zzaman Siddiqui) w a s a P a k i s t a n i j u r i s t a n d legislator of gre a t p r o m i n e n c e w h o f o r m e rly served as the C h i e f J u s t i c e o f P a k i s t a n .

He was the Chie f J u s t i c e o f P a k i s t a n w h e n the 1999 militar y c o u p d ’ é t a t w a s s t a g e d b y then-Chairman o f t h e J o i n t C h i e f s o f S t a ff Committee and C h i e f o f A r m y S t a ff G e neral Pervez Mus h a r r a f . N o t a b l y, h e d e f i e d the request given b y M u s h a r r a f v i a t h e L a w Minister and L e g a l A d v i s e r S h a r i f u d d i n Pirzada to take a n e w o a t h u n d e r t h e P r o visional Constitu t i o n a l O r d e r ( P C O ) s a y i n g that: “ Taking an o a t h u n d e r t h e P C O , i n my opinion, wil l b e a d e v i a t i o n f r o m t h e oath I had taken t o d e f e n d t h e c o n s t i t u t i o n of 1973” . The PC O n o t o n l y n e g a t e d t h e i ndependence of th e j u d i c i a r y a n d d e m o c r a t i c norms, but also p r o l o n g e d t h e m a r t i a l l a w by nullifying th e e ff e c t o f a n y j u d g e m e n t given against Pr e s i d e n t P e r v e z M u s h a r r a f ’s government.

As a conseque n c e o f t h i s , h e w a s f o r c e d to step down fro m h i s p o s i t i o n , b y t h e m i l it a r y r e g i m e . The tenure time period was shortened due to his refusal to tak e t h e P r o v i s i o n a l C o n s t i t ut i o n a l O r d e r (PCO) Oath, prescribed by General Pervez Musharraf to legitim i z e t h e L F O . A f t e r a l o n g d i s c u s s i o n with 4 Army generals sent to his residence by General Musharraf; n a m e l y, L i e u t e n a n t - G e n e r a l ( R e t i r e d ) Moinuddin Haider, who was Interior Minister,then-Lieutenant-Ge n e r a l E h s a n u l H a q , C o r e c o m m a n d e r of the XI Corps, Lieu tenant-General (retired) Mahmud Ahmed, th e n - D i r e c t o r G e n e r a l o f t h e I S I a n d B r i gadier-General (retired) Javed Ashraf B a j w a ; C h i e f J u s t i c e S i d d i q u i r e f u s e d t o t a k e t h e Oath after which the Generals left and on orders of the GHQ was executed, which had authorized the house arrest of him and his family house.

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VIEW FROM CANADA Story

BY: Qamar Jawaid

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eautiful time of spring is here in Canada. What could be better time to celebrate the all encompassing love and all spring pleasure personified in Mother’s Day. The very word mother touches the very soul with tingling vibrations of love. It reminds a Hasidic saying, “God could not be everywhere at once, so he gave each child a mother”. Mother’s Day is the occasion when many Canadians celebrate the day to show their appreciation for mothers or mother figures. The day each year in Canada is on the second Sunday of May each year. The loves of mother is universal and so divine that, what-

ever or wherever or anywhere, men and women cherish the feeling of Mother Love but show gratitude by making a day to express grati-

tude towards mothers and mother figures on mother day. Mother figures may include step-mothers, mothers-in-law, guardians and family friends. The spring time filled joy by caring and thanking for due love to mothers and mothers figures. Gifts and taking them with family and spending time together gives the feel of bliss and in return get best divinely gift of blessings, that keeps loved one going. Mother’s day is not federal holiday but being Sunday and thus a real time to have the pleasure by celebrating with mothers. The special Mother’s day cards add color to occasion.

The Mother’s Day originated from USA and it is modern celebration honoring one’s own mother as well as the very motherhood. Carnations are a popular Mother’s day symbol in both US and Canada.

However other flowers are also given to mothers or mother figures to symbolize one’s love and appreciation for them. It began in USA in early 20th century and it is nothing to do with ancient celebrations which were there for over thousand years such Greek cult Roman festival or Christian Mothering Sunday but in some countries is become synonymous with these older traditions. Mother is always revered and that is the reason to show love and respect it is termed nature as Mother Nature or earth is called mother earth and the land one belongs is called mother land. Respect and love is one for mother. It is worthwhile to mention that the modern American holiday of Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother. Her campaign to make “Mother’s Day” a recognized holiday in the United States began in 1905, the year her beloved mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, died. Anna’s mission was to honor her own mother by continuing work she started and to set aside a day to honor mothers, “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world”. Anna’s mother, Ann Jarvis, was a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the Civil War and created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues. Due to the campaign efforts of Anna Jarvis, several states officially recognized Mother’s Day, the first in 1910 being West Virginia, Jarvis’ home state. In 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed the proclamation creating Mother’s Day, the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honor mothers. Jarvis’s holiday was adopted by other countries and it is now celebrated all over the world. The day, after as usual, by ups and down finally is become joyous day to celebrate and enjoy with the warmth of motherhood in mood of spring season gives impetus to go on. It is heartening that Mother’s Day is celebrated and observed in most states. In India and Pakistan too malls and stores gives the sight of gifts for the occasion. Therefore the mother’s day reminds and revives the all permeating love in the air.

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CRIMNAL LAW

Criminal Justice System in Pakistan by: Mr. Jibran Jamshed tioned earlier that it consists of three departments/institutions, so I will explain the problems in all three departments one by one.

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riminal Justice System is one of the most important ingredients of any society of the world. Criminal Justice System describes the offences, punishments, procedures and ways to punish those who break laws of the society.

It is the Criminal Justice System which creates deterrence in society. Without effective Criminal Justice System, a society or country cannot survive for long. In today’s modern world the Criminal Justice System comprises of three main institutions i.e. Police, Prosecution and Judiciary. In almost all countries of the world, the system consists of these three main institutions although their names may vary from country to country.

Criminal Justice System in Pakistan also comprises of three basic institutions i.e. Police, Prosecution and Judiciary. Before 2007, there were only two institutions in Criminal Justice System i.e. Police and Judiciary and there was no concept of independent Prosecution Department in Pakistan. It was only after 2007 when all Provinces established independent and specialized Prosecution Departments. Due to its short life and other reasons, Prosecution is still not independent and fully functional in Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System.

Problems in Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System The Criminal Justice System in Pakistan is outdated and in dismal condition. There are many reasons for this which I will explain later in this essay. The system in Pakistan is so much ineffective and outdated that it is very easy for any influential and wealthy person to get himself acquitted after committing any sort of offence. There are so many loopholes in Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System that it becomes very easy for any offender to got clean chit from courts. For this reason the system also lost the confidence of people, especially educated strata of society who always try to resolve their disputes outside the Criminal Justice System.

In following lines I will explain the basic problems associated with the Criminal Justice System of Pakistan. As I men-

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Police in Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System Criminal Justice System starts with the Police or Investigating agency in almost all civilized societies of the world.

In Pakistan it also starts with the investigation of Police.

The basic root cause of failure of Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System lies with the Police.

Police in Pakistan is the most corrupt institution of the country and corruption in Pakistan Police is beyond imaginations. Although basic purpose of Police Force is to protect the citizen but in Pakistan an ordinary citizen not only hates Police but always try to avoid the Police and all matters related with Police. Police Station is not a place for gentleman and every gentleman in Pakistan is afraid of going to Police Station even to register his genuine complaint.

Criminal Justice System comes into motion with investigation of Police and in Pakistan it is the very stage when most of cases are destroyed due to non-professional and corrupt investigation Officers. Any influential and wealthy accused can easily get the clean chit from police during investigation. When the case is so strong even then the accused can easily bribe the Investigation Officer and destroy the evidence which ultimately results in acquittal of accused in courts.

Unfortunately there is no distinction of Policing and Investigation in Pakistan. There is no specialized unit or force within police who is trained in investigation. It means in Pakistan even the cases of homicide are regularly being investigated by the low ranked, non-professional, non-trained, low-paid and corrupt police officers. As a result, the case is being destroyed at the beginning by the IO or Investigating Officer.

Prosecution in Pakistan Criminal Justice System As I mentioned earlier the Separate and Independent Prosecution Departments are established after 2006/07 in different provinces of Pakistan. Previously there was separate branch in Police known as Prosecution Branch and that Branch was responsible for the prosecution on behalf of state. Although Provincial Governments established Prosecution Departments but they are toothless and have no powers in practice. Provincial Governments in Pakistan’s provinces so far fail to provide Prosecution with adequate resources and essential legislation which is essential for the working of modern day Criminal Jus-

CRIMINAL LAW government attention and spirit to work, the Prosecution Departments are only rubber stamps in Pakistan.

tice System.

Prosecutor is powerless in Pakistan who is sandwiched between the two most powerful, authoritative and corrupt institutions of Pakistan i.e. Police and Judiciary. Prosecutor cannot direct Investigation Officer to properly collect the evidence during investigation, he is only authorized to scrutinize the investigation report after its completion and till that time, IO’s almost destroyed all important pieces of evidence. A Prosecutor can even not direct the Police Investigator to apply the correct section of law during investigation. Further even in case of no evidence, Prosecutor has no power to return the case back to

Judiciary in Pakistan Criminal Justice System Although Government invested lot of money and resources in the Judiciary in last decade yet the institution is in bad shape and fails to deliver. In Criminal Justice System of Pakistan, judges are highly paid and have more resources than Police and Prosecution but their performance is disappointed. The acquittal rate is Pakistan’s courts is almost over 80 percent which means if person commits crime in Pakistan he got 80 percent chances of acquittal in this system. Another major problem is the delayed justice as criminal cases are decided not in months but in years in Pakistani Courts.

There are many reasons for inefficiency of Courts in Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System. First of all the case is being destroyed by the Police Investigator at investigation stage which means it always lacks the required level of evidence which is necessary for the conviction. In Pakistan, Lawyer Bar Councils are very powerful and influential bodies who virtually dictate their terms on courts and if lawyer want to prolong a case for months or even years, judge cannot stop him. This is also the main cause of delay in decision of cases. There is also rampant corruption in judiciary and a wealthy person can easily get clean chit from the courts with different tactics. Due to increasing perks and privileges in judiciary the levels of corruption

police or drop the case but he has to forward it to the Magistrate after recording his opinion (that opinion is also worthless because it is not binding on court). Hence in practice Prosecutor in Pakistan only works as postman between Police and Judiciary.

The condition of Prosecution Departments is so disappointing that at most of the stations they don’t have their proper offices to work. So without any resources, proper legislation,

are decreased in last one decade but there is still lot of room for the improvement.

Overall the Criminal Justice System in Pakistan is losing confidence of people due to its inefficiency. Government needs to pay special attention towards the Criminal Justice System in Pakistan because a country can live without resources but cannot survive when it lacks justice.

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International COURT Court INTERNATION

ICJ can’t terminate Yadav’s death sentence: legal experts

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egal experts have opined that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) cannot terminate the death sentence of Indian spy agent Kulbhushan Yadav and grant of stay over his execution is not an ‘unprecedented’ development because it happens at the provisional stage in these types of cases.

They said the ICJ would only review whether the demands raised by India like the consular access to Kulbhushan Yadav should be met, and it cannot pass judgement to make an end to his death sentence given after a due legal process.

Talking to The News, Ahmer Bilal Soofi, who has a long experience with regard to international law, said the ICJ granted stay over the execution at the provisional stage of three cases that were taken up by it in the past.

“It is not the end as being portrayed by some segments because the case of Kulbhushan Yadav has just started in the ICJ. There is a silver lining for Pakistan as it has a chance to highlight involvement of India in the terrorist activities within its territory. In this way the international community will come to know the genuine concerns of Pakistan related to its national security,” he said.

Apart from all other 14 cases currently pending with the ICJ, the case of the Kulbhushan Yadav has two basic contradictions that have made this case quite controversial in the eyes of the legal and diplomatic fraternity.

