Category Archives: Justice

Candle of hope

Children and Youth, Culture and the Arts, Development and Poverty, Health, Human Rights, Justice, Mental health
Dr Ruth Pfau: Photo by Dr Salamat Kamal

By Zubeida Mustafa

WHEN you start to despair — and we have too many occasions for that — go get the light of hope from someone who holds the candle. So I went to see Dr Ruth Pfau, who has been an inspiration for many, especially the most stigmatised of segments — her leprosy patients.

Even in her poor state of health in her hospital bed, Dr Pfau continues to be the candle of hope she has epitomised. She was hospitalised recently but is now in her own apartment in her neat and prim clinic. Of course, she is happy to be back home, she told me.

As I held her hand I could feel the “enrichment flow from her into me” to use her words. That is the role she has been playing since she arrived as a young woman of 31 in Karachi from Germany in 1960 and made Pakistan her home. It was chance that took her to the Lepers’ Colony behind the commercial offices on McLeod Road (now I.I. Chundrigar Road). The squalor and subhuman conditions did not deter her. Within three years, she had set up a proper leprosy clinic, now an eight-storey hospital on Shahrah-i-Liaquat, and the hub of 157 leprosy centres all over the country. There followed an arduous journey of over five decades devoted to “serving the unserved”. At no stage has her commitment slackened. Continue reading Candle of hope →

May 12th 2007-17

General, Guest Contributor, History, Human Rights, Justice, Politics, Social Issues

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

May 12th   2017 is as good as come and gone. As I recall 2007—the year of CJP Iftikhar Chaudhry, for his persona was at once the catalyst and dynamic—that May 12th anniversary marker’s mood-content would be anachronistic today. Its villains and martyrs have squirmed and shifted, and are no longer held firmly within the mould of that year’s context.

Which also indicates its characters are operative: vital and politically relevant, not merely historical.   Continue reading May 12th 2007-17 →

Losers All

Justice, Law & Order, Politics

 

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

TO whom would you give the Monumental Stupidity Award? The Sharif camp for offering — if it indeed did offer — the incorruptible Imran Khan a bribe to shut up about PanamaLeaks; or Imran Khan for “disclosing” what can only remain yet another allegation?

It is hard to take up “facts” when they keep varying, but an aspect of the disclosure that intrigues me is that the emissary/go-between is said to be an individual long turned sadiq and ameen— maybe of the kind that turns kundun after having done much personally to feed the fiery flame? Of course such probity implies they can be trusted not to divert the lucre; but what of the moral philosophy that the bribed and the briber are equally heinous? Are middlemen blameless as mere facilitators or do they get it

Continue reading Losers All →

Message of hope?

Children and Youth, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, General, Health, Housing, Justice, Notable Personalities, Perween Rahman, Social Issues

 

By Zubeida Mustafa

IN these times of despair, even the dead can give us hope and inspiration. That is the powerful message that emerged from the Orangi Pilot Project-Research and Training Institute’s forum on Jan 22. It was organised to commemorate the birthday of Perween Rahman who was shot fatally in March 2013.

Why was Perween killed? It might sound bizarre but the fact is that there are vested interests in our society who feel threatened by people who work for the poor. That was confirmed by SP Akhtar Farooqi who said on the occasion that the murder was not motivated by personal enmity but by economic factors. Continue reading Message of hope? →

Learning the hard way

Constitution, Defence and Disarmament, Guest Contributor, History, Justice, Politics

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

IT is of course entirely politically incorrect to miss the doctrine of necessity, and still more reprehensible to think wistfully of the Eighth Amendment. I would hate to appear on the side of our uniformly distinguished dictators who (fairly successful in some ways though toxic in others) variously went a-looking for the essence of democracy; an indigenous democracy not overawed by modes as of Parliament and Capitol Hill; or quite humbly a basic democracy; using those very legal implements. But quoi faire? Our democracy flounders like the bat in democratic daylight and finds its wings when fighting the dark of martial law. Continue reading Learning the hard way →