epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Friday, February 9, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Taliban Consider Attending Doha Meeting, Reject New UN Envoy (VOA)
VOA [2/8/2024 12:57 PM, Akmal Dawi, 761K, Negative]
Taliban officials remain opposed to the possible appointment of a U.N. envoy but say they are considering “meaningful participation” in an upcoming international meeting on Afghanistan.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres will convene a meeting of various countries’ special representatives for Afghanistan in Qatar on February 18 to discuss engagement strategies with de facto Taliban authorities.

A key agenda item for the two-day session is the potential appointment of a U.N. envoy who would coordinate increased international engagement with Taliban leaders in Kabul. The appointment, recommended in an independent U.N. assessment, is backed by the United States and its European allies.

China and Russia abstained in a December 2023 U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution that authorized the secretary-general to appoint a special envoy for Afghanistan.

“In the presence of UNAMA [the U.N. Assistance Mission for Afghanistan], there is no need for the appointment of a new envoy,” Taliban’s deputy chief minister, Abdul Kabir, told Tomas Niklasson, the special envoy of the European Union for Afghanistan, on Wednesday.

UNAMA, a political mission headed by a special representative of the secretary-general, was established in 2002 and its mandate is annually renewed by the Security Council.

While the U.N. has not said whether it has invited the Taliban to the Qatar meeting, a statement from the Afghan foreign ministry said Kabul is mulling meaningful participation.

“Overall, the Islamic Emirate [of Afghanistan] has a positive view about this meeting,” the statement quoted Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Afghan foreign minister, as saying on February 3.

The Taliban’s request to represent Afghanistan at the U.N. has been denied for the past two years and no country has formally declared its recognition of the Taliban government.

Intransigence

Since reclaiming power in 2021, Taliban leaders have largely ignored international and domestic calls to form an inclusive Afghan government and ensure women’s rights to work and education.

Human rights organizations caution that increased engagement with the Taliban risks legitimizing a leadership accused of maintaining discriminatory practices and committing a range of human rights violations, including what some have labeled "gender apartheid."

“The Taliban are not in a position to set conditions for the international community. The Taliban need the international community more than vice versa. They should think and act rationally,” Hugo Llorens, a former U.S. charge de affairs in Afghanistan, told VOA.

Should the Taliban refuse to cooperate with a new U.N. envoy, it could further limit the international community’s capacity to respond to the political and humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, Llorens said.

“The Taliban must show they are worthy of recognition.”

However, Taliban officials accuse Western governments of disregarding Afghan realities and imposing their own agendas.

“Anyone who tries to hurt Afghanistan’s security and economy, and impose political and external pressures, will get no results,” Yaqub Mujahid, Afghanistan’s defense minister, said on Wednesday at a gathering in Kabul.

The United States and the U.N. have imposed distinct sets of sanctions on Taliban leaders and entities, citing concerns related to terrorism. The Taliban have rejected those accusations and say the sanctions disproportionately burden the Afghan economy, hindering humanitarian aid and economic development.
Is Afghanistan’s ‘Regional Cooperation Initiative’ an Opening for India? (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [2/8/2024 11:38 AM, Anuraag Khaund, 201K, Neutral]
On January 29, in an unprecedented move, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan organized its first international conference since its capture of Kabul in 2021. Dubbed the Regional Cooperation Initiative, the multilateral meeting aimed at “establishing a region-centric narrative aimed at developing regional cooperation for a positive and constructive engagement between Afghanistan and regional countries.” Areas highlighted included security coordination, economic collaboration, and the development of regional connectivity and trade among others.

The targeted members and attendees of the conference included representatives of 11 countries from the Eurasian region including Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia, and India.

While no detailed official statement was released by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi was represented by the head of its “technical team” in Kabul, who highlighted India’s “longstanding friendship with the Afghan people and the humanitarian assistance that we [India] are carrying out in the country.” The Indian attendance has led to speculation regarding a change in India’s view on engagement with the de facto ruling Taliban regime and whether this change can be translated into any sort of strategic gain for India in post-U.S. Afghanistan.

Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban regime has faced international isolation and condemnation including the freezing of Afghan Central Bank assets worth $7 billion by the U.S. and its partners in the West because of the Taliban’s curbs on women’s rights and education and unresponsiveness toward forming an “inclusive government.”

Countries in Afghanistan’s near and extended neighborhood, including Russia, China, Pakistan, and even India, have maintained unofficial representation in Kabul. Facing the brunt of its deteriorating economic and humanitarian situation in the face of Western obstinacy, the Taliban have been reaching out to countries in the “Eurasian continent,” stretching from “China in the east to [Turkey] in the west and from Russia in the north to India and the Gulf monarchies in the south” in order to attract investments. The Taliban seek to use Afghanistan’s strategic position between Central, South, and West Asia for energy and economic connectivity thereby providing some sort of relief and amelioration. It is this seeming synergy of interests which can be said to have led to the Regional Cooperation Initiative meeting held last week.

On the part of India, while New Delhi immediately shut down its diplomatic mission and evacuated its personnel and staff in the wake of the fall of Kabul in August 2021, India did continue to maintain a sort of presence in Afghanistan via vehicles such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Delhi Regional Security Dialogue.

In 2022, New Delhi took a step further by deploying a junior-level technical team to Kabul to oversee and assist the delivery and distribution of Indian humanitarian aid to the Afghan populace and maintain a de facto diplomatic presence in the country.

Last year, the Afghan embassy in New Delhi was closed on November 23 following the extended tussle between diplomats appointed by the former Republic government and the Taliban. In shutting down the embassy, the Afghan Republic’s ambassador to India Farid Mamundzay accused the Indian authorities of non-cooperation and the Taliban of withholding assistance.

These events have led to speculation that India is trying to establish unofficial ties with the Taliban. In addition, the tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban over the fencing of the Durand Line and the latter’s alleged support for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have led to murmurs in Indian strategic circles about the urgent need to develop some sort of engagement with the Taliban (or with its more pragmatic faction) on security and strategic issues. Moreover, while India has not expressed any intent yet of formalizing diplomatic outreach, such as extending official recognition to the Taliban, New Delhi continues to “engage with the Taliban on various formats” including the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) program and extending an invitation by the Indian embassy in UAE to the Taliban envoy in Abu Dhabi on the occasion of Republic Day in 2024.

In view of the above, the recent Indian participation in the Regional Cooperation Initiative meeting provides a window of opportunity for New Delhi to step up its presence and game in Afghanistan. Moreover, the Taliban’s praise for India’s development aid and the latter’s call and invitation for the continuation of stalled Indian-led and funded projects (some believe in a bid to balance against Pakistani pressure) provide a certain degree of conducive conditions for more robust participation by New Delhi. The need for such an active role has been underlined by the Chinese uptick in consolidating its influence in Afghanistan and within the Taliban, including accepting the credentials of the Taliban ambassador in Beijing, which could have adverse implications for India’s sensitive presence in the region while giving Pakistan further leeway through its “all-weather ally.”

With regard to Indian participation in the Regional Cooperation Initiative, New Delhi should seek and utilize the robust partnership with Russia and its longstanding resilient ties with Iran − countries that have equal stakes in a stable and conflict-free Afghanistan. Joint Indo-Iranian-Russian efforts could be aimed at promotion of the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) as well as kickstarting momentum at Chabahar port − projects that can be linked with the Regional Cooperation Initiative and benefit all parties including India, Iran, Russia, and Afghanistan. The linking between these initiatives would not only allow New Delhi access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan, but also act as a counter or another viable option vis-a vis the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for the Taliban regime.

There remain concerns about Indian outreach to the Taliban alienating the goodwill and relations India has with exiled members of the previous Republic as well as among sections of the Afghan populace. At the same time, realpolitik and India’s current security and strategic interests dictate a different course. As the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate calls for developing a “region-centric narrative,” which would dictate the regime’s relations with its neighbors, India can’t afford to be left out. Participation ensures New Delhi gets to help to frame the narrative in a way that ensures peace and stability for the region, as well as for India.
American diplomats should stay out of Afghanistan (The Hill – opinion)
The Hill [2/8/2024 4:00 PM, Annie Pforzheimer and M. Ashraf Haidari, 1592K, Neutral]
While the world has paid close attention to wars and atrocities elsewhere, Afghanistan’s people have been ruled by a sanctioned extremist group since 2021 that keeps public order through force and coercion. The depth of Taliban depravity includes extrajudicial killings, silencing free speech and even kidnapping teenaged girls on the grounds that they are “improperly” covered and holding them in prison, where they are subject to torture and rape.

On Feb. 18-19, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will meet in Qatar with special envoys for Afghanistan from over 20 countries, plus the European Union and Organization of Islamic Cooperation. This is the second time such a format is being employed in an attempt to bring unified international pressure to mitigate the human rights and security disaster that is Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The Secretary General also is trying to advance the nomination of a new special envoy for Afghanistan, as authorized by the UN Security Council in late December.

This miracle-worker-to-be must focus world attention on how to support a united non-Taliban Afghanistan populace to take part in intra-Afghan talks, while withholding formal recognition from the Taliban until it tangibly implements the international human rights obligations of the Afghan state.

Kathy Gannon, a journalist versed on Afghanistan and the region, wrote recently that the U.S. should “go back to Afghanistan” by reopening an embassy. She argued that this would lead to a deeper understanding of the Taliban and therefore improve our foreign policy. Deep understanding certainly is a policymaking asset. But one must balance that against the strongly negative impact that American “wingtips on the ground” would have on our wider strategic policy goals.

Having an American embassy may appear to be a neutral act — after all, they exist in countries with hostile governments — but sending U.S. diplomats back to Afghanistan without any Taliban concessions would not be neutral. After all, an embassy is not a newspaper bureau of independent foreign correspondents; it is an ecosystem of diplomats whose presence would confer an unearned legitimacy on the Taliban and require a strengthening of ties.

Given ongoing security threats, U.S. diplomats would need Taliban guards on the compound and armed Taliban escorts to move around; those diplomats’ meetings with Afghans would be as honest as a visit to a Soviet-era Potemkin village. Normalization of an inexcusable gender-apartheid regime could follow. A reopened U.S. embassy would lead to other countries opening their missions, serving as an endorsement of the Taliban, which inspires terror groups around the world, thus giving those groups all the blueprint they need to imagine holding their own territory.

So much has been lost since the ill-fated Doha Agreement was signed four years ago. The only lever of international suasion remaining rests with diplomatic recognition and paths to power and money, which the Taliban want to posses without changing their ideology or repression.

Rather than concede to the Taliban, the U.S. and like-minded countries should strengthen their commitment to the Afghan people. For example, in September, during the UN General Assembly High-level Week, foreign ministers should meet with prominent Afghan human rights defenders representing multiple political and ethnic groups. Diplomats should meet, and publicize those encounters, with various Afghan constituencies, particularly women (photographed from the back for safety), business and professional sectors and the youth.

Contact with the Taliban should be downgraded to the lowest possible technical level, without allowing photographs in official settings. UN travel sanctions against specific Taliban officials should be strengthened, and more officials should be listed under the current sanctions regime for harboring terror groups and creating new jihadi-based madrassas for the purpose of indoctrinating Afghan youth, not educating them.

Afghan citizens push back on social media, one of the few semi-free civic spaces still available to them, and international allies should help. There should be a consistent assessment of the Taliban’s measures against women as potentially acts of “gender apartheid” within United Nations circles. The UN and NGOs should launch social media campaigns to highlight the Sustainable Development Goals and the Taliban’s failure to abide by these and Afghanistan’s many international commitments to human rights, including the right to a formal education. Radio campaigns aimed at rural Afghans, especially at-home women, could also support these goals.

International humanitarian relief should continue, but donors need full disclosure of Taliban budget, income and expenditures, and should press them to spend their own money on basic human needs as conditions of continued assistance beyond emergency aid. In this light, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction should investigate how foreign aid could have inadvertently freed up resources from Afghanistan’s national revenues to finance the Taliban’s repressive measures. The findings and recommendations of such an assessment should ensure maximum aid effectiveness and deny the Taliban any opportunity to indirectly benefit from foreign aid that is meant to address the urgent needs of the Afghan people.

The future UN Special Envoy’s nearly impossible job is to be the voice of a unitary international position challenging the Taliban’s flagrant violations of human rights. Opening a bilateral embassy — or in any way upgrading U.S. contact with the Taliban — undermines that envoy, negatively affects American security interests and betrays those in Afghanistan still struggling for their rights.
Pakistan
Pakistan election highlights military’s sway over stormy politics (New York Times)
New York Times [2/8/2024 5:04 PM, Christina Goldbaum and Zia ur-Rehman, 441K, Negative]
Pakistanis have labeled it a “selection” — not an election. Human rights monitors have condemned it as neither free nor fair.

