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  • PM wants Interior Ministry to speed up tabling of anti-torture bill; says torture unacceptable in a democratic society

    Prime Minister Imran Khan announced on Thursday that he has asked the Interior Ministry to speed up the tabling of an anti-torture bill for Pakistan in the lower house of the Parliament.

    Taking to Twitter, PM Imran said that torture was “unacceptable in a civilised democratic society”. He also said that torture goes against the spirit of Islam, the Constitution and Pakistan’s international legal commitments.

    “I have asked Interior Ministry to expedite tabling our anti torture bill in National Assembly. Torture is unacceptable in a civilised democratic society & goes against the spirit of Islam, our constitution & our international legal commitments,” tweeted PM Imran.

    In January this year, the Ministry of Human Rights said it would present a bill against torture.

    Human rights minister Dr Shireen Mazari had expressed the federal government’s commitment to making the police citizen-centric and gender-sensitive by resolving legislative, infrastructural and attitudinal challenges of the police.

    She had also committed to depoliticise the police by introducing a merit-based system and a modern police law replacing the 157-year-old colonial law of 1861.

  • Late poet Fahmida Riaz’s daughter declines presidential award to protest treatment of journalists, writers

    Late poet Fahmida Riaz’s daughter declines presidential award to protest treatment of journalists, writers

    Renowned poet Fahmida Riaz’s daughter, in protest against the alleged abduction and torture of journalists and writers by the state, has declined the presidential award that the government had announced for her late mother.

    This is the second national award that has been turned down this year as earlier, Saeen Taj Joyo, the father of missing Sindhi teacher and activist Sarang Joyo, had also declined the President’s Pride of Performance (Nisan-e-Pakistan) award on account of the disappearance of his son.

    Sarang Joyo was recently traced and claimed to have been tortured in captivity.

    In a social media post, Fahmida Riaz’s daughter Veerta Ali Ujan said that accepting an award from the Imran Khan government on her mother’s behalf would be an insult to her struggle for justice and equality. “Harassers [are] being awarded. Karachi left to rot in sewage.”

    She said had her mother been alive today, she would have also refused to accept the award from the government.

    Born in Meerut in pre-partition India in 1946, Fahmida Riaz was among the leading Urdu poets.

    She was also an unrelenting social critic and had been active in several human rights movements. She was among the writers, who had campaigned against former military ruler General Ziaul Haq’s regime and the execution of former prime minister (PM) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

    She had to suffer the wrath of authorities and also spent a period of self-exile in India.

    She died on November 21, 2018, at the age of 72.

  • American blogger Cynthia Ritchie told to leave Pakistan within 15 days

    American blogger Cynthia Ritchie told to leave Pakistan within 15 days

    Ministry of Interior has denied the request of a further extension in the visa of American blogger Cynthia Ritchie, telling her to leave the country within 15 days.

    Earlier, the Interior Ministry had changed its stance on Ritchie’s stay in Pakistan and told the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that she was not associated with any government institution of the country.

    The court had on Tuesday sought the business visa policy from the ministry on September 22 in the case seeking Ritchie’s deportation. The additional attorney general had informed the court that the blogger had stated before the ministry that she was not associated with any government institution of the country.

    At this, Chief Justice Athar Minallah noted that previously the ministry’s stance was that Ritchie was serving some government institution in Pakistan. He said the ministry had not adopted a clear stance on the matter so far.

    Expressing displeasure with the representative of the Interior Ministry, the bench remarked what orders the ministry had passed.

    “Is there any law or policy?” the chief justice asked.

    He also asked whether the ministry had any documents, which tell the visa policy for foreigners.

    The court asked if tomorrow someone came on a business visa and gave a statement against the prime minister, would they be would be treated in the same way.

    The bench also ordered the lower court to decide the registration of First Information Report (FIR) against Ritchie after listening to the matter again.

    The court also stopped the blogger from giving any controversial statements against politicians, to which she had assured the court that she would not give any controversial statements against any politician.

  • Pakistanis are outraged with PTA for blocking Tinder

    Pakistanis are outraged with PTA for blocking Tinder

    On Tuesday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) blocked access to Tinder and several other dating apps in a bid to control “immoral” and “indecent” content.

    In a statement, PTA said it barred users from accessing Tinder, Grindr, SayHi, Tagged and Skout after the social networking apps failed to “moderate… content in accordance” with Pakistan’s laws.

