Pakistan’s minorities: the bigger issue — Farahnaz Ispahani For a little unlettered girl to be investigated under any law at all for the crime of allegedly unwittingly burning the pages of the Holy Quran is intolerable As international and domestic outrage increases against the constant harassment of religious minorities in Pakistan, those who do not want to fundamentally change Pakistan …
Hate crime legislation By Farahnaz Ispahani Published: August 16, 2012 The writer is a suspended member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and Media Adviser to the PPP Co-Chairman Pakistan has become a brutal place to live, especially if you are a member of a religious minority. Most observers agree that the country is being swept by a rising tide of hate …
A truly democratic future By Farahnaz Ispahani Published: July 30, 2012 The writer is a suspended member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and Media Adviser to the PPP Co-Chairman For the first time in its history, Pakistan is close to a democratic transfer of power. One directly elected government will go through the electoral process again in the first quarter of …
Visualising a tolerant Pakistan By Farahnaz Ispahani Published: July 13, 2012 The writer is a suspended member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and Media Advisor to the Co-Chairman PPP We began our lives as a nation with hope and idealism. Pakistan and Pakistanis had those beliefs because of the foundation laid by our Quaid, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Though ignored in our …
By Farahnaz Ispahani “The summer heat turned my cell into an oven. My skin split and peeled, coming off my hands in sheets. Boils erupted on my face. My hair, which had always been thick, began to come out by the handful. Insects crept into the cell like the invading armies. I tried pulling the sheet over my head at …
The political history of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has been one of relentless and unyielding struggle to restore democracy in Pakistan in the face of overwhelming resistance by the forces of tyranny and dictatorship. Though this history is rich with the stories of strong and courageous individuals, any history of the PPP, or that of democracy in Pakistan more …
Life for many members of Washington’s diplomatic corps is, one imagines, pretty much a picnic. …
In the aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan was forced to revise, on short notice, policies that had been …
The federal budget for 2011-12 has been presented amidst difficult and adverse economic circumstances. It is, given the prevailing situation, as positive and realistic a budget as possible. The country needs to expand revenue generation and expand the tax net to lay the foundations of sustainable economic growth. It is, therefore, ironic that populist rhetoric and slogans like ‘the budget offers no relief to …
Just as many Americans are expressing frustration with what they see as Pakistan’s slow progress in defeating terrorism (most recently underscored by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s visit today to Islamabad), Pakistanis are equally frustrated with the increasingly ugly anti-Pakistan sentiment in the United States. Most Pakistanis simply do not understand how cutting U.S. economic and military aid to Pakistan advances the …