Nawaz Sharif and daughter arrested on return to Pakistan

Nawaz Sharif, right, and Maryam Nawaz waiting at Abu Dhabi airport waiting for their flight to Lahore on Friday, 13 July, 2018. (Photo courtesy: @MaryamNSharif/Twitter)
Updated 14 July 2018
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Nawaz Sharif and daughter arrested on return to Pakistan

  • They can’t shake my resolve, Sharif tells reporters
  • Voters will see this as an act of defiance and courage, say analysts

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was arrested on Friday at an airport in Lahore and taken to jail as he arrived home from London.

His return came a week after an anti-graft court sentenced him to 10 years in prison for corruption in connection with his family’s purchase of property in the English capital.

Sharif’s daughter and heir apparent, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, who accompanied him from London, was also arrested. She was convicted of corruption in the same case and sentenced to seven years.

In video footage filmed moments after their flight landed, Sharif and his daughter appeared somber but confident as they disembarked from an Etihad Airways plane.

“Yes, they have landed in Lahore and have been arrested,” Mohammed Zubair, a senior PML-N leader, told Arab News.

“This is a historic moment. Even though our party completely disagrees with the decision of the court, as law-abiding citizens they have arrived in Pakistan to face jail.”

Sharif and his daughter had been in London attending to Sharif’s wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, who is being treated there for cancer and has been in a coma since suffering a heart attack last month.

Speaking to reporters by phone earlier, while awaiting a connecting flight in Abu Dhabi, Sharif said: “Whether they arrest me here or after I reach Lahore, I am ready. They can’t shake my resolve.”

The return of the Sharifs to Pakistan comes amid widespread concern that the country’s all-powerful army is meddling in politics ahead of July 25 elections, and complaints that the news media is being suppressed.

Sharif has openly accused the military of working to sway the election in favor of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.

The opposition Pakistan People's Party also alleged “pre-poll rigging” this week but did not specifically accuse the military.

Sharif’s first term as prime minister ended in resignation under military pressure in 1995 and his second was cut short by an army coup in 1999. In July 2017, he was dismissed from his third term as PM by the Supreme Court over revelations in the 2016 Panama Papers that the Sharif family had bought apartments in London using offshore companies.

Close allies of Sharif and his daughter said the pair had come back to Pakistan to launch an appeal against their convictions, which they will do on Monday and seek bail. However, their return is also expected to bear important political dividends.

“Their vote bank, which was confused after the verdict about what would happen to their leader, will be gelled together again and vote with more vigor and energy,” said veteran journalist and long-time Sharif observer Nusrat Javed.

“From today, things will turn from merely a sympathy vote into a protest vote. Until now, people thought Nawaz was not being treated fairly by the judiciary and the military. Now they will see him as being openly defiant.

"Think about the symbolism of a man returning to face jail with his daughter. Voters will see this as an act of defiance and courage. It will ignite protest and anger.”

Pakistan’s caretaker government moved quickly against leaders and supporters of PML-N around the country who tried to hold rallies and travel to the Lahore airport to welcome Sharif.

More than 10,000 police officers were deployed across Lahore on Friday to contain the protests, while internet and mobile services remained switched off all day. The Metro Bus, a rapid-transport system that runs through the city, was also closed for the day and giant shipping containers were used to block major routes.

In the afternoon, before the Sharifs arrived, Interior Minister Shaukat Javed said that anyone who tried to get past the Lahore Abdullah Gul Interchange, which leads directly to Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport, “will be dealt with very strictly.”

In the past few days, police carried out dozens of raids across Lahore and arrested more than 400 PML-N supporters and leaders in what party leaders described as an attempt to prevent them from giving Sharif a hero’s welcome.

“I swear upon God this is worse than martial law,” said Hafiz Hassan, a PML-N supporter. His brother, a medical student who Hassan said is not involved in politics, was picked up by police on Thursday night, he added. “He had an exam today but they took him away forcefully. Who will make up for his missed exam?”

