Megalomaniac

The former Pakistan PM remains 'critical and unstable', according to his personal doctor The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday granted bail on medical grounds to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for eight weeks in the Al-Azizia case. Sharif's personal doctor said that he remains 'critical and unstable'. Sharif’s brother Shehbaz Sharif had filed a plea seeking the suspension of his brother’s sentence in the case. The court had granted interim bail to the former prime minister on Saturday in the same case. Speaking to The Hindu , Sharif’s personal physician Dr. Adnan Khan said that it is the prerogative of Sharif to decide what he wants in terms of his treatment and how to go about it. “The former prime minister remains critical and unstable. There is a strong suspicion of malignancy due to enlarged lymph nodes. It is very early to say what has to be done. Many tests and scans are still pending and diagnosis of his condition has still not been determined...

The second Asma Jahangir Conference calls on to fight for justice, freedoms and human rights Earlier this month, the Asma Jahangir Foundation organised the second Asma Jahangir Conference in Lahore to commemorate the human rights lawyer who died on February 11, 2018. Jahangir, who co-founded the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, played a prominent role in the 2007 “lawyers’ movement” that challenged the rule of military dictator Pervez Musharraf. The organisers of the conference say their main goal was to provide a democratic space for debates, build bridges between legal communities, particularly in South Asia, and promote rule of law. The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Roadmap for Human Rights’. AGHS Legal Aid Cell, the law firm founded by Jahangir in 1980 and which at the time was the only all-female law firm in Pakistan, and the Pakistan Bar Council also joined hands with the foundation to organise the event. “Her family conceived the idea of having a conference to...

From the political message of the visit to the royal couple’s dress, everything was in media focus Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton were on a five-day trip to Pakistan last week. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Islamabad, Chitral and Lahore before leaving for the U.K. on Friday. During the trip, President Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Imran Khan hosted them separately, and they visited the Army Canine Centre in Islamabad, where Britain offers support to train dogs to identify explosives. The only change in the itinerary was the cancellation of a trip to the Khyber Pass bordering Afghanistan due to bad weather. They stayed overnight in Lahore on Thursday and returned from Islamabad the next day. Before leaving Pakistan, Prince William hailed ties between the U.K. and Pakistan. “We’re involved with the Pakistanis for a very good reason. It will actually keep people safe back in the U.K.,” he told reporters. While the Duke and Duchess were touring Pakist...

A religious party leader is launching a march to Islamabad ‘to bring down’ Imran Khan’s govt. Mualana Fazlur Rehman, chief of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), has announced that he will lead an ‘Azadi March’, which will converge in Islamabad on October 31. The march is like a war and the entire country will be “our war zone”, he said last week, adding that “this war will end only when the government falls”. Mr. Rehman’s JUI-F, a Sunni Deobandi political party, is part of the joint Opposition alliance. The alliance has been talking about launching street protests for months, but it never took off as some of the parties are not in favour of a lockdown or dharna (sit-in) in the capital. Mr. Rehman unilaterally announced the march and said the protesters would enter Islamabad on October 27, which was later changed to October 31. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had asked him to extend the date. Later, they have conditionally offere...

Last month, the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted Wajih-ul-Hassan of blasphemy charges. Mr. Hassan was accused of writing “blasphemous” letters to a lawyer and was sentenced to death in 2002 by a Lahore court. And he had been in jail since. The Supreme Court said that there was no concrete evidence against him. The case has revived calls for amendments to Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. “There is no legal or ethical justification for the blasphemy law not to be amended and ultimately repealed,” Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, told The Hindu . “Recent cases have once again spotlighted that often the accusation is a punishment in itself. Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly expressed the intention to make an inclusive and equitable Pakistan. It will not be possible as long as the blasphemy laws remain on the books.” According to the laws, anyone convicted of insulting Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] can be sentenced to death, and anyone guilty of insulting “an...