Sunday, April 17, 2022

Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean: A Chance for Cooperation or a Warning of Conflict?

Apr 16 2022 •

Thomas Reprich/Shutterstock

LONG READ

Recent discoveries of gas fields under the sea in the Eastern Mediterranean fuelled the long existing troubles between Turkey and its neighbours, especially Greece and the Republic of Cyprus. Turkey’s assertive policy on this issue prompted Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel to intensify their mutual cooperation on exploitation and commercialization of natural gas, thus intensifying Ankara’s concerns over being denied its share of energy resources (Merz, 2020, p. 1). The background of relations between the regional actors warns that the dispute goes beyond “mere” exploitation of natural gas and warns that the energy problem could be just the beginning of a more serious crisis. The main question thus is whether the dispute can be solved through cooperation and interdependence, or whether it will develop into a more serious conflict. The solution to this question largely depends on the stance of the European Union, which has the responsibility to broker a peaceful end of the crisis involving two of its members and one accession country.

As mentioned, gas exploitation is a reason, not the cause, of the crisis, and, as summarized by G. Dalay, the maritime dispute between Greece and Turkey, as the core of the current situation, centred over three main issues: 1) disagreement over Greece’s sea borders and ownership of some Aegean islands; 2) exclusive economic zones in the Eastern Mediterranean, and 3) the long-lasting dispute over the Cyprus issue (Dalay, 2021, p. 1).

Current energy concern, thus, adds to the already existing tensions in the region, especially between Turkey on one side and Greece and Cyprus, on the other. Since the latter two are also member states of the EU, the problem is not just regional, but involves the whole Europe, questioning Turkey’s aspirations to EU membership and estranging it from its NATO allies.

Concrete Turkish actions, which include deploying expeditions into Greece’s and Cyprus’ waters, blocking Cyprus’ vessels, and signing a treaty with the Government of National Accord in Libya (Merz, 2020, pp. 1-2), provoked EU to back Greece and Cyprus against Turkey, with some states, like France, demanding more comprehensive sanctions against Turkey. France has also sent navy and participated in military exercises in the region together with Greece and Cyprus, thus warning Turkey (Ibid.).

On the other hand, Turkey clearly sees itself as a major player in the region, and its activities go beyond gas exploration and exploitation. In 2019 Kudret Ozersay, foreign minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, confirmed as much by saying that ‘the Eastern Mediterranean region has vital importance for Turkey geopolitically, geostrategically, and in other aspects’. In a way that resounds with strong sympathies for Turkish regional politics, Ismail Telci summarized this vital importance in a piece written for Politics Today by expounding four main reasons for Turkey’s strong interest in the Eastern Mediterranean.

First, Turkey is a large energy importer, dependent on countries like Russia and Iran for fulfilling its energy needs, and thus finding its own energy resources is crucial for Turkey. Second, Turkey aspires to become a major energy transfer hub, connecting Europe with Middle Eastern and Asian markets, which contributes to Turkey’s geostrategic and economic standing. Third, Turkey’s policies in the Middle East are facing confrontation from Egypt and Israel, which, together with Greece and Cyprus, are attempting to isolate Turkey from regional politics by forming alliances, and so Turkey must respond by taking a more active role for this power struggle. Finally, Turkey sees the Eastern Mediterranean region as a question of national security, and thus its actions should be seen as a line of defense against other actors’ possible threats.

Telci concludes his opinion by stating that ‘regional and international actors must remember the fact that the Eastern Mediterranean has been a Turkish inland sea for centuries and historical fact will be the center of Ankara’s future strategies towards the region’. Such direct statements clearly show that Turkey’s behavior in the region is only partly motivated by questions of energy and/or economy, but actually have a more profound geostrategic significance, which has obviously come to dominate Turkish policy towards the Eastern Mediterranean.

These most recent assessments of Turkey’s actions and the ever-growing feeling of an imminent conflict seem to contradict the more optimistic opinions voiced over the years, such as the one expressed by Ross Wilson, former US ambassador to Turkey, who wrote in 2014 that the ‘discovery of offshore natural gas in the eastern Mediterranean gives the decades-old stalemate between Turkey and Cyprus an opportunity cost price tag – it provides dollars-and-cents reasons for easing the estrangement or bringing it to an end’. (Wilson, 2014, p. 105) Similar views were expressed by the then US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, who hoped that gas resources would bring to the settlement of Cypriot issue and would have positive consequences across the Eastern Mediterranean and for the NATO-EU relations.

These unfulfilled prophecies clearly show it is not energy that is at stake in the region, and that no “dollars-and-cents” reasons can play decisive role in the solution of the issue. Already in 2012 scholars have identified the complementarity of Turkey’s assertive rhetoric in the Eastern Mediterranean with the majority of domestic population, which wants to see the country as powerful and determined, but also warned about the need to determine the possible directions in which Turkey wishes to go:

One question that arises is what sort of regional power Turkey wants to become. At this stage, there are a number of options for Turkey. It might emerge as an over-assertive power aiming to become the region’s hegemon, defending what it perceives as its national interests while tightening ties with all regional actors. It might side with the West, thus selecting regional actors to partner with and others to keep at arms’ length. Or, finally, it might try to strike a balance between these two options, cultivating relations with a vast array of states and non-state actors in the region, while remaining anchored to the Euro-Atlantic alliance. In this context, what Turkey needs to avoid is taking steps that might have unexpected consequences eventually resulting in greater regional instability (Ogurlu, 2012, p. 13).

In understanding the way in which Turkey has decided to behave in the end, one needs to go back to the beginning and take into account the issues that go beyond gas exploitation. I posit that there are three main reasons for Turkey’s behaviour. The first is the understanding, going in line with a realist prospective, that states value security more than prosperity, and that economic incentives are insufficient reason for cooperation. Second, Turkey has undergone a shift in its foreign policy, which moved from “zero problems with neighbors” in the first years of Erdogan party’s (AKP) rule to a desire to revive or emulate the Ottoman Empire’s power (Merz, 2020, p. 3). Third, a rather ambivalent European stance towards Turkey and EU’s apparent inactivity in the crisis contribute to intensifying the negative aspects of the first two points.

Over the past two decades, countries of the Eastern Mediterranean signed several agreements on exclusive economic zones (EEZs) – in 2003 Cyprus signed an EEZ agreement with Egypt, and four years later with Lebanon, while in 2010 Cyprus and Israel sign a deal to define their respective EEZs. All of these deals were fiercely protested by Turkey, which, on its part, signed a continental shelf delimitation agreement with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 2011 (Demiryol, 2019, p. 453).

