February 27, 2008
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s latest dispatch Pakistan: “We Routed the Men with Beards!” is now online-
Pakistan: “We Routed the Men with Beards!”
February 25, 2008
Pakistan: “We Routed the Men with Beards!”
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| Party workers at information booths in Karachi check voter’s registration numbers. |
Karachi erupted in celebrations soon after the last votes were cast in Pakistan’s parliamentary elections. Thousands of people took to the streets, gun shots were fired in the air, music blasted through speakers at main roads, young men with painted faces joyously waved their party flags. And as the night grew darker, and the unofficial results poured in, they were joined by others who danced the night away. The 2008 elections in Pakistan, barring a few violent incidents, ended peacefully. Turnout was low — perhaps people feared attacks — but the results were a stunning rebuke to President Pervez Musharraf’s ruling party.
A week later, many voters are still ecstatic. Across the city at a local pool hall in the busy commercial area of Tariq Road, I spoke with a group of young men, all college graduates. One of them, 22-year-old Kashif Jan, had voted for the first time. “We routed the men with beards,” he tells me excitedly. “At least, we are on the road to democracy, and by voting Pakistanis have told the world that we are not extremists and we don’t want Islamic fundamentalists in power.”
“Can you imagine that 25 percent of the 2002 parliament was made up of religious parties and this time they won just a few seats? I think the people are rejecting their violent ways finally.”
His good friend, Ali Nasir, a graduate of Fatima Jinnah Medical College, tells me that the results shocked him. “Can you imagine that 25 percent of the 2002 parliament was made up of religious parties and this time they won just a few seats? I think the people are rejecting their violent ways finally.”
But for others, the joy of an election upset has given way to caution.
Riding on a wave of sympathy for their assassinated leader, Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan People’s Party emerged as the big winner, followed by the Pakistan Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif. But Pakistanis watched in awe as the two opposition parties announced their plans to join hands to form a new government. Historically, both political parties have fought each other for power in the country and Benazir Bhutto was known to have disdain for Sharif. In fact, in her book released posthumously last week, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, Ms. Bhutto, amongst other things, blames Sharif for helping to bring the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s. So watching Ms. Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, shake hands with Sharif on television during a press conference was a surreal experience for most Pakistanis.
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| The 2008 election results offered a rebuke of President Musharraf and the growth of Islamic extremism under his rule. |
“We had to shake ourselves to believe what we saw,” a Karachi pharmacist, Nabeel Khan, tells me. “Imagine, Asif Ali Zardari sharing power with Sharif. We are doomed. Everyone knows that will fall apart before the year is over.”
Khan campaigned hard for Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and convinced many of his co-workers to vote. What happens in the country affects his family directly. A few months ago they pooled their resources and purchased a piece of land in Nazimabad, a middle class suburb in Karachi. Since then, the assassination of Bhutto, the resulting riots, and all the political insecurity has affected the real estate market and the price of land has plummeted. “People often forget that what happens at the helm of affairs affects minnows like us,” he says. “We were planning to sell the land and make a small profit to help start a small business. And now we just don’t know what will happen.”
Newspapers and TV here agree that these elections have heralded in a new era in the country’s history, but the media are anxious to know what this will mean for them.
What’s Next?
For the past week, all the newspapers and television channels in the country have been discussing Pakistan’s future. They all agree that elections heralded in a new era in the country’s history, but the media are anxious to know what this will mean for them. In the past, when Sharif and Benazir Bhutto served as prime ministers, their governments did not allow the Pakistani media much freedom. This time around, any new government will have to contend with more than 20 TV news channels, plus a dozen or so FM radio stations that blossomed under President Musharraf until recently when he imposed his state of emergency. How will the democratically elected government handle criticism? A senior editor at one of the up-and-coming news channels told me in private that he was worried.
“Look, it’s simple,” the newsman said. “There is no way that the incoming government will tolerate us probing and questioning their every move. Quite honestly, things are going to get very tough for us.”
His news channel has had frantic meetings in the past three days to see how they can best defend against a predicted onslaught by the new government. “I know it’s a bit preemptive, but we need to be prepared. We wanted democracy in this country, now we have to learn to deal with it.”
The Terrorist Threat
The incoming government’s job will not be easy. First, there will be the inevitable political jockeying. Already, Sharif has made it clear that his party would move to impeach Musharraf, although the opposition parties fall short of the two-thirds majority they would need in parliament to remove him. Others are urging the opposition to find a graceful way for Musharraf to step down of his own accord and avoid a bitter showdown.
Sharif also appears to be angling for another chance to become prime minister. A constitutional amendment under Musharraf bars prime ministers from holding office for a third time. But Sharif, who served two previous terms as PM, is now saying his party’s cooperation with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) for a national coalition government depends on their willingness to withdraw the ban on third-time premierships.
