PAKISTAN

The Bhutto wound

Muhammad Ali Siddiqi 

DAWN

March 20, 2024 


THE Supreme Court’s March 6 judgement gives valid legal reasons why the trial that led to the verdict ordering Z.A. Bhutto’s execution in 1979 did not meet the requirements of the “fundamental right to a fair trial and due process …”

Decades earlier, Dorab Patel, one of Pakistan’s most illustrious legal minds, called Bhutto’s hanging “a judicial murder”. However, for the people of Pakistan, especially those belonging to the generation that lived through the traumatic 1970s, Bhutto’s murder was the aim of the general — and his flunkies — who seized power through a coup on a date that is part of our national memory: July 5, 1977.

Gen Ziaul Haq seized power in the wake of a countrywide movement launched by a nine-party alliance called the Pakistan National Alliance against the alleged rigging of the general election — something de rigueur in Pakistan if you lose the polls.

Zia promised to the people of Pakistan he would “inshallah” hold elections within 90 days and went on to rule until his death 11 years later.

Initially he showed some sincerity, kept in detention an equal number of leaders from both Bhutto’s PPP and the PNA, and then released them. He had assumed that the PNA’s nationwide agitation and its ability to bring the country to a halt had proved Bhutto had lost his popularity, and a fresh election would give the PNA a sweeping victory.

After his release, Bhutto made a brilliant tactical move and decided to travel to Karachi by train. Huge crowds greeted him at railway stations, making Zia and his PNA supporters realise Bhutto still had his charisma. I was there at Karachi’s Cantonment Station to judge whether the reports about the former prime minister getting huge receptions were true. I perched myself on the steps of a railway bridge and waited, wondering if this was the right perch. And lo and behold, Bhutto’s carriage stopped right in front of me. He was wearing a cream-coloured shalwar kameez, and he had a cold for there was a handkerchief in his hand.

Something told me it was the last time I was looking at him. The next day was perhaps the first of Ramazan, and just to prove that my feelings were wrong I went to his residence, 70 Clifton. There were security people outside, besides many VIPs who wanted to see him, but Bhutto was in conference with the top PPP leadership and no one was allowed in.

What happened at the crucial conference became known much later. Bhutto was clear in his mind and guessed how his enemies would react. He pleaded for an election boycott. The majority opposed him, saying the PNA would be delighted and would claim Bhutto was running away from elections. Bhutto argued that an election without the PPP would mean a sweeping PNA victory, and he would tackle the civilian government once the military was gone.

When the clamour for election continued, Bhutto said one thing repeatedly in Urdu: “Elections hongay? Elections hongay? (Will elections be held? Will elections be held?)

He had read his opponents’ minds correctly, and knew they wanted his blood, because the tycoons whose industrial empires he had nationalised had bankrolled the PNA movement.

Zia and his PNA allies were panicky and wanted the polls ditched. Much later, when Bhutto was dead and the PNA unity had broken up, the former allies went public with how PNA leaders kowtowed to Zia for calling off the elections — a drama Zia was enjoying, pretending to be indecisive about calling off the elections but keen to develop a consensus. Finally, he relented to the joy of his PNA allies, and said he would call off the polls. One leader, according to a PNA veteran, prostrated himself,when the mi­­litary dictator said he would oblige them.

I was there at Karachi’s Nishtar Park, where PPP leader Maulana Kausar Niazi made a brilliant speech full of humour and sarcasm. Then he confirmed what until then was a rumour. “This is the last public meeting and elections are going to be postponed.” An ongoing election campaign was called off!

Bhutto was arrested, and Zia had the audacity to declare what has become a shibboleth repeated ad nauseam and as a holy grail — ‘pehlay ehtesab, phir intikhab’ (accountability first, election later). Ehtesab is the criminal legacy Zia left for subsequent governments, military and civilian, to brazenly persecute the opposition.

Bhutto was buried without his family being shown his face the last time. On Aug 17, 1988, Zia’s plane, C-130, Pak-One, crashed a few miles from the Bahawalpur airfield nose first in the mud close to the Sutlej river.

Bhutto’s widow, Begum Nusrat Bhutto, said in Urdu something that can be condensed thus: “God, I have seen

Thy justice.”

The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2024

Russian roulette

Mahir Ali 

DAWN

March 20, 2024 

A THUMPING majority for Vladimir Putin in his fifth bid for the Russian presidency was a foregone conclusion, even though its size surprised even seasoned analysts. It’s a 10 per cent improvement on his 77.5pc score in 2018, and his initial candidacy in 2000 was rewarded with little more than 53pc of the popular vote.

The electoral exercise that began last Friday and concluded on Sunday was not billed as a wartime affair, given that the aggression against Ukraine has officially been designated as a special military operation. But a war by any other name smells just as foul, and there is little evidence that most Russians buy the Kremlin’s narrative that this sordid conflict bears any resemblance to the ‘great patriotic war’ of 1941-45, in which the Soviet Red Army ultimately routed the Nazis.

Russian accounts frequently neglect to mention that Josef Stalin panicked when Adolf Hitler betrayed the Nazi-Soviet pact, having ignored reports of an imminent German invasion from his spies. Or that Soviet military strategy went awry until Stalin left it to the generals. After the war, the domestic politics of paranoia resurfaced. In the first phase during the 1930s, Stalin had physically eliminated all conceivable rivals as well as numerous competent military leaders, which facilitated the initial Nazi cakewalk through vast tracts of Soviet territory.

Putin’s Stalinesque paranoia has been evident since his earliest days at the helm. Many perceived opponents — from recalcitrant oligarchs and disenchanted intelligence agents to journalists and politicians — died in mysterious circumstances, as did political rival Alexei Navalny in a Siberian prison colony recently.

I find it hard to share Western and Russian liberals’ enthusiasm for Navalny as an antidote to the poison Putin has injected into the lifeblood of Russia, notwithstanding his worthy anti-corruption crusade. But he certainly deserved the opportunity to face Putin on a level electoral playing field. He wouldn’t have won, but the impression of an autocrat backed by more than 87pc of Russians might have been averted.


Putin’s paranoia has been evident since the early days.

Of course, an imprisoned Navalny would not have been permitted to contest, so his elimination can perhaps only be explained by visceral hatred, or as a means of limiting the challenge to any of Putin’s successors.

The irony of Russia’s recent history is that the federation’s least undemocratic election occurred during the last months of the Soviet era, in March 1991. Boris Yeltsin won it with more than 58pc of the popular vote, despite the antipathy of the Gorbachev government. Yeltsin went on to play a key role in reversing the absurd August coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. Emboldened by Western backing, he went on dismantle the USSR in collaboration with the elected leaders of Ukraine and Belarus, ignoring the non-Slav components of the union and superseding a new union treaty that Gorbachev was on the verge of finalising.

