South Asia Citizens Web

Two years ago, on this day, an earthquake and tsunami wiped out a fair section of Fukushima prefecture. The independent commission appointed by the Japanese parliament to investigate the accident observed that while natural disasters may have triggered the nuclear events, the meltdown itself was “profoundly man-made”.

The Forum for Secular Pakistan strongly condemns the attack on the Christian Community of Joseph Colony, Badami Bagh Lahore, in which 178 houses of the low-income community, as well as shops and 3 churches were looted and burnt to ashes, the Pastor was attacked and the father of Savan Masih, the youth falsely accused of blasphemy, was beaten up and subsequently arrested.

In Durban, South Africa, five heads of state meet in late March, to assure the rest of Africa that their countries’ corporations are better investors in infrastructure, mining, oil and agriculture than the traditional European and US multinationals. The Brazil-Russia-India-China-SA (BRICS) summit has invited 25 heads of state from Africa, many of whom are notorious tyrants. Given how much is at stake, critical civil society must scrutinise the claims, the processes and the outcomes of the BRICS summit and its aftermath.

Joint Action Committee - JAC for people’s rights condemns unchecked attacks on Christian homes in Badami Bagh Lahore. We condemn this brutal act with deep sense of grief and anger. It is regrettable that Punjab administration has not learnt any lessons from previous similar incidents such as those in Shantinagar and Gojra and failed in providing security and protection to a minority community under siege.

One sees mostly simplistic commentaries in the Indian and the international media. The huge gatherings at Shahbag Square are not about demanding death for a few Jamaat leaders. It is a lot more than that. It is going to decide which way Bangladesh will turn—towards its secular base founded on syncretism, or towards religious extremism, an alien concept imported by the Jamaat.