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“Benefit of Doubt”: On the Murder of Dalits and the Baloch

“Benefit of Doubt”: On the Murder of Dalits and the Baloch

On October 9, 2013 a division Bench of the Patna High Court (PHC) absolved all the 26 persons of Ranvir Sena (RS) accused of massacre of 58 Dalits, including 27 women and 10 children in Laxmanpur Bathe village in Bihar's Jehanabad district on December 1, 1997of all the charges; 16 of them had been awarded…

ByMir Mohammad Ali Talpur

“Black Humour”: On the Politicians Promise

“Black Humour”: On the Politicians Promise

I am convinced that if promises were bombs there wouldn’t be a soul left alive here. Promises come cheap and are the handiest tool to bamboozle people into believing fantasies they would otherwise reject as garbage. Here even the solemn but empty promises of courts recovering Baloch missing persons, of trying Musharraf for treason, of…

ByMir Mohammad Ali Talpur

“Take no prisoners”: On Extra-Judicial Killings in Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan

“Take no prisoners”: On Extra-Judicial Killings in Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan

A few days back I.A. Rehman Sahib Director Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in his piece, “Of prisoners’ rights” (November 14th, Dawn) wrote about the recent Federal Judicial Academy seminar, attended by luminaries of judiciary here, on prisoners’ vulnerability. Among other problems faced by the prisoners the overcrowding of jails in Punjab and Sindh…

ByMir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Background Notes On the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons March

Background Notes On the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons March

In 1999 when Pakistani military dictator Prevez Musharraf seized power, his first target was Balochistan. He declared a war against Baloch people across Balochistan by arresting prominent Baloch leaders and threatening others to hit them in way they would not have imagined. He threatened the Baloch that it was not the 70s forgetting the fact that…

ByFaiz M Baluch

The Journey of Love Continues: Notes on Voice of Baloch Missing Persons Long March

The Journey of Love Continues: Notes on Voice of Baloch Missing Persons Long March

The grueling historic long march by the relatives of Baloch missing persons and extra-judicially killed persons having started on October 27th finally reached Karachi on the 22nd of November. They spent 27 days on the road walking thirty kilometers or more daily without a break. They were no extreme sports practitioners who would easily survive the rigors…

ByMir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Viva Chávez!

Viva Chávez!

Hugo Chavez came a long way from being a military officer attempting a coup to overthrow Venezuela’s corrupted politico-economic system to leading the “Bolivarian movement” which resulted in massive transformations and support from the Venezuelan people. His death means that his successor has huge shoes to fill, but all indications show that the political space…

ByVijay Prashad

Remember the Restoration?

Remember the Restoration?

The logic of “emergency” accompanying the policies of dealing with the crisis that we in Europe are currently experiencing is driving governments to adopt measures that bring them into opposition with the societies to and for which they are supposedly responsible. Austerity, neoliberal reforms, the dismantling of the welfare state, unemployment, the accumulation of wealth…

ByKonstantina Zanetou

Will the Direct Democrats of Egypt Now Stand up?

Historians of popular movements know that at some point institutional forms supercede continuous states of mobilization. The latter do not last for ever. Either new forms of routinized social reproduction are developed, or old ones are modified or return – sometimes in new and more vicious forms. Periods of heightened uncertainty surrounding major crises of…

ByJohn Chalcraft

Dr Allah Nazar On Balochistan – An Exclusive Interview with Naked Punch

INTERVIEWS POLITICS

Dr Allah Nazar On Balochistan – An Exclusive Interview with Naked Punch

Dr Allah Nazar is Balochistan’s most popular middle-class nationalist leader. Belonging from a modest family in Balochistan’s town of Mashkay, he started his political career from Baloch Students Organization (BSO). He founded his own faction of BSO in February 2002 that openly advocated an armed struggle for liberating Balochistan. In 2003, he went underground to…

BySajid Hussain

Remember Greece?

Remember Greece?

He wondered if he did not want to take possession of what she knew, more by forgetting than by remembering. But forgetting… It was necessary that he, too, enter into forgetting. Maurice Blanchot, Awaiting Oblivion Some twenty years ago, I remember taking a night stroll with my favourite uncle, an anarchist ideologue. It was a…

ByNick Skiadopoulos

Hugo Chávez Revolution Was Made By Women

Hugo Chávez Revolution Was Made By Women

The funeral of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela took place on International Women's Day – a fitting day of departure for "the president of the poor" who was loved by millions, especially by women, the poorest. When Chávez was elected in 1998, the grassroots movement took a leap in power, and women in particular were empowered. Women…

Notes on working class liberation and the Pakistani Left

Notes on working class liberation and the Pakistani Left

In this brief note I want to argue that the organised left needs to incorporate and support the indigenous working class movement and leaders. Further that the leaders of the orgnaised left must, in large part, be drawn from the working class movements, rather than, from the bourgeois. By the working class I mean those who…

ByQalandar Bux Memon