We will never know how long a reformed Soviet Union, composed of sovereign states that finally enjoyed the autonomy from Moscow that Vladimir Lenin had argued for 70 years earlier, might have lasted. The Yeltsin regime destroyed a moribund economy desperate for renewal but replaced it with predatory capitalism. He also deployed the army against parliament, and incarcerated politicians included his vice president, Aleksandr Rutskoi (a former war prisoner in Pakistan during the Afghan conflict).

The 1996 election went to a second rou­nd, and Yeltsin beat the fairly dismal Com­­munist Party can­­­­didate, Gen­nady Zyu­­ga­nov, with the aid of authorised foreign int­­erference — prim­arily from Am­e­rica. The services of the new-fangled intelli­g­­­ence agency, the FSB, may also have been invoked. Its first director was a former KGB agent and deputy mayor of St Petersburg, who was named prime minister in 1999. Shortly afterwards, Yeltsin quit, having been offered immunity from prosecution for corruption, and named Putin as acting president. The rest is recent history.

Stalinism could not even begin to be exorcised until the dictator’s demise in March 1953, after 30 years in power, and it is widely assumed that Putin’s exit from the Kremlin will also involve a coffin. That could be a long time coming, and it would be inhumane to prolong the Ukraine war indefinitely. In that context, Pope Francis’ much-pilloried advice on pursuing peace makes far more sense than the gung-ho blather from Nato’s Jens Stoltenberg or the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen.

Besides, let’s not forget that popular support for Putin is only reinforced by Western Russophobia that cancels Chekhov and Tchaikovsky, and queries Russian cultural and sports figures about their views on the Ukraine war. What are the chances that Israeli or Jewish participants in any event might be asked whether they support the genocide in Gaza?

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2024

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN 

Targeting militant sanctuaries

Zahid Hussain 

DAWN

Published March 20, 2024 


THE long-simmering tension between the two countries now threatens to escalate into a full-blown conflict after Pakistan’s latest air strike on militant sanctuaries inside Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban regime claims to have retaliated by firing with heavy weapons at Pakistani border security posts. It has now gone beyond a war of words. The latest military actions mark a new low in Pakistan’s relations with the interim Taliban regime.

The current crisis has come after yet another terrorist attack at a security post last week in North Waziristan by a militant group operating from across the border, claiming the lives of seven Pakistani soldiers. Islamabad seems to have lost its patience after this attack. The air strike came a day after Pakistani leaders vowed to take the war to the terrorist sanctuaries across the border. Pakistan has lost more than 300 security personnel to terrorist attacks in the last two years, mainly carried out by the TTP (whose leadership is based in Afghanistan) and its affiliates.

There have been conflicting reports about the casualties. While Pakistan claims to have targeted militants in the air strikes, Kabul says those killed were women and children. A Pakistan Foreign Office statement said the intelligence-based action targeted militants belonging to the Gul Bahadur group believed to have been involved in most of the terrorist attacks, which have escalated in the past two years. One of the most powerful militant commanders, Gul Bahadur has also been closely associated with Al Qaeda.

As per reports, this would not have been the first time that Pakistan conducted air strikes inside Afghanistan. But it has always maintained a degree of plausible deniability. Pakistan last year reportedly bombed targets in the Salala neighbourhood in Nangarhar province, but the Foreign Office rejected the reports. There had also been some reports of Pakistan having carried out cross-border operations to take out militant leaders based in Afghanistan. But there has never been official confirmation of those attacks.

Curiously, Pakistan has now gone public, claiming it conducted the air strikes in the Afghan provinces of Paktika and Khost, which host thousands of militants belonging to various factions of the TTP. It reflects Islamabad’s rising ire over the escalation in terrorist attacks in Pakistan, which have targeted mainly the security forces. Belligerent statements from some Afghan Taliban leaders seem to have also pushed Pakistan into issuing a public warning.


A wider conflagration’s spill-over effects will be disastrous for our internal and external security.

In a statement, Afghanistan’s defence ministry, headed by Mullah Yaqoob, warned Pakistan of serious consequences: “The country’s defence and security forces are ready to respond to any kind of aggression and will defend the country’s territorial integrity in any situation.” The statement also called the Durand Line, which divides the two countries, “artificial”. The Afghan Taliban leaders have repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of the Durand Line. The war of words highlights the worsening tensions between Islamabad and the Kabul regime.

According to Pakistani officials, 5,000 to 6,000 TTP militants have taken shelter in Afghanistan. If their family members are included, the number is in the tens of thousands. Most had fled the army operation in the former tribal regions in 2014. Many of them have also been fighting alongside the Afghan Taliban against foreign forces. The TTP has virtually become an extension of its Afghan counterpart, and it is not surprising that there has been a massive surge in militant activities in Pakistan after the end of America’s war and the return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has directly held the Afghan Taliban regime responsible for the terrorist attacks. “The Afghan interim government is not only arming the terrorists but also providing a safe haven for other terrorist organisations as well as being involved in incidents of terrorism in Pakistan,” an ISPR said in a statement after the latest terrorist attack in North Waziristan.

Pakistan has also accused some of the Afghan Taliban commanders of using the TTP as a proxy. It is certainly a grave situation. There has also been strong evidence of the Afghan Taliban being involved with the TTP in conducting cross-border terrorist attacks. Last year, hundreds of militants crossed the border and overran Pakistan’s security posts in Chitral. For the security forces in Pakistan, another primary concern is that of the militants laying their hands on the modern weaponry left behind by Nato troops and the former Afghan army.

Given their long connection and ideological proximity, the Afghan Taliban will not take action against their fellow jihadists. Instead, they insist that Islamabad make peace with the group, which has been responsible for the killing of thousands of people in Pakistan. Indeed, Pakistan has few options after the failure of diplomatic efforts to persuade the Islamic regime to expel the TTP.

Nevertheless, military options have severe repercussions for regional peace. A wider conflagration’s spill-over effects will be disastrous for the country’s internal and external security. Indeed, we must keep up pressure on the Afghan Taliban but should not close doors on diplomatic efforts. Instead of knee-jerk reactions, we must think more rationally.

There is no doubt that the Afghan Taliban’s return to power has been a major contributory factor in the revival of terrorist violence in Pakistan. However, the absence of a coherent strategy on Pakistan’s part has also allowed the TTP to claw back some lost space in the former tribal districts, as has the prevailing law and order situation. Indeed, the policy of appeasement has come back to haunt us.