As already stated, gas exploitation per se is not the main issue for Turkey, but it is part of a complex problem, which includes Turkish-Greek dispute over areas in the Aegean, and more importantly the dispute over Cyprus. The reasoning behind Turkish actions seems to indicate that if Turkey accepted the already signed EEZs or even attempted to build its relationship with other regional actors on principles of cooperation instead of confrontation, it would implicitly recognize Greek claims in the Aegean and accept the status of Cyprus, which would in turn compromise its national security and its desire to win the regional power struggle.

The dispute over EEZs ensued a series of confrontations, and also undermined the peace process in Cyprus, with unification talks in 2014, 2015, and 2017 ending without any positive outcome. In addition, in 2019 Turkey singed two agreements with the Government of National Accord of Libya, namely the Delimitation of Maritime Jurisdiction Areas in the Mediterranean Sea and the Security and Military Cooperation Agreement – the former stated bilaterally the EEZs of Libya and Turkey, completely disregarding Greek major islands. Having this in mind, it is clear that ‘the interlocking set of maritime disputes between Turkey and Greece is strongly tied to their conflicting projections of national sovereignty’ (Dalay, 2021, pp. 2-3) and security. These considerations and Turkey’s behavior would seem to corroborate the realist stance that, at least in the East Mediterranean case, states are prone to value more security and accumulation of power over economic gains achieved by cooperation (Demiryol, 2019, p. 437).

This brings to the second point – the Turkish foreign policy, which, in the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, has been divided into two strands in the past four decades. For the first twenty years, since the 1980s, Turkey’s policy in the region was trade- and diplomacy-driven, while it received a new “face” in the 2000s with the rise of AKP.

The AKP governments were rather oriented towards making Turkey an important factor in the region, and the moves in that direction ‘gradually redefined the country’s regional interests, policies, and alliances’ (Ogurlu, 2012, p. 8). In shifting its foreign policy, Turkey used its Western alliances, mainly NATO of which it is a member, and by acting as a bridge between Asia and Middle East it attempted to increase its regional role. Ogurlu describes this shift as follows:

Turkey has created the conditions to achieve its ultimate goal in the Eastern Mediterranean region: become not only a key player, but also a leading – if not the leading – actor in the Eastern Mediterranean. In other words, Turkey has moved from being a compliant member of the Western community to being an assertive power with the potential of shifting the strategic balance of the whole region. Against this backdrop, Turkey is extremely sensitive to developments that can undermine its current status in the Eastern Mediterranean. Ideally, Ankara would want to consolidate its position by way of increasing its soft power, most notably its ever more important role as an Eastern Mediterranean economic hub. Where this turns out not to be possible, Ankara is willing to confront those regional actors that, deliberately or not, curb its regional ambitions. In this extreme derogation from, if not outright reversal of, its “zero problems with the neighbours” policy, Turkey has started to formulate its strategies and policy in competition with other regional actors that have apparently been shaping their regional approach according to an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” mentality – e.g. Israel and Cyprus (Ogurlu, 2012, p. 9).

This shift into policy towards a “neo-ottoman” kind has seen Turkey confronting its Western allies as well as regional actors. By doing so, Turkey inevitable decreased the quality of its relations with NATO and the EU, but it also provoked complications with Egypt and Israel. Beyond the issues of gas exploration, Egypt has not appreciated Turkey’s constant support for Muslim brotherhood, while Israel does not welcome Turkey’s new support for the Palestinian cause (Merz, 2020, p. 3).

An additional dimension of Turkish foreign policy is represented by the so-called “Blue Homeland” doctrine, which never gained official recognition, but serves well to address certain aspects of Ankara’s behavior. The doctrine basically expounds the fear that Turkey might be ‘caged to Anadolia’ and thus needs to expand its influence over Black Sea, Aegean, and the Mediterranean. The doctrine clearly advocates for an expansion of Turkey’s maritime boundaries and repositions it as a serious maritime power. (Dalay, 2021, p. 6) Interestingly enough, the drilling and seismic research vessels deployed by Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean gas exploitation are named after Ottoman rulers, such as Fatih and Yavuz, or Ottoman admirals, such as Barbaros, Kemal Reis, and others (Tas, 2020, p. 17).

The change in Turkish foreign policy together with its complicated relations with regional powers, NATO, and the EU, bring the latter into the picture. Turkey applied to become member of the EEC in 1987, while it was granted candidate status in 1999, with accession negotiations starting in 2005. The attitude of the EU towards Turkey has been marked by significant ambivalence. Turkey was often perceived as a buffer zone, or an insulator, which would protect the European security complex from various conflicts in the Middle East, and many in Europe wanted Turkey to remain as such, in order not to bring external EU borders too close the conflicting zones, and proposals were made that EU and Turkey should find alternatives to Ankara’s full membership (Buzan & Diez, 1999).

Some have also wondered ‘whether a semi-developed Islamic country could in fact be regarded as European – the boundaries to the New Europe had to be set somewhere, after all – and also whether post-Cold War Turkey’s strategic significance was now so compelling’ (Park, 2000, p. 34). Such views clearly reflected the European attitude that there was no rush in accepting an Islamic country, which served well the Western interests during the Cold War and could still serve as an insulator towards the Middle East, into the company of other European Union member states.

However, with the official candidacy granted to Turkey some have changed their views. An interesting example is T. Diez, one of the authors of the “alternatives to membership” proposal mentioned earlier, who in 2005 changed his opinion and argued for the Turkey’s faster integration into the EU. The reasons for this change of view are now, fifteen years later and in the middle of Turkish confrontation with its neighbours, especially amusing:

Turkish domestic and foreign politics has undergone what can only be called a revolution: sweeping constitutional and legal changes have been approved by Parliament, a party with religious roots has been elected to form a single-party government, relationships with Greece have become as between friendly neighbours (although not free from conflicts), and the Turkish government has pressed for a solution in Cyprus and has openly backed the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s plan for the new constitution of a federal Cyprus Republic, which was eventually rejected not by the Turkish but by the Greek Cypriots (Diez, 2005, p. 168).

These positive “revolutionary” moves were, in fact, in Diez’s view, due to the rise of AKP, Erdogan’s party, still in power sixteen years later:

In Turkey, at least three interconnected developments have had a profound impact on Turkey-EU relations: the improved relationship between Turkey and Greece; the series of reform packages approved by the National Assembly to bring Turkey’s constitutional and legal system in line with EU requirements; and the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a secular party with religious roots (Diez, 2005, p. 170).