The authorities did not stop at arresting and intimidating PML-N party workers. On Friday, paramilitary rangers stopped Daniyal Aziz, a former minister in Sharif’s last Cabinet, as he drove in a convoy to Lahore on a major highway. A procession led by PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who served as prime minister after Sharif was dismissed by the Supreme Court, was also stopped on the motorway.

In addition, buses carrying party supporters from Faisalabad and Sahiwal to Lahore were halted and dozens of people were arrested after clashes with police.

Before he was taken from Lahore, Sharif said the “draconian crackdown” in the city and other parts of Punjab showed that authorities were desperate to prevent tens of thousands of people from reaching Lahore airport to greet him and show their support.

“This is the worst kind of crackdown on democracy and rule of law in Pakistan,” he added.

Despite this, a rally led by Shahbaz Sharif — Nawaz Sharif’s brother, the PML-N president and three-time chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and richest province — left the city’s ancient Lahori Gate area and made its way to the airport, flanked by more than 50,000 supporters, according to police and PML-N sources.

Live footage of the rally was screened by local news channels for several hours earlier in the day, but only still pictures were broadcast after the Sharifs’ flight entered Pakistani airspace.

Several journalists spoke about a forced media blackout of the Sharifs’ reception.

This is in line with severe restrictions placed on the media in recent days, with the army accused of intimidating major news organizations, such as Jang Group, into censoring content critical of the military, and preventing the circulation of Dawn, a leading English-language daily newspaper. Both are considered to be partial towards Sharif.

“Those who think they can scare us...open your ears and hear this,” Shahbaz Sharif said. “We are winning this election.”


Mount Fuji is still without its iconic snowcap for the first time in 130 years

Updated 58 min 32 sec ago
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Mount Fuji is still without its iconic snowcap for the first time in 130 years

  • The lack of snow on Mt. Fuji, a UNESCO World Heritage site, as of Tuesday breaks the previous record set on Oct. 26, 2016, meteorological officials said
  • Usually, the 3,776-meter- (nearly 12,300-foot-) high mountain has sprinkles of snow falling on its summit starting Oct. 2

TOKYO: Japan’s iconic Mount Fuji, known for its snowcap forming around this time of the year, is still snowless in November for the first time in 130 years, presumably because of the unusually warm temperatures in the past few weeks.
The lack of snow on Mt. Fuji, a UNESCO World Heritage site, as of Tuesday breaks the previous record set on Oct. 26, 2016, meteorological officials said.
Usually, the 3,776-meter- (nearly 12,300-foot-) high mountain has sprinkles of snow falling on its summit starting Oct. 2, about a month after the summertime hiking season there ends. Last year, snow fell on the mountain on Oct. 5, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, or JMA.
The snowless Mt. Fuji has captured attention on social media. People posted photos showing the bare mountain, some expressing surprise and others concerned over climate change.
The JMA’s Kofu Local Meteorological Office, which keeps weather data in central Japan and was the agency that announced the first snowfall on Mt. Fuji in 1894, has cited October’s surprisingly summery weather as the reason.
The average October temperature is minus 2 Celsius (28.4 Fahrenheit) at the summit, but this year, it was 1.6 Celsius, (34.9 F), a record high since 1932.
Japan this year also had an unusually hot summer and warm autumn.
A symbol of Japan, the mountain called “Fujisan” used to be a place of pilgrimage. The mountain with its snowy top and near symmetrical slopes have been the subject of numerous forms of art, including Japanese ukiyoe artist Katsushika Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.
Today, it attracts hikers who climb to the summit to see the sunrise. But tons of trash left behind and overcrowding have triggered concern and calls for environmental protection and measures to control overtourism.