According to some reports, the TTP fighters are back in many border districts and have set up security check-posts. It is almost a return to the pre-military operation situation — perhaps even worse, as the militants seem to be better organised this time and possess sophisticated weapons.

The attacks against Pakistan’s security forces are being carried out with impunity, raising questions about our strategy to deal with the situation. The growing political and economic instability has also vitalised the militant group. We have to put our own house in order. Unfortunately, we have not learnt any lesson.

The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
X: @hidhussain

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2024

PAKISTAN

Austerity theatre

Editorial

DAWN

Published March 20, 2024 

THE government’s recent unveiling of ‘austerity’ measures, ostensibly aimed at reducing expenses, appears to be more about show than actual substance.

While restricting cabinet members to three international trips per year and delineating travel class guidelines for various officials might seem like prudent steps, they barely scratch the surface of the belt-tightening needed to navigate Pakistan through its financial quagmire.

The decisions by the president and interior minister to forgo their salaries, though commendable on the surface, pale in comparison to the extravagance that continues to plague government spending. The gesture does little to address the underlying issues of fiscal irresponsibility that have led to our current economic predicament.

Allowing MNAs and senior bureaucrats the luxury of business class travel — which in practical terms for a return ticket to many European destinations means spending approximately a million rupees — is a slap in the face of the concept of fiscal restraint. The image of lawmakers and bureaucrats jet-setting on public coin sends a conflicting message to the populace they serve, especially when 40pc of the people fall below the poverty line.

The disparity in salary ratios between various employees in the UK and Pakistan serves as a shameful mirror for reflection. In the UK, the salary ratio between a janitor and the senior-most bureaucrat is 1:8, whereas in Pakistan, it is an astounding 1:80. The officials who think they are tightening their belts by not flying first class (the president and chief justice can, however) are sorely mistaken.

The austerity narrative pushed by the government — indeed like all other governments before it — collapses under the weight of these contradictions. The privileging of a select few to cushy travel perks, while a significant chunk of the nation struggles to eat three square meals a day, is not austerity; it is austerity theatre.

The critique here is not merely about the scale of the measures but their sincerity. Real austerity involves hard choices and genuine sacrifice, not selective tokenism. The continued allowance of benefits and the half-measures proposed signal a troubling lack of commitment to governance and fiscal responsibility.

If the government means business, lawmakers would do well to pass a resolution in parliament refusing such privileges until the economy stabilises. The PM, services chiefs, and at best, the foreign minister may utilise such travel perks but it is unreasonable to extend these to the rest of the government machinery.

Symbolic gestures won’t do anymore. There is a need for a fundamental reassessment of priorities and spending, with a laser focus on eliminating waste and directing resources towards sustainable economic recovery. Only then can the nation hope to emerge from its economic plight and embark on a future marked by stability and prosperity.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2024

Rift over Rafah

Rafia Zakaria Published March 20, 2024

 




THE Israeli genocide in Gaza has stretched into Ramazan. The unspeakable horrors that have been visited upon the Palestinians have now led to the boundaries being blurred between fasting and famine; with many seeing no end to the hunger that ends at dusk for all other fasting Muslims. The equivalent of three nuclear bombs have been dropped on Gazans since last October. Over 31,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 70,000 injured — many left with no arms or no legs.

The US, as Zionist-fed American politicians have long been proud to proclaim, continues to stand by Israel. The promise was repeated like a nauseating chant in the first, second, third, fourth and fifth month of the war, even when hospitals were bombed, even when the International Court of Justice declared that Israel had to prevent a genocide, even when reel after reel from every corner of Gaza showed small children being maimed, shell-shocked, shivering, and left orphaned and without food.

Then the electoral primaries for the American presidential elections began. If there is anything that the administration loves more than Israel and the dollars they reap from the Israeli lobbyists of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, it is to be in power. In this case, Joe Biden, the incumbent, does not have to battle a challenger in the primary elections. Technically, therefore the primaries should have meant little more to him than a perfunctory rite of passage. So it would have been, were it not for the war in Gaza and the unpredictable shift of a younger generation of American voters away from Israel.

This year the shift was seen in voting patterns. Rashida Tlaib the only Palestinian-American Congresswoman in the US House of Repre­sen­tatives, who represents Michigan state’s 12th congressional district, including the city of Dearborn where the majority of residents are Arab American, signed onto the ‘uncommitted’ campaign.

The campaign, led by the advocates of a ceasefire in Gaza, asked Democratic voters to deliberately vote ‘uncommitted’ in the Demo­cratic primary to register their protest against American policies on Israel. When Michigan went to vote, 13 per cent of the state’s Democratic primary voters voted ’uncommitted’. Even then, when Biden, who won the Democratic primary in Michigan, issued an official statement that evening, he did not mention either the uncommitted vote or the Palestinians.

If the Democrats running Biden’s campaign paid little attention to the growing groundswell of anger towards the administration’s support for Israel’s genocide, the state primaries that followed have now forced them to focus. Even in a state like North Carolina, where there is no bastion of Muslim-Americans like in Michigan, 12pc voted uncommitted/ no preference in the Democratic primary as did 9pc in Massachusetts.


If the Biden administration paid little attention to the growing anger towards its support for Israel’s genocide, the state primaries have now forced it to focus.

When it was the turn of Minnesota, where the constituency of Somali-American Congress­woman Ilhan Omar lies, 19pc voted ‘uncommitted’. The numbers have shown that the ‘uncommitted’ campaign had support beyond Muslim voters and among the young voters and progressives that the Biden administration desperately needs on its side if it is to beat Donald Trump in the general election in November. Add to this the African American voters who, polls show, see Gaza and Israeli discrimination as a civil rights issue and it would spell the end of the Democrats and of Biden.

Suddenly, it appears that Biden’s tune towards Israel has changed. As these results and probably the Biden campaign’s own polling results have shown, Muslims and Arab Americans along with younger voters were strongly opposed to the carte blanche that the Biden administration seemed to have handed Netanyahu and his camp of genocidal maniacs. These were warning shots — the lethal ones could come in November when all of the uncommitted stayed home and let the Trump camp sail to victory. Trump, for his part has expressed his support for Israel, but given the isolationist tendencies of his supporters it remains to be seen if he would be entirely okay with slashing billions from the Israeli coffers without much ado.

Instantly, the US began to press Israel into a ceasefire prior to the beginning of Ramazan. When this did not happen, their displeasure was clear. When Israel said that it would pursue a ground invasion of Rafah, the border town where hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians are crammed together in terrible conditions, the US warned Israel that it was making a mistake.

