FASTRising

Here comes the sun

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:30:00 +0000

FASTRising welcomes the new academic year with a series of activities: sit-ins, flour distribution, protest marches, design and writing competitions, seminars and film screenings.

At the joint meeting with the Young Professionals group held today, we decided on the plan for the first major all-out protest since the Long March: a two-hour dharna on campus, in solidarity with the dharna announced by the National Coordination Council of the Laywers Movement.

Event details:
When: 12 - 2 PM, 28 August, 2008
Where: Cafeteria entrance
What: Dharna + Campaign to collect 1,000 signatures in support of an independent judiciary

Rationale: Not all students are in a position to join the major demonstration at Charing Cross on the Mall. Just as important, it is one of our essential long-term objectives to sensitise young minds to the issues affecting the whole community and to provide a platform for independent thought, for sheer creativity, for novel explorations of the meaning of liberty.

We invite all members of the FAST-NU community to join us for a celebration of the re-discovery of truth* by the youth of the nation, for a re-affirmation of our resolve to keep fighting until our demands have been fulfilled.

* Post Scriptum on "truth": the truth that many of us have discovered is that our activism is a struggle for freedom.

In a larger sense, it's the truth that power and influence are there to be exercised by those who dare to speak out, to organise themselves, to conduct research and investigate the issues affecting society. The truth is embodied in all such actions and many of the younger generation have understood that the opposite attitudes, i.e., apathy and indifference, breed the lie that nothing can be changed.

The battle is still on!

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:06:00 +0000

WHAT: Protest march for the release of ‘Dr Afia’ and all missing persons (and for the restoration of judges – if they don’t get restored within 72 hours of Musharraf’s resignation!)

WHEN: 2.45pm, 22^nd August, 2008 (immediately after Juma prayer)

WHERE: FAST gate to Faisal Town roundabout

All of you are invited and MUST try to attend! Some professors of FAST (for obvious reasons, we prefer not to divulge the names!) have already promised to attend the protest.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" - Martin Luther King Jr.

http://blog.fastrising.org/2007/11/empire-strikes-back-or-case-of-missing.html

Project ROTI - August-08 Iteration - SUCCESS!

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:13:00 +0000

[Updated, 11-Sep-2008]: Details of the iteration available here.

The flour mill where we procured the 'aata' from

Distribution at the same brick kiln

Children of the 'bhatta workers'

Details of this iteration to follow later.

Project ROTI - August Iteration

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:18:00 +0000

Next iteration of Project ROTI is scheduled tomorrow, Saturday, 16th August, 2008 at 3 PM. We plan to procure aata from a mill located at Darog-e-Wala at about 1 PM. For inquires, please contact at +92-321-4429368 or drop an email at info@fastrising.org.

"Ask not what your country can do for you..."

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:28:00 +0000

Most active members of FASTRising would be uncomfortable with the "Proud Pakistani" label which is why we decided to tap into the general outpouring of patriotic feeling on "chauda 'gast" to find what it was that we were missing, what it was that the people were celebrating. We designed a couple of pamphlets, had copies printed and went out among the revelers on the 13th and the 14th. If the six of us managed to distribute 500 copies in total, each of us had one or two long conversations with members of the general public who really wanted to know what we do. Overall, not a bad ROI.

Things to do for Pakistan this Independence day !

The English version of the flyer is available for download here. Feel free to spread this by any means.

ProjectROTI - Iteration 6 - FAILURE!

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:21:00 +0000

The sixth iteration of the flour distribution effort failed miserably this Saturday, August 9, when volunteers from the FASTRising and Young Professionals Lahore groups were unable to find a single outlet willing to sell them 40 - 50 bags of flour. For three hours, they searched all the major markets and stores in Model Town, Garden Town, Johar Town, Township and Iqbal Town but to no avail.

On the one hand, the team was embarrassed by its failure and lack of contingency planning. On the other hand, we felt that it was important to report this failure - as an admission, but more importantly, as a bit of concrete information on the severity of the flour crisis.

We have now contacted a few mill owners who may be willing to sell us the required quantity of flour. As a back-up plan, various members will buy up small stocks (4 or 5 bags) of flour on their own during the course of the week so that come Saturday, we have at least 25 - 30 bags to distribute.

Saturday Protest - Time change reversed

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:54:00 +0000

Dear readers,

It seems that we were too hasty in announcing the change. Back-channel negotiations with the silent majority have persuaded us to revert to the original time of 6 PM.

