Raymond Davis immunity issue explained in simpler terms | Teeth Maestro

This explanation about Raymond Davis’s immunity issue was shared on the Peoples Resistance Mailing list by Shalahudin Ahmed, a lawyer from Karachi. He shares with us an unbiased, no BS [sic] analysis of the issue at hand – TM

Pakistan is a signatory to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The substance of both Conventions are part of Pakistani law through the Diplomatic & Consular Privileges Act 1972.

Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a diplomatic agent cannot be arrested or detained. Period. No exceptions. The same for members of the technical and administrative staff of a diplomatic mission.

Many other countries in the world have adopted this convention and usually hold to the same. Whether an ethical consideration or no, such a convention is also to protect the lives and property of each nation’s own diplomats.
Thus, if Pakistan was to prosecute a U.S. diplomat rightly accused of murder in Islamabad – what would stop the U.S. from bringing trumped-up terrorism charges against a Pakistani diplomat in Washington? The whole diplomatic system would be jeopardized.

Perhaps, the closest a country has been to ignoring the Convention was when someone fired a machine-gun from the Libyan embassy in London upon a crowd of protesters outside and killed an unarmed British police-woman as a result. The UK police laid siege to the embassy for more than a week (in itself a violation of the Convention). The British police were not allowed to enter the embassy and/or to waive diplomatic immunity for the Libyan embassy staff. The Libyan police were ordered to besiege the British Embassy in Tripoli. Eventually, the UK broke off diplomatic relations with Libya but the embassy staff was nevertheless allowed to return to Libya unhindered.

Pakistan could thus become an international pariah with such willfully violating of this Convention as to confer immunity upon such diplomats. A first step might be that all NATO countries (and other countries under US influence) would then withdraw their diplomatic missions from Pakistan citing ‘risks to personnel’.

Read the rest at Teeth Maestro

Aftermath of An Assassination | View from Pakistan | DiscoMaulvi for MuslimMatters.org | Salmaan Taseer

Having resolved this year to increase focus on my writing, I have decided to not only to increase my writing on From The Pulpit but to also write elsewhere on the internet. Alhamdulillah, the first of these is the MuslimMatters site which just published my first post today. Insha’Allah I hope that this will be the first of many posts there. I am also working on a couple more areas and will keep the readers informed through From The Pulpit on these areas.

The below article, has been delayed a bit due to some reasons as it has been almost a month since the assassination of Salmaan Taseer. However, I hope that it will still serve its purpose. I am very humbled that the preface to this post has been written by Sheikh Yasir Qadhi who is an extremely inspiring personality. I hope my writing at MuslimMatters will give me a chance to interact with him and other scholars and learn from them Insha’Allah.

Below is an excerpt from the post including the preface by Yasir Qadhi. For the full text please visit the original post at MuslimMatters.

DiscoMaulvi

 

Br. Aly is a businessman and blogger based in Karachi, Pakistan. He sends us a brief picture of the scenarios that unfolded in his country in the aftermath of Governor Salmaan Taseer’s assassination by a member of his protective guard. Any views expressed in this article are entirely attributed to the author and may or may not reflect the views held by other writers writing for or affiliated with MuslimMatters.org.

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Commentary by Shaykh Yasir Qadhi:

The assassination of the Salmaan Taseer brought to the forefront many different issues regarding the political and religious crises in Pakistan. As with any issue, there are many facets and perspectives to consider, and it is simply not possible for an outsider (as we all are here in the West, even if some of us originate from Pakistan) to fully understand the nuances of the situation. Hence, it is wiser to speak in generalities rather than specifics and to allow people who live in the country to express their points of view.

The following represents one viewpoint from someone residing in the country. Personally, I found the views and opinions expressed in it to be very balanced – the author clearly understands that a simplistic response of which side was right and which wrong is not possible. There are clear elements of truth on both sides and clear elements of exaggeration and extremism on both sides as well.

As Muslims, we stand for truth and justice, and not for political parties and groups. Almost always, the truth is higher than any one party or group.

As a person who is of Pakistani origin, and who truly does feel a connection with and a love for the people of that land, all that I can say is that this chaos and confusion and bloodshed makes me extremely sad at what is happening, and very worried for the future of Pakistan. There is little that I can do sitting here, thousands of miles away, other than to pray to Allah to make the situation of the people of Pakistan easy.

And indeed, it is only Allah from whom help is sought, and to Him we turn for peace and security.

Yasir Qadhi

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As my first-born completed three years of life, the life of another was marked to end. As Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, walked out of a restaurant after lunch, a member of the elite force assigned to protect him, Malik Mumtaz Hussain Quadri, shot him mercilessly. The post-mortem report later reported 40 wounds on his body and 26 bullets were recovered from his body.

Those shots, while pitilessly shredding Taseer’s body, created aftershocks that split Pakistan along severe ideological fault lines. Suddenly, we had two highly polarized positions coming forth: Taseer the Martyr, the champion of the Liberals, the voice of reason and Quadri, the “Ghazi”, the Protector of Islam. Suddenly, people found themselves being asked, “Whose side are you on? Ours or theirs?” Within hours of the murder, Facebook pages sprang up in support of Quadri, praising him for his actions. On a side note, Facebook raced to shut down these pages immediately on the request of the Government of Pakistan, while they had refused to shut down the pages of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” and other such anti-Islamic sites on the basis of freedom of speech. Incidentally, a search on Google pulled up a page that still exists on Facebook for the event. Talk about double standards!

 

For the full text please visit the original post at MuslimMatters.

The Unjust Killing of a single human …

Pakistanis have been subjected to extreme violence over the years since independence, increasingly so in the recent years since we got dragged, screaming and protesting, in the Global War on Terror. Whether it is gruesome suicide bombs or the senseless ethnic violence that seems to erupt in Karachi every now and then, violence and unjust killing of the innocent seems to be on the rise.

The issue whether it is that of Mohajir / Pathan / Balochi / Sindhi / Punjabi or whether it is that of Barelvi / Deobandi / Ahl-e-Hadith / Shia, at the end of the day it is often the innocent that end up in the morgues.

Attacks on holy places (of any religion) are forbidden in Islam and the harming of civilians, women, and children declared a transgression by the Quran. Why then in this country that our forefathers demanded on the name of Islam are we blindly ignoring what Islam commands?

A recent billboard campaign was spotted in certain areas of Karachi (not the posh areas most of you frequent but the area of the masses) that hopes to highlight this issue of the death of the innocents. It is part of a larger effort to educate the masses by this medium.

The billboard is the gist of the message of verse 23 of Surah Al-Maida of the Holy Quran:

“O People! Whosoever kills a human being unjustly it is as if he has killed all mankind, and whoso saves a life it is as if he has saved all mankind.”

 

The group behind this campaign is a bunch of friends whose aim is seeking the pleasure of Allah (SWT). You may contact them through me if you feel you would like to contribute to such campaigns in the future (either financially or intellectually).

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May Allah (SWT) protect us from the evil of those who spread hate and sectarianism amongst us and guide these people to the truth. Aameen!