As voters cast ballots on Thursday, the influence of Pakistan’s powerful military and the turbulent state of its politics were on full display. Few doubted which party would come out on top, a reflection of the generals’ ultimate hold on Pakistan’s troubled democracy.

But the military is facing new challenges to its authority from a discontented public, making this an especially fraught moment in the nation’s history.

As results began to trickle in Thursday evening, the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif — the military’s preferred party of the moment — was still expected to win, but it did not look as if it would pull off the easy victory that was widely predicted. Parliamentary candidates allied with another former prime minister, Imran Khan, were neck and neck with Mr. Sharif’s party in many races in Punjab, the country’s most populous province and political heartland.

The election took place in the shadow of a monthslong military campaign to gut the party of Mr. Khan, a former international cricket star and populist leader who was ousted by Parliament in 2022 after falling out with the generals.

While few expect Mr. Khan’s party to win the most seats, its competitiveness showed the deep-seated support Mr. Khan maintains, even as his supporters have faced intense pressure from the military. The tight races and delay in announcing preliminary results also prompted fears among his supporters that the military might tamper with the vote count as the official results are tallied over the coming days.

The tension was underlined on Thursday as Pakistan’s Interior Ministry announced that it had suspended mobile phone service across the country because of security concerns. Some analysts in Pakistan cast it as an effort to keep opposition voters from getting information or coordinating activities.

The crackdown was the latest dizzying swerve in the country’s roller-coaster politics.

Mr. Sharif — who is a leading candidate to become prime minister — himself was ousted when he fell out of favor with the military in 2017, and Mr. Khan, with the military’s support, became prime minister a year later.

Now it is Mr. Khan who is sitting in jail after a bitter split with the military over its political control, while Mr. Sharif — leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or P.M.L.N. — is apparently seen by the generals as the lone figure in Pakistan having the stature to compete with the widely popular Mr. Khan.

Voters on Thursday were choosing members of provincial legislatures and the country’s Parliament, which will appoint the next prime minister, but it could take up to three days for all votes to be officially counted.

It is seen as unlikely that any party will win an outright majority, meaning that the party with the largest share of seats would form a coalition government. Officially, this will be only the third democratic transition between civilian governments in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 240 million people.

On Thursday afternoon outside a polling station in Lahore’s Gawalmandi neighborhood, supporters of Mr. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., chatted as voters made their way through the winding alleyways of the old city and men smoked cigarettes on the balconies above.

The men complained that the mobile service outage had blocked them from using a P.T.I.-sponsored app to help them find their local polling station. The ballots were also particularly confusing, they said. While other parties use a single symbol to represent all their candidates, the authorities issued an individual symbol for every P.T.I. candidate — a move analysts said was designed to confound P.T.I. supporters.

“It was confusing even for me. There were so many symbols, it was hard to find the right one,” said Abdul Rashid, 60, a goldsmith, noting that he was literate, unlike many others in the country who need the ballot symbols to identify their chosen party.

Earlier that morning, the police had threatened to arrest P.T.I. officials as they set up a booth near the polling station to provide information on candidates, according to one official, Muhammad Rafiq Gujjar, 52. The police also forced Mr. Gujjar to cover up all the photos of Mr. Khan at the booth, he said.

Since Pakistan was created in 1947, the military has staged multiple coups and ruled directly for long stretches. Between those periods it has been the invisible force guiding civilian governments.

It has often meddled in election cycles to pave the way for its preferred candidates and to winnow the field of competitors. But the military has used an especially heavy hand ahead of this vote, analysts say, a reflection of the growing anti-military fervor in the country stoked by Mr. Khan.

The crackdown has drawn widespread condemnation from local and international human rights groups. On Tuesday, the United Nations’ top human rights body expressed concern over “the pattern of harassment, arrests and prolonged detentions of leaders.”

The intimidation campaign has come at a particularly turbulent moment. For months after Mr. Khan was removed from office, he railed against the country’s generals and accused them of orchestrating his ouster — a claim they reject. His direct criticism of the military was unheard-of in Pakistan. It inspired his supporters to turn out in droves to vent their anger at the military for its role in his removal.

“Imran Khan is the clearest case of political engineering gone wrong; the army became the victim of its own engineering,” said Zafarullah Khan, an Islamabad-based analyst. “Now civil-military relations are being written on the streets. This is unique in Pakistan.”

After violent protests broke out in May targeting military installations, the generals responded in force. Leaders of Mr. Khan’s party were arrested and ordered to denounce it, and its supporters were also swept up by the police. Mr. Khan was sentenced to a total of 34 years in prison after being convicted in four cases and barred from running in the election.

The authorities also allowed Mr. Khan’s rival, Mr. Sharif, who had been living in exile for years, to return to the country. He quickly became a front-runner in the race after Pakistani courts overturned the corruption convictions that led to his ouster in 2017, and reversed his disqualification from competing in elections.

The military also sought a détente with Mr. Sharif, who has a loyal base of supporters in Punjab, analysts say. The other major political party, the Pakistan People’s Party, does not have nearly the same national appeal.

In Lahore’s Jain Mandir neighborhood, supporters of Mr. Sharif’s party, the P.M.L.N., gathered outside a tent set up to help them identify their polling station. Bright green and yellow banners with photos of Mr. Sharif and other party candidates hung over the crowd. Under the shade of the tarp, men took I.D. cards and handed voters a slip with their polling station and names of their local candidates.

Abdul Karim Butt, 75, sat in a chair, with green P.M.L.N. stickers and a golden pin of a tiger — the party’s symbol — decorating his brown scarf. Mr. Butt said he had supported Mr. Sharif since his first term in office, when he began to build a reputation in Punjab for reviving the economy and improving the province’s infrastructure.

“The work he did in Lahore no one else has done in history. He widened the roads, built many bridges. He changed the entire map of Lahore,” Mr. Butt said.

Mr. Sharif has also pushed for more civilian control of the government and had each of his terms — in 1993, 1999 and 2017 — cut short after falling out with the military. That history raises doubts about how long this latest rapprochement with the generals will last.

While a P.M.L.N. victory appears likely, there are lingering questions about how the vote will ultimately play out. Some analysts believe that the military will not allow Mr. Sharif to become prime minister, given his contentious history with the generals. The military may instead seek to elevate his brother, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who is less popular but much more deferential to the army.

The turmoil has laid out the dismal state of Pakistani politics, dominated by a handful of political dynasties, plagued by corruption and score-settling, and ultimately controlled by the military. In the country’s 76-year history, no prime minister has ever completed a term in office. This election is also the first in decades in which no party has campaigned on a platform of changing that entrenched system.

“All mainstream political parties have accepted the military’s role in politics; there is no challenge,” said Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, a former senator with the Pakistan People’s Party and a vocal critic of the military, who is running in the election as an independent in Islamabad.
Pakistan Sees Results Delay After Turbulent Election (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal [2/8/2024 6:28 PM, Saeed Shah and Waqar Gillani, 810K, Neutral]
A turbulent election was thrown into further question as results were delayed and mobile-phone service remained suspended early Friday, amid early indications of a surprisingly strong showing by the party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The country’s fragile democracy, which has seen periods of civilian government interspersed with military rule, looked like it was facing a further blow. Khan was ousted from power in 2022 after clashing with the military, which is widely believed to have thrown its support behind his opponent, three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The authorities shut off mobile-phone services just as voting began Thursday morning, citing the threat of terrorist attacks. Provisional results—taken unofficially by television channels from polling stations—are usually available by around midnight on the day of the polls. But by 3 a.m. local time on Friday, no results for the national Parliament were available.

The Election Commission’s special secretary, Zafar Iqbal Hussain, blamed “internet problems” without taking questions, in a brief news conference on Friday. The authority had for days previously said that its system for collating the results wasn’t dependent on the internet or mobile-phone services.

Khan’s party declared victory based on unofficial partial results. News channels had reported between around 10% and 50% of the vote count in parliamentary seats across the country. That would upturn expectations in the days preceding Thursday’s polling, after a series of handicaps were placed in its way.

Raoof Hasan, of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, said that the pace of unofficial results coming from individual polling stations first slowed down and then stopped.

“PTI has won this election,” said Hasan. “If, by tampering, this election is stolen, there can be very serious consequences. We won’t accept it and nor will the people of Pakistan.”

Ahsan Iqbal, a senior member of Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N, said that it wasn’t possible to gauge the trend until more than 50% of the vote was in.

“We should wait for the official result,” said Iqbal. “We are confident.”

The other key contender, the Pakistan Peoples Party, didn’t immediately comment on the claim of victory by Khan’s party.

Khan’s party has said it was systematically handicapped in the election campaign, with restrictions on its ability to hold rallies and its candidates and workers facing arrest. It blames the military for the crackdown. Khan himself is barred from running.

Pakistan’s military has admitted to interfering in the country’s politics in the past, but says it no longer does so. In the last election, in 2018, the military was believed to have thrown its support behind Khan’s successful bid for power.

At that 2018 election, the Election Commission’s vote-counting computer system went down for hours, in what many believed was an attempt at manipulating the outcome. The commission said at the time that the outage was because of a technical fault.

Earlier, as polling was under way, many of Khan’s supporters said they believed the military was backing Sharif’s party, but hoped that enough voters had turned out to block that.

“We know the result, but we won’t let them rest easy,” said Suleman Khan, a supporter of Khan’s party in the northern city of Rawalpindi, which houses the headquarters of Pakistan’s military.

Sharif is pledging to restore economic growth and initiate more of the infrastructure projects on which he made his name.

“When Nawaz Sharif comes, everything will be OK,” said Muhammad Irfan, a 34-year-old owner of a toy shop in Rawalpindi, wearing a badge of Sharif’s party on his jacket. “He gets work done. Look where inflation was when he was in office and where it is now.”

Inflation is running at around 30%, which polls show is the top concern for voters.

Khan’s party condemned the mobile-phone outage, and appealed to supporters to make their personal Wi-Fi available to voters. On the streets of Rawalpindi, voters and party officials were visible gathering outside homes that had shared their Wi-Fi, using it mostly to check where voters were registered.

Many voters complained that their registered voting location, or that of family members, had been moved this election. Some said that forced them to spend hours in travel to multiple polling stations or even different constituencies. Some voters found their vote had been transferred to their hometown, where they hadn’t lived for many years.

Mukhtar Khan was out looking for the correct polling station for his 18-year-old son, a first-time voter, on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad. He found that his vote was registered at a different polling station to his wife, while their son had to vote across town.

“This is to throw off new voters,” said Khan. “They know young voters are all inclined towards one party.”

There are more than 20 million first-time voters in this election, out of the 129 million registered voters.

Mobile-phone service is required for people to use the commission’s text-message-based service to check the location of the polling station they must use.

“Elections will be free and fair,” Sikandar Sultan Raja, the country’s chief election commissioner, said Thursday morning, shortly after polls opened. “Voters will be free to cast their vote for their chosen candidate.”

Another puzzle for voters was figuring out the ballot symbol that identifies the candidate from Khan’s party in their constituency after the party was barred by the Supreme Court in January from using its well-known cricket-bat symbol. Many voters are illiterate, but even those who can read are used to looking for that symbol on the ballot.

Some voters said they understood which symbol to vote for but others were confused. One first-time voter, emerging from a polling station in Rawalpindi, said that he had wanted to vote for Khan’s party but realized that he cast his ballot for another candidate.

Khan was arrested in May. Just days ahead of the vote, he was convicted and sentenced on charges of disclosing official secrets, corruption and marrying in contravention of Islamic law.

Pakistan saw a series of terrorist attacks in the days ahead of the polls. The army said 10 soldiers had died in militant attacks during the election campaign. Separately, six police personnel on election duty were killed in a blast on Thursday. Tens of thousands of security personnel were deployed for voter security, the government said.
Pakistan Poll Results Delayed as Imran Khan’s Party Claims Win in First Results (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [2/8/2024 10:18 PM, Faseeh Mangi and Ismail Dilawar, 5543K, Neutral]
Vote-counting delays following Pakistan’s election on Thursday pointed to a disputed result as supporters of jailed former leader Imran Khan claimed a shock victory in a nation where the military retains a heavy influence on politics.

