Jibran Nasir in Silicon Valley

[Riaz Haq]

Young Pakistani activist Mohammad Jibran Nasir was a big draw at a Silicon Valley lunch organized Saturday May 16 by iKolachi Policy Research Institute under Talk4Pak banner. 

Riaz Haq Introducing iKolachi

The event began with Pakistani-American children lighting candles and performing "Bara Dushman Bana Phirta Hai Jo Bachon Se Darta Hai", a popular song produced after the terrorist attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar that claimed 140 lives, most of them children.

Jibran Nasir Speaking in Silicon Valley

It was followed by Riaz Haq introducing silicon valley-based Talk4Pak Pakistani-American think tank, specifically its focus on the use of social media to counter the false narrative of the religious fanatics and terrorists who are also using  the same media to justify their campaign of murder and mayhem of innocent people.  


Jibran's presentation began with a documentary showing the origins of his "reclaim your mosque" movement with a historic demonstration at Islamabad's Lal Masjid demanding the arrest and prosecution of the radical cleric Maulana Abul Aziz. It was the first-time ever in Pakistan's history that a significant number of young Muslims gathered spontaneously to make such a demand in front of a mosque. 

Jibran shared with the audience the details of the duplicity of the leaders of all major political parties. He showed pictures of PMLN, PPP, PTI and MQM politicians posing with the sectarian leaders of supposedly banned organizations who are known to be responsible for large scale terrorist attacks against Shias and various minority groups in the country. 

Jibran described his organization Never Forget Pakistan and several of its media campaigns in some detail. Here is the "Citizens' Charter of Demands" agreed by the organization: 


The Charter is part of a global movement of concerned Pakistanis opposed to violent extremism in the name of religion. We stand by the victims of such violence and aim to provide them with moral and other forms of support to alleviate their suffering. We envision a Pakistan free of hatred and oppression, where all Pakistanis can coexist peacefully and where diversity in religious thought and belief is accepted and respected. We present the following demands for the Government of Pakistan (“Government”):

1. We stand for human rights and demand the Government to ensure equal citizenship rights for all Pakistanis.
2. We oppose Takfir (declaring anyone a non-Muslim/Kafir) and subjecting anyone to persecution on that basis. We demand the Government that takfir be treated and tried as hate- speech.
3. We demand that the Government take immediate action against all forms of hate speech which may be defined as words, spoken or written, that incite violence and hatred against any community based on their religious affiliations.
4. We demand that the Government act against any extra-judicial killings or violence in the name of religion and false accusations of “blasphemy”. We demand the reform of Pakistan’s blasphemy law in order to prevent its misuse.
5. We support the rule of law and due process. We demand that the Government enhance the capacity oflaw enforcing agencies to deal with crime and violence at the local level. Such crimes feed violent extremist groups at other levels.
6. We demand that educational curriculum at all levels should include teachings that promote compassion,tolerance and respect for human rights. Text books should be revised to expunge any material that incites or preaches hatred and/or violence against any community or section of society
7. We demand that the Government act against banned outfits and individuals operating in the name of religion. The Government must also publicize the list of banned outfits engaged in sectarian and religious violence and proceed legally against them.
8. We demand that Pakistani electronic media cease giving airtime to any individual or organization whichengages in hate speech, inciting violence in the name of religion and/or has been declared banned by theGovernment.
9. We demand that the Government immediately freeze assets of banned outfits and of those who are associated with them and take all measures to permanently cut off their sources of domestic andinternational financing. The Government should impose sanctions, including travel restrictions, on such outfits and individuals.

Among the generally positive reviews of Jibran's speech that have come in so far, the following feedback from Dr. Safwan Shah, a prominent Pakistani-American entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, particularly stands out:

"For an hour I was transported to a place where every new minute inspired me to fall in love with Pakistan again. Who could have imagined, a twenty something young man would have so much charisma, chutzpah and calmness. All that while conveying the most gory and disgusting details of how people of our beautiful motherland kill each other.

