Pakistan Headlines 05/08/2016

Headlines:

• Draconian Cyber Crime Bill to Prevent Rise of Political Islam
• Pakistan is the Key to Turning the Tables on US Regional Ambitions
• Pakistan's Capitalist System Favors the Super-rich at the Expense of the Poor
• "Interfaith Dialogue" is a Colonialist Agenda to Undermine Islam

Details:

Draconian Cyber Crime Bill to Prevent the Rise of Political Islam

As reported in the Dawn Newspaper, the controversial “Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2015” was unanimously approved by Pakistan’s Senate on 29 July 16 with fifty amendments. The bill will now go back to the National Assembly where the proposed amendments will be discussed among members before it can be signed into law by the president. A point mentioned in the Bill states that there is to be “up to seven years imprisonment, Rs10 million fine or both for hate speech, or trying to create disputes and spread hatred on the basis of religion or sectarianism” The bill hinges upon the terms “hate speech” and “spreading of hatred” which are subjective in nature and may be applied as suited according to the regime's political agenda. Currently the regime has used such deliberately ambiguous laws to target being Islam-loving Muslims who have exposed the regime's pro-US policies that have harmed Pakistan immensely. During last decade or so dozens of innocent Muslims have been subjected to torture, imprisonment and illicit detention under laws with similar dubious terms. Now the regime is seeking to impose harsh punishments on those using the internet to account the rulers, with up to three year imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs0.5 million for creating a website for negative purposes, up to three year imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs1 million for spreading misinformation about an individual and up to three years imprisonment and fine of up to Rs1 million for misusing the internet.

The US through Raheel-Nawaz regime has ensured implementation of its policies, whilst at the same time it can sense the growing anger amongst the Muslims of Pakistan regarding its enforcement of secularism, Islam-hostile policies, the US ever-growing hegemony and suppression of the ever-growing demand for political Islam. Therefore this Bill is a perpetuation of the policies such as the NAP (National Action Plan) and POPA (Protection of Pakistan Act), which aim not only at curbing the Islamic expression but in enforcing secularism in the country. The US wants all Islamic expression denouncing relations with America stamped out. The core concepts of the Cyber Crime Bill are the direct output of a major American initiative, the Pakistan-US Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism and Law Enforcement (JWG-CTLE). This body has a profound effect on Pakistan because the US Department of State, US Department of Justice and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), all contribute to it. Since the JWG-CTLE was announced in February 2002 by the US State Department, it has guided America's agents regarding suppressing the call for Islam, Jihad and Khilafah "Caliphate", from the “Enlightened Moderation” of the Musharraf-Aziz regime to the current regime's “National Action Plan.” With reference to the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue Joint Statement of 13 January 2015, the US State Department emphasized the need to “share best practices towards developing a counter-narrative to militancy and violent extremism.” American officials and elected representatives repeatedly direct the key figures of the Raheel-Nawaz regime to prevent “hate speech,” “Islamism” and “radicalism”, cover words for Islam and its political expression.

The bill with its hefty fines and imprisonment has been designed to induce fear amongst the Muslims, so that they may disassociate themselves from the call of political Islam and may not account the rulers for their heinous treachery. However the rulers are deluding themselves time and again, Muslims have reacted sharply whenever Islam has been suppressed. Tyrants are seized at the height of their tyranny as is clear from the examples of Firawn, Nimrood and the Quraysh and the fate of the current tyrants will be the same inshaaAllah. Allah said, ﴿وَيَمْكُرُونَ وَيَمْكُرُ اللّهُ وَاللّهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ﴾“..But they plan, and Allah plans. And Allah is the best of planners.” [8:30]

Pakistan is the Key to Turning the Tables of US Regional Ambitions

As reported in the Dawn Newspaper in an opinion piece published in the Financial Times on 26 July 2016, the Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Armed Services, John McCain, argued that without Pakistan’s cooperation, the US mission in Afghanistan would become “immeasurably more difficult”. Three prominent duties that the US needs from its agents in Pakistan to secure US regional ambitions are: 1. To achieve a semblance of victory in the war on Afghanistan or at least achieve some compromise to applaud back home during election year. 2. To surrender to Indian supremacy in the region by normalizing relation with it & by operating against those outfits that support Kashmiri Mujahideen. 3. To curtail the nuclear programme. The US fears re-emergence of the Khilafah "Caliphate" in Pakistan, whilst possessing current nuclear capabilities will be detrimental to its global hegemony.

Thus John McCain wrote that “Common interests in counterterrorism, nuclear security and regional stability are too important and too urgent,” and he further urged Pakistan to “take on and eliminate havens for terrorist groups such as the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammad that operate within its borders, attack its neighbours and kill US forces.” Afghanistan has proved itself to be very challenging and relentless battlefield for America and its allies. The US has a feeble position in this war, which it wants to transform by using Pakistan. America understands that historically Pakistan has long enjoyed its strong ties with Muslims of Afghanistan, having its roots in Afghanistan with Pashtoons living both side of the Pak-Afghan border and also having close ties with the Taliban. The US realizes that Pakistan holds the key to turning around this lost war. Furthering US ambitions, the Raheel-Nawaz regime has seen to the destruction of our own tribal belt and has now been assigned the task of stopping all support for the Afghan resistance across the border, through programmes such as border management, fencing borders and the creation of new checkposts. In addition the US demands that Pakistan must ensnare Taliban in the maze of negotiations so that it can achieve on the table that which it could not achieve on the battlefield. America is desperate to secure its permanent military presence in Afghanistan, through the puppet government in Kabul. It could never achieve this without Pakistan's assistance. As reported in the Dawn newspaper of 22 July 2016, in a short period of less than 45 days, a vessel during its two visits to Karachi Port has brought in 669 military trucks and other equipment for the US army.

The governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan are doing nothing but following the American plan against the Muslims of the tribal regions. As a consequence the Muslims are being killed on both sides. The solution is only by adhering to Islam and the implementation of its ruling system, the Khilafah "Caliphate". The Khilafah "Caliphate" will eradicate the Durand Line and unify both countries, it will eject the colonialist forces of illegal occupation of Afghanistan as well as any colonialist presence in Pakistan. It is due to the absence of a Khaleefah that Muslims are struck from all quarters and until the resumption of Islam as a way of life, the current situation is doomed to deterioration. RasulAllah (saaw) said, إِنَّمَا الْإِمَامُ جُنَّةٌ يُقَاتَلُ مِنْ وَرَائِهِ وَيُتَّقَى بِهِ»» “The Imam is a shield, behind him you fight and by him you are protected.” (Muslim)

Pakistan's Capitalist System Favors the Super-rich at the Expense of the Poor

As reported by the Express Tribune newspaper, the government agreed on 21 July 2016, in principle, to offer the biggest ever tax amnesty scheme in the country’s history, which will “whiten” a whopping Rs7 trillion untaxed and black money currently stashed in the real estate sector. One can see clear discrimination under the capitalist system, where the poor masses of hand-to-mouth or barely sufficient earnings are being over-burdened with ever increasing taxation with no relief whatsoever, whilst the super-rich with their exponentially increasing wealth are being granted tax waive-offs. When we look around, we find that these are not just few rare isolated incidents but the super-rich in this system are able to plunder immense wealth, with the poor being left to pick up the shortfalls. In addition, during the last three decades, hundreds of private companies have got their bank loans written off to the order of billions of Rupees.

The Capitalist economic system is a system designed to ensure capitalists to flourish, at the expense of masses. Not only is the capitalist system designed so that the money flows upwards, it also grants the super-rich and their companies exemption from taxes, either by concealing their wealth through tax havens or getting their loans waived-off. This means that the tax burden falls on the rest of the society to meet the expenditure of the state. Defending capitalism, some might link the dismal state of affairs with the corruption in Pakistan or Third World countries. However wherever it is implemented Capitalism has ensured unjust concentration of wealth, including the West. The respected charity organizations Oxfam in January 2016 revealed confirmed the global injustice that results from Capitalism. Its report said that the super-rich 1% owns wealth equal to the remaining 99% population. The report also said 62 richest billionaires have as much wealth as the poorer half of the world. Oxfam said that the wealth of the poorest 50% dropped by 41% between 2010 and 2015, despite an increase in the global population of 400m. In the same period, the wealth of the richest 62 people increased by $500 billion (£350bn) to $1.76 trillion.

In Islam, the Shar’iah has forbidden the Sultan (authority) to impose a tax upon the Muslims based upon an order issued from him according to what he wishes. He (saw) said: «لا يَدْخُلُ الْجَنَّةَ صَاحِبُ مَكْسٍ» “One who wrongfully takes an extra tax (sahib maks) will not enter Paradise.” as collected by Ahmad and classified as Saheeh by Az-Zain and Al-Haakim. The ‘Maks’ is the tax (customs) that is taken from the traders upon the borders of the lands however the forbiddance includes every tax due to the statement of the Messenger (saw) in the Hadeeth, that has been agreed upon, related from Abu Bakrah:«إِنَّ دِمَاءَكُمْ وَأَمْوَالَكُمْ وَأَعْرَاضَكُمْ عَلَيْكُمْ حَرَامٌ كَحُرْمَةِ يَوْمِكُمْ هَذَا فِي بَلَدِكُمْ هَذَا فِي شَهْرِكُمْ هَذَا»...» “Your blood, your properties and your honours are Haraam for you (to take from each other) like the inviolability of tis day of yours in this land of yours in this month of yours…” It is ‘Aamm (general) including the Khalifah just as it encompasses all of the people. It is therefore not permissible for the Khalifah to impose a tax in order to spend from it but rather he spends from the Bait ul-Maal (State Treasury) which has several sources of revenue including Kharaj, Ushr, Zakah and revenue from the public property such as gas and electricity.

There are however cases or circumstances in which the Shar’a has made an exception to the general prevention of imposing taxes. Shar’iah texts have been mentioned that explain that spending upon them is a duty upon the Muslims and not only the Bait ul-Maal. If what is in the Bait ul-Maal is not sufficient to spend upon them, the spending transfers from the Bait ul-Maal to the Muslims directly. Then a tax is imposed upon the wealthy in accordance to the amount of Nafaqah (spending) that is obligatory to meet those circumstances. That is done without any increase above the need and they are allocated in the places that they have been imposed to meet. Thus the tax is not imposed except upon the wealthy alone, those who have a surplus above their basic or fundamental needs and their non-basic needs, as measured by their decent standard of living – (Bil-Ma’roof). So under Islam there is no basis for the poor to be over-taxed and for the rich to fear unjust usurpation of their wealth. Islam breaks the monopoly of the rich and to ensure wealth circulates in society and is not taken out of it. Allah (swt) said: ﴿مَّا أَفَاء اللَّهُ عَلَى رَسُولِهِ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْقُرَى فَلِلَّهِ وَلِلرَّسُولِ وَلِذِي الْقُرْبَى وَالْيَتَامَى وَالْمَسَاكِينِ وَابْنِ السَّبِيلِ كَيْ لَا يَكُونَ دُولَةً بَيْنَ الْأَغْنِيَاء مِنكُمْ وَمَا آتَاكُمُ الرَّسُولُ فَخُذُوهُ وَمَا نَهَاكُمْ عَنْهُ فَانتَهُوا وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ شَدِيدُ الْعِقَابِ﴾