First, in the 14 cases pending with the ICJ, the member states have accepted the jurisdiction of ICJ through a special agreement or by virtue of a jurisdictional clause or a declaration. Secondly, all these cases are related to mutual disputes especially over territorial boundaries and agreements.

Ahmer Bilal Soofi said in the case of Kulbhushan Yadav, Pakistan has not accepted the jurisdiction of ICJ and contrary to all other pending case it is about the death sentence of a foreign agent who twice made confessional statements

about his direct involvement in the acts of terrorism in Pakistan.

He pointed out that as far as due legal process is concerned, Kulbhushan Yadav cannot be hanged at least in next 150 days according to the Army Act. The sources said the Pakistan intelligence agencies have some more solid proofs regarding involvement of Kulbhushan Yadav in the terror activities in Pakistan that have so far not been revealed to the media due to some reasons.

Prominent legal practitioner Faisal Naqvi told this correspondent that the consular access cannot be taken for granted according to the November 2008 agreement between Pakistan and India, especially in the case of Kulbhushan Yadav, who faced the charges, including spying for India, working against Pakistan’s integrity, sponsoring terrorism in the country and attempting to destabilise the state.

“The ICJ will never pass any judgement making an end to the death sentence of Kulbhushan Yadav because it will only review the demands raised by India such as the Consular access and other issues,” he said.

He said there is no violation of the Vienna Convention in denying the consular access to Kulbhushan Yadav because there is an exception in it about the national security of all the member states. Faisal Naqvi said India is now facing a gigantic task because it has to prove before the ICJ that Kulbhushan Yadav is not a terrorist in the face of the documentary evidence by Pakistan.

K ulbushan Jadhav case::

ICJ will not acquit or release Indian national, says Pakistan’s counsel Khawar Qureshi

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he ICJ will neither acquit nor release Indian national Kulbushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a military court, the lawyer representing Pakistan at the global court claimed today, asserting that India has wrongly claimed victory in the case.

“The Jadhav case is a very clear case. He can never be released or acquitted,” Khawar Qureshi told media after a meeting with attorney general Ashtar Ausaf Ali. “You are making something

out of nothing,” he told reporters.

“Foreign office will be giving you a much more detailed press statement soon,” he was quoted as saying by the Nation. Qureshi also advised mediapersons to “behave responsibly” and “give Pakistani officials the respect they deserve.”

The UK-based lawyer said that India has “wrongly claimed victory” after the Hague-based court “temporarily” stayed the execution of Jadhav. “The problem seems to be that this case is more about political point scoring than about the law,” he said.

Jadhav, 46, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of “involvement in espionage and sabotage activities” against the country.

The ICJ on 18 May stayed the execution of Jadhav. “ He delivers the goods, and is particularly good at difficult cases, He is part of the team and very flexible. As such He’s completely what the modern barrister should be like.” Remarked chambers & partners about Khawar Qureshi in 2014. Khawar Qureshi, who is fighting for Pakistan at International court of Justice, is a QC at Serle Court Chambers and McNair Chambers Qatar. Responding to India\s arguments that Pakistan military court awarding death sentence to Kulbhushan Jadhav is a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Khawar Qureshi had sait India’s plea for involving provisions of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention is not relevant in the this case.

The Vienna Convention was adopted for better communication between friendly countires. But it cannot apply in this case of a spy set up by a state. Qureshi argued, “ The ICJ is not a criminal court and cannot decide such type of cases relating to na-

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tional security.” He further appealed to the court to dismiss the Indian application, saying that “ there is no urgency”.

“I will invite this court to dismiss this application, says Qureshi, listing out reasons for the claim. There is no urgency and the jurisdiction, in this case, is limited and unqualified.” Qureshi also said that the provisions of the Vienna Convention do not apply to a “spy involved in terror activities.” He said that Jadhav “ is terrorist” and “ India invoked the jurisdiction of this court improperly.”

Background Qureshi has taken on numerous cases before English courts and has also appeared before international arbitral Tribunals, advising on matters involving at least 80 different jurisdictions. According to his website, Khawar was called to the Bar (Queen Mother’s Scholer, Middle Temple) in 1990 and took Silk in 2006.

International Court of Justice.

His stint at ICJ is not his first. In fact, in 1993, he was the youngest lawyer to have appeared in the ICJ as counsel for Bosnia in the Genocide case against ( them then) Yugoslavia. Khawar has made extensive appearances in the English Court at all levels, and in many international arbitration/commercial matters for and against more than 60 governments. He was an “A” Panel UK Government Treasury Counsel from 1999-2006. Khawar has been chairman of The City UK Legal Services group which is designated by the UK Ministry of Justice as the lead organization to promote UK legal services internationally.

A professor and profile writer Qureshi has taught Commercial Law at Cambridge University, Public International law at King London and was appointed a visiting professor in Commercial Law at the University of London in 2006. He was a appointed a Deputy High Court Judge in 2013 and is a bencher of Middle Temple.

Qureshi is also a avid writer who has published several jounals and books on the topics related to comples legal issues and their soloutions.

Panama PANAMALeak LEAKS

Supreme Court

Turns Down Objections

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ussain Nawaz, the elder son of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, appear ed before the joint investigation team (JIT) probing the Panama Papers case for the fourth time today Supreme Court turned down his objections against two of the body’s members.

“We are not going to remove any JIT member on mere conjecture unless something concrete comes up because the prime minister is the one being investigated,” Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, who heads the three-judge implementation bench of the Supreme Court, observed.

The PM’s son had objected to the inclusion of two members — Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan’s Bilal Rasool and State Bank of Pakistan’s Amer Aziz — accusing them of being close to the PML-N’s political rivals.

The JIT members, Justice Khan explained, were nominated after considering their experience, adding that mere suspicion could not become the basis for their transfer.

Ex-Qatari PM, NBP chief and British-Pakistani witness haven’t answered summons, court told “The apprehensions should be reasonable, otherwise we will have to summon angels from heaven to conduct the investigation,” Justice Khan retorted when Hussain Nawaz’s lawyer requested the court to appoint someone neutral with no previous relationship with anybody.

But Justice Khan highlighted that whatever the JIT collected would ultimately be laid before the court in the form of a fortnightly or final report. Therefore, the court would decide what was admissible and what was not.

When Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf suggested that the court could order the JIT to provide a list of documents it needed whenever it summoned someone, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed observed that the court did not expect the law officer to take sides.

Hussain Nawaz’ counsel Khawaja Muhammad Haris repeatedly referred to an application filed by Tariq Shafi — the prime minister’s cousin — who alleged that he was made to sit before the JIT for 13 hours at a stretch, during which time one of the members continuously intimidated, browbeat and harassed him,

while another threatened him to withdraw the affidavit he submitted in the Panama Papers leaks case or face penal consequences.

Mr Shafi was even called a liar repeatedly by one JIT member, the counsel said.

However Justice Saeed observed that Mr Shafi was summoned by the probe team for an interrogation and not “a tea party”.

Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan recalled that the JIT was working overtime, even sitting on Saturdays and Sundays because they had to complete the task assigned to them within the stipulated period of 60 days.

“What is the [point] of the JIT if they do not interrogate you?” Justice Ahsan wondered, regretting that the court had noticed a lot of delaying tactics and resistance to the process.

“It is your job to provide complete material, because it was you who knows which documents have to be provided in your defence,” Justice Ahsan told Mr Harris. Nawaz was not present, PTI leaders Jahangir Tareen, National Bank of Pakistan CEO Saeed Ahmed, was said to be avoiding the probe, since he had also not appeared before the probe body, despite repeated summons.

When in one of the proceeding it was the Supreme Court bench warned that non-bailable arrest warrants could be issued in his name, Both witnesses are connected with the Hudabiya Paper Mills case: in Ishaq Dar’s confession, which he later disowned, he admitted to laundering $14.86 million and opening two bank accounts in the names of Sikandar Masood Qazi and Talat Masood Qazi for Nawaz Sharif’s brother.

In the confessional statement dated April 4, 2000 Mr Dar said he had known Masood Ahmed Qazi, the head of the family, since 1970. As per the statement, Nawaz Sharif asked Mr Dar to open four benami foreign currency accounts in the names of Sikandar Masood Qazi, Talat Masood Qazi, Nuzhat Gohar Qazi and Kashif Masood Qazi.

The Qazi family had disassociated themselves with these accounts, saying that their identity cards were misused to open bank accounts.

According to JIT head Wajid Zia, Kashif Qazi fears for his life and is not ready to come to Pakistan.

Mr Dar’s statement also links the NBP CEO — who was at one time one of the directors of Mr Dar’s First Hajveri Modarba Co — with the money laundering scam, claiming that his foreign currency account was used to deposit large sums of foreign currency provided by the Sharif family to offer as collateral to obtain different and indirect credit lines.

Mr Zia also informed the court that the JIT had summoned former Qatari prime minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, but he had not responded to the summons.

Ordering the JIT to conduct its proceedings strictly in accordance with the law, the court instructed the body to remain independent, impartial and non-partisan, while maintaining human dignity at all cost during interrogations. “Whether it is the prime minister or a peon, they should be treated equally,” Justice Khan observed.

Imran says JIT will find him innocent by: Ikram Junaidi

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akistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan says that he has never done anything illegal, therefore, whether the Supreme Court investigates itself or forms a joint investigation committee (JIT) he will be found innocent.

In a series of messages on Twitter on Monday, he criticised the government and said there was nothing illegal in his financial affairs.

A petition filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Hanif Abbasi in the apex court accuses Mr Khan of using an offshore company for the purchase of an apartment in the United Kingdom and transferring money from abroad through illegal channels. The PML-N leader also accused Mr Khan of tax evasion and allegedly purchasing his Banigala property by illegal money.

In a tweet, Mr Khan said he bought the London flat by money he earned from playing cricket. He also claimed that he transferred his money to Pakistan through legal banking channels.

“Whether SC investigates or forms JIT in my case, here is my challenge: whatever they want to do, they will come to only one conclusion.”

The PTI chief said he had been a tax prayer in the UK for 20 years and in Pakistan since 1981. A tax notice had never been served on him, he added.

Comparing his situation with Mr Sharif, he claimed that the prime minister would be found guilty by the joint investigation team.

“In contrast, I predict JIT will find Nawaz Sharif, while he held the prime minister’s office guilty of tax evasion, money laundering and perjury (Qatari letter),” he tweeted. In another tweet, he said: “Those who think I am playing with fire and might get disqualified, it will be a small price to pay to rid Pakistan of corruption mafias’ Godfather.”

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REPORT

War costs us $13.6 trillion.

So why do we spend so little on peace?

A child holds bullets picked from the ground, in Rounyn, a village in North Darfur

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he latest Global Peace Index report, released today, finds that 2015 was a bad year for international peace and security. It recorded a further deterioration in global peace based on historic trends. 2015 witnessed the highest number of global battle deaths for 25 years, per-

sistently high levels of terrorism, and the highest number of refugees and displaced people since World War II. This violence had a huge cost. The report finds that the economic impact of violence to the global economy was $13.6 trillion

in 2015 in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). This is equivalent to $5 per day for every person on the planet, or 11 times the size of global foreign direct investment (FDI). The toll of violence is typically counted in terms of its human and emotional cost, but the financial damage to the econo-

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my is yet another additional factor to consider. When counting the economic impact one must look at the costs of preventing and containing violence, as well as measuring its consequences. This is important because spending on containing violence, while perhaps necessary, is fundamentally economically unproductive.

How do you “add up” the costs of war?

IEP’s method is a comprehensive accounting exercise to “add up” those direct and indirect expenditures related to creating and containing violence plus its consequential costs. These include not just military spending but domestic expenditures on security and police plus the losses from armed conflict, homicides, violent crime and sexual assault.

The $13.6 trillion of expenditures and losses represent 13.3% of world GDP. To break this figure down, it’s the equivalent of $1,876 for every person on the planet.

