Day: February 22, 2022

Arshi Qureshi was “auctioned” on the Bulli Bai app, where many Muslim women and girls were offered “for sale,” and even though the app was shut down after widespread condemnation, intimidation and online trolling against her have not ceased.

“I am quite often abused on social media if I put up a tweet or post criticizing the ruling regime,” Qureshi told VOA.

As a journalist, Qureshi says, it’s her job to report on social and political issues affecting her country, India, but she finds doing so increasingly difficult and risky.

“I’ve realized I can’t be silent. This is what they want. They want to silence vocal Muslim women’s voices,” she said.

Qureshi’s is not the only case.

This week, United Nations-appointed independent rights experts issued a statement calling on Indian authorities to stop systematic harassment against a prominent Indian Muslim journalist.

“Relentless misogynistic and sectarian attacks online against journalist Rana Ayyub must be promptly and thoroughly investigated by the Indian authorities and the judicial harassment against her brought to an end at once,” the statement said.

Ayyub has been targeted for her consistent reporting on women’s rights, government accountability and the situation of religious minorities in India.

“They call our existence, our reportage, our opinions as insignificant but unleash all their favorite anchors, prime time shows, twitter trends, right wing ecosystem, propaganda websites and leaders to defend themselves against a journalist,” Ayyub wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

Media under fire

Over the past few years, India has ranked as one of the most dangerous and restrictive countries for journalists in the world.

Of the 27 journalists killed in different parts of the world in 2021, five documented deaths occurred in India, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

And despite its secular and democratic status, India is ranked 142nd — next to Myanmar and Pakistan — in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

“Ever since the general elections in the spring of 2019, won overwhelmingly by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, pressure has increased on the media to toe the Hindu nationalist government’s line,” RSF said.

In addition to facing increased public harassment, Muslim journalists, particularly women, are also exposed to discrimination at their workplaces.

“Even within the large Indian media companies, there is kind of a glass ceiling for many Muslim journalists, … that they had been discriminated against inside many of the big publications,” Steven Butler, Asia program coordinator at CPJ, told VOA.

The risks facing free media in India also undermine the country’s democratic institutions.

“You cannot have democracy without freedom of the press,” Butler said.

Majoritarian politics

India is the world’s most populous democracy, and about 14% of its 1.4 billion people are Muslim, but human rights groups say the country has become increasingly intolerant and at times even threatening toward them.

These groups blame the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including Modi, for stoking Hindu-Muslim tensions.

“The BJP government at both central and state levels have adopted laws and policies that discriminate against minorities and vulnerable communities, especially Muslims,” Jayshree Bajoria, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, told VOA.

As millions of Indians cast votes in seven state legislative elections, including in the most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, some Hindu religious groups have reportedly stoked religious sentiments for political gains.

In recent weeks, BJP political rallies have included threats of mass violence against Muslims, and some party leaders have labeled Muslims as terrorists.

And a new law banning Muslim girls from wearing hijabs at educational centers has led to protests and closures of schools in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

The hijab ban “is the latest example of Indian authorities increasingly seeking to marginalize Muslims, exposing them to heightened violence,” Bajoria said.

For the journalist Qureshi, the fight for hijab is not just religious.

“Hijabi Muslim women are fighting for their constitutional right — rights that are being snatched away in a democratic country,” she told VOA.

While Modi has not publicly commented on his party’s policies regarding Indian Muslims, he claimed at an election rally this month to have the blessings of Muslim women.

Modi was quoted in Indian media as saying: “We freed Muslim sisters from the tyranny of triple talaq (divorce). When Muslim sisters started supporting the BJP openly, these vote mongers became uneasy. They are trying to stop Muslim daughters from progress. Our government stands with Muslim women.”

Source: Voice of America

NEW DELHI — India on Tuesday sent the first consignment of 50,000 tons of wheat that it has pledged to give Afghanistan, where more than half the country is grappling with hunger.

The grain is being transported via Pakistan in a rare instance of the archrivals setting aside their deep differences to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to reach conflict-ridden Afghanistan.

A convoy of 50 Afghan trucks loaded with about 2,500 tons of wheat and bearing banners that read, “A gift from the people of India to the people of Afghanistan,” was waved off by Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla at the Attari-Wagah border crossing between India and Pakistan.

The wheat will be handed over in Jalalabad to the United Nations’ World Food Program, with which India has signed a pact to distribute the aid in Afghanistan.

The Attari-Wagah border crossing has been virtually closed to all exports from India since August 2019, when Islamabad suspended trade ties with New Delhi, but Islamabad allowed the shipment through its territory after a request from New Delhi.

It, however, took them nearly three months to sort out the logistics of the transportation.

Afghan trucks are carrying the wheat because Islamabad did not want Indian trucks to travel through its territory, according to reports. Pakistan has said it is opening the land route as an exception for the humanitarian aid.

Shringla said that India will fulfill its commitment to supply 50,000 tons of wheat in two to three months.

In a tweet, Afghanistan’s Karzai administration-appointed ambassador to India, Farid Mamundzay, who was present at the ceremony when the trucks rolled out, said, “I thank the Indian government for the generosity displayed at a time when more than 20 million Afghans are facing crisis or the worse levels of food insecurity in more than three decades.” He said the wheat committed by India is “one of the largest food contributions done by any country in this difficult hour.”