Dear Cemendtaur, Thank you for inviting me to listen to Jibran Nasir's talk. He is a gift we must cherish and protect. He is attempting to fuse together the million tiny pieces of our nations shattered self. He is trying to put humpty dumpty together again, hopefully much better than before. He needs people power not prayer to produce the mass movement which will help heal Pakistan's soul by overcoming the demons that terrorism unleashes.

As I processed his words, flowing so sincerely and purely I recalled the 80's. Which we all believe is when the detritus began. That was the time when we gave up on Pakistan. That is when I decided that this battle was too far gone and my best recourse is to turn away from the gleaming, bloodshot eyes of the religious right, hunting for blood.

Seeing and hearing Jibran, I had profound guilt for turning our back and letting these demons flourish and spawn into millions of ideological killers. Seeing Jibran today gave me hope, far more than a glimmer, a gleam, a sustained lightning that kept thundering - my entire body exclaimed, we have people like him too. Thank you.

So, first I want to thank him. Second, I want to say sorry, we gave him a million broken pieces because we could not stop the hammer that had just started to systematically break our society while we just watched and then we turned away.

Please thank Faraz Darvesh for making the effort required to pull all this together". 


Here's a Viewpoint From Overseas interview with Jibran Nasir with Jibran responding to attacks on him: What is Jibran Nasir’s hidden agenda? Who is behind Jibran Nasir? What does Jibran Nasir want to achieve? Is Jibran Nasir maligning Pakistan? Is Jibran Nasir maliciously airing Pakistan’s dirty laundry? Viewpoint From Overseas host Faraz Darvesh discusses these and other questions with this week’s special guest Jibran Nasir and co-host Misbah Azam in Silicon Valley, California, USA. 



http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2qip4w_jibran-nasir-under-attack_...

Jibran Nasir under Attack by ViewpointFromOverseas

https://youtu.be/6WO0oTosS9k







https://vimeo.com/128103295


Jibran Nasir under Attack from WBT TV on Vimeo.



Related Links:


Haq's Musings


Respecting Rights of Fellow Humans: Huqooq ul Ibad in Islam


Rising Religious Intolerance Threatens Pakistan's Future


Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization


The Prophet I Know


Muslims Have Few Nobel Prizes


Riaz Haq's Ramadan Sermon


Ibn Khaldun: The Father of Modern Social Sciences


Quaid-e-Azam Vision of Pakistan Inspired by Misaq-e-Madina

[Riaz Haq]

Well-educated militants behind high-profile terror attacks in #Karachi #Pakistan. #IBA, #KU, #SSUET: CM http://www.dawn.com/news/1183215

Well-educated militants behind high-profile terror attacks: CM

the chief minister read out the names of the militants, their profiles and the crimes they confessed to have committed.

Tahir Hussain Minhas alias Sain Nazir alias Zahid, alias Naveed alias Khalil, alias Shaukat and alias Mota-matriculate, who is the mastermind of the Safoora Goth carnage, has been involved in terror activities since 1998. A trained terrorist who has expertise in making bombs and using arms such as RPG-7 and Kalashnikov.

He had personally met Osama Bin Ladin and Aiman-uz-Zawahiri of Al Qaeda on several occasions.

Saad Aziz alias Tin Tin alias John, who is the mastermind of the attack on civil society representative Sabeen Mahmud, has done BBA from the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi. Taking part in terrorist activities since 2009, Aziz is a trained militant with expertise in producing different types of literature. He provided funds for terror activities in the city.

Mohammad Azfar Ishrat alias Maajid is an engineer having passed out from the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology. Involved in terrorist activities since 2011, Ishrat is a trained terrorist who has expertise in making bombs and electronic circuits used as timers in such bombs.

Haafiz Nasir alias Yasir, who completed MA in Islamic Studies from Karachi University, has been involved in terrorist activities since 2013. A trained terrorist, Nasir has expertise in brainwashing and motivating people for ‘Jihadi’ activities.