The numbers refer to the current expenditures and their estimated flow-on effects in 2015, and are represented in PPP international dollars.

These numbers are notable for two reasons. Firstly, over 70% of the economic impact of violence accrues from what is mostly government spending on the military and internal security. This shows that significant amounts of government expenditure are tied up to this end. In a perfectly peaceful world, these huge resources could be directed elsewhere.

Secondly, the remaining amount is consequential losses from violence and conflict and these, too, are enormous. They significantly outweigh the international community’s spending on building peace.

A quick examination of the numbers reveals that the world continues to spend

vastly disproportionate resources on creating and containing violence compared to what it spends on peace. In 2015 alone, UN peacekeeping expenditures of $8.27 billion totalled only 1.1% of the estimated $742 billion of economic losses from armed conflict. When looking at peace-building – the activities that aim to create peace in the long term – those totaled $6.8 billion or only 0.9% the economic losses from conflict. The chart below highlights that the spending on peace-building and peacekeeping is minuscule when compared to the economic losses caused by conflict, representing just 2% in 2015.

But fundamental to future improvements in peace is a greater investment in peacebuilding and peace-keeping. Peace-keeping operations are measures aimed at responding to a conflict, whereas peace-building expenditures are aimed at developing and maintaining the capacities for resilience to conflict. Peace-building expenditure aims to reduce the risk of lapsing or relapsing into violent conflict by strengthening national capacities and institutions for conflict management and laying the foundations of sustainable peace and development.

These numbers suggest a serious underinvestment in the activities that build peace and demonstrate that the international community is spending too much on conflict and too little on peace. Given the fact that the cost of violence is so significant, the economic argument for more spending on peace is indeed powerful.

The rise of peace inequality Furthermore, a new phenomenon is emerging as some countries grow more peaceful while overall levels of violence increase: peace inequality. This drives a broader dynamic of greater economic inequalities between nations; as the least peaceful countries spiral into greater violence and conflict, they are also further set back economically.

DAWN LEAKS

Dawn Leaks: Publishing of story govt’s failure, says inquiry report The inquiry committee formed to probe Dawn Leaks in its report has placed blame on Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi and Principal Information Officer at the Press Information Department Rao Tehseen, he report, which has been presented to the government, recommends the removal of Tehseen.

The sources said that the portfolio of Fatemi on foreign affairs is

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by:- Asif Bhatti & Azaz Syed national security.

But the investigation carried out by the inquiry committee now appears to show that no evidence could be found against the former minister. According to sources privy with the mobile forensics data in report, Dawn newspaper reporter Cyril Almeida sent at least 11 text messages to Rashid.

Sources say the report-

er, in the messages, requested the government not to ‘insult’ by repeatedly issuing rebuttals of his story, but the minister did not reply to most of the messages.

PID officer Rao Tehseen’s mobile phone forensics data as well as data from the Safe City Project is part of the inquiry committee report. likely to be changed but he would retain his position.

They said that All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) would decide what action would be taken against the concerned newspaper.

The inquiry report could not ascertain who leaked the information to the reporter. However, blame was put on few people for failing to stop the publishing of the story.

The report stated that the publishing of the story was a failure on part of some government institutions including Information Ministry and Foreign Ministry.

Earlier, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with Tariq Fatemi, with sources informing Geo News that Dawn Leaks was the main agenda.

The English-language daily, Dawn, had published a story on October 6 in which journalist Cyril Almeida had written about an alleged civil-military rift during the National Security Committee (NSC) meeting over the issue of tackling jihadi outfits.

The story stirred a major controversy last year, resulting in Almeida coming under fire from the military and government and being temporarily placed on the Exit Control List.

The inquiry committee comprised one member each from the ISI, MI and IB, Secretary Establishment Tahir Shahbaz, Ombudsman Punjab Najam Saeed, and an FIA director.

No evidence found against Rashid Meanwhile, informed sources told Geo News that mobile forensics data of Senator Pervaiz Rashid was also made part of the report by the inquiry committee, which could not find any evidence against the former information minister.

On October 29, following a preliminary investigation, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took back the Ministry of Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage from Pervaiz Rashid, weeks after the military’s top commanders said the ‘false and fabricated’ report published in the Dawn newspaper breached

‘Imran lying in connecting Maryam Nawaz with Dawn leaks case’

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said that Imran Khan has deceitfully named Maryam Nawaz in the Dawn leaks case after getting disappointment from Supreme Court’s decision over Panama Leaks case.

Speaking to the press, minister said that for no reason Maryam Nawaz’s name is being taken in the Dawn leaks case, further adding that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf ’s chairman shouted allegations on election rigging and Panama leaks case but after receiving sheer disappointment from both cases, he has started taking name of Maryam Nawaz in the Dawn leaks.

“He (Imran Khan) is again lying in connecting Maryam Nawaz with Dawn leaks case. Those who level false allegations must apologise,” she said.

Last week, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the inquiry report into ‘Dawn leaks’ would be submitted to his ministry within two or three days.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has said the government would publish the inquiry report, unlike findings of other commissions that have been under wraps in the past.

Earlier this month, DG ISPR Maj-Gen Asif Ghafoor said the army, “like every Pakistani awaits a decision based on justice and merit”.

The Pakistan Army’s top commanders expressed serious concern over the “feeding of a false and fabricated story of an important security meeting”, terming it a breach of national security.

The government called it a ‘fabricated’ story and termed the “purported deliberations” during the security meeting as speculative, misleading, factually incorrect, and an “amalgamation of fiction and fabrication”.

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FAMOUS TRIAL

The “

Negro Plot Trials” An Account

by Douglas O. Linder (2009)

New York City (seen from the south in 1746)

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n 1741, English colonists in New York City felt anxious. They worried about Spanish and French plans to gain control of North America. They felt threatened by a recent influx of Irish immigrants, whose Catholicism might incline them to accept jobs as Spanish spies.

And, above all, they feared that the city’s growing slave population, now numbering about 20% of the 11,000 residents of Manhattan and increasingly competing with white tradesmen for jobs, might revolt. When a series of thirteen fires broke out in March and April of 1741, English colonists suspected a Negro plot--perhaps one involving poor whites. Much as in Salem a half century before, hysteria came to colonial America, and soon New York City’s jails were filled to overflowing. In the end, despite grave questions about the contours of the suspected conspiracy, thirtyfour defendants were executed. Thirteen black men burned at the stake and seventeen more hanged. In addition, four alleged white ringleaders-two men and two women--made trips to New York City’s gallows.

“Fire!”

On March 18, 1741, as the coldest New York winter anyone could remembered neared its end, smoke began rising from the roof of the Lieutenant Governor Clarke’s mansion inside the stone walls of Fort George, the hilltop fort built in 1626 along the city’s harbor that stood as the city’s principal protection from foreign invaders. The city’s alarm bell rang. Two horse drawn wagons carrying fire engines set off toward the fort and a brigade formed in the Fort Garden to pass water buckets along to fight the fire. The fire, however, continued to spread. Flames leaped from the Lieutenant Governor’s mansion to nearby barracks and a chapel, and then outside the fort, to the Secretary’s Office, where an archive of important documents was housed. In the end, it wasn’t the fire engines or the bucket brigade that saved the city from an even more devastating fire, but rather a timely rain. Nearly everyone assumed at first that the Fort George fire was an accident, perhaps started by sparks from a fire pot carried by a plumber for soddering.

A week later, another fire broke out, this one belonging to a prominent sea captain. Then, again exactly seven days later, a third fire. A dockside warehouse burned to the ground, along with everything in it. Suspicions mounted: three fires on three consecutive Wednesdays? New Yorkers began talking about arson. The pace of fires picked up. Three days after the warehouse fire, a cow stable begin burning in the East Ward and, even as that fire was being put out, there was “a second cry of fire,” this one for a house on the city’s West Side. The following day, after a trail of coals were found leading from a house to a nearby haystack, nobody believed the rash of fires was an accident. On Monday April 6, four new fires broke out. In the case of one of the fires, a disgruntled “Spanish Negro” (one of a group of men seized by the English after an attack on a Spanish ship, and then auctioned off as slaves in New York) came under strong suspicion. Soon the cry of “Take up the Spanish Negroes!” reverberated from street to street. Vigilantes soon succeeded in rounding up five “Spanish Negroes” and hauling them down to City Hall. The interrogation had barely begun when the fire alarm rang again, this time to signal a fire at another warehouse. A Dutch firefighter spotted black slave named Cuffee fleeing the scene. As a mob described as “upwards of a thousand men” chased Cuffee, a new chant went up in the streets of New York City: “The Negroes are rising!”

The round-up of blacks continued with renewed energy. Many Negroes

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unfortunate enough to be out on the streets of New York found themselves soon sitting in jail under suspicion for arson. In City Hall, with smoke visible from the windows, City Recorder Daniel Horsmanden and city magistrates questioned the Spanish Negroes and the captured slaves.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Governor Clarke ordered the militia to patrol the city from dusk to dawn, a watch that would continue for the next three months.

Five days later, the Common Council posted notice of a 100 pound reward and a pardon for anyone who would identify persons “concerned in setting fire to any dwelling house or store house.” The Council also voted to send out search parties who would search virtually all buildings in the city and stop anyone carrying “bags or bundles.” The search turned up little of value to the investigation.

Court Convenes At ten o’clock on April 21, The Supreme Court of Judicature of the Province of New York convened at City Hall, at the corner of Wall and Broad streets. Justice Phillipse began the proceedings by commanding the sheriff to impanel a grand jury. Seventeen men stood up to be sworn as grand jurors, including some (such as a man whose warehouse had recently burned to the ground) whose impartiality might easily be questioned. “My charge, gentleman,” Phillipse told the jurors, is “to present all conspiracies, combinations, and other treasons down to trespasses” that related to “the many frights and terrors which the good people of this city have of late been put into, by repeated and unusual fires.” The first person summoned to appear before the grand jury was Mary Burton, the sixteen-year-old servant of tavern owner John Hughson. She was a reluctant witness, and not until she was being led to City’s Hall’s dungeon did she reconsider her initial refusal to testify. Once she began talking, however, she really talked. Burton described a vast conspiracy, including meetings at Hughson’s where her master, an Irish prostitute named Peggy Kerry, and two slaves named Prince and Caesar, conspired to burn the Fort and “the whole town.” When “white people came to extinguish” the blazes, Burton said, they would “kill and destroy them.” When all was done, Caesar would become Governor and Hughson “should be King.” Needless to say, Burton’s testimony created quite a stir. Justice’s of the Supreme Court called together all the leading members of New York’s bar to consider how and where to conduct prosecutions of slaves.

The group decided that the trials should be in municipal sessions court “under the care of the Supreme Court.”

Justice Horsmanden assumed the role of principal investigator into the conspiracy. When suspects were rounded up, he would question them himself before turning them over to the grand jury. By modern standards, of course, it would be a clear violation of due process for a judge in a case to conduct an initial investigation, especially when the defendants had no lawyers, but in the early eighteenth-century, no such restrictions existed.

On May 1, slaves Caesar and Price faced trial on charges unconnected with the fires. Both men had been charged with the theft of Spanish pieces-of-eight from a shop owned by Robert and Rebecca Hogg. After hearing from prosecution witnesses including the Hoggs and a white sailor who had participated in the theft and then betrayed the two slaves, the jury returned quick convictions. The Hughsons, who seem to have run a sort of fence operation out of their tavern, and Peggy Kerry were scheduled to face trial the next day on charges of receiving the stolen property. Before the second trial began, however, an indentured ser-

FAMOUS TRIAL of the plot and provided names of other conspirators. Despite the last-minute confessions, there would be no reprieve. The piles were lit.