Supreme Court overturns Islamic schools ban in India’s most populous state

Updated 05 November 2024
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Supreme Court overturns Islamic schools ban in India’s most populous state

  • There are 2.6 million students and about 25,000 Muslim religious schools in Uttar Pradesh
  • Article 30 of India’s Constitution guarantees the right of minorities to run educational institutions

NEW DELHI: India’s top court overturned on Tuesday an order that banned Islamic schools in Uttar Pradesh, effectively permitting over 2 million students in the country’s most populous state to return to their studies in madrasas.

Islam is the second-largest religion in Uttar Pradesh, accounting for some 20 percent of its 230 million population.

In March, Uttar Pradesh’s Allahabad High Court scraped a 2004 law governing madrasas in the state, saying it violated India’s constitutional secularism and ordering that students be moved to conventional schools. The Supreme Court put it on hold in April after receiving petitions challenging the order.

Tuesday’s ruling by the top court will allow about 2.6 million students and 10,000 teachers to return to the 25,000 Muslim religious schools operating in the northern Indian state.

“The Allahabad High Court erred in holding that the madrasa law had to be struck down for violating basic structure, which is the principle of secularism,” Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said in court. “The constitutional validity of a statute cannot be challenged for violation of the basic structure of the Constitution.”

Article 30 of India’s Constitution guarantees the right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions.

“The Madrasa Act is consistent with the positive obligation of the state to ensure that students studying in recognized madrasas attain a level of competency which will allow them to effectively participate in society and earn a living.”

Madrasas provide a system of education in which students are taught the Qur’an, Islamic history and general subjects like math and science.

In states governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, such as Uttar Pradesh and Assam, authorities have been converting hundreds of madrasas into regular schools.

“This is a landmark judgment and puts a brake to all the negative campaigns that have been going on against madrasas across the country,” Wahidullah Khan, secretary-general of the All-India Teachers Association Madaris Arabia, told Arab News.

“For us, it’s a big relief. It provides a new lease of life to thousands of madrasas across the country. The Islamic schools have been taking care of the basic education of millions of Muslims across the country and we were under lots of pressure because of the communal campaign against Muslims and their educational institutions.”

With over 200 million Indians professing Islam, Hindu-majority India has the world’s largest Muslim-minority population.

Indian Muslims have faced increasing discrimination and challenges in the past decade, accompanied by tensions and riots ignited by majoritarian policies of the Hindu right-wing BJP since it rose to power in 2014.

“We were waiting for this kind of verdict. It’s quite welcoming and relieving for the Muslim community,” Iftikhar Ahmed Javed, BJP member and former chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education, told Arab News.

“The judgment brings relief to all,” he said. “There has been a systematic attempt to stigmatize the Islamic schools over the years and brand them as vicious, but the ruling of the Supreme Court should now stop this negative campaign.”


Supreme Court overturns Islamic schools ban in India’s most populous state

Updated 05 November 2024
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Supreme Court overturns Islamic schools ban in India’s most populous state

  • There are 2.6 million students and about 25,000 Muslim religious schools in Uttar Pradesh
  • Article 30 of India’s Constitution guarantees the right of minorities to run educational institutions

NEW DELHI: India’s top court overturned on Tuesday an order that banned Islamic schools in Uttar Pradesh, effectively permitting over two million students in the country’s most populous state to return to their studies in madrasas. 

Islam is the second-largest religion in Uttar Pradesh, accounting for some 20 percent of its 230 million population. 

In March, Uttar Pradesh’s Allahabad High Court scraped a 2004 law governing madrasas in the state, saying it violated India’s constitutional secularism and ordering that students be moved to conventional schools. The Supreme Court put it on hold in April after receiving petitions challenging the order. 

Tuesday’s ruling by the top court will allow about 2.6 million students and 10,000 teachers to return to the 25,000 Muslims religious schools operating in the northern Indian state.

“The Allahabad High Court erred in holding that the madrasa law had to be struck down for violating basic structure, which is the principle of secularism,” Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said in court. “The constitutional validity of a statute cannot be challenged for violation of the basic structure of the Constitution.” 