Now, having in mind that it is the same party (AKP) that seemed to be a factor of stability, modernity and good neighbourly relations in 2005, and that five years later turned Turkish policy in an expansionist and aggressive direction, which continues to this day, one might wonder whether this shift was inherent in the AKP, or was in a sense triggered by EU enlargement fatigue after 2004? In other words, did the AKP, at the beginning of its rise, just to pretend to be a European-oriented, secularist and pacifist party, and then showed its real face after accumulating more power, or was this change caused also by EU’s inactive role in the region and its perhaps pejorative view of Turkey?

This question will most probably remain without a definitive answer, but it seems quite plausible that decades of EU’s ambivalent attitude towards Turkey and the exhaustively prolonged accession negotiations, which now repeats itself in the Western Balkans, might have contributed to radical changes in Turkey – both in its populations, and in the AKP which has often been called populist in formulation of Ankara’s domestic as well as foreign policy, including the one in the Eastern Mediterranean (Tas, 2020, pp. 14ff).

While the EU has been busy with the painful Brexit issue and self-reflection on the future structure of the Union, Turkey might have responded to Brussels’ enlargement fatigue with its own “waiting room fatigue” and decided to reshape its foreign policy in a more assertive and aggressive way, which can now be seen also in the Eastern Mediterranean. Thus, a more active role of the EU in the region, especially since the involved parties are two EU member states and one candidate state, is necessary in order to reach a peaceful solution of the crisis. This can hardly be achieved by threats and sanctions or heavier military presence in the region, which could enrage Ankara even more. Apart from negotiations with the aim of de-escalating the situation, one of the possible options is a more cooperation-prone stance of the EU, especially since the formation of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum in January 2020, comprising Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and Palestine.

It is still not too late to facilitate Turkey’s joining the Forum, thus bringing it at the table and trying to prevent a larger-scale conflict. Peaceful cooperation, envisioned in Schuman’s plan for France and West Germany that originated the idea of EU, can be achieved only by genuine cooperation based on mutual respect, not by decades-long and ever-prolonged promises. Thus, the Eastern Mediterranean situation represents an opportunity also for the EU to rethink its enlargement and cooperation policies. However, with the Ukraine crisis and yet another shift of EU foreign policy’s attention, it is still to be seen whether this opportunity will be seized.

References

Buzan B. & Diez, T. (1999), “The European Union and Turkey”, Survival, 41:1, pp. 41-57.

Dalay, G. (2021), “Turkey, Europe, and the Eastern Mediterranean: Charting a Way out of Current Deadlock”, Brookings Doha Center Policy Briefing, pp. 1-15.

Demiryol, T. (2019), “Between Security and Prosperity: Turkey and the Prospect of Energy Cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean”, Turkish Studies, 20:3, pp. 442-464.

Diez, T. (2005), “Turkey, the European Union and Security Complexes Revisited”, Mediterranean Politics, 10:2, pp. 167-180.

Merz, F. (2020), “Trouble with Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean”, CSS Analysis in Security Policy, 275, pp. 1-4.

Ogurlu, E. (2012), “Rising Tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean: Implications for Turkish Foreign Policy”, Istituto Affari Internazionali Working Papers, 12:4, pp. 1-14.

Park, W. (2000), “Turkey’s European Union Candidacy: From Luxembourg to Helsinki – to Ankara?”, Mediterranean Politic, 5:3, pp. 31-53.

Tas, H. (2020), “The Formulation and Implementation of Populist Foreign Policy: Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean”, Mediterranean Politics, latest articles (online), pp. 1-25.

Wilson, R. (2014), “Turks, Cypriots, and the Cyprus Problem: Hopes and Complications”, Mediterranean Quarterly, 25:1, pp. 105-110.

Further Reading on E-International Relations

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Filip Ivanovic graduated from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bologna and obtained his PhD in philosophy from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. He also holds a postgraduate diploma in diplomatic practice from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. Currently he is assistant research professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the University of Montenegro. He regularly publishes opinions in local and regional media outlets.

CRIMINAL CYBER CAPITALI$M

Musk Go-Private Tweet Ruled False by Judge, Tesla Investors Say

Chris Dolmetsch and Joel Rosenblatt, Bloomberg News

Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., arrives at court during the SolarCity trial in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., on Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Musk was cool but combative as he testified in a Delaware courtroom that Tesla's more than $2 billion acquisition of SolarCity in 2016 wasn't a bailout of the struggling solar provider. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc. shareholders suing over Elon Musk’s 2018 tweet about taking the company private say they won a key ruling in the run-up to a fraud trial with billions of dollars in damages at stake.

The investors said a federal judge agreed with them that “no reasonable jury could find Musk’s tweets on August 7, 2018 accurate or not misleading,” according to a court filing late Friday. The filing describes an April 1 order by the judge that isn’t listed on the docket.

Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Musk and Tesla, said “nothing will ever change the truth which is that Elon Musk was considering taking Tesla private and could have.”

“All that’s left some half decade later is random plaintiffs’ lawyers trying to make a buck and others trying to block that truth from coming to light all to the detriment of free speech,” he said Saturday.

The ruling -- if not appealed -- will put the electric-car maker at a big disadvantage in a San Francisco jury trial set for late May because Tesla won’t be allowed to argue the controversial Twitter post was truthful. It will allow investors to focus mainly on connecting Musk’s statement to their stock market losses.

The decision is also a blow to the credibility of the world’s richest person as he continues to wage legal battles that other chief executives would avoid or settle. Adding to the spectacle, Musk is waging a hostile bid to take control of Twitter Inc. on a pledge to make the platform a bastion of free speech.

Musk told a New York federal judge in early March he “would never lie to shareholders.” He’s asking that judge to free him from social media restrictions he agreed to after the Securities & Exchange Commission sued him for fraud over the 2018 tweets.

In San Francisco, the shareholders suing over securities fraud are asking U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen to prohibit Musk from making any more public comments about his “interpretation and opinions” of the claims in their lawsuit until after the trial is finished.

Read More: Musk’s Venting About SEC Ires Investors Suing Over 2018 Tweets

The investors took specific aim at comments Musk made during a TED event this week in Vancouver. He said “I was forced to concede to the SEC unlawfully” and settle the agency’s lawsuit over the 2018 “funding secured” tweet.

Shareholders argue that Musk’s “indisputably false” August 2018 tweet and follow-up posts on Twitter cost them billions of dollars amid wild swings in Tesla’s stock price, while his lawyers countered that the post to his millions of followers was “entirely truthful.”

To fend off allegations that the missive was fraudulent, Musk’s lawyers have stood by their argument that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had agreed to support his attempt to take Tesla private.