As of 8:15 a.m. in Pakistan on Friday, Pakistan election authorities had announced results of 12 of 265 National Assembly up for grabs, with the party of three-time premier Nawaz Sharif trailing by one to backers of Khan, who are running as independents after his political vehicle was effectively banned from contesting. By this time following Pakistan’s last election in 2018, unofficial counts showed the results of more than 200 seats, with Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf holding a commanding lead.

The delays came after authorities suspended mobile phone services across the country and at least 12 people were killed in militant attacks in remote provinces bordering Afghanistan. In a statement Friday morning, the Interior Ministry said a “lack of communication” caused delays in results due to precautionary security measures.

Both major parties claimed victory. Gohar Khan, the chairman of Imran Khan’s PTI party, said in a post on X that it was leading in more than 150 seats but that “attempts are being made to change the results.” Sharif’s party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, similarly declared it would form a government in Islamabad, with information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb saying the group’s position was “strong.”

While the outcome is far from certain, the delays raise the potential for a disputed result that could generate street protests. Khan, who was imprisoned last year following a conviction in one of more than 170 legal cases filed against him, has been Pakistan’s most popular politician and mobilized demonstrations targeting both Sharif and the military following his ouster in a 2022 confidence vote.

Any victory by Khan’s independents would be an unprecedented situation, generating uncertainty about who would form the next government. That would add to instability in a nuclear-armed country that has the fastest inflation in Asia, tensions with its neighbors and relies on support from the International Monetary Fund to shore up its finances.

“This would create doubts over election results and investors would be watchful if protests broke out,” said Adnan Khan, head of international sales at Intermarket Securities Ltd. “The next couple of days are very important whether people across the country accepts the results or not.”

In a bad sign for Sharif, a senator with his own party, Mushahid Hussain Sayed, tweeted a screenshot of early unofficial counts showing Khan-backed independents with an overwhelming lead, calling it “probably the biggest election upset in Pakistan’s political history in the last 50 years.”

“This is an inflection point for Pakistan,” he told Bloomberg News in a mobile-phone message. “The gap between the Elite and the Street needs to be bridged by giving a healing touch and accept the Popular Will. Any other course would be a recipe for disaster and destabilization!”

Sharif returned from exile in London and was acquitted of corruption charges last year, paving the way for him to run to lead Pakistan for a fourth time. He was seen by analysts as backed by the country’s powerful military as a political figure who could replace Khan.

The next leader will also need to navigate a heavy debt load and negotiate a new bailout from the IMF. The country’s nine-month bailout program from the IMF, Pakistan’s 23rd since independence in 1947, expires next month.

Pakistan’s military has ruled the nation for almost half of its history, and retains outsized influence over elected politicians. Sharif himself was ousted in a 1999 coup and has spent several stints in exile.
Sharif’s party has edge in Pakistan’s delayed election results, with some independent wins reported (AP)
AP [2/9/2024 2:23 AM, Riazatt Butt, 456K, Neutral]
The results of Pakistan’s elections are trickling in after an hours-long delay on Friday, a day after the vote that was marred by sporadic violence, a mobile phone service shutdown and the sidelining of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his party.

The Election Commission of Pakistan announced about 60 results for the 266 seats of the National Assembly or lower house of the parliament by noon, showing the party of the country’s three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had an edge over others.

The remaining results were to be announced by evening, officials said.

Earlier, local media reported victories of dozens of independents backed by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party after the imprisoned Khan was disqualified from contesting the vote because of criminal convictions he contends were politically motivated.

PTI candidates ran as independents after the Supreme Court and Election Commission said they couldn’t use the party symbol — a cricket bat. In Pakistan, parties use symbols to help illiterate voters find them on the ballots. PTI couldn’t hold rallies or open campaign offices, and its online events were blocked, steps it contended were unfair.

The chief election commissioner had previously said the results would be communicated to the oversight body by the early hours of Friday and released to the public after that. But it started happening only on midday Friday. The Interior Ministry attributed the delay to a “lack of connectivity” resulting from security precautions.

Many Pakistani news channels reported that PTI-backed independents were giving the other big parties, led by Sharif and political dynasty scion Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, a run for their money by striding ahead in dozens of constituencies.

Senator Mushahid Hussain, a member of Sharif’s party, called the media tallies “probably the biggest election upset in Pakistan’s political history” in the last 50 years. Withheld results were a recipe for disaster, he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

There are 266 seats up for grabs in the National Assembly, with a further 70 reserved for women and minorities. If no party wins an outright majority, the one with the biggest share of the seats can form a coalition government.

The Election Commission also started announcing the results of the four provincial assemblies in the country. The commission was posting election results on its website more than 15 hours after polls closed.

Sharif struck a confident and defiant note on polling day, brushing off suggestions his Pakistan Muslim League party might not win an outright majority in the parliament. But the mood outside his headquarters was different by nightfall, with sparse crowds and no festivities.

He returned to the country last October after four years of self-imposed exile abroad to avoid serving prison sentences. Within weeks of his return, his convictions were overturned, leaving him free to seek a fourth term in office.
Independents win 47 of 106 seats counted in Pakistan poll, most backed by Imran Khan - Geo News (Reuters)
Reuters [2/8/2024 3:00 AM, Asif Shahzad, 5.2M, Neutral]
Independent candidates contesting Pakistan’s national election, most of whom are backed by former Prime Minister Imran Khan, won in 47 of 106 parliamentary seats as counting progressed on Friday, according to projections by broadcaster Geo News.

Results have been declared by the Election Commission of Pakistan in a total of 57 seats so far, according to the panel’s website.

Elections were held to 265 of the 266 seats in the national assembly and a political party needs 133 seats for a simple majority.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz)(PML-N), which has won at least 17 seats so far, may form a coalition government with independent candidates, Sharif’s aide Ishaq Dar suggested on Friday, Geo reported.

"I am confident that we will form a government," Dar said, adding that his party would concede if any other party emerged a clear winner.
As Vote Counting Continues In Pakistan Election, Early Results Show Ex-PM Sharif’s Party Slightly Ahead (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [2/9/2024 4:30 AM, Staff, 235K, Neutral]
Vote counting continues on February 9 in Pakistan following parliamentary elections, with early results indicating that the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is slightly ahead of candidates endorsed by the country’s most popular politician, jailed ex-premier Imran Khan.

The February 8 vote took place amid rising political tensions and an upsurge of violence that prompted authorities to deploy thousands of extra security forces across the country and shut down mobile phone service in border areas.

The government said the suspension of mobile networks was the cause for the unusually slow pace of the counting process, although it had earlier said that mobile service had been restored in several big cities.

By 11 a.m. local time, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had announced only 47 results for the 265 National Assembly mandates.

So far, the ECP announced, Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PLM-N) had garnered 17 seats, while Khan-backed candidates had won 14.

Sharif’s PML-N has been predicted to win the most seats in the vote.

Khan, 71, a retired cricket superstar who was prime minister in 2018-22, leads the Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf (PTI) and still enjoys huge popularity, but he is in prison after convictions on corruption charges and has been barred from holding office for a decade.

The Pakistan People’s Party, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a former foreign minister who is the son of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, could play kingmaker if no single party receives enough parliamentary seats to form a government outright.

The new parliament will have to deal with galloping inflation running close to 30 percent and an acute political crisis prompted by Khan’s jailing ahead of the vote.

The ECP declared the election to fill the seats of the national assembly and four provincial assemblies successful, with ECP chief Sikandar Sultan Raja saying the polls had been "100 percent transparent and peaceful," despite deadly violence that claimed five lives on election day following another 30 election-related deaths on February 7 in the southwestern Balochistan Province.

More than 650,000 army, paramilitary, and police personnel were deployed across Pakistan on election day tasked with ensuring the security of the vote by acting Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar, who also ordered the closure of borders with Iran and Afgahnistan.

The suspension of mobile signal sparked severe criticism from the opposition and human rights watchdogs, with Khan’s PTI calling the measure "a severe assault on democracy" and a "cowardly attempt by those in power to stifle dissent, manipulate the election’s outcome, and infringe upon the rights of the Pakistani people."

The U.S. State Department said it was concerned about steps taken to "restrict freedom of expression" in Pakistan, especially related to phone and Internet access.

Nearly 18,000 candidates stood for seats in the national and provincial assemblies.
Pakistan election results show tight race with a long way to go (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [2/9/2024 3:18 AM, Adnan Aamir, 293K, Neutral]
Pakistan was still awaiting a clear picture of its election results on Friday, with official numbers unusually slow to come in.

The first official preliminary results showed the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif locked in a surprisingly close race with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of his jailed nemesis and fellow former leader, Imran Khan.

But there was still a long way to go, with the seat counts creeping up only little by little.

More than nine hours after the polls closed, the Election Commission of Pakistan had yet to announce official results for even a single constituency. Sources within the ECP blamed the delay on a suspension of mobile services, but the slow count fanned widespread speculation of possible manipulation and created space for political parties to shape the narrative.

The chief election commissioner, Sikandar Sultan Raja, had said days ago that the results would be announced by 1 a.m. local time on Friday. At about 2:40 a.m., the ECP ordered provincial commissioners and returning officers to declare results in half an hour or face "strict action."

Heading into election day, the PML-N had appeared set to cruise to victory as the preferred choice of the influential military. But early signals of the results put wind in the sails of Khan’s PTI, potentially spelling a new phase of political instability that sent Pakistan’s stock index plunging after trading opened.

The PTI was contesting without its popular former cricket star leader, who was hit with multiple prison sentences for allegations of corruption and other charges that he denies. Its candidates were also forced to effectively run as independents after the party was stripped of its cricket bat electoral symbol on a technicality, meaning it could not contest as a cohesive unit.

Yet early, unofficial tallies compiled by local media outlets showed PTI-backed candidates leading races for over 100 of the 266 National Assembly seats.

Although those numbers were far from final, the PTI quickly seized on them, saying it was in position to win and preparing to claim foul play if the official count turns against its candidates. "PTI is in position to make the next Federal and Provincial Government in Pakistan," Secretary-General Omar Ayub Khan said in a message posted on X. "We demand that there is no manipulation of results."

Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari, international media adviser for the PTI, told reporters that PTI-supported candidates had an early lead in 114 out of 270 constituencies, giving it a significant advantage over other parties.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources within the PTI and other parties expressed concerns that the counting could be manipulated.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari -- the chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) who served as foreign minister in the coalition that ousted Imran Khan in an April 2022 no-confidence vote -- expressed surprise at the delayed counting but was more cautious. "Results are incredibly slow coming in," he wrote on X. "However, initial results are very encouraging!"

As the country waited, Nawaz Sharif, his brother and fellow former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and his daughter Maryam were seen leaving the PML-N office in Lahore, where Nawaz had been expected to deliver a victory speech. Later on Friday morning, media reports said that the two brothers were projected to win their own seats.

The PML-N took to X to blast other parties for premature reactions. "Decisions of elections are not made by showing 10, 15% voting rate and propaganda," but only after the final results are announced, it said.

International scrutiny of the process was intensifying. The U.S. State Department said on Thursday that it was concerned about measures to "restrict freedom of expression" in Pakistan, in relation to the internet shutdown. Amnesty International called the cutoff "a blunt attack on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly."

The Interior Ministry on Thursday night said connectivity was partially restored, although it still appeared to be down in many areas.

U.S. congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said in a post on X: "We must stand with the Pakistani people as their democracy is at serious risk. They should be able to elect their leaders without interference and tampering with the process, and the U.S. must ensure our tax dollars don’t go to anyone undermining that."

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a statement to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan, encouraged "all political leaders and society segments to maintain a calm atmosphere, as well as refrain from the use of violence and any actions that could increase tensions."

Earlier, on Thursday morning, large voter turnouts were observed in Islamabad, the capital.

Maria Bibi was thrilled to cast her vote. "The internet and phone network suspension caused me a lot of trouble in finding my polling station," the 45-year-old homemaker said, as voters needed to send SMS text messages to determine their assigned stations. "However, I did not lose hope and ensured that my vote was cast."

She added, "I hope that our votes do not get manipulated."

Asad Toor, a political analyst based in Islamabad, said the situation was unprecedented. "The massive voting received by PTI-backed candidates is a vote against the involvement of the military establishment in politics," he told Nikkei Asia.

Even some politicians opposed to the PTI acknowledged that the party appeared to be having a better-than-expected night.

"People have spoken and voted for Imran Khan in huge numbers," said one such leader, who did not want to be named. "Now, even if election results are manipulated, the support base for Khan has been confirmed and it will prevail despite all strong-arm tactics."

Experts stressed that this is a volatile moment and that a fair count is vital.