Article 30 of India’s Constitution guarantees the right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions. 

“The Madrasa Act is consistent with the positive obligation of the state to ensure that students studying in recognized madrasas attain a level of competency which will allow them to effectively participate in society and earn a living.” 

Madrasas provide a system of education in which students are taught Qur’an, Islamic history and general subjects like math and science. 

In states governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, such as Uttar Pradesh and Assam, authorities have been converting hundreds of madrasas into regular schools. 

“This is a landmark judgment and puts a brake to all the negative campaigns that has been going on against madrasas across the country,” Wahidullah Khan, secretary-general of the All-India Teachers Association Madaris Arabia, told Arab News. 

“For us, it’s a big relief. It provides a new lease of life to thousands of madrasas across the country. The Islamic schools have been taking care of the basic education of millions of Muslims across the country and we were under lots of pressure because of the communal campaign against Muslims and their educational institutions.” 

With over 200 million Indians professing Islam, Hindu-majority India has the world’s largest Muslim-minority population. 

Indian Muslims have faced increasing discrimination and challenges in the past decade, accompanied by tensions and riots ignited by majoritarian policies of the Hindu right-wing BJP since it rose to power in 2014. 

“We were waiting for this kind of verdict. It’s quite welcoming and relieving for the Muslim community,” Iftikhar Ahmed Javed, BJP member and former chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education, told Arab News. 

“The judgment brings relief to all,” he said. “There has been a systematic attempt to stigmatize the Islamic schools over the years and branding them as vicious but the ruling of the Supreme Court should now stop this negative campaign.” 
 


Swedish court sentences far-right politician for insulting Muslims

Updated 05 November 2024
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Swedish court sentences far-right politician for insulting Muslims

  • The Danish-Swedish 42-year-old man, who was not named but has been identified by Swedish media as Rasmus Paludan
  • In 2022, Paludan, founder and head of the Danish nationalist anti-immigration party Stram Kurs, made his offensive remarks directed at Muslims, Arabs and Africans during protests

MALMO: A Swedish court sentenced on Tuesday a far-right politician to four months in jail for two counts of “incitement against an ethnic group” after making hateful comments at political rallies two years ago.
The Danish-Swedish 42-year-old man, who was not named but has been identified by Swedish media as Rasmus Paludan, founder and head of the Danish nationalist anti-immigration party Stram Kurs, had been previously convicted and sentenced by a Danish court on a similar charge, the Malmo District Court said.
In 2022, Paludan, founder and head of the Danish nationalist anti-immigration party Stram Kurs, made his offensive remarks directed at Muslims, Arabs and Africans during protests that he led in the southern city of Malmo in 2022, the court said. He also burned a copy of the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, on at least one occasion. In response, a violent wave of riots swept the country.
Some observers also say Paludan’s actions may have momentarily risked Sweden’s chances of joining NATO after increasing political tensions with Turkiye. Sweden joined the alliance in March this year.
The court in a statement Tuesday said Paludan’s remarks against Muslims “cannot be excused as criticism of Islam or as political campaign work.”
Chief Councilor Nicklas Söderberg, the court’s chairman, said: “It is permitted to publicly make critical statements about, for example, Islam and also Muslims, but the disrespect of a group of people must not clearly cross the line for a factual and valid discussion.”
He added that during the Malmo rallies in April and September 2022 “there was no question of any such discussion,” and that Paludan’s public statements “only amounted to insulting Muslims.”
The court took particular interest in whether the politician knew the protests were filmed and published on Facebook. Paludan had said that he wasn’t aware of it but the district court disagreed and said his “actions at the gatherings would be downright illogical if he didn’t know about the publication on Facebook.”
Paludan, a lawyer by profession, told Swedish media outlets that he wasn’t surprised by the verdict.
“It was expected. We will appeal,” the Swedish newspaper Expressen cited him as saying.