Above all, there is still the rising threat of terrorism in the country. And today a reminder about just how difficult the task is going to be for any new government. A bomb blast ripped through a busy thoroughfare in Rawalpindi, the city known as the headquarters of the Pakistan Army, killing seven people including a top army medic.
The incoming government will have to tackle terrorism and make it a priority, says Aqueel Khan, who runs a security firm, which provides protection for multinational companies and offices. “Not a day has gone by in the past six months when we haven’t had a bomb blast, or a militant attack somewhere in the country. This civil war is not going to end just because we now have democracy.”
Channel 4 unveils Happy Birthday Iraq plans
February 21, 2008
- Tara Conlan guardian.co.uk
Battle for Haditha: Nick Broomfield’s documentary investigates a massacre in Iraq
Channel 4 is to launch its Happy Birthday Iraq season on March 15 with a week of programmes examining the devastating fall-out of the war for Iraq and the Middle East, America and Britain.
In a week-long season to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Channel 4 and More4 are screening 11 films by award-winning journalists and filmmakers.
They include acclaimed documentary-maker Nick Broomfield’s Battle for Haditha, two special editions of Dispatches and a one-off film by Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow.
At the heart of the season will be Broomfield’s latest feature film, Battle for Haditha, which will be followed on More4 by On That Day - an investigative documentary about the Haditha massacre.
On That Day uses exclusive interviews with the two Iraqis responsible for exposing the incident to Time magazine, plus testimonies from the three Marines mainly involved.
The first Dispatches investigation features journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy travelling to Jordan and Syria to meet Iraqi refugees struggling to start new lives from scratch.
In the second Dispatches documentary, political commentator Peter Oborne examines the geopolitical repercussions of the prolonged US and allied military presence – including looking at how the invasion has “affected Britain and America’s reputation, prestige and relations with the international community”.
Jon Snow’s Hidden Iraq features Snow reporting on the “dismal reality of everyday life inside Iraq” in a late-night current affairs film.
Footage for the Snow documentary has been shot by Iraqi cameramen and interviews carried out with ordinary citizens, to show “a country on the brink of collapse with broken infrastructure, devastating violence and the power of gangsters and militias”.
Channel 4 News will also broadcast a special hour-long bulletin during its Happy Birthday Iraq week, anchored by Snow from Iraq and the surrounding region.
The season also includes the Channel 4 premiere of The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, which will feature disturbing pictures of torture at the infamous Iraqi prison.
Four special Iraq films have been made for the 3 Minute Wonders documentary shorts strand that runs after Channel 4 News.
They look at how Britain’s perceptions of Iraq have been changed by the coverage of the war, including how some have profited from it - from the British company that is printing the new Iraqi currency, the Dinar, in the UK to the computer designer who has set his next violent video game in Baghdad.
The Channel 4 head of news and current affairs, Dorothy Byrne, is overseeing the season.
Byrne said: “Over the past five years our award-winning coverage of Iraq has stood out for its bravery and its incisive analysis and sheer hours devoted to these issues.
“This season of programmes will be a no-holds-barred examination of the fallout from five years of horror.”
Happy Birthday Iraq will run from March 15 until March 23.
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February 21, 2008
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s film about Iraqi refugees will air on Channel 4 on March 16th as part of a week of programmes examining the devastating fall-out of the war for Iraq and the Middle East, America and Britain.
Welcome to Democracy, Pakistan-Style
February 18, 2008
Frontline World
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| Election banner on the streets of Karachi. |
Editor’s Note: On the eve of tense elections in Pakistan, where more than 50 people were killed in pre-election violence over the weekend, FRONTLINE/World’s Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy visits the neighborhoods around her home city of Karachi where she reports that ballot rigging, coercion and intimidation are all taking place. Although the government has stressed this election will be free and fair, one smaller-party candidate told Obaid-Chinoy, “In this illiterate country of ours, fear, intimidation, and harassment get you votes. Until that culture is destroyed, Pakistan will never have democracy.”
Even before the first vote has been cast, there are fears of massive rigging. Leaders of the two major opposition parties, the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League, have already warned that the elections will not be free and fair. To average Pakistanis, the February 18th election is merely a game played out at the behest of the Americans.
After reporting for several months on the run-up to this violence-scarred election, I’ve spent the past two days in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, and I find that the mood here is somber. Most people are staying indoors and avoiding political rallies. There are few signs that Monday’s elections can change the country’s course. If it weren’t for the party flags and banners, you wouldn’t even know elections were about to take place.
“I’m taking a holiday from work because the local representative of a political party has offered me $15 and a bag of rice if my family votes for his party. How can I say no?”