    The PTA said the ban addressed the “negative effects of immoral/indecent content”, adding that the apps could request to have their blocks lifted if they show they are “moderating the indecent/immoral content through meaningful engagement”. However, the regulator did not specify what it meant by that engagement.

    Meanwhile, Tinder, in a statement, said it would “welcome the opportunity to discuss our product and moderation efforts with PTA and look forward to a meaningful conversation.”

    Following the announcement, enraged Pakistanis took to social media to express their anger at PTA for blocking the apps.

    https://twitter.com/hiraq36/status/1300805674495025155?s=20

    https://twitter.com/gigglypundit/status/1300800999594979328?s=20

    Other Twitter users including Osman Khalid Butt decided to make a joke of the situation.

    Earlier, PTA asked YouTube to immediately block all videos they consider “objectionable” from being accessed in the country. The demand was criticised by rights campaigners who fear creeping censorship and control of Pakistan’s internet and printed media.

    In July, authorities issued a final warning to Chinese-owned social media app TikTok, ordering it to filter any obscene content, following which TikTok not only upgraded its ‘Community Guidelines’, but also released its Urdu language version for Pakistani users.

  • VIDEO: ‘PTI should fear the day when Fawad Chaudhry writes a book’

    VIDEO: ‘PTI should fear the day when Fawad Chaudhry writes a book’

    Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) stalwart Rana Sanaullah has said that the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) should fear the day when the incumbent federal minister for science and technology, Fawad Chaudhry, writes a book.

    Speaking to a private media outlet, Sanaullah, who was appearing on the show with Fawad, was asked what he had to say about the explosive viral excerpts from Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad’s upcoming book.

    “These claims support our stance and these questions should be asked to people whose stances are being contradicted,” he said in response.

    Sanaullah maintained that most people state the truth while writing a book or try to do so because humans are mortal but books live on for hundreds of years even after the author’s demise.

    “So I think PTI should fear the day when Fawad Chaudhry writes a book. It would be more dangerous than this one.”

    WATCH VIDEO:

    Earlier, the railways minister had announced that he wrote a book during the coronavirus lockdown, which will be released on September 6.

  • Engineering graduate from NUST sets up fruit stall during lockdown

    Engineering graduate from NUST sets up fruit stall during lockdown

    An engineering graduate of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Usman Ashraf set up a fruit stall during the lockdown to support his family and gain experience.

    Speaking to Independent Urdu, Usman said that he sold fruits to learn about public interaction, customer dealing and communication skills.

    “I wanted to implement all the courses that I learnt in the university in a real-life scenario so I decided to do set up a fruit stall”, added Usman.

    Usman also wanted to learn about the difficulties that roadside vendors face daily and the challenges of the buyers.

    “During this time, I faced a lot of troubles. Sometimes people would say mean things to me but I think if a person works hard and do it with fair means then there is nothing wrong in it.”

    Usman is now looking for a job in his field.

  • French president refuses to condemn blasphemous caricatures of Holy Prophet (PBUH)

    French President Emmanuel Macron has defended the decision by Charlie Hebdo magazine to re-publish blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), saying “we have freedom of expression and freedom of belief”.

    But Macron, speaking on a visit to Lebanon on Tuesday, said it was incumbent on French citizens to show civility and respect for each other, and avoid a “dialogue of hate”.

    “It’s never the place of a president to pass judgment on the editorial choice of a journalist or newsroom, never. Because we have freedom of the press,” Macron said.

    The infamous French magazine is republishing the offensive caricatures, which unleashed a wave of anger in the Muslim world, to mark the start of the trial of alleged accomplices in the militant attack against it in 2015.

    Most cartoons were first published by a Danish newspaper in 2005 and then by Charlie Hebdo a year later.

    “We will never lie down. We will never give up,” Editor Laurent Sourisseau wrote in a piece to accompany the front cover that will be published in print on Wednesday.

    Twelve people, including some of the magazine’s cartoonists, were killed when Said and Cherif Kouachi stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo and sprayed the building with automatic gunfire.

    The Kouachi brothers and a third gunman who killed five people in the 48 hours that followed the Charlie Hebdo massacre were shot dead by police in different stand-offs, but 14 of their alleged accomplices go on trial on Wednesday.

    The decision to republish the offensive cartoons will be seen by some as a defiant gesture in defence of free expression.