The confessions made by these terrorists include the carnage of Safoora Goth, murder of Sabeen Mahmud in Defence, firing on American educationist Debra Lobo in the Ferozabad area, bomb attack on a naval officer and suicidal attack on Brig Basit of the Rangers, grenade attack on schools and throwing pamphlets in Nazimabad and North Nazimabad, bomb blast and targeted killings on the Bohri community in the area of Arambagh, North Nazimabad, Bahadurbad Karachi and Hyderabad, bomb attacks on police vans on M.A. Jinnah Road, Arambagh, Gulberg, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, NIPA Chowrangi, North Nazimabad and North Krachi and in the targeted killing of police officials in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, North Nazimabad, North Karachi, Shah Faisal Colony and Landhi.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1183215/

[Riaz Haq]

Humza Arshad, #British #Pakistani Comedian, Takes On Jihadists 

http://nyti.ms/1Bf7rUl 


LONDON — HUMZA ARSHAD pokes fun at Pakistani accents and emotional soccer fans. He jokes about his weight, his voice and his own mother. But mostly, he laughs at jihadists.

“Have you noticed how in those terrorist videos they’re always sitting on the floor?” Mr. Arshad asked a group of high school students the other day. “What’s up with that? I swear they can afford a chair.”

And their pants: “Always coming up to here,” he said, pointing at his shin, “like, did you borrow this from your little brother or something?”


Mr. Arshad, 29, is no ordinary comedian. A practicing Muslim in hip-hop gear whose YouTube videos have drawn millions of views, he is the centerpiece of the British government’s latest and perhaps cleverest effort to prevent students from running off to Syria and joining the Islamic State. Since March, Mr. Arshad has been on tour with the counterterrorism unit of the Metropolitan Police. They have already taken their double act (“Ten percent message, 90 percent comedy”) to more than 20,000 students in 60 high schools across London.

Now Mr. Arshad, who says he first discovered stand-up as a 10-year-old watching American shows like “Russell Simmons’ Def Comedy Jam,” hopes to take his act across the Atlantic: At the end of the month he is headed to New York and Los Angeles to meet with Hollywood studios and television networks — and hold exploratory talks with American schools on his counterextremism work.

About 700 British Muslims have traveled to Syria, including dozens of minors. Schools here have been on high alert especially since February, when three teenage girls left their family homes in east London. The footage of them calmly passing airport security has become emblematic of the youthful following faraway militants have established in the West — often using the same social media that has given Mr. Arshad his fan base.

He knows the brother of one of the girls well.

“I wish I could have prevented my friend’s sister from going,” he told the packed auditorium at a west London high school that recent afternoon. It was one of the rare serious moments in a 45-minute stand-up show that mostly saw him mocking converts with “beards to their belly buttons,” terrorists with dry ankles (“from all that sitting on the floor”) and — affectionately — his own mother, a Muslim who came to Britain from rural Pakistan and wears a head scarf. (“Is she really as bad as you say on YouTube?” one student asked. “No,” Mr. Arshad replied. “Much worse.”)

“Listen, I’m here for two reasons,” he said. “No. 1, I’m a British citizen, and I’m proud of where I’m from. No. 2, I don’t want people losing their lives. That’s not what Islam is about.”

“But there are some misguided individuals who are giving us a bad name,” he said. “We all have to do our part.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/world/europe/a-british-comedian-t...

[Riaz Haq]

The 2013 bombing, designed to fan sectarian violence between minority Shiite and majority Sunni Muslims, helped inspire the 28-year-old activist to kick off a six-week tour last month of colleges and universities throughout the United States to tell Pakistanis in America that their homeland is "not a nation of Taliban apologists," that together they could find a solution to the religious intolerance and violence back home.

He spoke at Stanford, UCLA and UC Davis, among other colleges.

"They are stakeholders," Nasir said before addressing more than 100 Pakistanis and Pakistani Americans at Pomona College.

Nasir helps run two grass-roots groups — Pakistan for All and Never Forget Pakistan — that campaign for the Pakistani government to shut down militant extremist groups.

The lawyer turned protester said he hoped the estimated 455,000 Pakistanis living in the U.S. will support the cause and advocate for a more liberal Pakistan instead of simply donating money. With about 40,000, California has the third largest number of Pakistanis in the U.S. after New York and Texas.

"Pakistanis here can be more vocal because there is no threat to their life," he said.