The Netanyahu administration said it would pursue the campaign regardless, but this has led to an escalation of public annoyance from the American side. When Biden made his State of the Union address, he focused on the fact that aid had to get to Gaza (even though the solution he offered of an impractical fantastic “pier” for Gaza to “receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters” is unworkable).

Then to show that the elected branches of the Democrats were together on this, Senate majority leader Democrat Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish member of the US government, demanded new elections in Israel in his speech from the Senate floor. “The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after Oct 7,” he said. While the US forces this on many countries, it was the first time their darling Israel received such instructions — and at a time while it is at war and has a national unity government.

So far, the Biden administration’s ‘anger’ has been all talk. No policy has been changed and no arms shipments have been stalled or slashed. This, however, is exactly the complaint that the ‘uncommitted’ voters have against the Biden government. It may take more than talk to convince them to come out to vote in November, and Biden desperately needs them to do so.

In the meantime, the rhetoric against Israeli actions is as loud as it has ever been in the US and for now that may mean that those suffering in Rafah will not have bombs falling on them for some time.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2024

Is India’s judiciary up for the fight?

Jawed Naqvi 

Published March 19, 2024 Updated a day ago


 


OBSERVERS around the world were not necessarily being malicious — with the exception of Winston Churchill — in thinking that India might not last as a democracy for too long after 1947. The Cassandras were wrong, and the new nation’s refurbished state institutions, led by a robust parliament and an enviable judiciary, fortified the trust the masses reposed in the complex multicultural nation state.

Swiftly putting the trauma of partition behind, India’s Nehruvian promise — a gold standard for according impoverished masses dignity and equal rights — melded a Babel-like cluster of linguistic and religious groups into a cosy nation, the opposite of the same differences propelling post-Westphalian Europe into fragmented neighbourhoods. The Indian experiment defied the rule.

The ideal of a multicultural democracy contended with headwinds but withstood the occasionally bumpy ride, which at one point, in 1975, threatened to derail the political project altogether. The close call was tamed, however, and not for the first time, the initiative to save the day belonged to the masses. Indira Gandhi’s rout was a high point of their prowess, and her chastised return a symbol of their grounded politics.

The journey over the next four decades saw the steady clip beginning to miss the beat, for example, in the loss of the moral compass in Punjab, followed by the horrific pogrom of Sikhs in the heart of Delhi. The ground looked fertile for a rightward push, hastened by the loss, no doubt, of India’s economic and political anchor in the USSR. The BJP’s migration from its sullen posturing that feigned to court democracy — which vanished with the fight against Mrs Gandhi — to become the spitting image of a religio-fascist party gained speed under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Diehard optimists would start returning to the old worrying question. Are democracy’s days numbered in India? In a manner of speaking, the institution is too malleable to take a definition. The ayatollahs in Iran would offer one definition and Vladimir Putin another. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu both claim to fight for democracy, as do Narendra Modi and Rishi Sunak.

Since independence, the courts have protected but also undermined the people’s will as arbiters of India’s destiny.

In the rubble of torpedoed state institutions that once anchored democracy, the one institution that appeared to be best equipped to vacate right-wing assault was India’s judiciary. Since independence, the courts have protected but also undermined the people’s will as arbiters of India’s destiny. One judge would evict Mrs Gandhi from office. Another restored her powers as a conflicted prime minister. One believed the temple-mosque dispute in Ayodhya was non-justiciable in India’s secular courts. Another set ended the dispute by apportioning a parcel of the disputed land to a popular deity.

At today’s critical juncture, when the country’s vital democratic institutions are being rapidly corroded, the onus of becoming the shield to protect the constitution should ideally lie with the judges. They are the ones who can, on their day, stop the dangerous mischief afoot in its tracks. Everything that the opposition rally demanded in Mumbai on Sunday can be addressed by the higher judiciary. The hounding of opposition leaders can be stopped at least during the elections. There’s widespread mistrust of the electronic voting machines. There’s unabated misuse of religion in canvassing votes, which is unconstitutional. Use of money and muscle power, everything can be corrected by the judiciary. But look again.

The inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya saw 13 former supreme court judges in attendance. They included former chief justices of India V.N. Khare, J.S. Khehar, N.V. Ramana and U.U. Lalit. Among the other judges present were Justices Ashok Bhushan, Adarsh Goel, V. Ramasubrahmaniam, Anil Dave, Vineet Saran, Krishna Murari, Gyan Sudha Mishra, Arun Mishra and Mukundakam Sharma. Ironically, the construction of the temple was cleared by the supreme court in November 2019. The court had termed the razing of the Babri Masjid an “egregious violation of the rule of law”.

In a more recent sign of the judiciary losing the plot, a high court judge in West Bengal took premature retirement to join the Bharatiya Janata Party. Would he get a ticket to the Lok Sabha elections in the state? Lawyers say justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay gave dubious verdicts favouring the BJP and targeting the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress. On one occasion, the supreme court reportedly reined in his enthusiasm for unleashing federal police on the state government.

Again, a few short years back, a high court judge in Maharashtra set free right-wing zealots on bail in an alleged lynching of a Muslim man returning from namaz in Pune. There can’t be much quibbling with a judge’s decisions no matter how unconvincing they may be. That’s how it works. However, the judge in this case was quoted as losing it: “The fault of the deceased was only that he belonged to another religion. I consider this factor in favour of the applicants/accused.”

How was the logic different from the Ayodhya judgement? The justices found the demolition of the mosque a criminal act and went on to award the disputed land to those that had defied their writ. In the bargain, those who undermined the court’s writ went unpunished as if to underscore the lore that nobody destroyed the mosque in Ayodhya. But that’s the BJP’s way of dealing with the apex court. See the grudging way it responded to the court’s orders for the main commercial bank, which works under the government, to furnish details of the money paid through electoral bonds including the parties that got them.

On another occasion, the chief justice decreed that he (and future chief justices) be part of the selection committee to appoint election commissioners. Mr Modi responded by changing the law. The prime minister and a cabinet minister who he would name would choose future officials, leaving the opposition and the justices looking stumped. Their lordships may not have much time should they desire to prove Churchill wrong.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2024

PAKISTAN

May 9 riots: How is carrying out rallies akin to terrorism, asks Justice Mandokhail

Haseeb Bhatti Published March 20, 2024 

This photo combo shows Justice Musarrat Hilali, Justice Jamal Khan Madokhail and Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi. — SC website

As the Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to five suspects detained in a case pertaining to the May 9 riots, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail wondered how carrying out rallies was equivalent to terrorism.

Countrywide protests had erupted on May 9 last year after the paramilitary Rangers whisked away former prime minister Imran Khan from the Islamabad High Court in the £190m corruption case.