City Hall, site of the “Negro Plot” trials of 1741.

vant named Arthur Price (not to be confused with the accused slave also named Price) being held in the jail on robbery charges revealed to Judge Horsmanden that Peggy Kerry had told him that the Hughsons were involved in the arson conspiracy, as well as Prince, Caesar, and two other slaves, Cuffee and Bastian. Sensing the value of his jail house snitch, Justice Horsmanden arranged for Arthur Price to placed in the same cell as Cuffee and for them to be given “a tankard of punch now and then, in order to clear up their spirits, and make them more sociable.” The plan worked, and within a day Horsmanden had the name of the Fort George arsonist, a slave named Quack. As Jill Lepore writes in her book New York Burning, “from the prosecutor’s point of view, Price was priceless.”

The cascade of accusations and confessions continued. On May 9, Peggy Kerry admitted knowing about the arson plot and began naming the names of slaves who, she claimed, played more active roles. Two days later a horse-drawn cart took Kerry’s boyfriend and the father of the child she carried, Caesar, and Price to specially erected gallows on a small hill at the edge of the city. Both men died without confessing, the first victims of a long and grisly summer of executions. After the hanging, Caesar’s corpse was removed and gibbeted, and then placed on display to, in the words of Daniel Horsmanden, serve as an “example” and to induce others “to unfold this mystery of iniquity.”

Whether to end beatings or beat death sentences, accused slaves pointed fingers at other slaves. In return for a promise that his own life would be spared, a slave named Sandy identified fifteen blacks, including four “Spanish Negroes,” as plotters. One of the slaves fingered by Sandy, a slave named Fortune, in turn testified before the grand jury that Quack told him two days before the Fort George fire “that the fort would be burnt.” Fortune also testified that Cuffee was involved in one of the warehouse fires.

Quack and Cuffee Trial The trial of King v Quack and Cuffee would be the next trial in the series. Attorney General Richard Bradley delivered the government’s opening statement, accusing Quack and Cuffee of committing a crime “so cruel and detestable...that one would think could never have entered into the minds of any but a conclave of devils.” The prosecution case that followed consisted of eleven witnesses. Mary Burton testified first, stating that the defendants hatched the arson plot at Hughson’s. Following Burton, the slaves Fortune and Sandy repeated the testimony they had previously given in the grand jury proceedings. Sandy stated that Quack had told him, after the burning of the fort, “The business is done.”

Cuffee, meanwhile, had announced his intention to “set fire to the town” even if it meant his own hanging or burning. (In colonial New York, slave evidence was admissible, but only against other slaves, and only in cases involving murder, arson, and conspiracy.) Except for Arthur Price, and his testimony concerning Cuffee’s alleged jail cell confession, the remaining witnesses (all white) provided far less damning evidence.

Quack and Cuffee, forced to conduct their own defense, called ten witnesses, who mostly presented alibi evidence. William Smith offered the government’s closing argument. Smith claimed that the evidence proved Quack and Cuffee participated in a conspiracy to “establish themselves in peace and freedom in the plundered wealth of their slaughtered masters.” The jury quickly returned its verdict: Guilty as charged. Justice Horsmanden pronounced sentence: “You shall be chained to a stake, and burnt to death.” On May 30, a large crowd watched as the two convicted slaves were chained to two tall wooden poles surrounded by piles of wood. Both men offered hasty confessions in the hopes that they might be spared a painful death. Cuffee admitted starting the storehouse fire with lighted charcoal, while Quack said he placed “a lighted stick” between the shingles and the roof of Clarke’s Fort George mansion. In addition, Quack and Cuffee identified John Hughson as “the first contriver”

Hughson Trial Authorities seemed of the view that no conspiracy as broad as the one recently endured

by New York could come solely from the minds of slaves. After Quack’s and Cuffee’s confessions at the stake, they settled on tavern owner John Hughson as the chief author of the plot. The trial of Hughson, his wife Sarah, their daughter, and Peggy Kerry brought a standing-room-only crowd to city hall on June 4. The trial spectators witnessed followed different rules than the two previous plot trials because, as whites, the defendants were entitled under New York law to more protections. Granted twenty peremptory challenges of potential jurors, the defendants used them all--including one against, it seems, a favorite client of Peggy Kerry’s.

In his opening statement, Attorney General Bradley savagely attacked the “infamous Hughson”: “Gentlemen, this is that Hughson whose name and most detestable conspiracies will no doubt be had in everlasting remembrance...This is the man! This is the grand incendiary!--that arch rebel against God, his king, and his country!--that devil incarnate, the chief agent of the old Abbadon of the infernal pit, and Geryon of darkness.”

Limited by law to presenting white witnesses, the prosecution first called two officials who witnessed the last-minute confessions and statements of Cuffee and Quack. (Fortunately for the prosecution, the dying confessions of blacks--although not their testimony while living--was admissible.) White servants Mary Burton and Arthur Price also testified. Burton told jurors she had witnessed at Hughson’s tavern numerous gatherings, usually on Sundays, of twenty to thirty Negroes. Among those frequently present, she said, were Caesar, Prince, Cuffee, and other slaves accused of arson. Burton testified that Hughson provided Negroes with guns and conspired with them to “burn the whole town” and “cut their masters’ and their mistresses’ throats.” When this was done, Burton said, “Hughson was to be king, and Caesar governor.” During Burton’s testimony, according to Daniel Horsmanden’s trial account, the prisoners “threw up their hands and cast up their eyes, as if astonished.”

John Hughson conducted the defense for all four defendants. None of the four defense witnesses offered especially compelling testimony. For example, a lodger at Hughson’s named Eleanor Ryan testified that she never saw large groups of Negroes at Hughsons and certainly “never saw any entertainments there for Negroes.” On the other hand, Eleanor Ryan’s testimony was undoubtedly more helpful to the defense than that of another defense witness, Adam King, who claimed to have seen “whole companies of Negroes playing dice” at Hughson’s.

Unsurprisingly, especially in view of Justice Horsmanden’s urging that they do so, the jury returned a verdict of guilty for all defendants.

Upon sentencing the four to death by hanging, Justice Philipse expressed amazement at the dastardly plot that had been uncovered: “...To encourage these black seed of Cain to burn the city and to kill and destroy us all--Good God!” On June 12, John and Sarah Hughson and Peggy Kerry (the execution of Hughson’s daughter was postponed) were hanged. To the disappointment of officials, none of the three confessed.

Jack’s Confession and the Real Plot The parade of defendants to the City Hall courtroom accelerated. After a three day trial in early June, six more blacks were convicted and sentenced to die in connection with the arson plot. One of the condemned six, a slave named Jack, offered to tell judges all he knew of the conspiracy if only his life could be spared. Jack’s confession, described a large meeting of Negroes in February in the home of his master, Gerardus Comfort. Somewhat troubling to authorities was the fact that Jack placed the start of the conspiracy at the home of Comfort, while Mary Burton testified that the conspiracy had its origins at Hughson’s, Comfort’s next-door neighbor. Still, they considered Jack’s confession a godsend. Particularly helpful to the prosecution was Jack’s willingness to name each Negro present and to state exactly what each agreed to do to further the conspiracy. For example, Jack said, York complained that his master had “scolded at him and he would kill her.” Cato, he told judges, “said he would get his master’s sword and then set the house on fire.” Another round up began, and soon seven more suspects could contemplate their bleak futures in the discomfort of the City Hall dungeon.

Jack, meanwhile, received a pardon.

Confessions, accusations, arrests, convictions, and executions continued as the summer warmed. By the end of June, over a hundred slaves sat in New York’s jail. Some people began to worry that blacks were making false confessions and accusing the innocent in order to gain pardons and save their own lives. Daniel Horsmanden, recorder of the

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FAMOUS TRIAL confessions, remained convinced that the confessions were genuine: “Could these be dreams, or is it more rational to conclude, from what has happened amongst us, that they were founded on realities?” The latter, he concluded--but when slaves burned maintaining to the end their innocence, others grew doubtful.

What really happened in New York in 1741 will never be entirely clear, and many of the condemned were probably without guilt, but there was a real plot and it did gro Plot” trials of 1741.

Justice Horsmandven’s edited account of the trials is our involve slaves. Although principal source of information for the 1741 arson con- the biases of authorities led them to suspect that whites spiracy. must have been the masterminds of such an extensive and diabolical plot, that most likely was not the case. The plot was probably more Jack’s than Hughson’s, argues historian Jill Lepore. She notes that other slaves put Jack at the center of the plot. A slave named Sandy, for example, told the grand jury that one day in February, as he was walking past Comfort’s house, Jack invited him into the home. Inside, he found “about twenty Negroes.” “They gave me a drink,” Sandy is reported to have testified, “and then asked me to burn houses.” Lepore believes that Jack was member of New York’s Akanspeaking community. (Akans were an ethnic group from Ghana.) She attaches significance to the fact that while Akan-speakers represented only 4% of New York’s slave population, they were nearly 40% of those burned at the stake. Lepore also notes that “much of the plotting to which slaves confessed in 1741 bears considerable resemblance to ceremonies known to have taken place among the Akan-influenced communities of the New World.” While Jack and others plotted, Lepore contends, the feast for Negroes at Hughson’s was “essentially a prank that grew out of proportion,” a ceremony intended as a mockery of Masonic initiations practiced by many of the city’s leading white citizens.

The motive behind the conspiracy?--for most slaves, it was a simple desire for liberty. According to testimony concerning the meeting of slaves at Comfort’s house, a slave named Ben pointed to denials of basic freedom as the justification for arson: “[We] could not so much as take a walk after church-out, but that the constables took [us] up; ...in order to be free, [we] must set the houses on fire and kill all the white people.”

For Quack, whose fire-setting at Fort George started it all, motivation came from the Governor’s decision to deny him the right to spend occasional nights with his wife at the fort, where she served as a slave. Some slaves saw hope for liberty in the ongoing war between England and Spain, and English authorities worried that “Spanish Negroes” might, of allegiance with Spain, be only too happy to join in a conspiracy aimed at the many English settlers in New York City. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that a number of Spanish slaves found themselves on trial for conspiracy in the summer of 1741. On June 17, five accused Spanish slaves (originally claimed as prizes when they were seized by the English on a Spanish ship) listened (with the aid of an interpreter) as five prosecution witnesses accused them of involvement in the arson plot. The fact that the prosecution witnesses understood little or no Spanish raised, even in the minds of hardened judges, some credibility questions. In their own defense, the Spanish offered alibi evidence and argued that by law they should be free men, not slaves, and thus should be entitled to all the procedural protections of white citizens. Despite the very weak evidence of guilt, the jury returned all defendants guilty after only thirty minutes of deliberation. The verdicts in the “Spanish Negroes” trial marked perhaps the clearest example yet of injustice. As Jill Lepore writes: “What Spain promised [freedom for slaves that deserted English colonies] led New York slaves to seek alliance with “Spanish Negroes,” and later to betray them in confessions, but there is little evidence that Spanish slaves joined either “Hughson’s Plot” or the “Negro Plot.”

Trial of the “Priest,” John Ury By mid-summer, Lieutenant Governor Clarke concluded that the conspiracy trials were getting out of hand. In June he wrote to London, “I desired the Judges to single out only a few of the most notorious for execution, and that I would pardon the rest.” In late June, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, James DeLancey returned from overseas to meet with his fellow justices who had been conducting the plot trials. The meeting came at a time when some slaves were recanting confessions and “Negro Evidence” was rapidly losing its credibility. Chief Justice DeLancey might well have reminded the other judges that wholesale executions of slaves were costing city slaveholders their valuable property.

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DeLancey, in his first significant act in the proceedings, announced the pardon of forty-two accused blacks. Under his plan, the slaves would be boarded on ships and sold as slaves in foreign lands, with the owners of the slaves receiving the proceeds of the slave sales. A trial on July 15, which resulted in the conviction of eight black men, would be the last of the slave trials.