We apologise for any inconvenience and confusion caused. To be absolutely clear, here are the event details:

Where: Lahore Press Club
When: 6 PM, Saturday August 9, 2008
Why: Protest against the kidnapping and illegal detention of Dr. Afia Siddiqui

Hope to see you all there.

-- Aileee

Saturday Protest - Time change

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:35:00 +0000

Please note that the time for the Saturday protest against the state-sponsored kidnapping and illegal detention of Dr. Afia Siddiqui has been brought forward to 5 PM instead of 6 PM.

ProjectROTI - Next iteration

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:52:00 +0000

From 2 - 5 PM, on Saturday August 9, we will execute on the next round of flour distribution.

As before, please refer to the project page for information on how to participate.

To respond to a very insightful comment on the last post on this topic, "When are we going to understand and admit our role?":

Working members of FASTRising are acutely aware of the harm caused by the inroads made into traditional household savings by loans from commercial financial institutions.
And they admit their complicity where such has been the case.
This flour distribution is a tiny effort. It helps a small number of people. But it does help them in a very basic, very concrete way. That cannot be denied. Our secondary purpose in participating in this effort, started by the YPL group, is to create awareness around the issue, to incite young people to do more than just donate money and to actually dare to take a walk down to Wigan Pier.
And yes, there is no reason to stop anyone from reading Amartya Sen's analyses of endemic poverty and hunger (as well as other credible researchers) and applying that knowledge to our case. It would be a day of great rejoicing for us to know that our insignificant blogging actually triggered off such a powerful train of thought in the mind of one of our readers.

Auschwitz revived

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:21:00 +0000

Dr. Afia Siddiqui, a PhD in genetics from MIT, was abducted from Karachi in 2003 after a highly publicised FBI-led manhunt for alleged "top operatives" of the Al-Qaeda network. She has been in solitary confinement at Bagram Air Base near Kabul, unable to communicate with the outside world for more than five years. The fate of her three children ([1], [2]), kidnapped at the same time, remains completely unknown. She herself was simply known as prisoner # 650 ([3]), never seen by other inmates of the infamous "pre-processing" center on the road to Guantanamo Bay prison. Never seen, but frequently heard crying out in pain.

Five years. Alone. Tortured. Divorced from family and friends, worst of all, without a clue as to the location of her children.

How much did the Pakistan Army and its serving COAS, President (ex-CE) of Pakistan, General (now retired) Pervez Musharraf, get paid for this particular case of illegal rendition and detention? How accurate a model is the trickle-down theory in predicting the size of each slice of the pie as we move down the famous "chain of command"?

Or are these questions irrelevant?

Is it more relevant to instead ask: Where was I in 2003? Where am I now? What does freedom mean? How much more will I bend? What do I do now?

==

We will register our protest for the immediate release of Dr. Afia Siddiqui at the Lahore Press Club at 6 PM this Saturday. We humbly request the participation of all members of the FAST-NU community in particular and the larger body of Lahori civil rights activists in general.

Following through

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:25:00 +0000

As announced last week, FASTRising and YPL collaborated to procure and then distribute flour in an under-privileged locality.

The group of about a dozen volunteers first bought the flour from a wholesale store near Thokar Niaz Baig on the outskirts of the city and then headed over to the brick kiln where they distributed flour back in March. They sought the assistance of the manager there to identify another kiln, the search parameters being:

workers in financial distress
community size small enough to allow distribution of one 20 kg bag of flour to each family in distress

With his help, we were able to locate a suitable group of brick kiln workers and carry out the distribution.

We distributed 50 bags of flour, the entire activity costing Rs. 22, 000, i.e. Rs. 21, 500 for 50 bags at Rs. 430 each plus Rs. 500 to hire a suitable transport.

Please get in touch with us if you wish to contribute in some capacity to the next round of flour distribution, or if you want to replicate this initiative in your area and need pointers on where to get flour and on how to avoid causing a food riot.

Why this sudden publicity of volunteer activities? Essentially to get the word out to the affluent classes that people are in dire straits, hard-working, honourable, invisible people who can no longer make ends meet. The idea is that their lack of visibility should not translate to extinction. As mentioned earlier, YPL and some FASTRising members have been doing similar activities for several months already. Back then, we resisted all attempts to brand or to market (in any sense) this work. However, it is now clear that the crisis is here to stay for another season, perhaps even a whole year (depending on the will of the government, the will of the people and also the international trade situation) and it is critically important that young, aware, conscientious citizens step up to meet this challenge to their society. The earthquake in 2005 proved that there was still a spark of humanity and even heroism left in us. We hope that this crisis will bring out the best in us, incite us to find ways of sustaining the same spirit of sacrifice over the long term, to build a sense of community through concrete actions.