While the protests were under way, social media was flooded with footage of rioting and vandalism at various spots, including the Lahore Corps Commander’s residence and General Headquarters, the army’s head office in Rawalpindi.

In August last year, the Rawalpindi police added section 21(1) of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) to three first information reports (FIRs) registered in the wake of attacks on military installations.

The next month, they arrested 36 PTI activists and detained them in the Adiala jail under Section 16 of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) despite the Lahore High Court (LHC) granting them bail.

The city police have so far detained as many as 230 suspects in the GHQ attack case, including Imran and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

They have nominated around 150 unknown suspects in the Hamza Camp attack and another 100 in the Museum attack case.

Today, a three-member bench — led by Justice Mandokhail and including Justices Hasan Azhar Rizvi and Musarrat Hilali — took up a bail petition of suspects involved in a case filed by the New Town police for the Hamza Camp attack.

Sardar Abdul Razzaq appeared as the counsel for the petitioners while the investigation officer (IO) and the Punjab government’s lawyer were also present.

During the hearing, Justice Mandokhail asked, “How is carrying out rallies [equivalent to] terrorism?”

The bench censured the police and the prosecution for their poor investigation of the case.
The hearing

At the outset of the hearing, Justice Mandokhail asked, “Is carrying out rallies or being a worker of a political party a crime?”

Observing that banning student unions and political parties had resulted in “this destruction”, he asked: “Should we accept a former prime minister as a traitor based on the statement of a head constable?

“Have some fear of God. Where are we heading?”.

Here, Justice Rizvi asked what evidence was present against the suspects and whether they had been identified from the CCTV footage.

The IO replied, “The protestors had broken the [CCTV] cameras of the venues, including the Hamza Camp.” Justice Mandokhail then noted, “This means there is no evidence against the suspects; only the police statements.”

The judge went on to ask the reason for including terror charges in the cases, to which the Punjab government lawyer replied that the suspects had “attacked” a camp of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Here, Justice Mandokhail remarked, “Then you do not even know what terrorism is. Terrorism took place in the Army Public School Peshawar incident and the Quetta court.”

“How is carrying out rallies [equivalent to] terrorism?” he asked.

The Punjab counsel informed the court that a head constable of the Lahore Special Branch was also a “witness” in the case, at which Justice Mandokhail remarked, “The incident took place in Rawalpindi and the witness is from Lahore?”

“Is it a huge crime to burn a tyre [in protest] against the government?” the judge wondered. He observed that the government and the state had the “importance of one’s parents”, adding, “If parents slap their children, they later convince them, not kill them.”

“Detaining everyone is not the solution to the problem,” he asserted.

Justice Rizvi then noted that there was no other evidence than the police testimony. The IO informed the court that first the case was registered and then the suspects were arrested, at which Justice Mandokhail asked how the names of the suspects were known before their arrest.

“The police themselves damage the entire case,” the judge remarked.

Here, petitioner’s lawyer Razzaq said his clients were returning to their homes after closing their shops and “got stuck while on their way”.

Justice Hilali noted that the FIR did not mention any attack on an ISI office, adding that “sensitive installations are many”.

Justice Rizvi then said, “CCTV recordings are safe. People also make videos from their mobile phones.” The Punjab counsel then claimed, “Petrol bombs have been recovered from the suspects. There is also the allegation of firing.”

At this, Justice Rizvi asked, “Who brought the petrol bombs and from where? One cannot bring them from their homes. What does the investigation say?” The lawyer responded that the probe “did not reveal this aspect”.

Justice Rizvi then noted, “The suspects are also alleged of firing [but] neither were any arms recovered nor were the police injured.”

Justice Mandokhail then remarked, “The investigation officer is concocting stories on his own.”

Subsequently, the SC approved the petitioners’ bail pleas against surety bonds worth Rs50,000.

‘It feels like a mountain you never get done climbing’: COVID isn’t over for some

Sara Luterman, The 19th
March 20, 2024 

Coronavirus illustration. (Shutterstock.com)

Originally published by The 19th

Four years into the COVID-19 pandemic, few Americans are especially concerned about catching the disease. A recent poll from Pew found that only 20 percent of Americans consider the virus to be a major health threat. Only 10 percent are concerned about becoming very ill or hospitalized. Less than a third have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine. Pew did not ask how many people still wear masks.

But for many with disabilities and chronic illnesses, it is impossible to move on.

Although vaccination and medications like Paxlovid have helped reduce the number of deaths, disabled people and older adults are still at higher risk. Life expectancy in the United States has dropped, and COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death. Long COVID, the complex and poorly understood constellation of symptoms that linger long after an active infection ends, impacts an estimated 6.8 percent of Americans, or 17.6 million people.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 1 in 4 adults have some kind of disability. It is difficult to know what people with disabilities think about declining interest in COVID precautions as a whole, as they are not generally polled as a demographic. A 19th/SurveyMonkey poll from last year found that a third of disabled respondents also had caregiving responsibilities of their own.

The 19th spoke with four disabled Americans, most of whom have their own caregiving responsibilities for disabled family members, about their experiences four years into the pandemic. They expressed anger, frustration and a profound sense of isolation.

Sarah Anderson, 47, lives in Quincy, Illinois. She writes romance and young adult novels. Her husband is a financial analyst and their son is in his first year of college. Anderson spends much of her time doing caregiving for her mother, Caroline Lucas. Lucas, 81, lives down the street. Anderson does her mother’s grocery shopping, takes her to appointments and helps with some tasks around the house.

Lucas is a stroke survivor and has a severe immunodeficiency she receives regular infusions to treat, plus a number of other medical issues. Anderson, her husband and her mother are careful about masking and have not had COVID, to their knowledge. Her son had it recently, however.

“He’s living in a dorm with a lot of unmasked people. You can’t live 24 hours a day in a mask. We made sure he was up to date on his vaccines and bought him the best air purifier we could,” Anderson told The 19th.

When he comes home, he wears a mask, especially around his grandmother.

“They call it ‘saving Mimi’ – Mimi is what my grandkids call me,” Lucas said.

Because of the lack of precautions others take, Lucas’s world has become very small. She doesn’t go to see shows at the community theater anymore. She only sees family and goes to doctor’s appointments. Anderson and her mother have also struggled to find a home health aide willing to wear a mask while working with Lucas.


“It’s called ‘home health assistance.’ Health is the second word. We had someone who loved cats, got along with my mom fairly well and wore a mask, but she relocated and we’re not going to see her again. So we have to look for someone again. It feels like a mountain you never get done climbing,” Anderson said.