"What is at stake is not just democracy but the state itself," said Adeel Malik, associate professor of development economics in the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development.
Ex-Pakistani PM Sharif strikes confident note in vote marred by controversy, mobile phone shutdown (AP)
AP [2/8/2024 3:21 PM, Munir Ahmed and Riazat Butt, 179K, Neutral]
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed confidence his party would win national elections Thursday, a vote that has been marred by violence and controversy, especially a nationwide mobile phone shutdown and the imprisonment of a popular contender.

A day before the election, at least 30 people were killed in bombings at political offices, and dozens of attacks on Thursday appeared aimed at disrupting the balloting. The military said 12 people were killed and 39 wounded in 51 attacks in the country that has been beset by surging militancy. The unprecedented total mobile phone shutdown, which was intended to prevent disruptions and flash protests, drew condemnation from rights groups.

The violence, political feuding and a seemingly intractable economic crisis have left many voters disillusioned and raised questions about whether a new government can bring more stability to the troubled Western ally.

But Sharif brushed off suggestions his Pakistan Muslim League party might not win an outright majority in the parliament and would need to form a coalition to govern.

“For God’s sake, don’t mention a coalition government,” he said after casting his vote in the upscale Model Town neighborhood of Lahore.

Though there were hours of polling still to go, he even suggested he was thinking about which posts would go to his family members — including his younger brother and former prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif.

“Once this election is over,” Nawaz Sharif said, “we will sit down and decide who is PM (prime minister) and who is CM (chief minister)” of Punjab province, a job that is regarded as a stepping stone to becoming premier.

The polls closed Thursday evening, and ballot counting began. Sikandar Sultan Raja, chief election commissioner, said officials would communicate the results to the oversight body by early Friday, with the outcome released to the public after that.

Deep political divisions make a coalition government seem more likely than Sharif let on. If no single party wins a simple majority, the first-placed gets a chance to form a coalition.

Still, that Sharif appears to be the main contender represents a remarkable reversal of fortunes for the three-time prime minister, who returned to the country last October after four years of self-imposed exile abroad to avoid serving prison sentences. Within weeks of his return, his convictions were overturned, leaving him free to seek a fourth term in office.

His archrival, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, meanwhile, is behind bars and banned from running after a series of convictions, including some just days before the election. Khan was ousted from power in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 and now has more than 150 legal cases hanging over him.

His supporters believe the charges were trumped up as part of an effort to hobble the popular cricket star-turned-Islamist politician, who in his waning days in power began to criticize the country’s military, which has long played an outsized role in politics.

Candidates from his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party have been forced to run as independents after the Supreme Court and Election Commission said they can’t use the party symbol — a cricket bat. In Pakistan, parties use symbols to help illiterate voters find them on the ballots.

Khan is only allowed to watch the state broadcaster PTV in prison, and he gets one newspaper a day, the English-language daily Dawn. He planned to watch TV and read the paper on election day, his party said, and his lawyers will brief him when they get the chance to see him.

Political analyst Azim Chaudhry referred to the way Khan’s party was treated as “pre-poll rigging.”

“The whole election process seems to be a coronation,” he said.

In the Sharif stronghold of Lahore, there was nonetheless a robust turnout for Khan’s party.

In the Ghauri Shahu neighborhood, Kashfa Zain said she left the house at 6:30 a.m. to make sure she was on time to cast her vote for one of Khan’s candidates.

“My kids were impressing on me how important it was to get here early. The kids are making such an effort with this election. They know all about it. They are all voting for PTI,” as Khan’s party is known, she said.

Her daughter Ilham, 19, studied the party’s policies and figures on Instagram, including which candidates were using which symbols. “They went through it several times,” Kashfa Zain said.

Sharif’s supporters appeared to express less enthusiasm and determination, even in his own constituency. One voter said he had to vote for the family because they were his neighbors and he saw them almost every day.

“They are good for the economy. They are good for industry,” said photographer Shahrukh Bhatti. “They have good controls on foreign exchange. But people are so demoralized about this vote,” he said, throwing his hands up as a sign of helplessness.

“It’s being controlled by outside forces,” he said, a reference to the country’s military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its history and still ultimately decides who comes to power.

The only other real contender is the Pakistan People’s Party. It has a power base in the south and is led by a rising star in national politics — Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the son of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

The Sharifs and Bhutto-Zardari are traditional rivals but have joined forces against Khan in the past. Analysts predict the race will come down to the parties of Nawaz Sharif and Bhutto-Zardari, who is unlikely to secure the premiership on his own, but he could be part of a Sharif-led coalition.

As voters headed to polls, hundreds of thousands of security forces fanned out across the country. The stoppage of all mobile phone services raised further concerns about the fairness of the vote with people unable to make calls or send text messages.

Rights group Amnesty International condemned the shutdown.

“It is reckless to impede access to information as people head out to polling stations on the heels of devastating bomb blasts and what has been an intense crackdown on the opposition in the lead-up to the elections,” said Livia Saccardi, interim deputy director for South Asia.

Despite the show of force, there were a handful of attacks.

In the northwest, attackers set off a bomb and then opened fire on a police van, killing five officers. Separately, gunmen fired on troops, killing a soldier, officials said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for either attack.

On Wednesday, two bombings at separate political offices killed at least 30 people in southwestern Baluchistan province.

Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar congratulated the nation on the elections. Without sharing details, he said turnout was high and that “voices, expressed through the votes, will contribute to the fortification of our democracy.”

In Lahore, mother and daughter Risham and Bishmah Ahmer were early arrivals at their polling station. Bishmah Ahmer, a 20-year-old first-time voter and electrical engineering student, said she hoped there wouldn’t be any cheating.

“I want a government that creates more job opportunities. I also want better education and health care systems,” she said.

Her mother was disappointed at the treatment of Khan and his party — but wasn’t deterred. “It’s important for us to vote, it’s our responsibility.”
UN chief concerned by violence, communication restriction on Pakistan election day (Reuters)
Reuters [2/8/2024 9:07 PM, Michelle Nichols and Kanishka Singh, 5239K, Neutral]
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday expressed concern about violence in Pakistan and the suspension of mobile communications services on election day in the South Asian nation, his spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Pakistan counted votes, opens new tab after polling ended on Thursday in a general election marred by militant attacks and suspension of mobile phone services, with no indication of a clear leader hours after voting closed - an unusual delay compared to previous polls.

Mobile phone services were suspended early on Thursday and were being partially resumed late into the night, the Interior Ministry said late on Thursday, citing security reasons for the suspension, which was also condemned by rights groups such as Amnesty International.

The main contest was expected to be between candidates

, opens new tab backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, whose party won the last national election, and the Pakistan Muslim League of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whom analysts say is backed by the powerful military.

"As Pakistan awaits the results of the elections, the secretary-general encourages all political leaders and society segments to maintain a calm atmosphere, as well as refrain from the use of violence and any actions that could increase tensions," U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

"It is important for all candidates and supporters to ensure that human rights and the rule of law are fully respected in the interest of the Pakistani people and (to) resolve any disputes that might arise through established legal procedures," the spokesperson added.

Earlier this week, the U.N. human rights office denounced violence against political parties and candidates in the lead-up to Thursday’s vote.

It particularly voiced concern over the "pattern of harassment, arrests and prolonged detentions of leaders and supporters" of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) party.

Multiple legal cases have been brought against Khan, which disqualified him as a candidate and sentenced him to long prison terms. He denies wrongdoing. Khan was ousted in 2022 after falling out with the country’s powerful military, which denies meddling in politics.

Thousands of troops were deployed on the streets in Pakistan and at polling stations across the country.

Despite the heightened security, nine people, including two children, were killed on Thursday in bomb blasts, grenade attacks and shootings.

At least another 26 were killed on Wednesday in two explosions near electoral candidates’ offices in the southwestern province of Balochistan. Islamic State later claimed responsibility for those attacks.

Earlier on Thursday, the U.S. State Department also said it was concerned about steps taken to "restrict freedom of expression" in Pakistan, especially related to phone and internet access.
Pakistan’s TTP Challenge and Afghanistan-Pakistan Relations (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [2/8/2024 9:22 AM, Nazir Ahmad Mir, 201K, Negative]
Days ahead of Pakistan’s crucial, though highly controversial, national and provincial elections on February 8, over 30 terrorists stormed the Chodwan police station in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in the early hours of February 5, killing 10 security forces. Terror attacks in Pakistan have increased both in number and intensity since the return of the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan. 2023 recorded a 69 percent increase in terror attacks, killing 974 people and wounding 1,351.

The latest attacks came against the backdrop of the Pakistan chief of army staff’s recent statement, in which he warned that the Pakistani forces were prepared to protect every citizen against enemies of Pakistan. Speaking to students gathered from across the country on January 24, General Asim Munir made it clear who those enemies are: “When it comes to the safety and security of every single Pakistani, the whole of Afghanistan can be damned.” Bringing up the history of the rather strained relations between the two countries, Munir highlighted the fact that Afghanistan had opposed Pakistan’s United Nations membership after its formation in the late 1940s.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have generally had unfriendly relations, barring the brief period when the Afghan Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001. One of the main disputes has been the border between two countries, the Durand Line, leading to other issues like smuggling due to the free movement of the people living across the border and meddling in each other’s internal affairs. The porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan remains pertinent today, as, according to Pakistan, terrorists use the border to enter Pakistan to carry out subversive activities.

The issue of terrorism has sown the seeds of mistrust and anger between the two countries. After the return of the Taliban to Afghanistan in August 2021, Islamabad had expected that security in Pakistan would improve; that has not happened. The Taliban, who were seen as puppets of the Pakistan Army, have denied the allegation that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), often called the Pakistani Taliban, is operating from Afghan territory and said that Pakistan’s security was “not our responsibility.”

Following their removal from power in 2001, the Afghan Taliban were supported by Islamabad in their fight against U.S.-led foreign and local troops in Afghanistan. Apart from the view that a pro-Pakistan Afghan Taliban regime in Kabul would be helpful in containing security threats emerging from the eastern border, Pakistani officials hoped that the Afghan Taliban might be flexible about accepting the Durand Line as a permanent border. However, since the Afghan Taliban’s return to Afghanistan, not only have the Taliban refused to accept the Durand Line, but terror attacks have increased in Pakistan.

The upsurge in terror attacks in Pakistan is linked with the space that anti-Pakistan forces, like the TTP and others, have in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s return to power in the country. Pakistan has raised the issue with the Taliban, but the latter do not appear to be willing to act against the TTP. Finally, in October 2023 Islamabad decided to expel “illegal Afghan nationals” staying in Pakistan. The authorities claimed that some of these “illegal migrants” were found involved in the recent terror attacks.

The decision was controversial as well as miscalculated. It damaged the goodwill that some Afghans had for Pakistan and is unlikely to resolve the problem of terrorism. It is possible that some Afghan refugees might have been involved in terror attacks, as Pakistan provided some evidence for that. But it seems impossible to address the issue by acting against over a million Afghan refugees, as the continuation of terror attacks has underlined. This is more problematic given the stated claim of Islamabad that terrorists enter Pakistan by crossing the porous Durand Line. It appears that the decision to expel the Afghan refugees was a tactic to pressure the Taliban to be mindful of Pakistan’s security concerns.

On their side, however, the Taliban are dealing with food scarcity and the economic crisis under international sanctions. Taking care of the Afghans returning from Pakistan would increase the challenge. The Taliban reacted strongly, therefore, by calling Pakistan’s decision “unacceptable.”

The Taliban have maintained the position that under their watch no one is allowed to use Afghan territory against any other country. At the same time, they also said that they had arrested some TTP members. Furthermore, when the chief of the Jamaat Ulema-e-Islami (JUI-F) Maulana Fazlur Rehman visited Afghanistan on the Taliban’s invitation, to find a possible common ground to mitigate the tension between the two countries, apart from meeting the Taliban officials, Rehman also met the TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud and Hafiz Gul Bahadur. This validated Islamabad’s claim that the TTP is present in Afghanistan, and, more importantly, proved the TPP leadership is in contact with the Afghan Taliban, the meeting was possible only because of that.

In addition to the long-standing problem of cross-border terrorism, new issues are cropping up as both countries try to secure their national interests. One recent example is the rhetorical attacks the two countries lodged against each other over the issue of water sharing of their common rivers. In December 2023, the interim interior minister of Balochistan, Jan Achakzai, called Kabul’s proposal to construct the Gambiri Dam on the Kunar River a “hostile act against Pakistan.”