In this regard, we welcome all criticism and comment on this effort and intend to use your feedback to guide our discussions and future direction.

For "I am loathe to become small again"

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:57:00 +0000

This Saturday, FASTRising will join hands with the activist group Young Professionals Lahore in their flour distribution activity.

The idea is to engage FAST family members in volunteer work - especially those of us blessed with all that life has to offer.

Please see details on the project page.

Update on the Hunger-strike Camp by Agricultural Field Assistants Employees Union

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:46:00 +0000

Two FASTRising members met the members of the Agricultural Field Assistants Employees Union yesterday evening. They informed us that the Provincial Manpower Minister had himself come to the camp, sat with them, listened to their grievances, agreed that they were justified in their demands and vowed to negotiate on their behalf with the department administration. The Union President said that they were very sceptical of his talk until he committed to join their struggle in case their demands were not met. At that point, they decided to call off their hunger strike, accept the minister's offer of medical help for those striking to the death (three of whom had had to be hospitalised a couple of days ago) and give him a chance to negotiate.

The meeting is scheduled for late morning/noon today. The Union President has warned the minister that if their demands are not met, he (the minister) will be responsible for any step that they take in reaction.

The protesting government employees have come from all parts of Punjab and have been living for the last six days on a bit of green next to the lane leading to the US Consulate. Depending on the outcome of today's talks, they may decide to resume their strike or to adopt a different strategy.

We intend to keep our blog updated with news of this issue and appeal to the curious to try and understand how it is that employees of the Agriculture Department of the agricultural heartland of the country could find themselves without any recourse except to embark on a hunger strike to the death.

Could it be a lack of justice? Could it be the purely administrative convenience of retaining colonial systems, standards and mentalities? Could it be sheer incompetence and arrogance?

A simple conversation with the Union members might help. We were overwhelmed and more than a little shamed by the warmth of their welcome.

Hunger-strike Camp by Agricultural Field Assistants Employees Union

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:38:00 +0000

Agricultural Field Assistants are government employees responsible from agricultural research to introduction of new technologies to farmers.

The previous secretary of agriculture in Punjab made it obligatory for some of these employees - some with an experience of 20+ years - to pass a written exammination (testing English, among other subjects) for service upgradation or be forced to retire.

Whereas:

Field assistants and farm inspectors in the rest of Pakistan were upgraded unconditionally.
Employees of other departments in Punjab - livestock, police, clerks, teachers - were upgraded unconditionally.

Hence, the union demands that:

Field assistants are upgraded unconditionally into scale 11 from scale 6.
Field inspectors are upgraded unconditionally into scale 15 from scale 9.
The 25% Promotion Quota as Agricultural Officer, banned for 28 years, is immediately restored.
Motorcycles be provided in other districts, as in the districts of Southern Punjab, and the department should bear their expenditures.

Otherwise:

The hunger-strike camp in front of Lahore Press Club will continue (with some members on strike till death) till the union demands are met. There are more than 50 strikers.
In case of any loss of human lives, as well as any kind of loss on field, the senior officers of the agriculture department will be responsible. In that case, the union reserves the right to take legal action.

On strike till death:

Ashfaq Hussain Shah Hashmi (Provincial President, 0301-7413520)
Muhammad Yaqub (Department of Research, Bahawalpur)
Malik Muhammad Akram (Majlis-e-Shura/Advisory Council)
Chauhdry Ghulam Sarwar (Vice President)
Bashir Ahmad (Attock)
Rao Shabbir Ahmad Khan (Vice Chairman, Punjab)

On symbolic hunger-strike:

Rana Muhammad Akram (Provincial General Secretary, 0302-6952170)
Chauhdry Zakir Hussain (Senior Vice President)
Muhammad Farooq Bhobahak
Nawazish Ali Khan
Abdul Halim
Chauhdry Sultan
Muhammad Jamil
Haji Umar Hayat
Ayaz
Muhammad Riaz

We appeal to all, youth and students in particular, to raise concern regarding the rights of workers and employees in Pakistan. It is not the sole responsibility of ostensibly socialist parties. We also appeal that food and water be gifted to the strikers as a gesture of good-will and that their protests be attended.