What Bloomberg Intelligence Says

Theoretical damages could be as high as $12 billion, but we think settlement value may be $260-$380 million.

-- Holly Froum, Litigation Analyst

For a full report click here

Lawyers for the shareholders didn’t immediately respond to an email outside regular business hours.

They said that Chen was “explicit and unambiguous” in siding with them in the judge’s April 1 order finding the August 2018 tweet to be false.

The judge concluded Musk “recklessly made the statements with knowledge as to their falsity,” lawyers for the shareholders said in the filing.

Court officials couldn’t immediately be reached to confirm the judge’s order.

The case is In re Tesla Inc. Securities Litigation, 18-cv-04865, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

Analysis: West’s failure to hold Syria’s Assad accountable motivated Russia’s Putin

On Apr 16, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus,

The international community’s failure to stop mass killings and tyranny in Syria paved the way for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to proceed with his invasion of parts of Ukraine in 2014 and then again this year.

This issue was thrust back into the limelight last week when Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the UN Security Council.

Last week also marked five years since Syria’s air force dropped a Russian bomb with Sarin gas on Khan Sheikhoun, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians.

“The chain of mass killings from Syria to Somalia, from Afghanistan to Yemen and Libya should have been stopped a long time ago to be honest,” Zelenskyy said during a powerful speech to Security Council members, urging them not to allow Russia to continue to go unpunished for its war crimes.

“If tyranny had ever received such a response to the war it had unleashed that it would have ceased to exist and a fair peace would have been guaranteed after it, the world would have changed for sure,” Zelenskyy said.

Former US officials and analysts concur.

“This was our best shot to send Putin a strong deterrence message. Alas, the Obama administration was not interested in getting more involved in Syria,” said Randa Slim, a program director at the Middle East Institute. “Obama felt Putin would be stuck in a quagmire in Syria, which was good news for the US.”

Former US President Barack Obama notoriously warned the Assad regime in 2012 that if it used chemical weapons, it would cross a “red line” and be met with a response.

Chemical weapons were widely used, and the Obama administration failed to act.

“Some in the Obama [administration] thought the Russians [could] present a challenge to Iran’s game in Syria. Others were hoping that the Russian intervention [would] decelerate the momentum of ISIS military advances,” Slim told Al Arabiya English.

A similar warning was made by Obama when it came to Ukraine in 2014 as Russia annexed Crimea.

Former US Special Envoy for Syria Joel Rayburn said Russia was “overestimated” as a military superpower twice in less than 50 years.

“In overestimating Russian power, we failed to secure vital interests & let unnecessary disasters unfold in Syria & elsewhere. Time to learn,” Joel Rayburn tweeted.

But Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Syria was not a failure in standing up to the Russians.

“It was something worse. It was a deliberate two-step between Obama and Putin, in the service of Obama’s realignment strategy with Iran,” Badran said. “And it was paid for not only in Syria, but also, simultaneously, in Ukraine. And very specifically, at the expense of NATO.”

Since late last year, the US had warned that Russia was preparing for a military invasion of Ukraine while Moscow repeatedly denied what has now been proven as credible.

The Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and Putin’s monthslong isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic are believed to have factored into the Russian president’s decision to greenlight the invasion.

Jomana Qaddour, head of the Syria Portfolio at the Atlantic Council, said Putin made an “advanced audit” of US and European will and interest before proceeding in Ukraine.

“Time and time again in Syria, Putin saw the US willing to concede space for Russian presence and objectives, rather than respond in return and create more of a ‘deconfliction mechanism’ whereby some mutual interests might have been served, but Russian interests did not reign supreme,” Qaddour told Al Arabiya English.

Pointing to the “countless demons” in Syria, including Iranian and Russian-backed militias, ISIS, and the Assad regime, Qaddour said: “With results such as this, I’m not sure Putin would have expected significant Western pushback in Ukraine.”

For his part, Brian Katulis, the VP of policy at the Middle East Institute, said: “As you watch Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine unfold – don’t forget: This moment was brought to you in part by those who said they were “proud” America did not engage more deeply in Syria. And those who called for “restraint” or shrugged their shoulders.”

Source: Al Arabiya

Russia threatens Syria's Kurds with new Turkish incursion

The Russian mediator in Syria warned Kurdish forces that Turkey would carry out an incursion should they reject Moscow's conditions to end the tensions between Qamishli and Damascus.

Informed sources told the German news agency (dpa) that the mediator informed the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that Turkey-backed Syrian opposition factions would invade the towns of al-Darbasiyah and Amoud to reach Qamishli if the SDF doesn't pull out of the government security zone.

The SDF was also demanded to end the siege of the security zones in Qamishli and Hasakeh.

The SDF did withdraw from the government buildings without incident.

Meanwhile, residents of the town of Tal Tamer, in Hasakeh's northern countryside, said Turkish artillery had shelled for a second consecutive day villages in northeastern Syria.

Aram Hanna, a spokesman for the SDF, told Asharq Al-Awsat that Turkey is seeking a green light to launch new offensives in northern Syria to achieve its "terrorist" interests.

It wants to exploit the world's preoccupation with the Ukrainian-Russian war to carry out the attack, he warned.

(Asharq Al-Awsat)

Ancient market in Syria being restored to pre-war status
On Apr 16, 2022

The old markets are located in the eastern part of the city of Aleppo, Syria’s economic powerhouse. One of them is the ancient Al-Habil market, which can be accessed through the old alleys behind the Great Umayyad Mosque from the southern side, starting from the end of the blacksmiths market on the left. It is one of the narrowest old markets and contains 57 shops distributed on both sides.

Alhibal, otherwise known as the ropes market, is specialized in the trade and manufacture of ropes and their accessories, which were used by Bedouins and rural residents to get water from wells and tie their loads. It was considered a profitable trade before the use of modern materials such as nylon.

During the armed conflict of 2012-2016, the market turned into dilapidated pillars and an area covered with rubble as a witness to the war.

“The importance of this market comes from its proximity to the southern wall of the Great Mosque (Umayyad) and adjacent to the old Aleppo markets,” engineer Yahya al-Basha, a member of the oversight body of the Aga Khan Foundation, told CGTN.

With kindness and tenderness, the workers are working to restore life to one of the most unique parts of the old city markets. The restoration takes place under the supervision of the Aga Khan Foundation, which is known for its expertise in restoring archaeological areas.

“We initially started evaluating the architectural and structural damage,” Albasha said. “The western part of the market is destroyed, it consists of six shops. There was a part of the market covered with asphalt and we removed it, and we revealed the old yellow stone that we will preserve, but we will change its letters to be able to drain the water and we will establish complete infrastructure,” he continued.