Dam construction on common rivers like the Kabul River has also invoked skepticism in the past. Islamabad claims that these projects would decrease water flow to the lower riparian areas in Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province particularly. Furthermore, any external investment in dam construction, from India particularly, is likely to be seen with skepticism, like the Shahtoot Dam on the Kabul River, which invoked a reaction from Islamabad.

In this situation, two neighboring countries are continuing to pursue their national interests with a “zero-sum” mindset amid the existing environment of mistrust. Pakistan, along with China, Iran, and Russia, was planning to convey concerns over the issue of terrorism to the Taliban. Islamabad hoped that presenting a united front with key neighbors would convince the Taliban to take action on these shared concerns.

However, the Taliban artfully convened a multinational conference, titled “Afghanistan’s Regional Cooperation Initiative,” in Kabul on January 29 and invited other countries, including India, Turkey, Indonesia and the Central Asian countries. The Taliban’s goal was reportedly to “counter the move” from Pakistan, China, Russia, and Iran to pressure the Taliban on terrorism.

The Taliban are likely to expand their options by inviting other countries to invest in Afghanistan, guaranteeing them, in return, that the Afghan territory would not be used against the interests of these countries. In this way, they can to a great extent defuse the pressure coming from Pakistan.

Islamabad has been left frustrated because of the Taliban’s change in the approach toward Pakistan’s concerns. From their side, Afghanistan may not be able to act against the TTP – or may even want them as leverage against Pakistan to force the latter to be mindful of their concerns.

The tensions between Islamabad and Kabul will rise if the TTP continues to carry out attacks inside Pakistan, leading to more complications. The recent upsurge in attacks has created serious threats in Pakistan, even forcing the caretaker government in Balochistan to ban public gatherings and rallies ahead of the country’s elections on February 8.
India
India’s ruling party targets unmarried couples living together with new law (Washington Post)
Washington Post [2/8/2024 9:30 AM, Anant Gupta, 6902K, Neutral]
Want to move in with your boyfriend or girlfriend? If you are in India’s state of Uttarakhand, you’ll have to register your relationship with the authorities according to a new law — or face up to six months in prison and a $300 fine.

The rules for unmarried, cohabiting partners, called “live-in couples” in India, are part of the controversial new Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand state, which has been a long-standing campaign promise of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP and its political allies have for decades argued that India needs to replace the various religious laws governing marriage and inheritance — especially for Muslims — with a single national code. This week, the party began a campaign of gradually overhauling these laws state by state. At least two other BJP-ruled states have started the process of passing similar legislation.

Uttarakhand, where the Beatles once meditated and practiced yoga in the 1960s, became the first Indian state to do it, stirring intense debate in India as critics warn that the new measure amounts to state intrusion into individual freedoms and privacy.

While a lot of Indians, including opponents of the ruling party, agree that a new, progressive legal code is needed to bring about equality and overhaul the country’s complex religious and customary laws, many were surprised to find stringent rules governing live-in couples tucked inside Uttarakhand’s 740-page law.

The new law will create the office of a registrar who will issue certificates for live-in couples who will have to report the beginning and end of their relationships. Under these rules, the registrar can summon couples to seek more information before issuing a certificate and even reject their applications.

Neighbors can also inform on live-in couples suspected of not having the necessary certificates. If either of the applicants are found to be below 21, the registrar will inform their parents through local police.

Experts and activists have expressed ambivalence about the coercive aspects of the new law, such as strict punishments for presenting false information and failure to apply within 30 days of receiving a notice from the registrar, saying this contradicts legislation’s supposedly progressive thrust. They also worry about nosy neighbors engaging in more surveillance and “snitching.”

The new code remains silent on the question of live-in relationships that are not between men and women.

Many in India particularly objected to the mandatory registration requirement for live-in couples and pointed out that registration for married couples remains voluntary. Bengaluru-based independent researcher Mary E. John argued that the legislation was bound to encourage people to invade the privacy of others and make “deviants” out of those who opt into live-in relationships instead of getting married conventionally. Many unmarried couples face trouble renting apartments.

“The idea that people in a society can police each other is horrible. Women are the first to get affected,” John said. “Far from offering more freedom, this UCC will lead to more surveillance.”

The rules specifically exclude live-in relationships in which one of the partners misrepresent their identity, which critics allege is a clear reference to the Hindu nationalist obsession with so called “love jihad,” of Muslim men seducing Hindu women with the aim of converting them.

The universal code has been a key agenda item for the BJP, along with the scrapping of majority Muslim Kashmir’s special constitutional status and the construction of a Hindu temple on the remains of a destroyed mosque in Ayodhya. Hindu nationalists see it as a pushback against privileges extended to minorities, especially Muslims, under the Indian constitution.

Proponents of the code say it outlaws polygamy, protects women from men who conceal their marital status or seek to forcibly convert them and safeguards inheritance rights for children born out of wedlock. But Muslims insist there is a sectarian bias, noting that while many of their customs are targeted, indigenous tribes are exempted on the grounds of preserving their traditions.

On Tuesday, with national elections just months away, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami presented the code in the Uttarakhand assembly amid loud chants of “Jai Shri Ram,” or victory to Lord Ram, raised by fellow BJP lawmakers.

“It is a matter of great pride for us that Uttarakhand has become the first state to enact the Uniform Civil Code,” Dhami wrote in an X post. “This is not just a coincidence but a golden opportunity for the state to show the rest of the country the path toward equality and uniformity.”

But the live-in aspect of the code also received its share of ridicule. In the Times of India broadsheet, a cartoon depicted a bureaucrat sitting in bed with a couple asking them to do “biometrics first, biology later.” Some Indian users on X, formerly known as Twitter, wondered how the law would affect the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a former Indian prime minister and founding president of the BJP who was in a live-in relationship with a married woman for a substantial part of his public life.

While newspaper editorials measured their words in warning against the law’s “potential to encourage vigilantism,” one veteran columnist and talk show host went as far as drawing parallels to Afghanistan under the Taliban in a piece published online.
Indian town sets a curfew and orders police to shoot violators after deadly clashes over a mosque (AP)
AP [2/9/2024 3:07 AM, Biswajeet Banerjee, 456K, Negative]
Authorities in a northern Indian town imposed an indefinite curfew and ordered police to shoot violators after clashes over the construction of a Muslim seminary and a mosque left two people dead and more than 150 injured, officials said Friday.

The violence Thursday also led authorities to shut down internet services and schools in Haldwani, Uttarakhand state government official Chief Radha Raturi said.

The situation was brought under control with nearly 4,000 police officers rushing to the area, said police officer A.P. Anshuman. He said police were ordered to shoot protesters violating the curfew.

On Thursday, thousands of protesters tried to block government officials and police who arrived to demolish the seminary and mosque following a court order that the structures were being built on government land without local authorization, Anshuman said.

As violence escalated, police fired live ammunition and tear gas to disperse protesters using petrol bombs and stones to attack a police station and set several vehicles on fire, Anshuman said.

Government administrator Vandana Singh Chauhan said two people died in the violence, over 150 police officers were injured and several people were hospitalized.

Anshuman did not say whether police fire killed the protesters. He also didn’t identify the religion of the victims.

Abhinav Kumar, the state director-general of police, said the situation in the town was tense but under control Friday, with protesters dispersed.

Haldwani is about 270 kilometers (170 miles) northeast of New Delhi.

Muslim groups and rights organizations have accused India’s Hindu-nationalist government of demolishing their homes and businesses in the past. Officials have defended their actions, saying they are only targeting illegal buildings, but critics call it a growing pattern of “bulldozer justice” aimed at punishing activists from the minority group.

In a report released this week, Amnesty International condemned the several instances of bulldozers razing Muslims’ homes, businesses and places of worship, which it said was often done under the guise of illegal encroachment and without adequate notice.

“The unlawful demolition of Muslim properties by the Indian authorities, peddled as ‘bulldozer justice’ by political leaders and media, is cruel and appalling. Such displacement and dispossession is deeply unjust, unlawful and discriminatory,” said Agnès Callamard, the rights group’s secretary general.

The group’s researchers found that between April and June 2022, authorities in five states used demolitions as punishment following incidents of communal violence or protests, and documented at least 128 demolitions during this period.

Critics and opponents have long accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of looking the other way and sometimes enabling hate speech against Muslims, who comprise 14% of India’s 1.4 billion people.

Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party denies the accusations.
Violent protests in Indian city kills two, more than 80 injured (Reuters)
Reuters [2/9/2024 3:55 AM, Saurabh Sharma and Rupam Jain, 5.2M, Negative]
Two people were killed and more than 80 injured in violent protests in India’s northern city of Haldwani following a government demolition drive against what it calls illegal encroachments, officials said on Friday.

The violence erupted on Thursday when Uttarakhand state officials moved to demolish a property that an official said was neither registered as a madrasa nor as a place to offer Islamic prayers, though some locals considered it a religious site.

"I can confirm two have lost their lives and three people are serious (injured)," said senior police official Prahlad Narayan Meena. "Over 80 suffered injuries due to stone pelting, including some police and reporters."

Vandana, the district magistrate of Nainital where Haldwani is located, told a press conference the demolition drive and its aftermath were "not communal and should not be seen as such".

The officer, who goes by one name, said the protests were linked to the government drive to demolish a "property that is neither registered as religious site nor has it been given any such recognition. Some call the structure a madrasa".

Sumit Hridayesh, a state lawmaker from the opposition Congress party who represents Haldwani, said the violence was a result of "hasty action" by the administration. He said locals of the area, including Muslim clerics, should have been taken into confidence before starting the drive.

Uttarakhand’s chief minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami, said the government would take the "strictest action against rioters and miscreants".

"Police have been given clear instructions to deal strictly with unruly elements," he said in a statement. "Every rioter who indulged in arson and stone pelting is being identified. No miscreant who disturbs harmony and peace will be spared."

Haldwani is under curfew for a second day.
India Will Seek an End to WTO’s 1998 Tariff Freeze on Digital Trade (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [2/8/2024 5:16 AM, Shruti Srivastava, 5543K, Neutral]
India is seeking to end a freeze on countries taxing electronic trade, a move that would allow tariffs to be imposed on anything from software downloads to video games.

New Delhi will ask World Trade Organization members to lift a moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the discussions aren’t public. The issue will come up for discussion at the WTO’s ministerial meeting in Abu Dhabi in February.

The WTO has had a moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions since 1998, and members have extended the rule every two years. India and other developing nations like South Africa say the restriction leads to a loss of tariff revenue and affects their trade competitiveness.

India wants to be able to tax goods that are embedded in digital trade, the person said. It will also push the WTO to bring clarity on the definition of goods in e-commerce, the person said.

Global businesses have opposed the lifting of the moratorium, urging WTO members to keep the restrictions in place in order to help the post-pandemic recovery of the industry and to preserve supply chains.
India Ends Free Border Movement With Myanmar, Citing Security (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [2/8/2024 5:51 AM, Eltaf Najafizada and Sudhi Ranjan Sen, 5543K, Neutral]
India has decided to withdraw the free land movement arrangement with Myanmar, citing rising migration that’s stoking security concerns.

The decision to scrap the free movement regime was “to ensure the internal security of the country and to maintain the demographic structure of India’s North Eastern States bordering Myanmar,” Home Minister Amit Shah said in a post on X. The home ministry has recommended “immediate suspension” of the free movement that was implemented in 2018.

Shah’s remarks come after the country’s foreign ministry issued a statement advising Indians not to travel

to the Southeast Asian nation’s Rakhine state due to a “deteriorating” security situation and telecommunications problems. It added that people who are already in the state should leave immediately.

It will immediately impact thousands of people living on the either side of the India-Myanmar border. The two neighbors share an unfenced border of 1,643 kilometer (994 miles) that stretches across India’s four northeastern states.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government implemented the free movement regime in 2018 after improvement of the security situation in the north-eastern states. The agreement allowed locals from either side some access across the border.

However, deadly ethnic violence that roiled Manipur state bordering Myanmar since early last year has pushed India to look at making its borders impenetrable.

Earlier this week, Shah said in a post on X that India has decided to construct a fence and a patrol track all along the Indo-Myanmar border.
NSB
340 Myanmar troops flee into Bangladesh during fighting with armed ethnic group (AP)
AP [2/8/2024 10:06 AM, Staff, 6902K, Neutral]
About 340 members of Myanmar’s Border Guard Police and soldiers have fled into Bangladesh during fighting with an ethnic minority army, Bangladesh’s foreign minister said Thursday.