Still, one more trial remained. Confessing slaves had made reference to a short white man who had the power to forgive their sins, a man that authorities immediately assumed must be a priest. On June 24, constable found their suspected priest, a recent arrival in the city named John Ury. Court records note that Ury came to the city “pretending to teach Greek and Latin.” (Simply being a Catholic priest was, in New York City in 1741, a crime punishable by death.) Mary Burton, asked if she could identify Ury, told investigating judge Horsmanden that she had “often seen” Ury in John Hughson’s home.

L a t e r, c o n t r a d i c t i n g a n e a r l i e r s t a t e m e n t , B u r t o n c l a i m e d t o h a v e w i t n e s s e d a n I r i s h s o l d i e r n a m e d Wi l l i a m K a n e discussing the arson plot with Hughson. Kane surprised authorities with a confession that seemed to suggest a w h o l e n e w p l o t , o n e t h a t h a d l i t t l e t o d o w i t h t h o s e c o n s i dered in earlier trials. According to Kane, a group of conspiring clandestine Catholics planned “to burn the English C h u r c h , ” a s w e l l a s w h a t t h e y c o u l d o f t h e c i t y, a n d t h e n take what goods and riches they could and distribute them a m o n g t h e c i t y ’s p o o r. K a n e i d e n t i f i e d U r y, “ w h o a c t e d a s a priest,” as one of the plotters.

O n t h e o p e n i n g d a y o f J o h n U r y ’s t r i a l , J u l y 2 9 , A t t o r n e y General Bradley told jurors that Ury “with a cross in his h a n d ” s w o r e b l a c k m e n i n t o H u g h s o n ’s p l o t . H e p r o mi s e d t h e m e n , B r a d l e y s a i d , t o f o rg i v e t h e i r s i n s . B r a d l e y c l a i m e d U r y b e l i e v e d t h a t i t w a s j u s t i f i e d t o “ k i l l a n d d estroy” all those that do not share what Bradley described as “their detestable religion,” their “hocus pocus, bloody religion.”

T h e p r o s e c u t i o n p r e s e n t e d t h r e e k e y w i t n e s s e s . Mary Burton testified concerning Ury’s promise of forgiveness to plotters and his alleged conducting some sort of ritual that included “a black thing like a baby on a table” and his reading from a book. William Kane testified that Ury tried to convert him into Catholicism and, one night at Hughson’s swore him into the plot. Sarah Hughson, the convicted daughter of John Hughson, and who had received a pardon only minutes before Ury’s trial began, testified that Ury had encouraged slaves to burn the city and promised that, if they did, he could pardon their sins.

Ury conducted his own defense. He produced witnesses who testified he was just what he claimed to be, a school teacher in ancient languages. He tried to show that he was a dissenter from Anglican Church teachings, but not a p a p i s t . I n a s t a t e m e n t h e r e a d t o t h e j u r y, U r y s u g g e s t e d h e w o u l d h a v e t o h a v e b e e n a “ l u n a t i c ” t o h a v e o rg a n i z e d a massive arson plot and then remained in the city as the investigation went on for months afterwards.

W h e n t h e n i n e - h o u r t r i a l e n d e d , t h e t w e l v e j u r o r s w i t hdrew to deliberate. Fifteen minutes later they came back w i t h t h e i r v e r d i c t o f “ G u i lt y. ” O n A u g u s t 2 9 , U r y o ff e r e d his last words before he was hanged: “[Death] is the cup that my Heavenly Father has put into my hand, and I drink it with pleasure.”

Epilogue Justice Daniel Horsmanden, investigator and judge in the “ N e Wi t h t h e c o n v i c t i o n o f J o h n U r y, J u s t i c e H o r s m a n d e n felt happy that the investigation into the 1741 conspiracy h a d f i n a l l y r e a c h e d “ t h e b o t t o m . ” I n h i s v i e w, a l l t h e p l o t s b e f o r e U r y ’s w e r e s u b p l o t s , a l l f o l d e d u n d e r t h e p r i e s t ’s l a rg e u m b r e l l a c o n s p i r a c y. O n S e p t e m b e r 2 4 , N e w Yo r k C i t y c e l e b r a t e d “ a D a y o f T h a n k s g i v i n g ” f o r t h e “ d e l i ve r a n c e f r o m t h e d e s t r u c t i o n t h r e a t e n e d b y t h e l a t e c o ns p i r a c y. ” U n h a p p i l y, f r o m H o r s m a n d e n ’s p o i n t o f v i e w, t h e r e w a s in the land a growing chorus of skeptics, fueled by more recantations from prosecution witnesses and revelations that Mary Burton had told some obvious lies during the course of her interrogation. A rare surviving letter from o n e t r i a l c r i t i c s u g g e s t e d t h a t t h e N e w Yo r k t r i a l s b r o u g h t to mind the discredit witch trials in Salem a half-century e a r l i e r.

To d e a l w i t h s u c h c r i t i c s , H o r s m a n d e n t o o k o n t h e t a s k of preparing for publication an edited account of the 1741 t r i a l s . I n t h e s p r i n g o f 1 7 4 4 , H o r s m a n d e n ’s J o u r n a l f i n a l l y was published. It sold poorly; there were new concerns i n t h e c i t y. To d a y i t s u r v i v e s a s o n e o f t h e m o s t c o m p l e t e t r i a l a c c o u n t s o f A m e r i c a ’s c o l o n i a l p e r i o d .

FAMOUS TRIAL

CIVIL - MILITARY RELATIONS CIVIL - MILITARY RELATIONS: (BY: M.ZIA KAYANI) Pakistan has a chequered history of Military take over and ironically each military coup was validated by the Apex Court of Pakistan.

Every time the military took over the reigns of government people welcomed the Army and distributed sweets for getting rid of the corrupt politicians and the so-called democratic setup. In Pakistan the real democracy has not taken roots. There is no democracy by: M. Zia Kayani at the grassroots level and when there are no roots there cannot be a strong stem and branches, nor leaves therefore no fruit grows on it.

The people of Pakistan are deprived of fruits of democracy. It is said that Quaid-e-Azam the father of the nation is said to have remarked “that all the coins in my pocket are counterfeit coins”. By this the Quaid meant the deplorable quality of the second line leadership. Although there is no evidence to corroborate Quaid remarks but the political events which took place after the Quaids demise are a clear testimony to the remarks made by him. After few years of the demise of Quaid-e-Azam, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan was assinated at a public meeting in Rawalpindi.

His death was a great setback for the newly created state of Pakistan.

Although his short tenure was marked by political intrigues particularly in Punjab. After his death the political charade continued. The politician failed to make a constitution for newly formed county for ten tong years and the constitution was finally enacted by the constituent assembly in 1958. But before the elections for the new assembly could take place, martial law was declared by the President Iskander Mirza. Who was later

internal aggression. The posters which appeared on the roads of Karachi and Islamabad exhorting him to act against the corrupt government and to play a pro-active role in this regard, were only to extol his very active role as a army chief. There were even talks about granting him extinction and to promote him as Field Martial in recognization of his extraordinary role. All this further supports the commons perception and peoples’ faith about 2ermy’s role as stated alone.

Army role in the politics In Pakistan cannot be eliminated unless the civil set up is deeply entrench on democratic principles. It is because of this that even during the civilian rules the Amy is looked upon to settle those matter which are purely of political nature. For instance during the last PPP’s government, when Nawaz Sharif came out with a procession from Lahore in support of restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, he was constantly in touch with the Army Chief and when the procession reached at Gujranwala, the Army Chief’s telephone gave the happy tidings of the success of the movement.

Similarly the judgment of Supreme Court in Asghar Khan’s case still awaits implementation. And recently allegations made by Javed I-Iashmi in erstwhile member of Tehreek Insaf and PML (N) that Army was at the back of Imran Khans sit-in (dharna) Islamabad in 2016 is not entirely baseless. But the actual fact is that the government had handed over the Security of Islamabad to the Arrny under Article 245 of the Constitution because there was possibility of clash of the participants of the sit in with the Army. And indeed there was every likelihood of Army’s intervention to force Nawaz Sharif to quit. However, the government to counter any move by the Army if there was any requested General Raheel Sharif to intervene in the matter and make contact with Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri. And it was as a result of this meeting that an FIR against Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif was registered for the ruthless killing of supporters of Tahirul Qadri at Model Town Lahore. -A M

on deposed

by General Ayub Khan and he assured the office of President as well as the Chief Martial Law Administrator. The same pattern was repeated in 1977 when General Zia-ul-Haq deposed Z.A. Bhutto and later hanged him for murder. The takeover by General Musharaf therefore was not an unexpected event in the political history of Pakistan. The basic reason behind the military takeover is not in my opinion the lust for power by Military but the incompetence ineptitude and corruption by the civilian set-up and its inability to come up to the expectation of the masses. People of Pakistan look up to the army not only as defenders of the country but also as their savious from all kinds of injustices, social political economic and judicial. A recent movement by a social group “Move on Pakistan” in support of the ex-Army Chief General Raheel Sharif who has played an active role in to rid Pakistan of terrorism and to restore law and order in Karachi is a clear manifestation of the fact that people of Pakistan do look forward to Army as a lost resort to save Pakistan and its citizens from foreign aggression as also from

The kind of democratic set up in Pakistan is friegation of democracy.

It is a democracy by the elite and for the elite. An ordinary citizen of Pakistan cannot think of to be elected as member of the parliament or even a member of a local council unless he has huge financial resources.

The majority of the members of parliament are either big landlords, jagirdars or rich businessmen. They choose to become member of parliament or provincial assemblies to protect their own interest and to reap financial benefits in the shape of perks and privileges. The members of parliament and the provincial assemblies are allocated huge funds for development in their constituencies a major portion of which is misappropriated by them.

The political parties in Pakistan are not organized democratically.

No elections are held for the office bearers of the parties. The only

15

JUDICIARY ON TRIAL

political party which holds elections is the Jammat-e-Islami that too on the basis of limited franchise. The other two parties PML(N) and PPP and also ANP are family based parties and the head of the party is hereditary. Another factor which is the corner stone of democracy is that the local government institutions has not taken firm roots in Pakistan. No elections for local government were held for eight long years. The elections were eventually held reluctantly on the directions of the Supreme Court, but the powers and the functions of local government have been drastically curtailed. The allocation of funds has also been Withheld. As a result the local government are not able to function properly. Most of the functions have been taken up by the provincial government depriving the local government to play their due role. The Punjab Government has reintroduced the defunct District Administration System of colonial era which has further curtailed the role of local government system.

It may be mentioned here that the first steps towards establishment of local government system was taken by General Ayub Khan who introduced the system of Basic Democracy. The political structure contrived

by Ayub khan was also based on basic democracy. It constituted the electoral college for the election of the president. The Basic Democracy system helped create the political awareness among the masses. The basic democracies were to function as the local governments. The BDs had their own tier of organization, starting from Union Council (in villages) and union committees’ (in cities) to District and Divisional Councils.

This system galvanized the people. As a result a new class of leadership emerged from the masses which included peasants, tradeds retired officials and educated middle class came to the fore. It can be said that the politics had been brought at the door steps of common citizens of Pakistan. The professional politicians rich land owning politicians had already been consigned to oblivion and were strictly kept out.

These BD members were to become the workers of PPP when Z.A. Bhutto fell out with Ayub Khan and founded PPP. The system was continued during General Zia-ul-Haqs regime and thereafter during General Mubbashir further brought about changes to improve the system which presently is being followed. And recently election have been held on the directions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Apart from the political measure, it may be mentioned that during period of military governments Pakistan economic and industrial growth showed rapid growth.

For example during Ayub era Pakistan was at the take off stage but this was halted mainly because of 1965 war which not only stilted the economic growth but brought about the fall of Ayub Khan. Similarly during General Musharraf’s rule Pakistan witnessed stable economic growth.

But at the end the General was bogged down by his uncalled for action against the judiciary and his ill conceived NRO with PPP and is now in hot waters.

But notwithstanding the various court cases against him filed by Nawaz government including the high treason case he has managed to shun the law and has not appeared in any court including the Apex Court.