Rehabilitation processes are taking place in the Al-Hibal Market for the stone facades, arches, the installation of doors, and the rebuilding of the destroyed shops, and are carried out following the approved restoration standards to restore the old city to its splendor and its cultural, historical and economic sites to pre-war times.

Source: CGTN

PAKISTAN

Cable, conspiracy & populism

Riaz Mohammad Khan

Published April 16, 2022 -

The writer is an author and a former foreign secretary.

THE removal of a prime minister through a no-confidence motion is an extraordinary event in the life of a nation. Similarly, accusing the recognised political opposition of treason is a matter of no minor consequence. But the most painful fact in today’s Pakistan is that the nation is deeply polarised and divided.

All these aspects of the political crisis in Pakistan have been analysed threadbare in the media. However, given my background as a Pakistani diplomat, Dawn asked me to provide a perspective in particular on the cable sent by our ambassador in Washington in early March, which is at the heart of the purported foreign conspiracy behind the no-confidence motion. I must admit that my knowledge of specifics is limited to what has appeared in the media.

First, there is nothing sacrosanct about the contents of confidential cables, but their ‘exact texts’ cannot be made public, mainly because doing so can compromise the cipher code. However, if needed, these cables can be seen by responsible persons and their paraphrased version can even be made public. In their autobiographies, many of our distinguished former diplomats have drawn on events and conversations which were once the substance of their official and confidential communications to the Foreign Office.

Second, at times great powers engineer political change in small and vulnerable countries, but do so rarely, discretely and without advertisement. Diplomatic démarches are a common practice to record protests or express anger or unhappiness, and even to convey threats. But if the matter is serious, ambassadors are summoned by the host country’s Foreign Office, and the threat or protest is conveyed in writing or verbally.

So the first basic question is whether our ambassador was summoned by the US assistant secretary or was it during a farewell call by our outgoing ambassador that the conversation took place? It is also reported that the occasion was a lunch organised by our ambassador, which makes it even less formal.

American diplomats are not known for observing diplomatic etiquette and they often explain their offensive undiplomatic behaviour as being frank and straightforward. There is a view that US diplomacy has regressed in professionalism because of heavy political intake. Even US leaders are prone to indiscretion; for example, the 2018 new year tweet by president Donald Trump was abusive and could be interpreted as a threat. In the event, it turned out to be a non-serious slur.

An oft-cited example is, however, the infamous remark by US deputy secretary Richard Armitage that “you are either with us or against us” conveyed to our ambassador and our visiting intelligence chief following 9/11. The Americans do not have a monopoly over such behaviour. I am witness to a warning conveyed by a Soviet vice foreign minister to president Ziaul Haq of “incalculable consequences” if Pakistan failed to sign the drafted Geneva Accords to facilitate Soviet troop withdrawal under UN aegis.

Pakistanis revel in conspiracy theories, and the US is the favourite villain.

On the other hand, Pakistanis revel in conspiracy theories, and the US is the favourite villain. It is widely believed that the US pressured us to halt our advance in Chamb-Jorian sector. We ignore that on Sept 4, 1965, every Pakistani newspaper carried in bold headlines prime minister Shastri’s threat that India would attack on the front of its choosing. As became evident, we were unprepared for a wider conflict. Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto whipped up public passions citing the existence of secret clauses in the Tashkent accords which were never there.

The military coups of 1977 and 1999 are believed to be machinations of a foreign hand. And now we are drowning in a debate over a conspiracy to oust a sitting PM with the opposition’s complicity. ‘Exhibit one’ as evidence is the ambassador’s cable from Washington.

To get a perspective on this attitude, I recall my first posting to China which coincided with the last phase of the Cultural Revolution, a period of violent political struggle. The revolutionary vanguard denounced political opponents for their views calling them ‘capitalist roaders’ and ‘revisionists’ but never ‘foreign agents’. Self-assured nations hang individuals for treason, but do not trade accusations of treason in their political discourse.

Read: Foreign interference

In Pakistan, however, foreign conspiracy theories are a staple of popular politics and perhaps a convenient explanation for manifest domestic policy failures. Everyone has a stake in the country, which is not a playfield with adversaries and only one winner.

Populism is hardly ever constructive. The most illustrious example has been Castro’s Cuba which I visited several times between 1979 and 2000. Cuba commanded a revolutionary élan, had achieved universal education and employment, and boasted discos at every street corner where young people could while away their evenings. But the economy was depressed. It remained so even until 2000 when Castro was still alive. Foreign exchange-strapped Cuba had allowed foreign-run five-star hotels all along the 50-mile waterfront from Havana to Varadero famed for its white sand beaches. This zone was out of bounds for common Cubans.

Economic progress demands a leadership with steady temperament and focus; not a Castro but leaders of the quality of Deng Xiaoping and Lee Kwan Yu. Only such leadership can plan and steer progress in developing and modernising economy, industry, agriculture, science and technology and education — the backbone of a society.

The Imran Khan-led wave of populism has polarised Pakistan, and further degraded our political culture. His populism has the familiar mix of religion and anti-Americanism. We are witness to the reign of naively interpreted Islam next door in Taliban Afghanistan. Raking up the latent anti-Americanism in society for political gain can advance no national interest. Internationally, we face many challenges including that posed by the US embrace of India as a “natural ally and trusted partner”. But this challenge needs to be addressed with equanimity and not with a jilted anger.

Lastly, the question of an independent foreign policy. All countries have to adjust to changing global circumstances. Pakistan is no exception. But if we look at the consistency of our relations with China, our determined pursuit and maintenance of credible nuclear deterrence and decades of our well-known voting pattern in numerous international forums, we pretty much act on our own and in sync with our national ethos and interests.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2022

PAKISTAN
LAW: A TRIUMPH FOR FREEDOM
Usama Khilji

Published April 17, 2022 -

Journalists hold a protest against the Peca Ordinance in Islamabad, 2016

On April 8, in a historic order, the Islamabad High Court struck down the draconian Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) Amendment Ordinance 2022, introduced by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government, and also the criminal defamation part of Section 20 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 passed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government.

Having known and worked with several people who have had to suffer due to Section 20 of Peca, I got several messages asking “what does this mean for my case?”, with some cautious excitement.

It has significant ramifications for the right to freedom of speech in Pakistan. But to understand them, it is important to explore the background of Peca’s Section 20 and the short-lived Amendment Ordinance, whom it impacted the most and what this means for the future of freedom of speech in Pakistan.