The director of the World Food Program in India, Bishow Parajuli, who was also present at the ceremony, said, “All the help Afghanistan receives will be of extreme value and therefore this help coming from India is really timely and very important.”

After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year, India, which had helped build key development projects in the country, was largely sidelined and suspended its diplomatic presence in Kabul.

New Delhi, however, has reiterated it will continue humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, with the Indian Foreign Ministry saying in a statement on Tuesday that “it remains committed to its special relationship with the people of Afghanistan.”

New Delhi has sent five consignments consisting of half a million doses of coronavirus vaccines, along with 13 tons of essential medicine and winter clothing — the latest being dispatched on Saturday.

In its annual budget presented earlier this month, India also allocated about $26.5 million for aid for Afghanistan – but the figure is at a lower level compared to last year, when it committed $40 million.

Political analysts say the humanitarian aid is a diplomatic route for India to build some links with the Taliban, which has welcomed India’s offer of help.

In January, the United Nations asked the international community for $4.4 billion for Afghanistan for 2022 — its largest ever appeal for humanitarian assistance for a single country.

U.N. aid agencies have described Afghanistan’s plight as one of the world’s most rapidly growing humanitarian crises.

About 23 million people there face acute food insecurity, and 9 million are on the brink of starvation, according to the World Food Program.

Source: Voice of America

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan is set to travel to Russia on Wednesday to meet with President Vladimir Putin, as the West condemns the Russian leader over the deepening Ukraine crisis.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said Putin and Khan “will review the entire array” of relations between the two countries, including energy cooperation.

“They will also have wide-ranging exchange of views on major regional and international issues, including Islamophobia and situation in Afghanistan,” the statement added.

Russia’s official news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as telling reporters Tuesday that Putin’s meeting with Khan “is scheduled for Thursday.”

Officials in Islamabad are maintaining that Khan’s two-day trip, the first such visit to Moscow by a Pakistani prime minister in 23 years, was taking place at the invitation of President Putin and was planned before the Ukraine standoff happened. Khan will be the first foreign leader to visit Moscow since Putin recognized the independence of Ukraine’s breakaway republics of Donestsk and Luhansk.

Speaking to Russian state-controlled RT channel Tuesday, Khan dismissed suggestions his visit had anything to do with global politics in the wake of Russia’s escalating tensions with Europe and the United States over Ukraine.

“This [Ukraine crisis] does not concern us. We have a bilateral relationship with Russia, and we really want to strengthen it,” Khan said.

“Now, what we want to do is not become part of any bloc. We want to have trading relations with all countries,” the Pakistani leader said.

Khan went on to says he hopes the Ukraine crisis is resolved peacefully.

“I do not believe that military conflicts solve problems. … The countries that rely on a military conflict have not studied history properly,” Khan argued. “The developing world really wishes that there is not another Cold War.”

The Pakistani leader said international oil prices already have risen sharply because of the prospect of a Russia-Ukraine conflict and that it would have “huge repercussions” on the developing world. Khan also noted that both Ukraine and Russia are among major suppliers of wheat to the world.

Meanwhile, Russian tanks rolled into eastern Ukraine early Tuesday, ostensibly on what the Kremlin calls a “peacekeeping mission” to protect the two breakaway republics that Moscow fashioned eight years ago and now is formally recognizing as independent states.

Pakistan and Russia were once bitter adversaries, as Islamabad closely aligned itself with the United States during the Cold War.

The Pakistani intelligence agency worked closely with the American CIA in arming and training Afghan fighters to successfully end a decade-long Russian occupation of neighboring Afghanistan in 1989.

Islamabad and Moscow, however, have restored ties in recent years, with both routinely holding joint military exercises and attempting to develop energy cooperation to help Pakistan overcome shortages.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s ties with Washington have deteriorated over allegations the South Asian major Non-NATO ally covertly helped the Islamist Taliban in waging a deadly insurgency against U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan. The Taliban regained power last August.

Islamabad denies the accusations and blames what it says was a flawed U.S. military policy in dealing with the Afghan conflict that ultimately led to a chaotic withdrawal of international troops from the neighboring country in August after 20 years.

Russian and Pakistani officials acknowledge their efforts to deepen bilateral economic cooperation face multiple challenges. Several major Russian companies are under U.S. sanctions and unable to invest in Pakistan.

Critics say a meaningful bilateral defense cooperation also faces roadblocks, such as Russia’s longstanding ties with Pakistan’s bitter rival India, a major importer of Russian military hardware. They say Moscow does not want to upset New Delhi by offering any major defense-related, or for that matter, economic deals to Islamabad.

Combating regional terrorism and the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan seems to be what is primarily driving Russia’s diplomatic engagement with Pakistan, according to analysts.

Pakistan also has developed close economic and military ties with Ukraine in recent years and is a major importer of Ukrainian wheat.

Emine Dzheppar, the first deputy foreign minister of Ukraine, tweeted on Monday after meeting the Pakistani ambassador to Kyiv and said the two sides discussed ways to enhance bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

“Grateful to Pakistan for supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Dzheppar wrote.

Source: Voice of America