ALTAF HUSSAIN

At Indian Independence from Britain, people could choose whether they wanted to be citizens of India or the new Muslim state created because many Muslims insisted on living in a country that was majority Muslim. However, and what came as a great shock to the then new Pakistani leadership, the majority of the Muslims of India choose not to become citizens of the new Islamic state and preferred to stay in Hindu dominated India which they knew would be democratic, free, and would protect their right to practice Islam as they saw fit. Many feared that in Pakistan Islamic extremists would dictate the exact form of Islam that Muslims must follow, and that is exactly what happened in Pakistan—not only from government action proscribing religious practice but from the government tolerating and not interfering with Islamic fundamentalist extremist terrorists who often assassinated Muslims whose particular form of worship was offensive to them or people would call for reforms of the protection of human rights.

This would normally not be a very noteworthy quotation as it is typical of political party declarations in democracies throughout the world. What makes this, the exception is that this credo was for a Pakistani political party, where no other political party and very few individuals would dare make such a statement. Altaf Hussain was not only attacked and luckily survived an assassination attempt, but the Pakistani Government called this statement and many others treason against the state where equal rights for non Muslims is prohibited by their interpretation of the Koran. The government policy has even been to support terrorist organizations as a potential force against India and parts of India which Pakistan covets and justifies because the area as a majority of Muslims. But India has about the same number of Muslims as does Pakistan so there are hundreds of such areas. Hussain has been indicted over 100 times and runs the party from exile in London where he has been granted political asylum. What he and his party supports has been completely contrary to the policies of the government of Pakistan and its leaders of all the other political persuasions. Pakistan has been since its inception a perpetrator of religious intolerance, fanaticism, violence and one of the worst violators of human rights in the word.

The government of Pakistan regarded this as seditious. The Government can fire judges at will and the military has the right to convene its own courts and try Pakistani civilians for certain alleged crimes by removing their cases from the civilian courts. Even when a Pakistani judge is not intimidated by the government or the military, the Islamic extremist fanatics often assassinate any public official who any one of thousands of fanatics feels is anti-Islamic.

The Partition was accompanied by over 2 million murdered Indians as India was divided into a smaller India with almost all the Hindus and Sikhs and a slight majority of the Muslims and Pakistan with all Muslims who made that choice. Pakistan has been trying to de stabilize the area ever since to gain control of more land and became a theocracy and military dictatorship—sometimes de facto and sometimes de juro.

This would normally not be a very noteworthy quotation as it is typical of political party declarations in democracies throughout the world. What makes this, the exception is that this credo was for a Pakistani political party, where no other political party and very few individuals would dare make such a statement. Altaf Hussain was not only attacked and luckily survived an assassination attempt, but the Pakistani Government called this statement and many others treason against the state where equal rights for non Muslims is prohibited by their interpretation of the Koran. The government policy has even been to support terrorist organizations as a potential force against India and parts of India which Pakistan covets and justifies because the area as a majority of Muslims. But India has about the same number of Muslims as does Pakistan so there are hundreds of such areas. Hussain has been indicted over 100 times and runs the party from exile in London where he has been granted political asylum. What he and his party supports has been completely contrary to the policies of the government of Pakistan and its leaders of all the other political persuasions. Pakistan has been since its inception a perpetrator of religious intolerance, fanaticism, violence and one of the worst violators of human rights in the word.

At Indian Independence from Britain, people could choose whether they wanted to be citizens of India or the new Muslim state created because many Muslims insisted on living in a country that was majority Muslim. However, and what came as a great shock to the then new Pakistani leadership, the majority of the Muslims of India choose not to become citizens of the new Islamic state and preferred to stay in Hindu dominated India which they knew would be democratic, free, and would protect their right to practice Islam as they saw fit. Many feared that in Pakistan Islamic extremists would dictate the exact form of Islam that Muslims must follow, and that is exactly what happened in Pakistan—not only from government action proscribing religious practice but from the government tolerating and not interfering with Islamic fundamentalist extremist terrorists who often assassinated Muslims whose particular form of worship was offensive to them or people would call for reforms of the protection of human rights.

The government of Pakistan regarded this as seditious. The Government can fire judges at will and the military has the right to convene its own courts and try Pakistani civilians for certain alleged crimes by removing their cases from the civilian courts. Even when a Pakistani judge is not intimidated by the government or the military, the Islamic extremist fanatics often assassinate any public official who any one of thousands of fanatics feels is anti-Islamic.

The Partition was accompanied by over 2 million murdered Indians as India was divided into a smaller India with almost all the Hindus and Sikhs and a slight majority of the Muslims and Pakistan with all Muslims who made that choice. Pakistan has been trying to de stabilize the area ever since to gain control of more land and became a theocracy and military dictatorship—sometimes de facto and sometimes de juro.