When asked how it feels that most people have stopped caring about COVID, Lucas did not mince words.

“It pisses me off. Such a terrible waste of life has gone on,” she said.


Sonja Castañeda-Cudney, 42, lives in Los Angeles. She is a doctoral student at the University of Southern California focused on mental health policy. She lives with her husband and two daughters, ages 3 and 5. She also has a stepson who lives with his mother nearby. They wear masks regularly and do not eat indoors with other people.

Castañeda-Cudney was careful about COVID from the beginning because her older daughter was born extremely premature. Her older daughter was a twin, but her twin did not survive.

“The girls were born at 26 weeks, emergency C-section. Their lungs were underdeveloped. Their hearts were underdeveloped. Eva was in the NICU for four and a half months and my daughter, Lucia, passed away after 11 days,” Castañeda-Cudney told The 19th.


Despite her efforts, Castañeda-Cudney and her immediate family members contracted COVID in August. Castañeda-Cudney has long COVID as a result, and is on a waiting list to be admitted to a long COVID clinic.

“I never really recovered. I get headaches. It’s like I’m hungover nonstop. It makes it hard to look at screens. It makes it hard to parent. It makes it hard to live a normal life,” Castañeda-Cudney said.

Castañeda-Cudney’s older daughter is in preschool and wears a mask. She says neither of her daughters has had problems tolerating masking. Her 3-year-old was born during the pandemic. “This is her life,” Castañeda-Cudney said.


They go to other children’s parties, but they wear masks and will take their cake and go eat it outside.

Castañeda-Cudney is angry that people are no longer taking precautions.

“It feels like s---. It feels like community care is not a thing. The world is so self-centered right now. If something doesn’t immediately affect you personally, then it’s not something to be concerned about,” she said. “I live with severe PTSD. I already lost a child. I’m not willing to lose another child.”

Hannah Neely, 42, lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two children, ages 10 and 12. She had cancer of the immune system, and between the disease and treatment, her immune system was severely weakened. Before, Neely was a teacher, but she is now too disabled to work. Her husband is a software engineer, although he was recently laid off.

Neely, her husband and her children wear masks. They do not socialize or eat indoors at restaurants. For a while, her children took classes online through the public school system, but eventually she sent them back to school masked.

“We go to the store, we go to doctor’s appointments, we go to our kids’ school, but that’s kind of it. And we mask everywhere,” Neely told The 19th.


In a strange way, Neely feels “lucky” to be a cancer survivor, because it means she doesn’t need to justify her concern about COVID to others. Most people she interacts with do not think she is being unreasonable.

“I am disabled in a way that is invisible, but sympathetic. I haven’t faced the medical gaslighting people with [chronic fatigue syndrome] have faced. … No medical professionals have ever told me I’m overreacting,” she said.

Some family and friends have engaged in a sort of wishful thinking.

“People sometimes say, ‘It’ll be fine. Hannah, I’m sure you’ll be fine. You can’t actually say that with any certainty,” Neely said.

PATRIARCH'S WAR ON WOMEN

Scientific proof Republicans are killing women

 

Thom Hartmann

March 20, 2024

Photo by Alexandru Zdrobău on Unsplash

It sure looks like Republicans want women to die. Particularly if they’re teenagers and have the temerity to be sexually active.

This is highlighted by what has to qualify as the most shocking scientific study of the year, published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network and titled Teen Pregnancy and Risk of Premature Mortality.

The result of the study of over 2.2 million women who experienced teen and pre-teen pregnancies (the youngest in the study gave birth at 9 years of age, although most were older teens) is best summarized by the subhead in the article about it in March 14th’s New York Times:

“A large analysis in Canada finds that teenagers who had babies were twice as likely to die before age 31.”

READ: Trump is out of his mind — and his speech in Ohio shows it

This is not a statistic you’ll hear on Fox “News” or in rightwing hate media. Instead, they’re cheer-leading for raped little girls to experience “the miracle of birth.”

As you remember, in 2022 Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio forced a 10-year-old rape victim to travel to Indiana to get an abortion, the day after his Republican Attorney General called the story a “fabrication.” DeWine, for his part, refused to argue for the girl to get an abortion, giving a gibberish answer to questions from reporters.

Other Republicans were in simple denial, claiming the story was part of a vast leftwing conspiracy. Republican Congressman and former wrestling coach Jim Jordan tweeted:

“Another lie. Anyone surprised?”

Fox News' Emily Compagno told her network’s viewers:

“What I find so deeply offensive, is that they had to made up a fake one!”

And South Dakota’s Republican Governor and Trump VP aspirant Kristi Noem, told CNN’s Dana Bash that the girl — whose pelvis wasn’t even yet sufficiently formed to handle a vaginal birth — should be forced to carry the fetus to term:

“I don’t believe a tragic situation should be perpetuated by another tragedy,” Noem said, arguing against the little girl getting an abortion. “There’s more that we have got to do to make sure that we really are living a life that says every life is precious…”

The protestations of misogynistic Republicans across the nation notwithstanding, teenagers giving birth is not only life-changing but also health-destroying. And terribly common, particularly in Red states, which have the highest per-capita rates of teen pregnancy.

The JAMA Network study covered the period from 1991 to 2021 and, because Canada has a national single-payer healthcare system, they were easily able to compile the anonymized statistics.

Was this because girls getting pregnant are, at least in popular culture, associated with poverty and dropping out of school? The answer from the study was an emphatic “No!” The author of the Times article, Roni Caryn Rabin, noted:

“Even after the researchers accounted for pre-existing health problems the girls may have had, and for income and education disparities, teenagers who carried pregnancies to term were more than twice as likely to suffer premature death later in life.”

Meanwhile, rapists in Red states, particularly if they like the idea of reproducing their DNA, are having a heyday.

The Houston Chronicle reported on January 24th on the results of another new study, published that month in JAMA’s journal Internal Medicine titled Rape-Related Pregnancies in the 14 US States With Total Abortion Bans. As the Chronicle’s Medical Reporter Julian Gill noted:

“Texas saw an estimated 26,313 rape-related pregnancies during the 16 months after the state outlawed all abortions, with no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. …
“Behind Texas, the states [with no-exceptions bans on abortion] with the highest totals [of pregnancies resulting from rape] were Missouri (5,825), Tennessee (4,990), Arkansas (4,660), Oklahoma (4,530), Louisiana (4,290) and Alabama (4,130).”

Because none of these states either keep or release detailed statistics on rape-caused pregnancies it’s impossible to know how many of the 56,000+ rape-caused pregnancies in the US last year were among teen and preteen girls, but in every single Republican-controlled state that has outlawed abortion, age is not considered a mitigating factor that might allow medical intervention.