    But others may see it as a renewed provocation by a magazine that has long courted controversy with its satirical attacks on religion.

    After the 2006 publication of the cartoons, people online warned the weekly would pay for its mockery. For Muslims, any depiction of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) is blasphemous.

  • FIA arrests two men in Multan for harassing, blackmailing women

    FIA arrests two men in Multan for harassing, blackmailing women

    The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Wednesday arrested two men for allegedly harassing and blackmailing women in Multan.

    As per reports, complaints were registered against them at the agency’s cybercrime wing.

    Objectionable videos and pictures of women were recovered from the cell phones detained from the arrested persons. They will be presented before the relevant court for further legal action.

    Earler in August, the FIA had arrested a man for allegedly blackmailing his former wife in Multan. The agency received a complaint regarding the man threatening his former wife to share obscene videos and photos of her on social media.

  • Federal cabinet approves first-ever licence for cannabis use; seized drugs to no longer be destroyed

    Federal cabinet approves first-ever licence for cannabis use; seized drugs to no longer be destroyed

    In what has been termed a “landmark decision” by Federal Minister for Science & Technology Fawad Chaudhry, the federal cabinet has approved the first-ever licence for the Science & Tech Ministry and Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) to use hemp — cannabis plant — for industrial and medical purposes.

    After the approval, confiscated drugs will no longer be destroyed and instead be used to make medicines, reports said.

    The development was confirmed by Fawad, who took to Twitter and wrote:

    The federal cabinet’s decision comes months after it was reported that Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan wanted the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) to stop burning charas [hashish form of cannabis] and other seized drugs, and instead set up a factory where they can be utilised to make medicines.

    In a video doing rounds over the internet in February, Narcotics Control Minister Shehryar Afridi could be heard as saying that his department was working to set up a factory on the premier’s orders. This factory would manufacture medicines solely from seized drugs, thousands of kilogrammes of which are set ablaze every year at a drug-burning ceremony held by the ANF.

    “We are setting up a factory… we burn a huge cache of heroin, charas and afeem [opium] every year, but other countries use them to make medicines. Now, on PM Imran Khan’s instructions, a factory will be established in Tirah [Valley] so that lives of locals can be improved,” he had said.

    According to research conducted by many reliable sources over the years, cannabis, marijuana or hashish has long been known to provide pain relief from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, nausea, and can also minimise some symptoms of glaucoma and Crohn’s disease.

    Similarly, a study at Hannover Medical School found that opiate addicts — usually people addicted to painkillers like Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin, or Demerol — were able to better kick their opiate addiction after taking small dosages of heroin.

  • Esra Bilgiç shuts up a Pakistani troll on Instagram

    Esra Bilgiç shuts up a Pakistani troll on Instagram

    After months of being patient and forgiving Pakistani viewers for their comments on her choice of clothes and outfits, Esra Bilgiç has finally hit out a troll who asked her not to wear “such dresses”.

    Under a recent Instagram post, a social media user by the name Astounding Ali commented: “Please don’t wear such dresses Halima baji, not good.”

    In response to his comment, Bilgiç remarked, “Let me give you a little advice: Don’t follow me. Thank you.” Go Queen!

    Esra has been on the receiving end of such comments ever since her character Halime Sultan became popular in Pakistan after PTV aired the Urdu-dubbed version of the superhit Turkish series Diriliş: Ertuğrul. A group of fans, who apparently do not understand the concept of acting, had a meltdown because the actors, who play different characters in the show based in the pre-Ottoman era, are much different in their real lives of the 21st century. These ‘fans’ have left hundreds of unwarranted comments on Esra’s choice of clothing and have called her out for it.

    The actor even had to close the comments sections on some of her posts to avoid such comments. Meanwhile, Ahsan Khan defended the actor and urged Pakistanis to “at least spare the cast”. In a tweet, the actor had said: “I know people in Pakistan think it’s okay to troll actors here and judge them, [but] at least spare the cast of Ertuğrul. It’s bloody shameful what’s going on! Who the hell are we to do this to them?”

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CB3QHT2DxXi/
    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-kAumyDzbz/

    Read more – QMobile’s decision to appoint Esra Bilgiç as brand ambassador leaves the entertainment industry divided

    Despite all such comments, Esra’s popularity in Pakistan has been soaring and the actor has been chosen to be the brand ambassador of two major Pakistani brands: Khaadi and QMobile. Her visit to Pakistan is also much-awaited.