And on one occasion while being taken to court under police escort he

16

landed in the VIP ward of military hospital. And after a protracted court proceeding has been allowed to go abroad for treatment. He has recently claimed in an interview to a local T.V. Channel (Dunya) that the Ex-Chief of Army was instrumental in getting him reprieve from court case and facilitating his exit from Pakistan.

But the actual fact is that the Generals name has been removed from the ECL by the Ministry of Interior which is controlled by Chaudhry Nisar Ali the Interior Minister. Incidentally it was he who suggested the name of General Musharraf to Nawaz Sharif to appoint him as Chief of Army Staff. The Supreme Court had simply remarked in its short order that itis upto the concerned department of the government to take a decision in this regard. All that boils down to is that the power flows from the barrel of a gun. By dilating on the role of Army in the politics of Pakistan I am not supporting or approving the role of the Army in politics. Those who have some idea of the working of the army would appreciate that the GHQ regularly monitors important national events particularly the political events and the fluctuating fortunes of the rulers. Its intelligence agencies report and experts in GI-IQ analyze the strength of political processions the number of casualties the attitude of the bureaucracy and the potential of the politicians. This is done as part of the preparedness so that if and when called out in aid of civil power, the army is not taken unawares. Therefore when the Army take over their first task is to control the situation and restore normally as they did in l958-1969 and 1977. The second phase is the cleanup operation, purging of politicians and corrupt bureaucracy and restoring law and order. As is being undertaken in Karachi and other parts of the country. 1 The Army is a disciplined institution. A military personnel found guilty of slightest misconduct is promptly punished. If he is found guilty of grave crime he may be awarded death sentence or life imprisonment. The armed forced are accustomed to such strict rules and laws expect the same kind of conduct from the politicians.

Since they do not come up to their standard and therefore labeled as “bloody civilians” and nincompoops on the other hand a politicians psychological mark-up his thinking and approach to counter the issues is flexible and compromising. Accommodation and consensus are the basic ingredients of his profession. The primary responsibility rests with the politicians to be above board in their conduct and character and strictly adhere to the democratic norms. A political leadership well entrenched with public support and responsive to the peoples aspirations is far better equipped then the man on the horse back to conduct the national affairs.

However recent events was shown that Civil and Military institutions have emerged wiser by learning from their past mistakes and follies Pakistan at this juncture of history is faced with great challenges both within and outside the country. The whole nation needs to stand united to secure stable democratic Pakistan.

Children

Pakistan Ranks 148th

in Countries Most Favourable for Children

O

f the 172 countries favourable for raising children, Pakistan ranks 148th falling behind three of its four neighbours with out- ranking only Afghanistan by four points, says a global report released by Save the Children. Titled Stolen Childhoods, the report was launched by Child Rights Movement in Pakistan on Saturday.

It ranks China and Iran at 41st and 80th, respectively, while India is ranked at 116th. The only neighbour that Pakistan outranks is Afghanistan which is placed at 152nd position. “Pakistan has just made it into the top 150 best countries to grow up in, ranking behind regional neighbours India, Iran and China,” the report says. It examines countries on a range of indicators related to childhood, with Pakistan performing worst on child stunting that affects more than 45 per cent of children aged five or less across the country. According to the report, more than a quarter of Pakistani children do not go to school, which is one of the highest rates in the world.

Sindh CRM coordinator Zahid Thebo said Pakistan’s ranking was not very surprising “when you look at the alarming levels of stunting and under-nutrition across the country affecting almost half of all children.”

He said more than eight per cent of children here did not survive until their fifth birthday.

“These alarming statistics underscore the importance of the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, when they are most susceptible to stunting and most in need of good nutrition. This is an area that must be dramatically improved if Pakistan is to move up the ranking, and most importantly, ensure every child across the country benefit from a safe and happy childhood.”

Children suffering from underé nutrition or stunting have increased risks

of contracting diseases such as acute diarrheal syndrome, acute res; piratory infection and anaemia; while children, especially those with severe under-nutrition, are more likely to die.

Kashif Bajeer, regional head of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), said it was encouraging that the government of Pakistan had taken certain positive steps by providing free and compulsory schooling; however, stricter measures were required to ensure compliance with the law.

“There is an urgent need to invest more in children ensuring the implementation of laws confirming free and compulsory education for children,” he said.

“Having a safe and happy childhood is every child’s right. excl that matter includes going to school, no matter where they are in the world Here in Pakistan, we need to do much more to ensure this right is protected Nisar Nizamari chief of DevCon, said the report found at least 700 Billion children across the world had the promise of a full childhood brought to an early end.

According to the global report, every day more than 16,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday, mostly from preventable or treatable causes; about a quarter of all children under five (156 million) have their physical growth and mental development stunted due to malnutrition; one in six school-aged children worldwide is currently out of school; conflicts forced nearly one child in 80 flee homes; 168 million children are involved in child labour 85 million of them in hazardous work - which is more than all thechildren living in Europe (138 million); one girl under 15 is married every seven seconds; every two seconds a girl gives birth; every day more than 200 boys and girls around the world are murdered.

10% increase in child abuse cases in Pakistan

By:- Sehrish Wasif

A

t least 11 children became victims of sexual abuse everyday while almost 100 were murdered after sexual assault in 2016, a 10 per cent increase in such cases compared to the previous year, a report launched on Wednesday stated.

Out of the sexual abuse victims, 41 per cent were boys. As many as 2,410 girls and 1,729 boys were sexually abused last year.

The report, ‘Cruelnumbers 2016’ revealed that 4,139 children were sexually abused last year out of which 76 per cent cases were reported from rural areas whereas 24 per cent were reported from urban areas.

The report has been compiled after monitoring and gathering data from 86 national, regional and local newspapers. Punjab reported the highest number of cases (2,676) in 2016 which were followed by 987 cases reported from Sindh, 166 from Balochistan, 156 from Islamabad, 141 from Khyber Pakhtunkwa, nine from Azad Jammu and Kashmir and four cases from Gilgit-Baltistan.

Of the total around 78 per cent of cases were registered with the police, 32 per cent were unregistered, whereas police refused to register an FIR for 142 cases. The study reveals that among maj or crime categories, 1,445 cases of abduction were reported, followed by 502 rape cases, 453 cases of sodomy, 217 gang rape cases, 268 gang sodomy and 362 cases of attempt of child sexual abuse.

For the sake of the children A 19 per cent increase has been reported in abduction cases which have increased from 1,386 cases in 2015 to 1,654 cases in 2016 bringing the number of abducted children to five per day. The highest percentage of vulnerable age group among both boys and girls was reported between the ages of 11 and 15 years and the second vulnerable group between the ages of 6 and 10 years. Around 97 per cent of the children were abused once and in three per cent of the cases children were abused for more than a day, says the report. A majority of the abusers were found to be acquaintances of the victims (1,765), 798 were strangers. The report also highlights the 176 cases of child marriage reported in 2016. “Child sexual abuse is a global issue and challenging for every country to address,” First Secretary Development to Royal Norwegian Embassy Tom Jorgen said. He said that there is a need to address the entire child protection to bring some significant and meaningful change in society. National Commissioner for Children Ejaz Ahmed Qureshi stated that there are around 100 million children in Pakistan to be looked after.

17

FROM THE HISTORY

CHIEF JUSTICE SAJJAD ALI SHAH vs S. SYED SAMI AHMAD PRESIDENT,SINDH HIGH COURT BAR ASSOCIATION,KARACHI

by: S. Sami Ahmed President, SHC.Bar Association Karachi.

F

iring, Shelling and Stoning on Lawyers I was elected President of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, Karachi, second time for the year 1994-95. The 2nd October 1994 was my first day of the assumption of office. I was sitting in the committee room, having an informal meeting with the newly elected members of the Association. We all were sitting in a relaxed mood, having no idea that the Sindh Police, under the patronage of Abdullah Shah, Chief Minister of Sindh, had trespassed into the premises of Karachi Bar Association and was assaulting the lawyers, including the lady members, sitting in the Bar rooms, the library .mil the canteen. I received an SOS through a telephonic message to that effect from Mr. Ameen Lakhani President, Karachi Bar Association (a separate organisation of District Court Lawyers). He personally described the grave situation, which had never occurred before in the history of any of the Bar Associations of Pakistani and sought my immediate help. I immediately called an emergent meeting of the Managing Committee of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, Karachi and discussed as to what steps be taken to save the lawyers community from such humiliation at the hands of the law enforcement agencies. It was unanimously decided that I, as President of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, should contact the Chief Minister of Sindh on telephone, requesting him to stop firing and shelling with a direction to the members of the law enforcement agencies to withdraw forthwith from the premises of the Bar ‘Association It is appropriate to record here that many attempts were made to contact the Chief Minister of Sindh but it was an exercise in futility, as he was not responding. In View of that grave situation, we decided to meet the Chief justice of the High Court of Sindh, the object being to seek his help in the matter. The members of the entire managing committee including Mr. Anwer Mansoor Khan, General Secretary, Mr. Ilyas Khan, Vice President and I left the committee room and proceeded straight to the chamber of Justice Hafeez Memon, Chief justice of the High Court of Sindh. The orderly was there but the Chief Justice was conspicuous by his absence in his chamber. His orderly opened the door of the chamber and requested us to take our seats, informing that Saheb was in the tea room and would be coming soon. I waited for some time, but in vain. I sent the orderly again to convey our message to the Chief justice in the tea room that there was an emergency and that the President alongwith the members of the managing committee were waiting anxiously for him. The orderly every time went to the tea room and came back with a message that Saheb was coming. We were kept in the long wait and still Chief justice Hafeez Memon was beyond our reach. I lost my patience and told the orderly to come with a final message whether Chief justice would like to see us in his chamber or not.

When he was asked to bring a final message, he returned soon and informed us that Saheb was not there. I was greatly disappointed by the disappearance of Chief justice of the High Court of Sindh from his chamber. While I was thinking as to what steps be taken to contact the Chief Minister of Sindh, I received a message that the President of Karachi Bar Association had been shot as a result of firing and was lying on the ground. justice Hafeez

18

Part I

Memon Traced Out. Sitting in Chamber of C,J., Pakistan Mr. Ilyas Khan, Vice President of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, informed me that Chief justice justice Hafeez Memon was sitting in the chamber of justice Sajjad Ali Shah, Chief justice of Pakistan. He further told me that he had already informed the Qasid that President and members of the entire managing committee were coming to meet justice Hafeez Memon, as he was not available anywhere and the situation was becoming worse and worse because of firing and shelling. I immediately left for the chamber of Chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah. When I entered his chamber alongwith Secretary Mr. Anwer Mansoor and Vice President Mr. Ilyas Khan, I saw that Mr. Kazi Anwer, the then Attorney General of Pakistan, was sitting on a sofa and taking tea. Mr. Sajjad Ali Shah, Chief justice of Pakistan, was sitting on a separate chair in his civilian dress (most probably in Shalwar and Kameez) and Mr. Hafeez Memon, Chief justice of the High Court of Sindh, was sitting on an other sofa. As soon as I entered the chamber, I requested justice Hafeez Memon to grant us immediate audience as brutalities of the law enforcement agencies were going on in full swing against the lawyers, including lady lawyers, of the Karachi Bar Association and many of them had already been hospitalized. Hearing this,`justice Sajjad Ali Shah, Chief justice of Pakistan, told justice Hafeez Memon to go immediately to his chamber and meet them. While we were leaving the chamber of the Chief justice of Pakistan, Vice President Mr. Ilyas Khan bowed before Chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah and apologised to him for our entry in his chamber in haste, as the situation was extremely grave.