Section 20 of Peca was brought in by the last PML-N government in 2016 and championed as a clause that would protect women who are slandered online. Several conversations with politicians revealed that they wanted this clause to prosecute slander against themselves and their families as well. Civil society, media groups and human rights activists had warned that such a clause would allow plenty of room for abuse.

The Islamabad High Court has struck down provisions of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act that not only criminalised defamation and expanded the scope of defamation, but made it easier for the accused to silence their accusers. Can legislators learn a lesson or two from this?

What activists did not realise then, as per digital rights activist Farieha Aziz’s report for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) — titled Rethinking the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act: How cybercrime laws are weaponised against women — was how Section 20 would become the go-to tool for alleged harassers to silence survivors who speak up about their experience of harassment on social media.

Not only that, but in the high-profile case of singer Ali Zafar against singer Meesha Shafi who accused him of sexual harassment, Zafar even filed a Section 20 case against women and men who spoke up in support of Shafi. They had to go to court every month, travelling to Lahore from different cities, often to find hearings adjourned. Considering that it was a criminal complaint, their absence would attract arrest warrants.

The amount of torture and further traumatisation this clause has caused to innocent citizens is unimaginable. What justice can well-meaning people speaking in support of survivors of harassment and the survivors themselves expect from a system where they are threatened with arrests for simply speaking about their experience or validating another’s?

Section 20 was also used against journalists for reporting or commenting on issues considered sensitive — largely related to the military and a few regarding members of the former PTI-led government. According to the Freedom Network report Criminalising Online Dissent Through Legal Victimisation, 23 cases were booked against journalists under Peca — a majority of them being under Section 20.

Some cases were for harming the reputation of the military or judiciary which did not hold because the section specifically mentions “natural person”. However, such cases were booked by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and several journalists were detained under this law.

In media practitioner Mohsin Baig’s case, for instance, his house was raided by armed men in plainclothes, later joined by uniformed police officials, only half an hour after a complaint was filed by then federal minister Murad Saeed against Baig for comments during a TV show the previous day.

This is why the PTI-led government introduced the Peca Amendment Ordinance, whereby the “natural” bit from person was removed and the law was extended to organisations and institutions. This was after failed attempts in the Parliament to criminalise criticism of the military by amending Section 500 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), 1886.

The amendment also got rid of the requirement of the complainant having to be the aggrieved party, and added protection to public officials’ “reputation”. The ordinance also made arresting and detaining the accused much easier. All of this was intended to silence criticism of state institutions and officials — something that Pakistanis, as voting and taxpaying citizens, are entitled to as per the fundamental rights outlined in the Constitution of Pakistan.

Imagine if the draconian ordinance amending Peca had not been struck down by the court; PTI would find itself embroiled in thousands of cases and arrests by the FIA. It is due to civil society action petitions that the ordinance was quashed.

Criticising the notion of criminal defamation, Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Athar Minallah held that “the criminalisation of defamation, protection of individual reputations through arrest and imprisonment and the resultant chilling effect” was inconsistent with the Constitution. He further held that the “offence under Section 20 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016, to the extent of the expression ‘or harms the reputation’ and the punishment thereof is unconstitutional, invalid beyond reasonable doubt and is, therefore, struck down.”

Left: Police officers escort Mohsin Baig on his way to a

court appearance in the case filed against him

by PTI MNA Mohsin Saeed (right)

Through these words, Justice Athar Minallah effectively decriminalised defamation, at least on the internet in Pakistan. Holding criminal defamation unconstitutional will have an impact on section 499 and 500 of the PPC as well. The court has also ordered the federal government to review other defamation laws, particularly the Defamation Ordinance 2002, which is a civil law. In several defamation cases, both the civil and criminal options are used to exert pressure.

Further, the Islamabad High Court order held that the FIA — the designated investigation agency for cases under Peca — has to be investigated for its “widespread abuse of powers and the consequent grave violations of fundamental rights of the citizens.” These are well documented.

In Aziz’s report for the HRCP, the ordeal women and other complainants have had to face is haunting: lost files, notices and summons with insufficient information, the unprofessional and intimidating attitude of officers, the lack of female officers to facilitate women in sensitive cases, a lack of adequate forensic investigation capabilities and a lax attitude at the courts are all too common.

The FIA has also not been submitting its biannual reports to the parliament — something it is required to under Peca, for parliamentary oversight.

Now that the court has struck down the Peca Amendment Ordinance as well as the criminal defamation part of Section 20 of Peca, there are two important lessons for political parties in this experience.

First, political parties must realise that, no matter how tempting it is to bring in laws to prosecute opponents, these will inadvertently be used against themselves once they lose power. This was the experience of PML-N towards the end of its last tenure, and the PTI has already started bearing the brunt of extra-legal “investigations” for its social media activity post the no-confidence vote against Imran Khan and resignations from the National Assembly.

Imagine if the draconian ordinance amending Peca had not been struck down by the court; PTI would find itself embroiled in thousands of cases and arrests by the FIA. It is due to civil society action petitions that the ordinance was quashed.

Second, the practice of bulldozing laws through parliament or outside it has to end. Whether it was the PML-N with its majority in parliament when it passed Peca, or the PTI that tried to amend it through an ordinance bypassing the parliament, the lack of stakeholder consultation shows in the final product that the courts then have to strike down.

Only laws that come from a place of citizens’ well-being can withstand the test of time. Malicious intent in legislation is conspicuous, damages the reputation of a political party, is often weaponised against the party that brought it, and eventually ends up being overturned.

At the end of the day, fundamental rights must be upheld in their true essence rather than provisos being manipulated for myopic ends.

For now, the FIA is closing down 7,000 cases and inquiries under Section 20. This should offer some solace and healing to all those wronged by the abuse of such a vague and broad legal instrument against basic freedom of speech.

The writer is director of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy forum for digital rights.

He tweets @UsamaKhilji

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 17th, 2022

PAKISTAN

ENSURING PROTECTION WITH DIGNITY
Madeeha Syed

Published April 17, 2022 -

Nayyab Ali, the Tahaffuz desk’s Victim Support Officer (centre),

with members of the transgender community

| Courtesy Islamabad Police

LONG READ

After the success of a Gender Protection Unit, focusing on gender violence, harassment, and domestic and child abuse cases, Islamabad Police has launched a Tahaffuz desk to provide support to the transgender community. Who are the individuals behind the ambitious initiative? And what kind of a difference do they hope to make?

Atall, striking transgender woman enters the Gender Protection Unit (GPU) at the Police Facilitation Centre in Islamabad’s sector F-6. She’s here to have a matter resolved at the recently launched Tahaffuz desk — a desk focusing on the needs of the transgender community.