Hasan Mahmud said 340 security personnel had entered Bangladesh by Wednesday. He said Bangladesh is having discussions with Myanmar’s government about the issue and that it is willing to take them back.

Mahmud made the comments while on a visit to India, his first since becoming foreign minister last month.

Earlier this week, Bangladesh’s border agency said some Myanmar troops had entered in recent days during fighting with the Arakan Army in Myanmar’s Rakhine state bordering Bangladesh. It was the first time that Myanmar forces have been known to flee into Bangladesh since an alliance of ethnic minority armies in Myanmar launched an offensive against the military government late last year.

Officials said the troops that entered had been disarmed and taken to safe places.

Mahmud said he had also raised the issue with India, which shares a 1,643-kilometer (1,020-mile) border with Myanmar and is home to thousands of refugees from Myanmar in different states. Indian officials in November estimated that thousands had entered northeastern states in India to flee heavy fighting in Myanmar’s western Chin state.

Separately on Thursday, India’s Home Ministry announced that it would end visa-free movement between India and Myanmar “to ensure the internal security of the country.” The Free Movement Regime, as it is known, is an agreement between the two countries that allows people living along the border to travel up to 16 kilometers (10 miles) inside the other country without a visa.

The Arakan Army is the military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority that seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. It has been attacking army outposts in the western state since November.

It is part of an alliance of ethnic minority armies called the Three Brotherhood Alliance that launched an offensive in October and gained strategic territory in Myanmar’s northeast bordering China. Its success was seen as a major defeat for the military government, which seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and is now embroiled in a wide-ranging civil war.

Bangladesh shares a 271-kilometer (168-mile) border with Buddhist-dominated Myanmar and hosts more than 1 million Muslim Rohingya refugees, many of whom fled from Myanmar starting in August 2017 when its military launched a brutal “clearance operation” against them following attacks by an insurgent group.
India to replace military personnel in Maldives with civilians after president demanded they leave (AP)
AP [2/8/2024 7:47 AM, Ashok Sharma, 6902K, Neutral]
India on Thursday said it will replace its military personnel in Maldives with civilian technical staff who will operate three aircraft from India that provide humanitarian services.

The decision comes after new Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu demanded that the Indian military personnel be withdrawn by March 15.

At least 75 Indian military personnel are believed to be in Maldives and their known activities include transporting patients from remote islands and rescuing people at sea. India earlier gave Maldives a Dornier airplane and two helicopters.

Tensions between India and Maldives have grown since Muizzu came to power last year and adopted a pro-China stance.

The Maldives Foreign Ministry said on Jan. 2 that officials from two countries met in New Delhi and agreed that India would begin withdrawing its troops from the Maldives on March 10 and complete the process by May 10.

Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters on Thursday that the Indian military personnel “would be replaced by competent Indian technical persons.” He did not elaborate.

After taking power, Muizzu visited China ahead of India and said Maldives’ small size is not a license for anyone to bully the country. His comments were an apparent response to social media calls in India for tourists to boycott Maldives after three Maldives deputy ministers made derogatory posts against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The dispute began in January when Modi posted pictures on X, formerly known as Twitter, of himself strolling on the beach and snorkeling in Lakshadweep, an Indian archipelago that his government believes has untapped tourism potential.

Some in Maldives saw it as an attempt to lure tourists away from its sandy white beaches and luxury island resorts.

Muizzu suspended the deputy ministers, saying their comments did not reflect government policy. However, Muizzu after returning from China announced plans to end Maldives’ dependence on India and find alternate places for Maldivians to obtain education and health services and import staples and medicines.
Central Asia
Rights Watchdog Urges Kazakh Authorities To Release Journalist, Drop Extremism Charges (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [2/8/2024 7:23 AM, Staff, 223K, Negative]
Human Rights Watch has urged Kazakh authorities to drop extremism charges and immediately release independent journalist Duman Mukhammedkarim, whose trial is scheduled to start on February 12.

In a February 8 statement, HRW called the charges against Mukhammedkarim "unfounded," noting that the Central Asian nation’s authorities "ramp up prosecutions against critics on similar charges."

"Kazakhstan authorities are trying to muzzle an outspoken, independent journalist who has repeatedly criticized the authorities and sought to exercise his right to peaceful assembly," HRW’s senior Central Asia researcher Mihra Rittmann said.

"Kazakhstan authorities need to narrow the definition of ‘extremism’ in the country’s criminal law and end the pernicious misuse of these charges against government critics."

Mukhammedkarim, whose Ne Deidi? (What Do They Say?) YouTube channel is very popular in Kazakhstan, was sent to pretrial detention in June 2023 on charges of financing an extremist group and participating in a banned group’s activities.

The charges against Mukhammedkarim stem from his online interview with the fugitive banker and outspoken critic of the Kazakh government, Mukhtar Ablyazov, whose Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement was labeled as extremist and banned in the country in March 2018.

If convicted, Mukhammedkarim could be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison.

HRW also said in its statement that another Kazakh activist and the leader of the unregistered Algha, Qazaqstan! (Forward, Kazakhstan!) political party, Marat Zhylanbaev, was handed a seven-year prison term in November "on the same bogus charges."

"Both Duman Mukhammedkarim and Marat Zhylanbaev have already spent many days unjustifiably behind bars," Rittmann said.

"Both men should be released immediately."

Rights watchdogs have criticized the authorities in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic for persecuting dissent, but Astana has shrugged the criticism off, saying there are no political prisoners in the country.

Kazakhstan had been ruled by authoritarian President Nursultan Nazarbaev since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 until current President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev succeeded him in 2019.

Over the past three decades, several opposition figures have been killed and many jailed or forced to flee the country.

Toqaev, who broadened his powers after Nazarbaev and his family left the oil-rich country’s political scene following the deadly, unprecedented anti-government protests in January 2022, has promised political reforms and more freedoms for citizens.

However, many in Kazakhstan consider the reforms announced by Toqaev cosmetic, as a crackdown on dissent has continued even after the president announced his "New Kazakhstan" program.
Kazakhstan prioritizing water management measures in 2024 (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [2/8/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Water resource management is emerging as a top regional policy issue for Kazakhstan. In just one sign of the government’s growing concern, the Ministry for Water Resources and Irrigation is pushing for a “contractual framework” with China and Uzbekistan to regulate usage of transboundary rivers.

A resource-management blueprint covering 2024-2030 is currently being negotiated, according to a report published by the Zakon.kz news outlet. The framework agreement would establish a system for joint management of river traffic and water flows between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, as well as fix volumes for water allocation for agricultural and other purposes by China and Kazakhstan. Water Resources Minister Nurzhan Nurzhigitov described the promotion of interstate cooperation on transboundary rivers as a top governmental priority.

Beyond working with Tashkent and Beijing on river management, Kazakhstan intends to use its chairmanship this year of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS) to promote a sustainable system for sharing water resources. The organization is one of the few that brings together all five Central Asian states. At the most recent IFAS summit, Kazakh President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev voiced Astana’s intention to have the organization play a more active role in regional water-management issues.

“IFAS has become the most important institution of regional cooperation in the issues of transboundary water resources sharing, as well as solving environmental and socio-economic problems in the Aral Sea basin,” Tokayev told the gathering. “It is difficult to overstate the role of the Fund in ensuring security, stability and sustainable development of Central Asia.”

Kazakh officials say a major aim of its IFAS chairmanship will be to encourage Kyrgyzstan’s closer engagement with the organization. Authorities in Astana are also keeping a wary eye on Afghanistan, where the Taliban government is pressing ahead with the construction of a canal that could divert a significant amount of water from the already stressed Amu Darya River. The project, if completed as envisioned, could upset Central Asia’s delicate water balance.

Kazakhstan established its ministry for water resources in late 2023. The minister, Nurzhigitov, in an interview with Zakon.kz, said that since then, officials have implemented measures to encourage more rational use of resources within the country, including bringing “irrigation systems and hydraulic structures into compliance with the standards,” and facilitating the “automation and digitalization of water supply processes. “

“We need to see in real time where and how this water is being used,” Nurzhigitov said. He added that authorities were also working on developing a system to use groundwater more efficiently. “Unfortunately, today we only use a small percentage of groundwater, so there is work to be done in this area.”
Kazakhstan: Paranoia of officials makes mockery of listening state, say critics (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [2/8/2024 4:14 PM, Almaz Kumenov, 57.6K, Neutral]
In a landmark speech in July 2019, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev spoke of his vision of what he called a “listening state.”

To inspire trust in the people, the authorities need to respond promptly to “criticism and constructive suggestions from citizens,” he told a gathering of parliament.

For many in the activist community, this was a promise that was never kept. And there are those that worry that geopolitical turmoil in Kazakhstan’s wider neighborhood has helped Tokayev avoid scrutiny from the international community and eschew the urge to pursue genuine and committed liberalization of the political scene.

The continued inability of activists to get permission to mount pickets is a sore issue.

In November, the nation was gripped by the lurid events that led up to the death of 31-year-old Saltanat Nukenova at the hands of her abusive husband, a former top-ranking government official, Kuandyk Bishimbayev.

The case was viewed as far from isolated.

Women’s rights activists resolved to hold rallies in Kazakhstan’s two largest cities, Almaty and Astana, in a public show of solidarity with victims of gender-based violence.

But their applications – a formal green light is required beforehand even for the smallest of rallies – were rejected out of hand. The justifications offered were familiar to people with experience of trying to put together gatherings of this kind.

“We have no doubt that the local authorities were simply using an excuse,” Zhanar Sekerbayeva, co-founder of human rights group Feminita, told Eurasianet. “This is not the first time that places intended for peaceful assemblies have suddenly undergone renovations or cultural events on the very days when we are planning our actions.”

Activists bitterly note, meanwhile, that when organizations wishing to demonstrate their public support for the government ask to hold an event in downtown areas, they are routinely provided time slots and good locations.

Sekerbayeva believes this selective approach is used because the government is nervous about any independent groups gaining too much sway in society.

“When we held a mass demonstration for women’s rights [in 2022], officials saw how many people supported us. And now they don’t want us to further expand our influence,” she said.

Some dissidents face much more serious problems.

One case of note is that of Marat Zhylanbayev, a prominent opposition figure who was sentenced to a lengthy prison term in November on charges of allegedly conspiring with Europe-based government foe Mukhtar Ablyazov’s Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan, or DVK. The movement has since 2018 officially been deemed an extremist organization, meaning that anybody believed to be associating with it can face charges akin to those reserved for suspected terrorists.

Zhylanbayev steadfastly denies participating in and financing of the activities of DVK.

Another figure soon going on trial on extremism-related charges is the journalist Duman Mukhammedkarim, 45, who ran a popular politics-theme YouTube channel called Ne Deydi (What Are They Saying?). He has been in detention since June.

Mukhammedkarim too has been swept up in a relentless campaign mounted by prosecutors against Ablyazov, a figure with ever-diminishing relevance in Kazakh public life. The charge is that the journalist promoted extremist views supportive of DVK in an interview he conducted with Ablyazov.

“The Kazakhstan authorities are trying to muzzle an outspoken, independent journalist who has repeatedly criticized the authorities and sought to exercise his right to peaceful assembly,” Mihra Rittmann, senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, or HRW, said in a February 8 statement. “Kazakhstan authorities need to narrow the definition of ‘extremism’ in the country’s criminal law and end the pernicious misuse of these charges against government critics.”

HRW argues that these kinds of prosecutions fly not just in the face of the “listening state” concept, but also claims made by Tokayev as recently as January about freedom of political speech.

“The main indicators of political persecution are censorship, tailor-made laws and punitive authorities. Nothing like this exists in modern Kazakhstan. Our legislation does not contain a single decree, not a single law, no regulatory document that could be used to prosecute citizens for their political views,” Tokayev told a journalist with state media.

There was a widespread expectation that a lot might change as a result of the events of January 2022. What began as protests against fuel price rises rapidly evolved into a generalized show of rage against the broader system. Special ire was directed at the person and legacy of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

In the immediate aftermath of Nazarbayev handing over the reins to his long-time ally Tokayev in March 2019, it was sensed that this was a choreographed exercise. While the front-man was different, the corruption-tainted and unaccountable machinery in the background remained intact, went the received wisdom.

Even as early as late 2019, though, analysts spied some tensions between Tokayev’s camp and that of his mentor, which was collectively nicknamed “the Library,” as they worked out of the First President’s Library.

The trauma of January 2022, when at least 238 people were killed over four days of what has come to be known in Kazakh as Qandy Qantar, or Bloody January, looked like a chance for Tokayev to reset. And he appeared intent on going down that route when he coined another mantra that has become synonymous with his tenure: Zhana Kazakstan, or New Kazakhstan.