Meeting justice Hafeez Memon in his Chamber I, alongwith the members of my Managing Committee, followed justice Memon and met him in his chamber. He was already aware of the tense situation prevailing in the Karachi Bar Association. I requested justice Hafeez Memon, Chief justice of the High Court of Sindh, to put me on the line so that I could talk to the Chief Minister of Sindh. My request was granted and I was put on the line to talk to the Chief Minister of Sindh. When he came on the line, I asked him outright to stop firing and shelling, as things were going beyond control. The Chief Minister of Sindh requested me to meet him in his office but I declined unless firing and shelling were stopped. He, however, invited me to his office, promising that the same would be done. I insisted that there would be no meeting between me and him unless firing and shelling were stopped forthwith. The Chief Minister informed me on the line that it had been done and welcomed me and the members of the Managing Committee to have a dialogue with him in his office. We accordingly left the Court premises and met the Chief Minister in his office. I

FROM THE HISTORY put forth the following demands: 1. Apology from the Government of Sindh for trespassing into the rooms and the library of Karachi Bar Association.

2. Apology for firing and shelling on the District Court lawyers of Karachi Bar Association.

3. Immediate relief for those who had been hospitalized as a result of firing and shelling.

4. Immediate release of all those lawyers who had been taken into custody by the police and detained at the police station. My meeting with the Chief Minister of Sindh, however, proved to be an exercise in futility except that firing and shelling did not occur thereafter.

Visit to Karachi Bar Association I visited the Bar rooms of Karachi Bar Association the same day at about O4.00 p.m. When I reached there, the City Magistrate 86 ADM was already waiting for me. As soon as he came to know that I was there, he came rushing and offered his regrets for creating such an ugly situation. When he and I went inside the Bar rooms, we witnessed that both the stories of the Karachi Bar Association were littered with stones, the tables and chairs of tea room were badly damaged, and the glasses of almiras of the Bar library had been smashed as a result of stoning by the police and broken glasses were lying on the floor. The City Magistrate 86 ADM- and I were shocked to see such high handedness of the police. By that time, nine members of Karachi Bar Association and one lady member. had already been hospitalized after receiving injuries caused by the police. The City Magistrate 86 ADM, however, admitted that the situation was mishandled by the police and the incident that took place should not have taken place at all.

Meanwhile he provided me an escort to take me to the police station where lawyers had been detained. As soon as I entered the police station, I enquired as to where Mr. Ameen Lakhani, President of Karachi Bar Association, had been detained. I was taken to a room where I met Mr. Amin Lakhani with his close friends, about twenty in number. The first thing that Mr. Amin Lakhani showed me was a big patch that he had received on his back as a result of shelling, confirming that he fell down on the ground thinking that 198 he had been hit by a bullet. I told Mr. Amin Lakhani that I had already met the Chief Minister of Sindh and soon he and all those detained would be released. I further assured him that Sindh High Court Bar Association would be in the forefront in the struggle for their cause. In view of such bad treatment meted out to the members of Karachi Bar Association by trespassing into the Bar rooms, assaulting and stoning the members who were sitting inside, I called an emergent General Body Meeting and passed a very strong resolution condemning the atrocities committed by the members of law enforcement agencies against the members of Karachi Bar Association. The resolution, tabled by me before the General Body Meeting of Sindh High Court Bar Association, was unanimously passed and released to the press. The resolution is reproduced below, which was released on 3rd October 1994 and published in daily ‘Dawn’ dated October 4, 1994: “KARACHL Oct 3: The Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) on Monday decided to observe a strike on Tuesday from 11am onwards and all the members have been directed to stay away from the court. A general body meeting of the Association, held on Monday while condemning atrocities committed by the members of the law enforcement agencies against the members of the Karachi Bar Association, on Sunday, demanded suspension from service of all those officers who ordered indiscriminate firing and shelling and in whose presence the Bar room of the KBA and its library were ransacked. The Association also demanded the holding of a judicial inquiry by a High Court judge to investigate the whole incident, release of the office-bearers of the KBA arrested on Sunday including its President, Mohammad Amin Lakhani, and stop shifting of courts to the new district of Malir until consensus of both KBA and the SHCBA is not obtained. The general body

meeting condemned the administration in ‘un-equivocal terms’ for the atrocities committed by the members of law-enforcement agencies on the lawyers in City Courts, as they were guilty of making a criminal trespass into the building and damaging property. The meeting also condemned the Karachi Police for indiscriminate firing and use of tear gas even inside the different sections of the Bar room building, including the library, for assaulting the members of the Bar and misbehaving with Women lawyers. ‘Never before in the history of Pakistan any bar room or library was ransacked by the police in such a way’, the resolution said. . At present the feelings of the members of the Bar Associations are highly charged, posing a serious threat to law and order situation of the city which is already at its lowest ebb, the resolution said. . The grave situation so created cannot be defused unless the government of Sindh comes forward to meet the demands Which are both logical and legal Cause of Agitation The members of Karachi Bar Association were agitating in a peaceful manner against the decentralisation of District Courts. Supreme Court Serves Notice on Bar Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, Chief justice of Pakistan, instead of sympathising with the members of the Bar, issued a show cause notice to me and three other Supreme Court lawyers for allegedly forcing their entry into the chamber of Chief Justice of Pakistan on Sunday. The contents of notice were published in daily “Dawn” dated October 5, 1994 under the caption ‘SC serves notice on Bar Chief’. The contents of the notice are given verbatim as under: “KARACI’H, Oct 4: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday issued a show-cause notice to Syed Sami Ahmad, the President of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, and three other lawyers for forcing their entry into the chamber of the Chief Justice of Pakistan on Sunday. The two-page show-cause notice was issued by the Registrar of the Supreme Court, M. A. Latif, from Islamabad and its copy was delivered at the office of Dawn by Abdul Ghani Memon, Assistant Registrar of the court. The notice asked the Bar President and three other members of his Association ‘to appear before the Chief Justice of Pakistan on October 6 at 10 am or soon thereafter as may be convenient’, in his chamber in the Sindh High Court building, for an oral hearing to show cause ‘as to why you should not be removed from the practice of this court and also as to why your name should not be removed from the roll of advocates of this court.’ The following is the full text of the notice: - ‘In the Supreme Court of Pakistan’ ‘Notice under Rule 30 read with second proviso to Rule 2, Order IV, Supreme Court Rules, 198O.’ ‘Whereas you, Syed Sami Ahmad, are an Advocate of this court; And whereas on 2nd October 1994, at about 12 noon, you alongwith some other advocates, who were in proper court dress, appeared before the door of the chamber of Hon. the Chief Justice of Pakistan in the High Court building, Karachi and wanted to enter into the chamber; And whereas the Qasid on duty at that time requested you to wait for a while so that he could announce you in. But you alongwith other advocates forced entry into the chamber of Hon. Chief Justice; And whereas at that the time the Chief justice of Pakistan was holding a meeting with the Attorney-General of Pakistan and the Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court. And whereas you forcibly entered the chamber of the Chief justice in an hostile manner with an air of defiance and insolence, and demanded to speak of the Chief Justice of the High Court with regard to the strike and shelling in the district and city courts, Karachi; And whereas you went away from the chamber of the Chief justice of Pakistan on the assurance of the Chief justice of the Sindh High Court that he would see you in his chamber. And whereas the manner in which you forced your entry into the chamber of the Chief justice of Pakistan without prior permission or intimation is a serious matter and amounts to gross misconduct and conduct unbecoming of an advocate of this court, which prima facie renders you liable for disciplinary action’. Islamabad, this the 4th day of October 1994.

Sd (M. A. LATIF) REGISTRAR ‘ (To be continued)

19

USA

Goodbye, Age of Great

expectations: We know how America got here, but where does it go now?

ANDREW J. BACEVICH, TOMDISPATCH.COM

T

he fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1989 abruptly ended one historical era and inaugurated another. So, too, did the outcome of last year’s U.S. presidential election. What are we to make of the interval between those two watershed moments?

Answering that question is essential to understanding how Donald Trump became president and where his ascendency leaves us.

Hardly had this period commenced before observers fell into the habit of referring to it as the “post-Cold War” era. Now that it’s over, a more descriptive name might be in order. My suggestion: America’s Age of Great Expectations.

industrial complex and its beneficiaries conspired to spend vast sums on weapons purchases that somehow never seemed adequate to the putative dangers at hand.

Rather than reflecting on such somber and sordid matters, however, the American political establishment together with ambitious members of the country’s intelligentsia found it so much more expedient simply to move on. As they saw it, the annus mirabilis of 1989 wiped away the sins of former years. Eager to make a fresh start, Washington granted itself a plenary indulgence. After all, why contemplate past unpleasantness when a future so stunningly rich in promise now beckoned?

Forgive and forget The end of the Cold War caught the United States completely by Three big ideas and a dubious corollary surprise. During the 1980s, even with Mikhail Gorbachev running the Soon enough, that promise found concrete expression. In remarkKremlin, few in Washington questioned the prevailing conviction that ably short order, three themes emerged to define the new American the Soviet-American rivalry was and would remain a defining feature age. Informing each of them was a sense of exuberant anticipation of international politics more or less in perpetuity. Indeed, endorsing toward an era of almost unimaginable expectations. The twentieth such an assumption was among the prerequisites for gaining entrée to century was ending on a high note. For the planet as a whole but esofficial circles. Virtually no one in the American establishment gave serious thought to the here-today, gonetomorrow possibility that the Soviet threat, the Soviet empire and the Soviet Union itself might someday vanish. Washington had plans aplenty for what to do should a Third World War erupt, but none for what to do if the prospect of such a climactic conflict simply disappeared.

Still, without missing a beat, when the Berlin Wall fell and two years later the Soviet Union imploded, leading members of that establishment wasted no time in explaining the implications of developments they had totally failed to anticipate. With something close to unanimity, politicians and policy-oriented intellectuals interpreted the unification of Berlin and the ensuing collapse of communism as an all-American victory of cosmic proportions. “We” had won, “they” had lost — with that outcome vindicating everything the United States represented as the archetype of freedom.

From within the confines of that establishment, one rising young intellectual audaciously suggested that the FILE - In this Dec. 28, 2016 file photo, President-elect Donald Trump speaks to reporters at Mar-a-Lago “end of history” itself might be at hand, with the “sole in Palm Beach, Fla. For almost eight years, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus existed in superpower” left standing now perfectly positioned to the shadow of the first black president, simultaneously praising President Barack Obama’s achievements determine the future of all humankind. In Washington, while pushing him to do more for their constituents who overwhelmingly supported his history-making campaign and administration. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)(Credit: AP) various powers-that-be considered this hypothesis and concluded that it sounded just about right. The future took on the appearance of a blank slate upon which Destiny itself was pecially for the United States, great things lay ahead. inviting Americans to inscribe their intentions.

Focused on the world economy, the first of those themes emphasized American elites might, of course, have assigned a far different, less the transformative potential of turbocharged globalization led by celebratory meaning to the passing of the Cold War. They might have U.S.-based financial institutions and transnational corporations. An seen the outcome as a moment that called for regret, repentance and “open world” would facilitate the movement of goods, capital, ideas making amends. and people, and thereby create wealth on an unprecedented scale. In After all, the competition between the United States and the Soviet the process, the rules governing American-style corporate capitalism Union, or more broadly between what was then called the Free World would come to prevail everywhere on the planet. Everyone would and the Communist bloc, had yielded a host of baleful effects. An benefit, but especially Americans who would continue to enjoy more arms race between two superpowers had created monstrous nuclear than their fair share of material abundance. arsenals and, on multiple occasions, brought the planet precariously Focused on statecraft, the second theme spelled out the implications close to Armageddon. Two singularly inglorious wars had claimed of an international order dominated as never before — not even in the lives of many tens of thousands of American soldiers and literally the heydays of the Roman and British Empires — by a single namillions of Asians. One, on the Korean peninsula, had ended in an tion. With the passing of the Cold War, the United States now stood unsatisfactory draw; the other, in Southeast Asia, in catastrophic de- apart as both supreme power and irreplaceable global leader, its status feat. Proxy fights in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East guaranteed by its unstoppable military might. killed so many more and laid waste to whole countries. Cold War obIn the editorial offices of the Wall Street Journal, The Washingsessions led Washington to overthrow democratic governments, con- ton Post, the New Republic and the Weekly Standard, such “truths” nive in assassination, make common cause with corrupt dictators and achieved a self-evident status. Although more muted in their public turn a blind eye to genocidal violence. On the home front, hysteria pronouncements than Washington’s reigning pundits, officials enjoycompromised civil liberties and fostered a sprawling, intrusive and ing access to the Oval Office, the State Department’s 7th floor, and unaccountable national security apparatus. Meanwhile, the military- the E-ring of the Pentagon generally agreed. The assertive exercise of

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USA the first decade-and-a-half of the twenty-first, Americans endured a seemingly endless series of crises. Individually, none of these merit comparison with, say, the Civil War or World War II. Yet never in U.S. history has a sequence of events occurring in such close proximity subjected American institutions and the American people to greater stress.