It’s already past 8pm, so the desk is operating with its ‘skeleton staff’ — a couple of female police officers, a few other staff members and Nayyab Ali, a transgender woman and the desk’s victim support officer (VSO).

Fresh faced and without any make-up on, the complainant, Zara*, tells one of the police officers that she’s being threatened and harassed by another transgender person.

“She’s accusing me of spreading rumours about her,” says Zara, referring to another trans woman, Bano*. “That I’m telling people she doesn’t make enough money and that her clothes are cheap. Why would I even do that? She’s ugly. She’s clearly jealous of me and wants to harm me.”

The young police officer asks Zara questions and gets more details.

Apparently, after a heated exchange between Zara and Bano, Bano forcibly broke into Zara’s home and threatened to kill her. Zara says she has witnesses and wants to file a formal report.

The police officer asks Zara to write all of this down. “I do not know how to write,” Zara says sheepishly. The police officer then asks her to narrate the statement and jots it down.

At this point there is some commotion behind them and a group of three transgender women come barging in. “What are you doing here?” says Bano, apparently shocked to see Zara at the police station. “Did you take my name?” a friend of Bano’s asks.

“She was with her,” Zara says, pointing to the friend. “They tried breaking my door down while threatening to kill me!”

The situation keeps escalating and the already raised voices keep getting louder.

“I only asked her to stop spreading rumours about me or I could kill her,” Bano tells the police officer, who is not amused. “Are you threatening someone inside a police station?” the policewoman asks sternly.

“No ma’am, you don’t understand,” Bano says. “This is just how we talk.”

Emotions are running very high. At this point, Nayyab turns up behind the group. Her presence seems to calm everyone down. She escorts the trans women into her office next door, sits on her desk and turns her computer on.

It’s now her turn to question both parties and determine whether the threats carry any merit leading to an FIR or if this is a dispute that can be resolved amicably.

Yet another group of trans women, who Bano’s friends had called as ‘back-up’, arrive in the waiting area. But everyone feels comfortable knowing that their friends are talking to one of their own. Someone who understands them. Someone who knows their struggle.

Clearly this is the power of this desk. It is another valuable addition to the Police Facilitation Centre after the GPU, a project that has already received high praise and has been lauded as a success story.

A POLICE STATION LIKE NO OTHER

Nayyab at a rally for transgender rights

The Police Facilitation Centre in F-6, which houses the GPU and the Tahaffuz desk, doesn’t feel like a traditional police station — it looks more like a bank. Police officers are seated behind desks with computers and visitors get token numbers for their turn to speak with them. This centre is clearly designed to be an accessible, unintimidating place for the police to help you.

“The purpose of making the Tahaffuz desk is so that transgender citizens — who are the most vulnerable segment of society, the most neglected segment of the society — can access police help without any prejudice and without any harassment,” says ASP Beenish Fatima, speaking with an air of authority.

As Beenish walks me through the building, officers in the vicinity — mostly men — stand for her in respect.

Beenish, who topped the elite police training course, jokes that she is one of the few from the newer generation of women police officers that chose to enter the police force ‘shauq se’ (out of their own will), and not because it was a family tradition. She is also one of the rare few women at the senior officer level in Pakistan — generally, women make up less than two percent of police officers.

The purpose of making the Tahaffuz desk is so that transgender citizens — who are the most vulnerable segment of society, the most neglected segment of the society — can access police help without any prejudice and without any harassment,” says ASP Beenish Fatima, speaking with an air of authority.

Some of the most sensitive areas of the capital have come under her jurisdiction — up until a few weeks ago, when she was sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Kohsar (she is currently SDPO Sihala), the Parliament and the Prime Minister House were only a few kilometres away.

She is on call 24/7 and often, after a long day at work, manages to make only a short trip home before returning for her turn to do night patrol. On some days she gets home after patrolling so late that she gets only a couple of few hours of sleep before she heads on over to the GPU, a stone’s throw away from her thana, to check in on her pet project — the transgender facilitation desk or Tahaffuz.

The Tahaffuz desk in Islamabad isn’t the first one that Beenish has opened. She had started a similar desk a couple of years ago in Rawalpindi. It was a roaring success in a neighbourhood that needed it the most.

PROTECTION FOR TRANS SISTERS

ASP Beenish Fatima | Courtesy Beenish Fatima

It was soon after Beenish was posted in Civil Lines, Rawalpindi, sometime in 2018, that she noticed something. “Almost every night we would get a 15 [the official police helpline] call with different issues specifically related to transgender persons,” she says. “It was a bunch of things: cash stolen from a transgender person, transgender persons were begging somewhere and were touched or groped inappropriately, there were incidents of violence, getting beaten up or stabbed. For us to get calls like these became a part of our routine.”

Under the jurisdiction of Police Station Civil Lines was the area of Jhanda Chichi, which incidentally also happens to be home to a large number of the transgender community. “You would’ve heard, there’s a very famous transgender activist, Almas Bobby — she lives there,” says Beenish. “She’s given shelter to many transgender women.”

Almas Bobby is one of the most well-known transgender persons in Pakistan. A former television host, she is also the head of the Pakistan Shemale Foundation.

Beenish’s boss at the time (and even now, as he is the current Inspector General of the Islamabad Police) Muhammad Ahsan Younas demanded to know what was the status of the registration of FIRs in response to all of the complaints they were getting via their helpline.

“I told him it doesn’t happen,” says Beenish. “They just don’t come to the station. And when they do, they say that their aggressor will hold a grudge against them. So, they don’t register a case against them.”

These conversations led to the Tahaffuz desks. Beenish credits Younas as the person behind both the Tahaffuz desks in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Police stations aren’t always the most welcoming of places, especially for those living on the fringes of society. Beenish reaffirms this. “When they do finally come, police officers will make fun of them,” she says. “They’ll judge them for going out late at night to [perform] music or dance.”

Beenish pauses. “Yes, they went to dance,” she says, “but they did not go to get stabbed.”

“They didn’t go to get knifed and be sent home. You cannot justify violence in any way. On anyone,” she stresses.

ENGAGING COMMUNITY LEADERS

Trans women line up to speak to Nayyab at the Tahaffuz desk | Islamabad Police

While the police officers at the Tahaffuz desk in Islamabad make sure it runs smoothly, the face of the initiative for the transgender community is Nayyab Ali. The victim support officer (VSO) for the desk is also seen as a leader in the transgender community. She is clearly someone who is determined to do things differently.

