Unfair attacks
Our moral convictions and faith values demand that we speak out and challenge injustice anywhere. We therefore strongly criticize the injustices of the Israeli occupation and discriminatory laws and policies…
Beyond the plebiscite
The recent plebiscite in the southern Philippines province of Mindanao has boosted optimism for peace and a settlement to finally end a decades-old deadly conflict in Asia. The predominantly Muslim…
War against war
What comes to mind when you hear the words “anti-war protest”? Most Americans will picture the protests against the Vietnam war in the sixties and early seventies, an era famous…
Radicalising the mainstream
The more you contemplate last Sunday’s Lahore by-election, the more you worry about Pakistan’s social drift. On the surface, it was all about politics. In fact, the electoral contest was…
Bigotry as policy
When General Sisi ousted Morsi’s regime in Egypt, members from Ikhwan al Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood) thronged to the capital for sit-ins in August 2013. Morsi, the first democratically elected president…
Celebrity politics
Only a few months after taking office, President Trump have confirmed all the worst fears of progressives and liberals. From his potential ties to Russia to his almost beyond belief…
Then and now – a difference
I chanced upon a meme the other day. It has a smiling picture of our leading human rights defender, lawyer and social critic, Asma Jahangir, and a quote attributed to…
Prime-time shame
Every time optimism is allowed to interfere with reality a stark reminder is delivered of how far Pakistan is from being a pluralistic, modern state in sync with the demands…
A tale of two fires
On March 26, 1911, a New York Times headline announced a disaster, “141 men and girls die in shirtwaist factory fire; trapped high up in Washington Place Building; Street strewn…
Challenge and response
After the barbaric act by extremist militants against schoolchildren at the Army Public School in Peshawar and the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, the reaction and response…