If you’re female and pregnant in a Red state, the legislature and police of that state own you and your body, regardless of your maturity or life circumstances.

Four Texas counties have put into law bans on traveling out-of-state to obtain an abortion, along with a statewide law that allows anybody to sue and obtain up to $10,000 by proving a woman or girl has traveled out-of-state to end a pregnancy. Missouri and Idaho have also enacted bans on what Republicans call “abortion tourism,” as if it’s some sort of fun adventure every woman wants to do for entertainment.

In addition to the religious freaks who demand punishment of women who get abortions, many men in America simply don’t think women should have the right to make their own medical decisions — or any sort of decisions of consequence, or hold any positions of power, for that matter.

As Pew reported in 2020, with a painful echo of Rush Limbaugh’s famous “Feminazi” shtick that so appealed to his largely male and Republican listener base:

“About four-in-ten Republican men (38%) say women’s gains have come at the expense of men, compared with 25% of Republican women…”

But this is just the beginning. Next, Republicans are going after birth control, starting with teenage girls.

Last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an anti-birth-control ruling by the infamous rightwing crank Texas District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk (whose ban of the abortion drug Mifepristone based on the Comstock Act is being heard before the Supreme Court soon).

The complainant, Alexander Deanda, argued that his three teenage daughters should not be allowed to confidentially obtain birth control from one of the state’s 150 federally-funded Title X clinics that were established by Congress and President Nixon in 1970 (it’s already illegal in Texas for teens to obtain birth control from state-funded and private clinics without a parent’s permission).

As NPR reported two weeks ago:

“In his suit, Deanda, a Christian, said he was ‘raising each of [his] daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality’ and that he could have no ‘assurance that his children will be unable to access prescription contraception’ that ‘facilitate sexual promiscuity and premarital sex.’
“In his opinion, Kacsmaryk agreed, writing that ‘the use of contraception (just like abortion) violates traditional tenets of many faiths, including the Christian faith plaintiff practices.’”

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, is explicit about the GOP’s desire to see women barefoot and pregnant (and arguably, like Katie Britt, in the kitchen). As Rolling Stone reported:

“Those plans — and many more, including proposals to attack contraception access, use the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to increase ‘abortion surveillance’ and data collection, rescind a Department of Defense policy to ‘prohibit abortion travel funding,’ punish states that require health insurance plans to cover abortion, and retool a law that is currently protecting pregnant women with life-threatening conditions — are outlined in Project 2025’s ‘Mandate for Leadership.’”

The Project 2025 document, in a section written by Trump’s head of the Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Civil Rights, Roger Severino, calls for draconian federal-supervised, state-reported surveillance of every woman of child-bearing age:

“Because liberal states have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism, HHS should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”

Republicans are also calling for the enforcement of the moribund Comstock Act, which outlaws sending anything relating to abortion or birth control through the mail or via a common carrier like UPS or FedEx — even to hospitals and pharmacies. If you’re unfamiliar, I’ve written about it extensively here.

And the GOP is quite excited about the prospect. As The New York Times reports:

“Project 2025’s road map argues that a Republican Justice Department should enforce Comstock ‘against providers and distributors’ of abortion pills. A Trump administration could follow through on these plans by prosecuting doctors and drug companies anywhere in the country: The Comstock Act, as a federal law, could be read to override state protections for abortion rights.

“Some key abortion opponents, like the former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, argue that Comstock should be interpreted as an effective ban on all abortions because every procedure that takes place in the United States relies on some item placed in the mail, from a surgical glove to a curet. Mr. Mitchell and his allies read the law to exclude explicit exceptions for the life or health of the patient.”

Generally ignored since the 1950s, the Act is still on the books and, if it were enforced by a Republican president (as promised), it would functionally ban both abortion nationwide but birth control as well.

While the Republican war against women just shifted into hyperdrive, yesterday President Joe Biden signed an executive order mandating expanded funding and data collection by the federal government around women’s health.

It follows an announcement three weeks ago by First Lady Jill Biden, who heads up the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, of $100 million in new funding.

Dr. Jill Biden was emphatic:

“We will build a health care system that puts women and their lived experiences at its center. Where no woman or girl has to hear that ‘it’s all in your head,’ or, ‘it’s just stress.’ Where women aren’t just an after-thought, but a first-thought. Where women don’t just survive with chronic conditions but lead long and healthy lives.”

It’s been long needed: it was only in the 1990s that the feds required medical and pharmaceutical studies to include women, and even at that women’s health issues are nowhere near as frequently examined as are men’s.

The contrast with the GOP, which has fought against the Equal Rights Amendment for decades, couldn’t be clearer.

Women planning to vote Republican this year need to know what that party really has in mind for them should the GOP regain power in Washington, DC.

Thom Hartmann

Contributor

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Strict abortion ban threatening women's healthcare in Louisiana

Louisiana's strict abortion ban is having spillover effects across women's health care in the US state, leading doctors to turn away patients for routine prenatal visits and perform unnecessary Cesarean sections, according to a report released Tuesday.


Issued on: 20/03/2024

A woman talks to Doctor Audrey (R) before receiving an abortion at a Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinic in Florida, on July 14, 2022. 

© Chandan Khanna, AFP

By: NEWS WIRES

Conservative Louisiana, in the Deep South, joined a dozen other states in implementing a near-total ban on abortion after the US Supreme Court overturned the federal right to the procedure in 2022.

But a joint fact-finding mission conducted from May to November last year by four medical NGOs charges that Louisiana's abortion ban has led to practices that "degrade long-standing medical ethical standards, and, worst of all, deny basic human rights to Louisianans seeking reproductive health care in their state."

In one case, a woman was denied a prenatal appointment until she had passed the first trimester of her pregnancy. She ended up having a miscarriage before she was able to receive an appointment, she told the report's investigators.

In the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, miscarriages are more common -- so prenatal appointments are being "purposely delayed to avoid the risk of miscarriage care being misconstrued as an abortion in violation of the bans," according to the report, from the groups Lift Louisiana, Physicians for Human Rights, Reproductive Health Impact and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Doctors specifically cited the abortion ban in refusing to see the patient, the report said.

Those who fall afoul of the ban -- and what critics say are its medically vague exceptions -- face 10 to 15 years in prison and up to $200,000 in fines.

The result is a climate that "undermines the quality of care (medical providers) are able to deliver to pregnant patients," and "erodes their ability... to provide patients with the standard of care."

'At what point can you act?'

In one case, a woman with a cardiac condition was delayed access to an abortion despite "the added stress of pregnancy on her heart."

