South Asia Citizens Web

Elections are a unique business, deciding the fate of some, reflecting, or denying the faith of hundreds of thousands of those who cast the ballot. In the absence of a better or more effective means to reflect popular sentiment, electoral democracy is the best system we have, we know of no better. Money power, paid news and election spending are some of the ’undemocratic’ factors that influence the ballot and though we try, we have not produced an effective remedy. As insidious if not worse is the creeping influence of hate sentiment and majoritarianism within our electoral framework; despite some legal restraints, political parties across the board have benefitted electorally from fielding men, and women indicted for leading mobs to violence against our own.

KARACI, Oct. 10: Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC) and Pakistan
Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) have strongly condemned the terrorists attack on a girl students’ van, injuring three girls including Malala Yousufzai, a peace activist of Swat who has been struggling for girls education in Swat valley. They demanded the government to immediately arrest the culprits and bring them to books.

In mid-October Australia’s Prime Minister will visit India, in part to facilitate the sale of Australian uranium. The longstanding policy of Australia has been to not sell uranium to those countries standing outside the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India has nuclear weapons and facilities not subjected to safeguards. India also has nuclear power plants with a very poor health and safety track record, against which a growing and courageous movement peacefully protests.

The Friday Forum unequivocally condemns any attempt at violating the independence and authority of the judiciary. We urge all sections of Sri Lankan society to respond to this threat by reaffirming our commitment to preserve our democratic rights. It is only an alert and active citizenry that can prevent this type of abuse of power.

10 October 2012: Today afternoon, activists from women’s groups and several peoples’ organisations stormed the National Commission for Women (NCW), protesting against the continued inaction for an year in the Soni Sori case. It has been one year since the arrest of 36-year old Soni Sori, an adivasi school warden from Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, and her custodial torture at the behest of the then SP of Dantewada, Ankit Garg. Soni Sori’s right to life and dignity have been violated by various jail and police authorities several times over – from foisting false cases against her, sexually torturing and humiliating her in the police station, denying her medical attention, and most recently, humiliating her by publicly stripping her in prison in the name of conducting physical search. It is also one year since women’s groups first met the NCW to seek their intervention.