At a bus stand in Saddar, a commercial area in the heart of the city, a number of people told me that they were voting because they were being enticed to. Azizah Khan, who makes $30 a month working as a domestic cleaner, told me that she had been given an offer she couldn’t refuse, “I’m taking a holiday from work because the local representative of a political party has offered me $15 and a bag of rice if my family votes for his party. How can I say no?”
At first she was hesitant to say which party, but finally she admitted that it was the Pakistan People’s Party, now led by the husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated at a campaign rally on December 27.
Naik Ahmed, who owns a hardware store in the industrial neighborhood of Korangi, told me that some members of the political party known as Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had paid his family a visit last week and demanded that they vote for them. The MQM has dominated politics in Karachi since the mid-1980s, often engaging in violent exchanges with rival parties such as the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), or the religious party the Jamaat-e-Islami, and various ethnic groups in the city.
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| A 2008 election sign encourages passers-by to vote for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). |
“We told them that we weren’t even registered voters, but they told us that didn’t matter. All we needed was to show up at the polling booth and they would help us stamp the right vote,” Ahmed recalled. “Welcome to Pakistan style democracy,” he said as he boarded the bus.
In the run up to the elections, a number of smaller political parties have registered complaints with the election commission. They claim their party workers are being harassed and intimidated by the larger political parties. One of those threatened is the Pakistan Muslim Alliance, a secular, regional party which was formed in 2002. Its members are mostly lower-middle-class shopkeepers, mechanics, electricians and carpenters.
A number of smaller political parties have registered complaints with the election commission. They claim their party workers are being harassed and intimidated by the larger political parties.
In a true democracy everyone is allowed to contest the election, every voice and vote is counted,” says Dr. Saud Hussein, an adviser to the party. “But not in this country. Here unless you’re a landlord or rich industrialist, democracy is not for you.”
The Pakistan Muslim Alliance has fielded eight candidates in Monday’s elections. One of them is Hafiz Muhammed Kafiyatullah, a local cleric who was seething with anger. “I read in the local Urdu newspapers that I had withdrawn my candidacy in favor of my opponent from PML (Q) — the ruling party aligned with President Pervez Musharraf. I have done no such thing. They were trying to intimidate me. When I asked the election commission representative to help me, he said he had no real powers. Now what am I to do?” he implored.
Kafiyatullah is worried that his party’s election symbol (a fish) will not even be on the ballot sheet come Monday. Sitting next to him was Abdul, a stocky man with a beard who told me that it wasn’t just Musharraf’s party who were harassing them: “The MQM is not far behind. They came to us a few days ago and told us that if Hafiz and his followers didn’t vote for them, he could be killed.”
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| Election turnout is expected to be low as people fear more violence. |
In the murky world of Pakistan’s electoral process, Kafiyatullah’s story is not unique. Mohammed Ilyas, a young man who lives in Bilal Colony, a poor neighborhood of Karachi, told me that he had been recruited by the MQM a few days ago. “They came to me and said that I had no choice; I had to help their candidate win. They have now appointed me their polling agent, which means that I have to work with them to ensure that the votes are being cast correctly.”
According to Ilyas, members of MQM threatened to injure his brother if he didn’t cooperate. When I pressed him further, he told me that in some areas, the ballot papers were already at the candidates’s homes. “Some of us have been asked to come to stamp the ballot papers on Sunday night in favor of the MQM,” he said.
Ilyas explained the process to me in detail. In some closely contested polling areas where the races are hard to predict, the ballot boxes will be stuffed with papers already stamped for a candidate. “The second method is far more dangerous,” he said. “There will be many polling stations, which will be closed down. The voters who show up will be told that their votes have already been cast. In the poor neighborhoods, this is easy to do.”
Ilyas explained the process to me in detail. In some closely contested polling areas where the races are hard to predict, the ballot boxes will be stuffed with papers already stamped for a candidate.
The army and the police have been deployed across the country at various polling stations. A lot is on the line for not only the country but also the major political parties. Outside Pakistan the elections on Monday may seem like a major step toward democracy, but many of those trying to take part in the process feel that it’s actually a set back for democracy.
Dr. Saud of the Pakistan Muslim Alliance told me that he was 100 percent certain the elections were not going to be free and fair. “It’s not because the president of the government doesn’t want free and fair elections, it’s because in this illiterate country of ours, fear, intimidation and harassment get you votes. Until that culture is destroyed, Pakistan will never have democracy.”
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has been covering the Pakistan elections for FRONTLINE/World.
February 18, 2008
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s pre election video for the NY Times “Voices on Musharraf” discusses the President’s approval ratings.
February 18, 2008
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s election dispatch is now on PBS Frontline World’s website- “Welcome to Democracy-Pakistan style”
Ms. Obaid Chinoy speaks to various voters and smaller political parties who allege that voter fraud and intimidation is taking place in Karachi.