Philippine police to probe social media posts of Filipino-Israeli soldier in Gaza

Updated 49 min 11 sec ago
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Philippine police to probe social media posts of Filipino-Israeli soldier in Gaza

  • Department of Foreign Affairs confirms the Filipino soldier is an Israeli citizen
  • Photos shared by Israel Genocide Tracker which monitors soldiers’ social media

MANILA/DUBAI: Photos of a Filipino appearing to be a member of Israel’s troops in Gaza will be investigated by the Philippine National Police, its chief said, after the man’s social media posts went viral showing a rifle with the PNP’s logo.

Screenshots of the posts showing Justin Flores were shared last week by the X handle Israel Genocide Tracker, which scours the internet to find and publicize the actions of Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

The content shared by the X account comprises photos and videos that Israeli soldiers themselves have published online.

The posts range from selfies and pranks among the ruins of houses to blowing up buildings in Gaza, waving women’s underwear and rifling through the property of Palestinian civilians.

The photos and videos from the social media of Flores showed destroyed neighborhoods in Gaza and himself posing amid the rubble.

Another post with the line “Proud to be Israeli/Filipino” shows a rifle bearing the seal of the Philippine police on the ammunition magazine. It is attached to a belt with Hebrew writing.

“I’ll have it investigated,” PNP Chief Gen. Rommel Marbil told Arab News in a text message on Monday evening.

“He is using a TAVOR firearm here. Not the issued rifle for the PNP.”

The weapon is an assault rifle, designed and produced by Israel Weapon Industries. In 2018, the Philippine News Agency reported the acquisition of Tavor rifles for the nation’s police and coast guard.

A screenshot of an Oct. 29, 2024 post by the X account Israel Genocide Tracker shows photos from the social media of Justin Flores. (X/@trackingisrael)

While the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said it was waiting for a report from its embassy in Tel Aviv, it confirmed to Arab News that Flores was an Israeli, while his mother held dual Philippine-Israeli citizenship.

His alleged participation in Israel’s deadly war on Gaza has, however, already triggered outrage in his ancestral home and questions over how his Israeli citizenship was acquired, as according to Israel’s Nationality Law, military service streamlines the process.

“Did he acquire Israeli citizenship by serving in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)? If so, it seems the IDF relies on fighters from overseas to do their dirty work,” said Renato Reyes, president of BAYAN, the Philippines’ largest alliance of grassroots groups.

“It is just shameful that a Filipino would be part of Israeli genocide against Palestinians. We were a colonized people, and we should have more in common with the Palestinians than the Israeli occupiers.”

Drieza A. Lininding, chairman of the civic organization Moro Consensus Group, said individuals joining fighting abroad should be tracked.

“Those joining the IDF and genocide against Palestinians should be treated as terrorists and must be arrested the moment they land here in the Philippines. This is in conformity with the Philippines’ vote in the UN condemning the genocide,” he told Arab News.

“The government must regard them as a threat to our national security.”

If such persons still hold Philippine citizenship, they may lose it under the Commonwealth Act 63, “by accepting commission in the military, naval or air service of a foreign country,” Attorney Farah Decano, dean of the College of Law at the Lyceum Northwestern University, told Arab News.

She said the unauthorized use of the PNP logo was also a violation. “The problem, however, is that the use is in Israel. Our criminal jurisdiction is only in the Philippines,” she said.

“It gives the impression that we are providing arms to the Israelis which the government must immediately deny. The Philippine government must request Israeli government for the confiscation of such arms.”

Israel’s relentless air and ground attacks on Gaza have killed over 45,000 Palestinians and injured more than 101,000, according to Gaza Health Ministry data. But the real toll is feared to be much higher.

A study published by the medical journal The Lancet estimated in July that the true number of those killed could be more than 186,000.

The estimate took into consideration deaths as a result of starvation, injury and lack of access to medical aid as Israeli forces have destroyed most of Gaza’s infrastructure and blocked the entry of aid.