Dare to dream!

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:26:00 +0000

Because sometimes they actually come true!

Two weeks ago, one of our members expressed his dream.

And judging both from the updates posted on pklongmarch.blogspot.com and the coverage on TV, it does seem that more than 150,000 people are already at the destination with the main body of the caravan yet to arrive!

Geo reporter says that more than 250,000 people are said to have entered Islamabad Capital Territory limits. People are walking 8 to 10 kilometres to get to the venue on Constitution Avenue as all planned parking spaces filled up long ago.

Western press has only reported 200 buses - one wonders how they suddenly manage to ignore what their reporters must be telling them. Declan Walsh, where are you?!

FASTRising bus #1

noreply@blogger.com (Aman) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:56:00 +0000

See the PK Long March blog for more pictures of the progress of the rally through the city.

Pakistan is on the move!

noreply@blogger.com (Aman) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:27:00 +0000

The floodgates are wide open: massive rallies in Karachi and Sukkur, huge receptions in Multan and Lahore, panic-stricken politicians trying to figure the odds to ensure that they end up on the winning side whatever the outcome, it's all happening this week in Pakistan. The Long March is sweeping through the country, filtering out the living from the dead.

We're on the move - and we're not stopping until our objectives are met!

On a somewhat less spectacular note, we would like to mention how much we have been encouraged by the participation of our respected professors, Mr. Liaquat Majeed Sheikh (universally known as LMS) and Dr. Qaiser Durrani.

Is there no shame in these people?

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:57:00 +0000

Young men claiming to be members of the Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba (aka IJT, aka "the Jamiat", the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami) disrupted the SAC Long March mobilisation camp at Nasir Bagh around 2:00 PM today.

They claimed that no one except the Jamiat had the right to organise any activity in that area and that the SAC members should wind up the camp within 10 minutes. The SAC members, heavily outnumbered, decided to negotiate for time and it was agreed that they would wind up the camp by 3:30 PM.

As the negotiations were ending, two SAC members arrived on the scene. One of them, Ahmed Saleemi, started filming the negotiation process and the activities of the aggressors. One of the saboteurs took offence at being filmed and angrily ordered Ahmed to stop filming and tried to grab his phone. Ahmed resisted, there was a scuffle in which Ahmed, outnumbered, was beaten up. The SAC members (one of whom was a female student from LUMS) managed to disentagle themselves and escape in one of their cars. They made rescue calls and messaged their friends, as a result of which backup started arriving.

By the time members from various activist groups (SAC, FASTRising, YPL, CMKP, lawyers) as well as the Jamaat coordinator and the Police converged on the scene, the aggressors had cleared out leaving behind the havoc they had wrought. Ale Natiq reports that when he was trying to respond to the panic calls by the SAC members, he was stopped by some of the same aggressors: "I just tried to visit the camp where the IJT guys stopped me on the way just a few meters away from the camp seeing the posters and stickers on my car and forced me to move away."

We reserve judgement on whether these were indeed IJT activists, since an attack at such a sensitive time does not do the public image of the IJT any good (just when they're trying to recover from their previous misdemeanours). There is currently a strong motive for various parties (such as those who still support the Presidency of General (Retd.) Musharraf) to try and disrupt the Long March mobilisation and create divisions amongst the united front supporting the lawyers' movement.

If indeed it was an IJT attack, of course, then we will go ahead with a protest this evening, 7:30 or 8 PM, at the Lahore Press Club.

52 illegal torture and detention centres identified

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:28:00 +0000

In September 2002, on the first anniversary of 9/11, Arundhati Roy spoke these prescient words: "For how many Septembers for decades together have millions of Asian people been bombed, and burned, and slaughtered?"

How much longer will we tolerate this injustice? The time to rise up, to join hands, the time to unite and to break free - that time is upon us.

How much longer will we continue to support the illegal occupation of Afghanistan? How much longer will we allow NATO presence on our soil? When will we finally gather the courage to confront the military and demand not just the closing down of these detention and torture centres but also a full accounting of the evils visited upon us since 2001:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AHRC-STM-158-2008
June 05, 2008

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission

PAKISTAN: 52 illegal torture and detention centres identified

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has collected details of detention and torture centres in Pakistan, where missing persons are held for long periods of time in order to force them to confess their involvement in terrorist and sabotage activities. The information about the places of illegal detention was collected from the persons who were detained in these centres for several years after arrest. Their whereabouts were never made known to their family members.