The political reforms implemented under that rubric included liberalization of the political system. Tokayev pledged to improve conditions for political parties and enable a pluralism of views. To legitimize these would-be ambitious plans, Tokayev held early presidential elections in November 2022 and then parliamentary elections the following March.

“The president’s goal was to correct the mistakes of the past and establish honest, fair rules for the functioning of the state and society,” Urazgali Selteyev, a typically onside political analyst, told Eurasianet. “People were tired of the old system and did not want the return of ‘old Kazakhstan.’”

Sure enough, conditions for registering political parties were relaxed, but this only served in practice to engage parties loyal to the government. The leaders of independent and government-critical movements argued that the requirements for them, meanwhile, were kept artificially onerous.

It was not only parties that could run in the parliamentary elections. Independent candidates were permitted to stand for single-mandate seats. And yet, none of them managed to win – a fact they attributed to electoral meddling in favor of pro-system candidates.

It isn’t all bleak. Some Almaty activists concede that holding rallies is not as impossible as it once was. Where peaceful assemblies were previously at most allowed only in a desolate spot on the outskirts of the city, the mayor’s office is now more generous in its conditions.

Veronika Fonova, co-organizer of a women’s march, told Eurasianet that there was virtually no censorship at events she has attended.

“We can freely use posters with political slogans, such as freeing women political prisoners,” Fonova told Eurasianet. “But there is a taboo topic: the January events.”

For Yevgeny Zhovtis, a lawyer and rights campaigner, the broader direction of travel is discouraging. He suspects the persistent paranoia of officials stems from anxieties about legitimate political discontent being piggybacked by people with ill-intent.

“We already saw during the January events what the growth of discontent and rallies can lead to,” Zhovtis told Eurasianet. “The government fears that people from Nazarbayev’s circle may use the potential for protest to take revenge, and it is trying to prevent this.”

What is more, Kazakhstan can act with relative certainty that it will not draw too much opprobrium from Western nations, which purport to deem democratization and political liberties fundamental values, Zhovtis worries.

While Kazakhstan behaves “correctly” by abiding with anti-Russia sanctions and refraining from supporting the invasion of Ukraine, the international community largely turns a blind eye to domestic human rights problems, Zhovtis said.

“But by increasing pressure on dissidents, there can be an opposite effect, leading to the growth of protest sentiments in society,” he said.
Kazakhstan: Nazarbayev nephew rendered $1.5Bln to state (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [2/8/2024 4:14 PM, Almaz Kumenov, 57.6K, Neutral]
Kairat Satybaldy, an imprisoned nephew of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has to date paid nearly 700 billion tenge (around $1.5 billion) in monies allegedly obtained by illicit means into the state coffers, anti-corruption officials said on February 8.

The scale of the restitution, as the transfer is being described, marks a significant triumph in a campaign by the authorities to recover funds that they say were unlawfully acquired under the watch of Nazarbayev, who stepped down in 2019.

Satybaldy, who is serving a prison sentence for embezzlement, has paid the money pending the unfolding of a new array of criminal cases being brought against him.

The Anti-Corruption Agency, or Antikor, said in its statement that approximately 45 billion tenge were returned recently, adding to an earlier pile of 650 billion tenge. These figures include both cash and other assets. One asset of note was a 30 percent stake in telecommunications company Kazakhtelecom.

Arman Tleukenov, the spokesperson for Antikor, said that an investigation into Satybaldy’s alleged involvement in money-laundering has concluded, and that the case has now been forwarded to the courts. Tleukenov said that illicit funds were used by Satybaldy to acquire various properties, including some abroad.

Satybaldy was arrested in March 2022 at Almaty airport while attempting to flee to Dubai. The following September, he was sentenced to six years in a maximum-security prison for major embezzlement. In addition to his prison sentence, Satybaldy was stripped of his rank as General-Major in the National Security Committee, or KNB, and all his state awards, and banned from holding public office for 10 years.

The onslaught against Nazarbayev’s family began in the wake of the violent unrest that shook the country in January 2022. Even before the dust had settled in that crisis, Tokayev consolidated his own power by removing Nazarbayev from his position as the head of the domestic Security Council.

Since then, the authorities say they have recovered over 912 billion tenge (more than $2 billion) — the bulk of that coming from Satybaldy.

The campaign to reclaim assets may well intensify under a freshly installed government.

On February 6, Tokayev accepted the resignation of Alikhan Smailov as prime minister and appointed former Anti-Corruption Agency chief Olzhas Bektenov in his place. Parliament quickly ratified the move. While short on political experience, Bektenov has earned something of a reputation as a scourge to the Nazarbayev family.

Speaking at a government meeting on February 7, Tokayev emphasized the importance of returning unlawfully obtained assets as a crucial source of investment for the economy. He urged agencies leading that operation to step up their efforts, which he said would be instrumental to implementing significant projects.
Amnesty warns of dire state of civil society in Kyrgyzstan (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [2/8/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Rights group Amnesty International has sounded the warning over the worsening state of civil society in Kyrgyzstan, once considered a relative beacon of democracy in the region, as the government shows little sign of relenting in its campaign to stifle critical voices.

In a statement published on January 8, the rights group noted how journalists and activists have increasingly been targeted with arbitrary detentions and smear attacks on social media.

Elsewhere, the authorities have maneuvered malleable lawmakers into drafting legislation designed to undermine rule of law and restrict freedom of expression, the group said.

“The developments of the last 18 months … put… civil society’s future in peril and severely threaten Kyrgyzstan’s reputation and record on human rights and its international cooperation,” Amnesty said in its statement.

Particular alarm has been generated by a slew of ongoing and historic legislative initiatives.

One is a so-called “foreign representatives” law. In its current form, this bill requires any organizations receiving funding from abroad for the purpose of what government bodies deem to be political activity to register as “foreign representatives.” Any organization failing to adopt that label within a six-month window could face closure.

Critics and international rights monitors complain that oversight rules will be onerous. Annual accounting reports will be subject to audits, and nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, will have to regularly provide the government with a detailed breakdown on their work, management structure and spending. For smaller NGOs, the costs entailed in hiring additional staff needed to conform with these requirements may be unsustainable, critics say.

Amnesty says the bill as currently worded could cause extensive harm.

The “vague, expansive, and ambiguous language gives the authorities excessively discretionary powers to target NGOs for carrying out their legitimate work, including advocacy on public policies that affect the whole spectrum of human rights, including the right to a healthy environment,” Amnesty said.

Another piece of legislation that has had a chilling effect was the false information law approved by President Sadyr Japarov in August 2021.

The sponsor of the legislation, MP Gulshat Asylbayeva, said at the time that her intent was to tackle the issue of false social media profiles and troll operations distributing misleading information to undermine political figures in Kyrgyzstan. The law envisioned a regulatory body tasked with responding to grievances about online content within a 48-hour timeframe.

In one instance of how accusations of propagating false information are serving to cow journalists, the Culture Ministry in September ordered the blocking of independent news website Kloop after it published a report alleging that a jailed opposition politician, Ravshan Jeenbekov, was being abused at his pre-detention facility. Culture Ministry officials claimed that the piece contained “unreliable information,” although it did not specify how.

Amnesty said Kyrgyz authorities should “stop the harassment and intimidation of journalists and government critics, and fully respect, protect and fulfill the right to freedom of expression for all media in Kyrgyzstan in accordance with international human rights law.”

“They should also step up efforts to disseminate reliable, accessible, evidence-based and trustworthy information, which is crucial to counter false and misleading information and to build trust among the population in the integrity and reliability of the journalistic environment,” the group’s statement said.
Turkmen Ordered To Play Ex-President’s Songs At Weddings, With Foreign Music Banned (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [2/8/2024 10:18 AM, Staff, 223K, Neutral]
Austere control over the lives of citizens in Turkmenistan took another bizarre turn when officials in the ethnically diverse Balkan Province issued a ban on foreign songs at weddings and ordered Turkmen music to dominate the playlists at receptions.

Perhaps worst of all, marriage celebrants have been instructed to play songs by the country’s still powerful but musically mediocre ex-president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, according to locals and a source close to the regional government.

As is usually the case in Turkmenistan, no official announcement was made, but residents told RFE/RL the latest instructions are being delivered verbally to brides- and grooms-to-be when they register for a marriage license.

“Civil registrars warn the future couples that their wedding receptions must be exclusively accompanied by Turkmen music and that the wedding should also be held in a Turkmen style,” a source in Balkan Province said.

The owners and employees of wedding venues, restaurants, and banquet halls have also been informed about the new rules in recent weeks.

“Owners of the restaurants [that host weddings] make sure that at least 80 percent of the playlist consists of Turkmen music,” a restaurant employee told RFE/RL, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Noncompliance with authorities’ instructions and criticism of government policies are not tolerated in the strictly controlled former Soviet republic.

Describing a recent wedding, the restaurant employee said the Turkmen-heavy playlist included the traditional Turkmen folk dance “kushdepti” and two songs by Berdymukhammedov.

“The songs [by Berdymukhammedov] were seven minutes long each, and the DJ played them twice,” he added.

Berdymukhammedov ruled the Central Asian country for 15 years before handing the presidency to his son, Serdar, in a managed election in March 2022.

The elder Berdymukhammedov, who now holds the newly minted, influential position of chairman of the People’s Council, has in the past appeared in bizarre videos and staged concerts, performing kitschy pop songs and purportedly playing musical instruments.

Singing Praise To The Leader

Many residents of the multiethnic regional capital, Balkanabat -- and the nearby coastal city of Turkmenbashi -- are frustrated and even angered by the new regulations, which deprive them of playing songs in their mother tongues, locals say. The two cities are home to many ethnic minorities, including Russians, Armenians, and Azeris.

“There were only Turkmen songs and the kushdepti being played, and we had to dance to that,” one Turkmenbashi resident described a recent wedding where the bride and groom and majority of the guests were not ethnic Turkmen.

The wedding speeches were full of praise for the country’s president, and there were portraits of the Berdymukhammedovs hanging on the walls of the venue, another guest said.

“It felt more like a government event than a wedding,” he said. “Everybody was terribly unhappy about how extensively the government is interfering in our private lives.”

RFE/RL attempted to contact regional authorities for comment but received no response.

It’s been previously reported that ethnic Uzbeks in the Dashoguz and Lebap provinces were ordered to play Turkmen songs at their wedding celebrations and wear traditional Turkmen clothes.
Smugglers and Scammers Make Wild Promises to Uzbeks Desperate to Reach US (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [2/8/2024 1:34 PM, Catherine Putz, 201K, Neutral]
Late last year, the U.S. government “facilitated the removal of Uzbekistani citizens who unlawfully entered the United States.” Uzbekistan’s Agency for External Labor Migration reported that 119 Uzbek citizens, most of whom had crossed illegally into the U.S. from Mexico, had been returned to Tashkent.

Earlier, in October, Fox News reported on leaked U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data for October 2021 to October 2023, which noted that agents had encountered 13,624 people attempting to cross into the U.S. illegally from Uzbekistan. The data, Fox reported, did not include information “on how many of those migrants were removed or who were released into the U.S. with a court date.”

But the following month, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security informed the State Department that Uzbek nationals caught trying to enter the United States via Mexico illegally would not be released into the U.S. but detained, pending the conclusion of their immigration cases. At the time, in announcing the change the U.S. embassy in Tashkent also noted that those caught illegally crossing the U.S. border would be banned from legal re-entry for at least five years, and those who help individuals migrate illegally could be permanently ineligible for a U.S. visa.

Nevertheless, the draw of the United States persists.

In October 2023, law enforcement in Samarkand were contacted by a 22-year-old man who reported that a man going by the name “Damir” had promised to help him get to Mexico on a charter flight. The two men had met in a “USA Mexico reviews” Telegram group. After accepting $10,000, “Damir” vanished with the money. Police later identified “Damir” as a 26-year-old Samarkand resident and filed fraud charges against him.

In January, law enforcement in Samarkand region detained a man who promised another he could send him to the U.S. via Turkey, Qatar, and Mexico, for $18,000.

This week, a joint raid carried out by the State Security Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Andijan detained “fraudsters” who had promised to send other Uzbek citizens to the United States via Mexico. One man was detained after receiving $15,000. Another citizen was detained receiving for $6,000 from the first man.

“Illegal migration via the U.S.-Mexico Border to the United States is dangerous and expensive,” the U.S. embassy in Tashkent warned in December. “We strongly condemn the actions and caution Uzbeks not to fall prey to the lies of criminal smugglers who regard persons as commodities.”