During the decade between 1998 and 2008, they came on with startling regularity: one president impeached and his successor chosen by the direct intervention of the Supreme Court; a massive terrorist attack on American soil that killed thousands, traumatized the nation and left senior officials bereft of their senses; a mindless, needless and unsuccessful war of choice launched on the basis of false claims and outright lies; a natural disaster (exacerbated by engineering folly) that all but destroyed a major American city, after which government agencies mounted a belated and half-hearted response; and finally, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, bringing ruin to millions of families.

For the sake of completeness, we should append to this roster of seismic occurrences one additional event: Barack Obama’s election

(benign!) global hegemony seemingly held the key to ensuring that Americans would enjoy safety and security, both at home and abroad, now and in perpetuity.

The third theme was all about rethinking the concept of personal freedom as commonly understood and pursued by most Americans. During the protracted emergency of the Cold War, reaching an accommodation between freedom and the putative imperatives of national security had not come easily. Cold Warstyle patriotism seemingly prioritized the interests of the state at the expense of the individual. Yet even as thrillingly expressed

by John F. Kennedy — “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” — this was never an easy sell, especially if it meant wading through rice paddies and getting shot at.

Once the Cold War ended, however, the tension between individual freedom and national security momentarily dissipated.

Reigning conceptions of what freedom could or should entail underwent a radical transformation. Emphasizing the removal of restraints and inhibitions, the shift made itself felt everywhere, from patterns of consumption and modes of cultural expression to sexuality and the definition of the family. Norms that had prevailed for decades if not generations — marriage as a union between a man and a woman, gender identity as fixed at birth — became passé. The concept of a transcendent common good, which during the Cold War had taken a backseat to national security, now took a backseat to maximizing individual choice and autonomy.

Finally, as a complement to these themes, in the realm of governance, the end of the Cold War cemented the status of the president as quasi-deity. In the Age of Great Expectations, the myth of the president as a deliverer from (or, in the eyes of critics, the ultimate perpetrator of) evil flourished. In the solar system of American politics, the man in the White House increasingly became the sun around which everything seemed to orbit. By comparison, nothing else much mattered.

From one administration to the next, of course, presidential efforts to deliver Americans to the Promised Land regularly came up short.

Even so, the political establishment and the establishment media collaborated in sustaining the pretense that out of the next endlessly hyped “race for the White House,” another Roosevelt or Kennedy or Reagan would magically emerge to save the nation. From one election cycle to the next, these campaigns became longer and more expensive, drearier and yet ever more circus-like. No matter. During the Age of Great Expectations, the reflexive tendency to see the president as the ultimate guarantor of American abundance, security and freedom remained sacrosanct.

Blindsided Meanwhile, between promise and reality, a yawning gap began to appear. During the concluding decade of the twentieth century and

as the nation’s first black president. He arrived at the zenith of American political life as a seemingly messianic figure called upon not only to undo the damage wrought by his predecessor, George W. Bush, but somehow to absolve the nation of its original sins of slavery and racism.

Yet during the Obama presidency race relations, in fact, deteriorated. Whether prompted by cynical political calculations or a crass desire to boost ratings, race baiters came out of the woodwork — one of them, of course, infamously birthered in Trump Tower in midManhattan — and poured their poisons into the body politic. Even so, as the end of Obama’s term approached, the cult of the presidency itself remained remarkably intact.

Individually, the impact of these various crises ranged from disconcerting to debilitating to horrifying. Yet to treat them separately is to overlook their collective implications, which the election of Donald Trump only now enables us to appreciate. It was not one president’s dalliance with an intern or “hanging chads” or 9/11 or “Mission Accomplished” or the inundation of the Lower Ninth Ward or the collapse of Lehman Brothers or the absurd birther movement that undermined the Age of Great Expectations. It was the way all these events together exposed those expectations as radically suspect.

In effect, the various crises that punctuated the post-Cold War era called into question key themes to which a fevered American triumphalism had given rise. Globalization, militarized hegemony and a more expansive definition of freedom, guided by enlightened presidents in tune with the times, should have provided Americans with all the blessings that were rightly theirs as a consequence of having prevailed in the Cold War. Instead, between 1989 and 2016, things kept happening that weren’t supposed to happen. A future marketed as all but foreordained proved elusive, if not illusory. As actually experienced, the Age of Great Expectations became an Age of Unwelcome Surprises.

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LAWTOONS

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INDIA

Not Easy to Report on Rape

INDIA’S DIVIDE | This is part of a series about oppression and violence against women in India as a rising generation collides with old social mores.

By Annie Gowen

S

The woman cried for an hour. he wept as she told us how one wintry day, in a field she had been tilling, her boss pushed her down to the ground and raped her. She wept as she described how she’d gone to the police and they didn’t believe her. She wept as she told us how the entire village turned against her.

As she spoke, she took the edge of her sequined-trimmed sari, the color of mangoes, and wiped her cheeks. She sat alone on a string cot in her front yard in a village about four hours east of New Delhi, India’s capital. A crowd had gathered a short distance away, including the father of her alleged rapist. He was laughing at her.

“The villagers have all been very bad to me,” the woman said. “Nobody believes me. They think I’m faking it. They said they will kill me if I don’t go back on my words. I’m helpless.”

I sat near her in the fitful February sun and watched her closely. After three years reporting in villages in India, I knew enough to try to make sure her tears were real. “Checked for tears. What a cynic,” I wrote in my notebook.

That was not the last note I would write to myself that day. Later on, as conflicting stories rose around me from the victim’s family, from police, from other villagers, I would scribble helplessly, “Is everybody lying?”

Reporting about rape in Indian villages is not easy. The stigma of sexual assault is so pervasive that the first response to a rape is often silence, or victim shaming. Ancient caste and family alliances prevail, deals are struck, money changes hands.

But reporting about such crimes has taken on new urgency as the country engages in a debate about women’s safety — in streets, schools, the workplace — following a highly publicized fatal gang rape in 2012.

The country’s overheated media has been paying far more attention to rape cases in the past four years. Under the glare of the spotlight, witness statements can change or become exaggerated. A print-journalist friend told me he was once sitting talking quietly to a rape victim’s family only to have them burst into dramatic sobs when the TV cameras arrived.

Only about 1 in 4 rape cases results in a conviction. At the same time, Indian courts are littered with cases of jilted women accusing men of rape to cover up a consensual relationship gone bad, or parents trying to hide — and ruin — a romance between two young lovers from different social castes.

I’d been trying for months to write a story about informal village councils that step in to resolve sexual assaults and other crimes in lieu of the police — often with brutal punishments. The piece was to be the first of a year-long series called “India’s ¬Divide,” which examined the tension and violence that result when a rising generation of women clashes with the entrenched patriarchy. But first, I had to find a case where I could pin down details. That was proving more challenging than I expected.

I am calling the woman in the village Bina, to make it easier to tell her story here. Her case seemed promising. When the 35-year-old widow arrived at the police station to file a complaint, she had claimed, the village leader ordered her alleged assailant to touch Bina’s feet (a gesture of respect), apologize and settle the matter without involving police. Authorities took her story seriously only when she went to file a complaint at regional police headquarters days later.

When I arrived in her village a few weeks after that, I went directly to the home of the village elder.

His three-story house was painted in hues of blue and orange and rose over the other modest tin-roof dwellings like a circus tent.

The man — a stocky farmer with a streak of red vermilion on his forehead, a mark of his Hindu devotion — ushered us into his courtyard, where we were brought cups of sweet, milky chai. He had just been elected village pradhan, a position similar to mayor.

It was there, sitting in the man’s courtyard, as family and neighbors looked on, that we heard our first lie of the day.

“I’m not interfering in this matter,” the pradhan said. “I said let the police handle it.”

The pradhan gestured grandly to a crowd of onlookers with a sweep of his hand.

“If her story is true, the whole village would support her anyway,” he said.

“Ask these people how many of them support her?”

None of them did. A man of about 70 stepped forward to say: “What I have heard from laborers is that there was a dispute between the boss and the woman.

She did not follow his instructions. He told her off and she said, ‘Well, I’m going to the police station.’ She tore her own clothes and pretended she was raped.”

Bina was an outsider in the community, having moved from the impoverished state of Bihar to marry at age 14. She told us with a sort of pride that her late

husband had refrained from touching her until she was grown. She eventually had seven children.

As she cried, no one stepped forward to comfort her. Her young son hovered anxiously nearby, along with a limping baby goat.

She said she was resting alone in a field on her lunch break from her job working for the government’s rural employment program when her boss accosted her.

When he grabbed her, she recalled, she asked him sharply what he was doing. “ ‘I’m a government servant, and I’m more powerful than you. You can’t say no to me,’ ” she recalled him saying. “He said, ‘My wife is not at home — she’s gone to her mother’s house. That’s why I’m doing this to you.’ ” Something about this little detail of the wife being away rang true to me. But as we spoke to others in the village, I began to have doubts. The alleged attacker was hiding from the police when we visited, but his family members and others had plenty to say in support of him.

Angry relatives gathered, as well as women who had worked with Bina in the fields. The women said the rape couldn’t have happened because the area was too exposed, and they had not gone off to take their midday meal leaving her alone. Bina was not a woman of “good character,” they said, and she kept “picking fights with everyone in the village.”

Victim blaming is common after sexual assaults in rural India, where traditional notions of honor still hold sway.

And there was another possible motive for these women to lie — money. The alleged attacker was in charge of handing out places in the jobs program, and now that he was on the run, “we haven’t had any work for days,” one told me.

Things got murkier when we went to the police station, a one-story white concrete building where the officers were outside enjoying the afternoon sun. The pradhan had come to meet the victim at the station with the assailant in tow, they said, but they didn’t know what kind of deal was struck.

More damningly, they said that Bina had not told them she was raped when she first went there.

They played me a cellphone video of a later interview they had with her in which she said, “When I first came here, I never said I was raped or molested. I could never say it to anyone.”

Yet this, too, could have an explanation. Because of the stigma, many women often don’t report sexual assault right away, or at all.

And these officers too had reason to lie. A new amendment to the rape law requires authorities to register each case or face jail time of up to two years. If they hadn’t taken her seriously, they might have been in trouble.

One of the officers, Pramod Kumar Yadav, gave me a quizzical look. “What do you think of this?” he asked me. “Most cases are a misuse of rape here. It’s highly unlikely they were alone in the field. There was not even a tree to hide them.”

The entire village had accused Bina of lying. But I wasn’t sure. What possible motive could drive her to fight to have the police take her seriously and ostracize herself from her entire community? It was, as one of my colleagues put it, “a very lonely battle.”

“I don’t want money. I just want my sanity back,” she told me. “I’m scared if this happens to my daughters. There’s no protection.”

For months afterward, Bina’s words haunted me: “He said, ‘My wife is not at home — she’s gone to her mother’s house. That’s why I’m doing this to you.’¬¬¬ ” But I decided there were too many questions to write about her, at least in the traditional way. We bid goodbye to the police investigators who would be left to sort through the mess, and hit the road.

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