Now journalists, human rights organisations and the families of the victims gathered and contributed information to reveal the places of detention of these 'missing persons'. Persons released from these centres are often abandoned on the roadside. Many of them were released after the active interventions of the higher judiciary, particularly by deposed Chief Justice Mr. Iftekhar Choudry.

Many of the missing persons have testified in courts and to the media that they were kept in the custody by the army and that they were tortured. For further information please see: UG-003-2006, UA- 227-2006, UG-013-2006, UA-145-2006, UP-127-2006, UA-171-2006, UA-169-2006, UA-132-2006 and UP-191-2006.

Military intelligence (MI), Inter Service Intelligence (ISI), Federal Intelligence Agency (FIA), Pakistan Rangers, and the Frontier Constabulary (FC) are the main agencies who are keeping persons incommunicado and who torture them to confess their involvement in anti-state activities.

It is interesting to note that the army officials are interrogating persons from Balochistan to force a confession admitting their involvement with the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and those arrested from Sindh about their involvement with the Sindh Liberation Army (SLA). The military rulers are certain that both these organisations are working to disassociate themselves from Pakistan.

Arrestees from the North West Frontier Province were initially held in the custody of the army before being transferred to Afghanistan. There, after going through severe torture and being held incommunicado, many of them were handed over to the occupied forces, to be again transferred to Guantanamo Bay, the notorious American holding/interrogating centre. The Pakistan army was the beneficiary of this whole episode and this is the reason why the western countries never criticised the government of Pakistan on the issue of missing persons.

The newly elected government has totally ignored the issue of missing persons. It has not started to probe the issue of missing persons despite several persons, who were kept incommunicado in military detention, have testified before the courts that they were kept in army camps and tortured severely.

There still remain several thousands of persons who have been missing since 2001 and the seemingly callous attitude of the government is creating a sense of depression and disappointment in the people. And these are the people who elected the ruling coalition expecting a change in the country.

The AHRC urges the international community, particularly the UN Human Rights Council and other international human rights groups to intervene in the cases of missing persons of Pakistan who are still being held incommunicado by the law enforcement agencies. There is a high risk of many of them disappearing soon if action is not taken quickly.

The following is a list of some of the illegal detention centres. There are still hundreds of human rights activists held in torture centres according to local human rights organisations, media and nationalist and political groups. It is believed that there are 52 such torture centres in Pakistan:

Islamabad, capital of Pakistan

(1) Sector I-9 Islamabad; (2) Cell 20 in Sector I-9 Islamabad; (3) 'safe house' of the ISI, Islamabad

Sindh Province:

- In Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, there are three detention centres of the army. They are: (1) the centre of MI at Shar-e-Faisal, Saddar, near Hotel Holiday Inn; (2) the torture and detention centre of the ISI is also in this vicinity which could be accessed through the St. Paul's School; (3) in Malir cantonment area in one of the 'safe houses' with several small cells

In Karachi, the Pakistan Rangers is also running a detention centre at Landhi. However the actual location is not confirmed as the persons released from there were kept blindfolded all the time.

- In Hyderabad, Sindh province, at the cantonment area, at the Army House, off Qasim Chowk

- Jacobabad is the border district with Balochistan province. This city is providing the United States Air Force and the NATO air support facilities. There is a detention centre run by the Pakistan army which is used as a 'transit centre'. This centre was unearthed when two journalists of a prominent television channel spoke when they were recovered after several months of detention and torture allegedly for taking pictures of an airbase.

Balochistan Province:

- In Balochistan province there are dozens of military detention centres, where people after their arrest, are detained and tortured to force confession statements about their alleged activities against the army in the province. Following are places in Balochistan province where Pakistan army and FC are running their torture and detention centres:

- Quli Camp Cantonment Queta, in the capital of Balochistan province. In front of this detention camp there is a mountain called as Koh-e-Murad (Dead Mountain) which has been taken over by the Pakistan Army and is used as a dumping area for some sensitive arms and ammunitions. According to local people, people are brought here and detained for several months.

- Safe house of the ISI at Khuzdar Cantonment area. The Khuzdar district is in southeast of the province and all detained or arrested persons by the state intelligence agencies from south and southeast districts are brought and kept over here. The place is notorious for torture.