Current Time, citing reporting by RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, Radio Ozodlik, observed that while the migration of Central Asians to the U.S. via Mexico started about five years ago, the numbers have radically increased. “Now the issue of illegal entry into America through Mexico is openly discussed in dozens of Telegram channels.”

The report noted a pattern: fantastic stories of successful migrants who took the path through Mexico and are now living large in the United States would inspire others to seek out the same route. “In one of these channels, Ozodlik’s journalists were given a 100% guarantee that for $19,000 they would be sent through Mexico to the United States.”

Uzbek citizens interested in getting to the United States are confronted with a confusing miasma of regulations, made all the more murky by disinformation and scammers. With legal pathways, such as the “green card lottery,” little more than a random gamble, illegal options are attractive. But the risks just proliferate: How can one tell the difference between a real people smuggler and a scam artist just making promises on the internet? Sometimes the smuggler is real and has prior connections to terrorist groups like the Islamic State that draw even greater attention and concern. Sometimes it’s just a guy with a Telegram handle making wild promises. When dealing with shades of the illegal, everything starts to look gray.

It’s clear that both Washington and Tashkent view this as a serious problem. “Uzbekistan’s partnership to facilitate the return of its nationals subject to removal from the United States shows its commitment to international obligations,” the U.S. embassy stated.
Twitter
Afghanistan
SIGAR
@SIGARHQ
[2/8/2024 11:00 AM, 169K followers, 5 retweets, 16 likes]
UN OCHA: Women & girls are, and have been, at-risk for early marriage, child labor, intimate-partner violence, and sexual exploitation & abuse in #Afghanistan. UN Women estimates 28.7% of girls under age of 18 are married, and 9% of girls under age of 15 https://sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2024-01-30qr.pdf#page=38
Pakistan
Anwaar ul Haq Kakar
@anwaar_kakar
[2/8/2024 7:44 AM, 142.8K followers, 2K retweets, 5.8K likes]
I deeply thank and congratulate the nation on successful conduct of General Elections-2024. I appreciate the efforts of Election Commission of Pakistan, Interim Provincial Governments, Armed Forces, Civil Armed Forces, Police, law enforcement agencies, election staff, media and all those institutions and individuals who contributed to the conduct of the free and fair elections. This momentous occasion is not just a testament to the resilience and strength of our democratic processes but also to the indomitable spirit of the Pakistani people. The participation and enthusiasm of people of Pakistan have been the cornerstone of this democratic exercise. The high voter turnout is a clear indication of public commitment to shaping the future of our country. The voices, expressed through the votes, will contribute to the fortification of our democracy, and for that, people of Pakistan deserve every bit of appreciation. Despite few incidents of terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan the efforts of Armed Forces, Civil Armed Forces, LEAs, Civilian Administration and Election Commission of Pakistan for conducting free and fair election across the country are commendable. Their unwavering commitment to their duties has been instrumental in the smooth conduct of the elections. In the face of adversity, the people of Pakistan have shown remarkable courage and determination. Your resolve in the aftermath of the recent terrorism incidents, continuing to participate in the electoral process, is a powerful statement against the forces that seek to destabilize our nation. It underscores our collective desire for peace, stability, and prosperity. Once again, I congratulate the nation on this historic achievement. May this election be a harbinger of a brighter, more prosperous future for Pakistan.

Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[2/8/2024 6:25 PM, 20.4M followers, 22K retweets, 55K likes]
InshAllah PTI will form governments in Punjab, KP and Federal. Any attempt to change the results overnight will be thwarted and not accepted at any cost by the people of Pakistan or the local and international observers and media - Chairman PTI Barrister Gohar

Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[2/8/2024 12:43 PM, 20.4M followers, 33K retweets, 84K likes]
Despite every possible method employed to undermine the will of the people, our people have spoken via #MassiveTurnout for vote today. As we have repeatedly stated, "no force can defeat an idea whose time has come." It is now critical to guard the vote by getting Form 45.

BilawalBhuttoZardari
@BBhuttoZardari
[2/8/2024 1:56 PM, 5.1M followers, 4.7K retweets, 7.9K likes]
Results are incredibly slow coming in. However, initial results are very encouraging ! PPP candidates and independents whom we have supported/ engaged with seem to be doing well! Let’s see what the final tally is in the end…

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[2/8/2024 5:24 PM, 207.1K followers, 8K retweets, 16K likes]
Tensions are building in Pakistan. After preliminary election results showed surprising gains by the PTI, the party the military is dead set against returning to power, election results have been delayed for hours. Vote tampering and rigging fears are rife, and for good reason.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[2/8/2024 2:34 PM, 207.1K followers, 8.4K retweets, 20K likes]
After today’s remarkable electoral performance by PTI, will we finally see the end of those "PTI isn’t really that popular, it’s just hyped on social media" takes? It’s PTI’s mass popularity that enabled it to persevere and defy the electoral odds, and in such a big way.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[2/8/2024 2:43 PM, 207.1K followers, 150 retweets, 728 likes]
To clarify, with results still preliminary, it’s too early to declare victory for anyone. But PTI has made this a much more competitive election than many observers had imagined. The next few hours will be interesting.

Mosharraf Zaidi
@mosharrafzaidi
[2/8/2024 2:48 PM, 286.3K followers, 108 retweets, 350 likes]
The results from today’s election in Pakistan’s 266 general seats should have begun to come in by now. There are dozens of seats in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where less than 10% of polling station results are being reported. This is the RTS of 2018 on steroids. Mobile phone services were restored at 2015 hrs and suspended again shortly thereafter. Still out. The longer results are withheld and mobile phone services remain suspended the deeper the damage to the credibility of the process.

Mosharraf Zaidi
@mosharrafzaidi
[2/8/2024 7:45 PM, 286.3K followers, 7 retweets, 21 likes]
Twelve hours after the closing of polls and nearly four hours after the entire results should have been announced, only 6 out of 266 general seat election results have been announced. Disastrous mismanagement by ECP and those controlling RO behavior.

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[2/8/2024 6:07 PM, 41.9K followers, 98 retweets, 467 likes]
It’s 4 am in Pakistan. The election result was promised hours ago. Where is the Chief Election Commissioner?

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[2/8/2024 10:33 AM, 41.9K followers, 20 retweets, 138 likes]
Internet and cellular services begin to be restored across Pakistan after voting ends. Security was just a pretext, this was an attempt to subvert the voting process.

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[2/8/2024 2:28 PM, 41.9K followers, 2 retweets, 27 likes]
Seems cell service is out again for many.

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[2/8/2024 1:03 PM, 41.9K followers, 58 retweets, 333 likes]
There will be hurdles ahead for PTI-independents if they can manage a win -- including attempts to pressure them to switch parties -- but a win against all odds would be a huge, huge deal for Pakistan.

Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[2/8/2024 7:14 AM, 78.6K followers, 6.6K retweets, 11K likes]
The decision to suspend telecommunications and mobile internet services on an election day is a blunt attack on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Amnesty International calls on the Pakistan authorities to urgently lift the blanket restrictions on access to the internet. Read more: https://amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/pakistan-election-day-internet-shutdown-is-a-reckless-attack-on-peoples-rights/ #PakistanElection #InternetShutdown
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/8/2024 11:58 AM, 95.2M followers, 1.6K retweets, 6.1K likes]
The Cabinet’s extension of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund will ensure improved credit access for those in the fisheries sector and boost the creation of related infrastructure. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2004229

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/8/2024 11:57 AM, 95.2M followers, 1.7K retweets, 6.9K likes]
The Pradhan Mantri Matsya Kisan Samridhi Sah-Yojana, which has been approved by the Cabinet will boost the fisheries sector, especially MSMEs associated with the sector. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2004216

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[2/8/2024 11:56 AM, 95.2M followers, 2.4K retweets, 11K likes]
Today’s Cabinet decision pertaining to the Railways sector will boost infrastructure, reduce congestion on busy routes and improve commerce as well as connectivity. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2004189

President of India
@rashtrapatibhvn
[2/8/2024 4:59 AM, 24M followers, 300 retweets, 1.9K likes]
President Droupadi Murmu inaugurated Vividhata Ka Amrit Mahotsav at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Mahotsav is open to the general public from February 8 to 11, 2024 between 10 am and 8 pm. Bookings can be made online on https://visit.rashtrapatibhavan.gov.in.

Vice President of India
@VPIndia
[2/8/2024 1:12 PM, 1.5M followers, 166 retweets, 2K likes]
Hon’ble Vice-President and Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar at the farewell ceremony of retiring Members of #RajyaSabha at Upa-Rashtrapati Nivas today. @narendramodi

Vice President of India
@VPIndia
[2/8/2024 1:16 PM, 1.5M followers, 77 retweets, 714 likes]
Hon’ble Vice-President and Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar felicitated the retiring Members of #RajyaSabha at Upa-Rashtrapati Nivas today.

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[2/8/2024 1:20 PM, 262K followers, 162 retweets, 536 likes]
Since the time the Biden administration accused Indian agents of plotting to kill a US-based Sikh militant making terrorist threats against India, it has carried out multiple extraterritorial assassinations. In the latest case, it assassinates two militia commanders in Baghdad.

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[2/8/2024 7:14 AM, 262K followers, 130 retweets, 498 likes]
Visa-free passage along the India-Myanmar border has become a major security problem, including allowing thousands of ethnic Chin from Myanmar to illegally move to India’s border state of Manipur, fueling a violent ethnic conflict there. Suspension of such passage was inevitable.
NSB
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh
@BDMOFA
[2/8/2024 8:00 AM, 33.6K followers, 16 retweets, 62 likes]
HFM Dr. Hasan Mahmud, MP made a key note speech today at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia on Bangladesh-India Relations. He urged the media to play a constructive role in promoting the relation between the two countries.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh
@BDMOFA
[2/8/2024 1:35 AM, 33.6K followers, 18 retweets, 61 likes]
HFM Dr. Hasan Mahmud, MP made key note speech today at prestigious Vivekanda International Foundation on Bangladesh India Relations in the Last Decade. Large number of Academicians, Diplomats, members of Think Tank & Media attended the event.

Sabria Chowdhury Balland
@sabriaballand
[2/8/2024 6:18 PM, 5K followers, 1 like]
“The law minister thanked China for its long-term firm support to Bangladesh in safeguarding sovereignty and opposing external interference.” The US suddenly relinquished its “human rights & democracy” priorities for #Bangladesh, shifting gears to trade & security of the Indo-Pacific.
The result is that:
Bangladesh is more freely cozying up to China.
China’s hints at “external interference” is a clear jab at the US.
China wants further “judicial cooperation” with Bangladesh.
Judicial cooperation with an unelected, corrupt & authoritarian regime which has no independent judiciary. It’s a joke to even insinuate that Sheikh Hasina does not blatantly control the courts to suit her whims. If the US thinks this path is better for Bangladesh, that vision is definitely not shared by any Bangladeshi I have talked or listened to. https://unb.com.bd/category/Bangladesh/china-firmly-supports-bangladesh-in-opposing-external-interference-ambassador-yao-wen/130548

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/8/2024 7:16 AM, 106.8K followers, 52 retweets, 62 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu met with the Kolhumadulu Gaadhiffushi Island’s residential community, where he affirmed the Administration’s commitment to fulfilling their aspirations for development and assured the Government would address their concerns.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/8/2024 6:10 AM, 106.8K followers, 63 retweets, 73 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu met with the Island Council & Women’s Development Committee members of Kolhumadulu Gaadhiffushi Island. At the meeting, the council members informed the President of the residents’ needs and necessary requirements for the island’s development.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[2/8/2024 5:26 AM, 106.8K followers, 63 retweets, 74 likes]
This afternoon, President Dr @MMuizzu arrived in Kolhumadulu Gaadhiffushi Island as part of his current visit to the islands of the Atoll. The President and his delegation were warmly welcomed by Gaadhiffushi residents upon their arrival to the island.
Central Asia
Temur Umarov
@TUmarov
[2/8/2024 8:13 AM, 13.3K followers, 5 retweets, 10 likes]
Blinken to Japarov: "Your vibrant civil society has long been the strongest in the region and a key part of democracy in Kyrgyzstan. I am therefore writing to you to express my concerns about the foreign representatives (NGOs) bill of Parliament" https://24.kg/english/286211_US_Secretary_of_State_Antony_Blinken_writes_letter_to_Sadyr_Japarov/

{End of Report}
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