Although the number of extremist attacks has decreased in the last year, there has been an overall surge in such violence in Pakistan since 2007, said Daniel Markey, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

A 2013 report from the U.S. State Department illustrates the point: Pakistan had the second-most terror attacks in the world that year after Iraq.

"Some of those attacks were the most devastating in terms of loss of life," Markey said. "It's very bad right now."

The cycle of violence repeated itself this month, when armed men opened fire on a bus carrying members of the Ismaili community, a sub-sect of Shiite Islam, in Karachi. The passengers were reportedly traveling to a house of worship in a bus that belonged to an Ismaili welfare society.

At least 43 people were killed and 13 wounded in the worst attack in recent memory against Pakistan's Ismailis, widely regarded as a progressive and largely apolitical community whose members are prominent in the health and education sectors.

In December, a devastating Taliban attack on a Peshawar army school killed nearly 150 people, including more than 130 children.

But the extremist leader of the Red Mosque, an Islamist bastion in Islamabad with ties to the Taliban, refused to condemn the attack and called it understandable.

Unable to stomach the cleric's statement, Nasir organized a protest and took to the streets in response, rallying Pakistanis to "reclaim Pakistan" and "reclaim our mosques."


That's when the threats poured in, he said — from militant groups, from Red Mosque authorities and from the Taliban — warning him to tone down his activism.

"They say I am the one giving Pakistan a bad name. But I am not the one giving Pakistan a bad name," Nasir said. "Religion can never be the root of the problem. Thou shalt not kill ... thou shalt not steal, all these things we learn from religion."

What is corrupting Pakistan is a "perverse" mixture of Islam and politics that leads to misinterpretations of the faith, Nasir said.

"We cannot and should not legislate on how a man reaches out to his god," he said. "Whichever god it is, it is personal."

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-pakistani-activist-20...

[Riaz Haq]

If social media can be used to recruit terrorists, it can also be used to stop them. 

In testimony before a Senate panel last week, FBI Director James Comey stated that ISIS has over 21,000 English-speaking followers on Twitter and that this form of “crowdsourcing terrorism” is living proof that social media works. Unfortunately, it appears that this type of internet-based recruiting of “Lone Wolf” terrorists has worked yet again as manifested by yesterday’s attack at two military facilities in Chattanooga which left four dead and three others injured. One news source reported that prior to the shooting the suspect posted on his blog Islamic rhetoric referring to “separate the inhabitants of Paradise from the inhabitants of Hellfire.”

Well, if social media can work for ISIS in recruiting these self-radicalized terrorists or individual lone wolf attackers, it can also work against them. As concerned citizens and guardians of our communities we the people can mobilize to report posts from potential lone wolf attackers who seek to injure and kill others. A familiar mantra from law enforcement over the years has been to stay vigilant in our fight against crime. Today, staying vigilant online is just as important—and, as demonstrated by a recent case in Canada— can result in saving lives. 

This past February, a Geneva, Illinois woman was arrested in Canada for a shooting plot after leaving a trail on social media, including a post prior to her arrest that said “Let’s go commit mass homicide.” Lindsay Souvannarath posted disturbing pictures advocating race hatred, an allegiance to Hitler and Nazi beliefs, bizarre photos of herself and others, and what appeared to be a fascination with mass killers and their handiwork, especially the Columbine High School shooters and their tools of murder. Police received a tip about a couple planning a Valentine’s Day massacre at a mall in Halifax, Canada, and she was arrested by Canadian police on charges of conspiracy to commit mass murder. Her partner in this thwarted crime committed suicide before authorities could take him into custody. 

As responsible citizens who care about our communities, we need to assist law enforcement in serving as their on-line “eyes and ears” when we see threatening posts. Maybe even more importantly when we see posts and also have personal knowledge of potential offenders securing or practicing with weapons or making threats against specific individuals or groups we can “connect the dots” and provide that information to local, state or federal authorities. If you are online and read a post that includes terrorist-related chatter, threats and postings regarding weapons and mass murder, or information on upcoming or planned attacks, don’t assume that someone else will report it. Take personal responsibility and call your local police or federal authorities. If terrorist organizations or lone wolf attackers believe social media works for them, let’s show them it can also work against them.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/07/17/chattanooga-shootings-ame...