- The fort at Turbat town, a sub-district of the province. This fort is used for keeping missing persons and still there are dozens of missing persons in the fort, but it is under the control of FC. In the port city of Gwadar there is one more camp used by the FC for keeping people in illegal detention for several months.

- In the northern part of the Balochistan province, there are several places of detention and torture in three districts namely - Sibi, Dera Bugti and Kohlu. Here, the military have their own bases and camps. But in military terms these army centres are called "settlements" instead of cantonments. In these districts the persons arrested are mainly from the central and the northern parts. The main military detention centres are in Loti gas field, Pir Koh gas field and Dera Bugti gas field.

Most of the detainees are local residents of the above named districts. They are charged with mutiny against the 'army control' of the districts, blowing up of the main gas supply line to the other parts of the country, sabotage, bomb attacks on military installations, affiliation with different nationalist parties and association with the Balochistan Liberation Army.

In Kohlu district's military settlement there is one check post. This is purely run by the army which has torture cells. In Sui sub-district there is also a military check post which runs torture cell besides a main detention centre in the "settlement" at Sui gas field.

Punjab Province:

- In Punjab, there are two main cantonment areas where detention and torture centres are maintained only for the purpose of keeping "missing persons". These centres are Multan and Rawalpindi cantonment areas. These areas are close to the General Head Quarter (GHQ) of the Pakistan Army. The Rawalpindi cantonment based detention centre is in 'safe house' which is said to be the most cruel among all army detention centres. Still there are more than four dozens of missing persons who are kept since several months in these centres. It is said to be that it is here persons who are 'hard to crack' are kept, who had not confessed during the torture in other detention centres.

There are more centres of detention in Rawalpindi city which are maintained in hospitals. Here, people from the North-West Frontier Province and those alleged as Jihadis are kept besides the nationalists from the Sindh and Balochistan provinces. In the Multan cantonment, the 'safe houses' meant for rest houses, are used as detention centres and much of the so called high profile terrorists are detained.

The following detention centres in Rawalpindi and Islamabad were revealed by Mrs. Amina Masood Paracha, the Chair Person of an NGO named Defense Human Rights, Islamabad:

- ISI Detention Centre in Kent Garrison Chaklala (near Rawalpindi airport)
- ISI Detention Centre behind the Military Hospital in Rawalpindi - Hamza Centre (Ojri Camp Rawalpindi)
- FIA Centre near Qasim Market
- Chaklala Airbase Rawalpindi
- Military hospitals on Mall Road Rawalpindi
- Hamza Centre - Ojri Camp Faizabad - Rawalpindi

In Dera Ghazi Khan and Rahim Yar Khan districts there are detention centres at the cantonments. When in 2004, 13 students from Balochistan, belonging to the Baloch Students' Organization were detained at the Dera Ghazi Khan Cantonment detention centre for almost five months and tortured, this centre was exposed. It is still functioning and it is infamous for dumping tortured people on the roadside when it is confirmed that the victim cannot survive further torture.

- The cantonment areas of Peshawar and Chirat are used as detention centres for keeping arrested persons from areas dominated by fundamentalists Islamic forces.

There are 48 cantonments in Pakistan which all have illegal detention centres that operate as torture cells. All these cantonments have rest-houses which are called 'safe houses' that has been converted into illegal detention centres.

Now that these places of detention and torture are identified, there is no excuse for the Government of Pakistan to ignore it. Yet this is precisely what it happening. The AHRC urges the international community and the UN to intervene in this situation calling upon the government to investigate about the existence of these centres in the country and to immediately release the prisoners held therein.

# # #

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

Asian Human Rights Commission
19/F, Go-Up Commercial Building,
998 Canton Road, Kowloon, Hongkong S.A.R.
Tel: +(852) - 2698-6339 Fax: +(852) - 2698-6367

Bringing Down a Dictator

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:34:00 +0000

Our friends at the Punjnad Film Club have graciously decided to host a special screening of a short documentary on a similar youth-led, anti-dictatorship movement, Otpor.

The film, titled "Bringing Down a Dictator", takes the viewer inside the movement, yielding a rich crop of ideas for creative, effective protests.

Movie: Bringing Down A Dictator
Venue: The Punjnad Film Club
When: 5:00 PM, Saturday, June 7, 2008
Running Time: 56 mins
Link to website: http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/films/bdd/

Come see the power of the people in action!