"She was quite sick, and they said, 'No. We have to maximise all medical management options before we could offer any sort of termination procedure,'" a clinician told investigators.

Louisiana's strict abortion law has a carve-out to "preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child," but the clinician quoted in the report said that delaying abortion care meant risking the patient in this case "could have a heart attack and die."

"At what point can you act?" the clinician said, adding it was unclear "how many cardiac meds have to fail" before an abortion is legally allowed.

Sometimes Louisiana medical workers performed Cesarean section surgeries in lieu of an abortion, even in a case where the patient had a condition that would "not result in a viable pregnancy."

C-sections -- in which a birth is prompted via a surgical incision in a woman's abdomen -- carry medical risks and can adversely impact patients' future reproductive health.

Doctors "ended up having to take this person for c-section to preserve the appearance of not doing an abortion," according to the report.

Medical staff "feel that they're abandoning their patients," Michele Heisler, a report coauthor and the medical director for Physicians for Human Rights, told AFP.

"They're being forced to not be able to meet their medical, ethical, human rights obligations," she said, adding that "a lot of the clinicians we spoke to are planning to leave the state."

The Center for Reproductive Rights called for legislative changes.

Louisiana "must urgently meet its human rights obligations by repealing the state's abortion bans and ensuring that all Louisianans have access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care, including abortion," said Karla Torres, a lawyer with the group.

(AFP)

After abortion ban, US state sees substandard pregnancy care

Washington (AFP) – Louisiana's strict abortion ban is having spillover effects across women's health care in the US state, leading doctors to turn away patients for routine prenatal visits and perform unnecessary Cesarean sections, according to a report released Tuesday.


Issued on: 20/03/2024 

Conservative Louisiana, in the Deep South, joined a dozen other states in implementing a near-total ban on abortion after the US Supreme Court overturned the federal right to the procedure in 2022 

© CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP/File

Conservative Louisiana, in the Deep South, joined a dozen other states in implementing a near-total ban on abortion after the US Supreme Court overturned the federal right to the procedure in 2022.

But a joint fact-finding mission conducted from May to November last year by four medical NGOs charges that Louisiana's abortion ban has led to practices that "degrade long-standing medical ethical standards, and, worst of all, deny basic human rights to Louisianans seeking reproductive health care in their state."

In one case, a woman was denied a prenatal appointment until she had passed the first trimester of her pregnancy. She ended up having a miscarriage before she was able to receive an appointment, she told the report's investigators.

In the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, miscarriages are more common -- so prenatal appointments are being "purposely delayed to avoid the risk of miscarriage care being misconstrued as an abortion in violation of the bans," according to the report, from the groups Lift Louisiana, Physicians for Human Rights, Reproductive Health Impact and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Doctors specifically cited the abortion ban in refusing to see the patient, the report said.

Those who fall afoul of the ban -- and what critics say are its medically vague exceptions -- face 10 to 15 years in prison and up to $200,000 in fines.

The result is a climate that "undermines the quality of care (medical providers) are able to deliver to pregnant patients," and "erodes their ability... to provide patients with the standard of care."
'At what point can you act?'

In one case, a woman with a cardiac condition was delayed access to an abortion despite "the added stress of pregnancy on her heart."

"She was quite sick, and they said, 'No. We have to maximize all medical management options before we could offer any sort of termination procedure,'" a clinician told investigators.

Louisiana's strict abortion law has a carve-out to "preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child," but the clinician quoted in the report said that delaying abortion care meant risking the patient in this case "could have a heart attack and die."

"At what point can you act?" the clinician said, adding it was unclear "how many cardiac meds have to fail" before an abortion is legally allowed.

Sometimes Louisiana medical workers performed Cesarean section surgeries in lieu of an abortion, even in a case where the patient had a condition that would "not result in a viable pregnancy."

C-sections -- in which a birth is prompted via a surgical incision in a woman's abdomen -- carry medical risks and can adversely impact patients' future reproductive health.

Doctors "ended up having to take this person for c-section to preserve the appearance of not doing an abortion," according to the report.

Medical staff "feel that they're abandoning their patients," Michele Heisler, a report coauthor and the medical director for Physicians for Human Rights, told AFP.

"They're being forced to not be able to meet their medical, ethical, human rights obligations," she said, adding that "a lot of the clinicians we spoke to are planning to leave the state."

The Center for Reproductive Rights called for legislative changes.

Louisiana "must urgently meet its human rights obligations by repealing the state's abortion bans and ensuring that all Louisianans have access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care, including abortion," said Karla Torres, a lawyer with the group.

© 2024 AFP

‘Overly rosy picture’: KLM loses Dutch ‘greenwashing’ case


By AFP

March 20, 2024

KLM does not have to remove the adverts because they are no longer running

 - Copyright AFP/File JADE GAO

Dutch airline KLM misled consumers with “vague and general” adverts about its efforts to reduce the environmental impact of flying, an Amsterdam court ruled Wednesday in a greenwashing case brought by a pressure group.

KLM also “paints an overly rosy picture of the impact of measures such as Sustainable Aviation Fuel (made from renewable raw materials) and reforestation”, the court ruled.

“These measures only marginally reduce the negative environmental aspects and give the mistaken impression that flying with KLM is sustainable.”

The case was brought by the Fossielvrij NL (Fossil-free Netherlands) group, which accused KLM of greenwashing — conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about the extent to which a company’s products, operations or services are environmentally sound.

KLM is no longer carrying the adverts in question, so the court did not order any alterations.

The airline “may continue to advertise flying and does not have to warn consumers that current aviation is not sustainable”, the court said.

“If KLM informs consumers about its ambitions in the area of CO2 reduction, for example, it must do so honestly and concretely,” the verdict added.

Most of the adverts were part of KLM’s “Fly Responsibly” campaign, which the airline says is an “awareness campaign”.

They range from general statements such as “join us in creating a more sustainable future” to declarations about KLM’s use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), described as a “promising solution”.

In the case of SAF, the court ruled that while it can contribute to reducing the harmful impact of flying, “the term ‘sustainable’ is too absolute and not sufficiently concrete.

“The statement that it is a ‘promising solution’ also gives too rosy a picture,” according to the court.

According to the court documents, KLM had disputed the idea that the statements were misleading and said the firm was free to communicate about its sustainability efforts.

The firm said in a statement it had not used the expressions at the heart of the case “for some time”.

“It is good that the court gives us more clarity on what is possible and how we can continue to communicate transparently and honestly about our approach and activities,” said the airline.

“We are pleased that the court ruled that we can continue to communicate with our customers and partners about our approach to making aviation more sustainable. We are continuously learning how best to include them in this.”