Events calendar updated, posters designed, SAC mobilisation plan meeting

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:16:00 +0000

The intensive schedule of events leading up to the Long March has been posted on the FASTRising calendar. We'll try to keep this as updated as possible going in to the Long March. The cool thing about Google Calendar is that you can add events from other calendars (shared or public, e.g. FASTRising) to your own (associated with your Google aaccount), then set up reminders for each event. You can even set up your calendar to send you SMS reminders some time before each event. For that, you will need to go to calendar.google.com, click on "Settings" near the top-right corner, then "Mobile Setup". Specify the country your cell is registered in, your phone number and click on the "Send Verification Code" button. That should arrive in a few minutes. Enter it back into the relevant field on the "Mobile Setup" page and click on "Save". From now on, for each event, you'll get the option to have Google send you reminder SMS'es. And yes, for some strange reason, it's currently a free service!

FASTRising & SAC Posters for Long March are available here and here. More to follow shortly.

SAC Long March pamphlet for distribution to students in any educational institution in Lahore.

SAC meeting Thursday June 5 at 6:30 PM, Nairang Art Gallery. Agenda: mobilisation, mobilisation, mobilisation!

And we're back!

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Finally, normal service resumes.

In the end, though, we should thank the invisible guardians of our frontiers (real or virtual), for we have now been forced to adopt backup procedures:
1. Every post will now be backed up
2. The entire blog will be mirrored on several private blogs which will be brought online one-by-one, each event being well-publicised on all the regular blogs, social networking sites and newsgroups

Also, as a result of these outages, a new generation of Pakistani Internet users learns a little bit more about Internet privacy and censorship issues.

It's just fascinating how these outdated mandarins just don't see that the times - they are a-changing...

FASTRising & Ale-xpressed blocked since 3 PM, May 31, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:32:00 +0000

Here's an interesting tid-bit: most people in Pakistan cannot even read our blogs anymore. In fact, most people in Pakistan cannot access any blogs hosted on blogspot.com!

We have strong reason to believe that this is happening because of recent posts on Balochistan on FASTRising and Ale-xpressed, posts that attempt to break open a window of communication between ordinary Pakistani citizens and the Baloch.

One reason for this inference is that the first blogs to be blocked were http://fastrising.blogspot.com and http://ale-xpressed.blogspot.com. We first noticed the issue around 3 PM on May 31, 2008. Another friend noticed around 9:15 PM on the same day that none of the blogs hosted on blogspot.com were accessible. It is now more than 48 hours that blogspot.com blogs have been inaccessible for most surfers using ISP's that rely on the main Pakistan Internet backbone. However, the sites have remained accessible to surfers using services that bypass the backbone, such as Mobilink's Blackberry service. Further details on the embargo are available on this post on DBTB.

This instance of Internet censorship has been reported in The News and Dawn, major Pakistani English-language dailies.

Other Pakistani activist sites affected by this blockage:

Work-arounds:

Use anonymizing services such www.megaproxy.com/freesurf
Get off the Pakistan Internet backbone
Emigrate!

Does Balochistan Want Independence? - FASTRising newsletter, Vol. 2, Issue 1

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:15:00 +0000

The latest issue of the FASTRising newsletter is finally available online.

Subtitled "The Crises in Balochistan", the issue narrates the story of Baloch subjugation from the perspective of Baloch nationalists, especially those with separatist aspirations and is intended as a wake-up call for all citizens of good will who believe in justice (socio-economic as well as strictly legalistic) and fair play.

Students everywhere, but particularly in FAST: we urge you to reject the "accepted truths" your history books have taught you and make a real effort to discover the truth for yourselves.

Personal account of fact-finding mission member #3

noreply@blogger.com (FAST Rising) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:58:00 +0000

Ale Natiq, FFM3, writes about our train journey to Quetta from a very personal perspective - his fears, his joys, impressions and reflections.

The videos in this post are worth watching - more immediate than any combination of words, more arresting than poetry itself, is the experience of being on a train where for hundres of miles, all you can see is a clear blue sky spread over an empty landscape with nothing but stark, parallel lines of rail, road and T&T linking command-and-control centres.

As the process of transcription progresses, we will start posting transcribed interviews alongwith the actual audio files.

Meanwhile, "Altaf bhai" has actually been inspired to produce Issue 4 of the FASTRising newsletter! Coming soon to an exam centre near you!