When Nayyab speaks to me with a dupatta and her face covered with a mask, I can see how calm her presence is. While she speaks softly and politely, she doesn’t mince her words.

“The biggest challenge the community had was with the police,” she says, firmly. “As Beenish was saying: transgenders se paisay chheen liye [They snatched money from transgender persons]. But who was snatching that money? It was the police officers who would be patrolling at night. They would stop transgender persons returning home after a wedding function and bully them out of it. They felt they could do it and get away with it. For this reason, there has been a very bad image of the police, obviously.”

While the police officers at the Tahaffuz desk in Islamabad make sure it runs smoothly, the face of the initiative for the transgender community is Nayyab Ali. The victim support officer (VSO) for the desk is also seen as a leader in the transgender community. She is clearly someone who is determined to do things differently.

She points to the bouquets of flowers on her desk. “I’ve received flowers yesterday and today because they’re [transgender persons] so happy they don’t have to go to a [traditional] thana. They can directly come where a person from their community will receive them.”

This isn’t the first time Nayyab has worked with the police to get justice for her community. The recipient of human rights awards from around the world, including the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights, she’s worked with various local and international organisations on gender-based violence.

Nayyab is also particularly proud of the fact that she was from the group that helped draft the Transgender Protection Act (2018), a landmark law that recognised and gave rights to the transgender community.

Nayyab’s life has been challenging. The odds have always been stacked against her, but she has continued to fight for herself and her community. It has all led her here — to a position where she can make meaningful change in the lives of the members of her community.

NAYYAB’S JOURNEY

A campaign poster from when Nayyab contested for a seat from Okara in 2018

“You know a lot of horrible things happen to the transgender community. It happened to me too. My family abandoned and disowned me,” she tells me. But she kept her mother’s words — ‘once you are educated, you will be powerful’ — close to her heart, she says. Despite all the harassment and discrimination she faced growing up, Nayyab continued her education and graduated in International Relations and did her post-graduation in Women and Gender Studies.

“But I had such horrible experiences that I didn’t want to become a member of mainstream society,” she says. So she left and joined the household of a transgender guru. It’s there that an incident happened that changed her life forever.

“I was living with a guru, the elder of the house, sometime in 2016, when a transgender person came to her,” relates Nayyab. “She was the victim of rape — a violent gang rape. She was crying and saying she wanted to report her case. My guru’s exact words were: ‘This is part of our life. We cannot report it because we have to spend our life with people like them.’

“In the last three years, there have been 78 murders of members of the transgender community in Pakistan and not a single person was held accountable for it,” she puts a hand on her chest and takes a moment to take a few deep breaths. The impact of this statement rests very heavily on her.

There was no way Nayyab was going to let the perpetrators of the rape go. The victim also felt that Nayyab, being one of the rare few from the community who was educated, was the only one who could help her. “I went and got the FIR registered,” she says. “We had a strong case. There was DNA evidence. It was clear who were the people that had raped her. It was proven.”

Predictably, Nayyab began receiving threats. But she was undeterred. “I had been getting threats before as well, as my profession [at the time] was also singing and dancing,” she says.

Despite the strong evidence, however, the case went nowhere. “My guru forced an out-of-court settlement of the case and that’s when I started getting serious threats,” she says.

These weren’t just empty threats. “As a result of the threats, I was a victim of an acid attack,” she tells me.

Nayyab knows the road to change is not an easy one, especially for trans persons. She experienced this firsth and when she ran for elections from her hometown in Okara in 2018. Her opponents were shocked that a ‘khusra’ [a derogatory term for a transgender person] was standing against them. Voters would ask, ‘Oh now we’re supposed to vote for khwaja sirahs as our leaders?’

The statement takes me by surprise. At this point I have been interacting with Nayyab for a couple of days and haven’t noticed anything. She removes her face mask and sweeps aside her dupatta to show me heavy scarring on the lower half of her face, chin and neck.

“This is our great tragedy,” she says. “In a lot of cases there is wrong investigation. In a lot of cases, biological relatives, who have previously rejected their child, take money from the murderer and ‘forgive’ them. Justice is rare for transgender persons.”

While Nayyab’s emotional scars took years to heal, her physical recovery took up to three months. “I kept thinking, ‘I’m still alive’,” she says. “Even after everything that had just happened. I remembered everything — my parents kicking me out of the house, being abused by society, the discrimination, the violence and the threats, and this attack. But despite all of it, I’m still here.”

All this led Nayyab to think that there must be some purpose to her life. She promised herself that she had to do something for the betterment of her community.

“From then to now, there is a list of achievements,” she says chuckling.

MOVING PAST COLLECTIVE TRAUMA

The lack of education, and the lack of acceptance into homes, schools and workplaces from a very young age, often forces transgender persons, even the seemingly educated and qualified ones, to perform at weddings and the births of children. Many also have to resort to sex work.

I’ve met transgender persons at the Shahi Mohalla in Lahore who’ve shown me their qualifications while relating that no one will hire them because of their appearance alone. And that they are forced into sex work, putting their lives and bodies at risk.

“The community has ‘adjusted’ and learned how to live with violence,” says Nayyab.

“It’s developed a reputation among the common man that that the majority of transgenders are ‘habitual’ sex workers,” says Nayyab.

Nayyab asks rhetorically that when a transgender child is abandoned by her family, or when a family sends her to a guru who doesn’t know any way of life other than begging, prostitution and dancing, what will she teach that child?

“How many times do you think has that child been raped?” she asks. “How many times has a sexual offence been committed with that child that is not reported?”

Nayyab says that, growing up, trans children learn that all these heinous acts are a part of life. “Do they even understand what violence is?” she questions, adding that acceptance of violence extends to cis women as well. This violence is exactly why initiatives such as the GPU and the Tahaffuz desk are so necessary.

While conducting research in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Nayyab asked a woman if her husband had ever hit her. The woman said: “Yes, but that’s how men show their love, too. They hit you because they love you.”

This acceptance of violence filters down to the transgender community — from one oppressed to the other. “In our community, there is a famous saying in Punjabi, ‘mashookaan pichhay kukkaan’ [Lovers always catcall]. Basically, if someone is after you, giving threats, saying things like ‘if you come to my area we’ll cut your hair, we’ll rape you…’ they say this is something to be proud of. People are giving threats because you are important.”

Even if things were to somehow, miraculously, become perfectly alright now, it will probably take time for the community to work through and move past the collective trauma they have suffered and accepted for generations.

STRIVING FOR CHANGE

Nayyab believes that things are slowly changing, however.

“The bill of rights for the transgender community was created in consultation with the community,” says Nayyab. “When it was done, we would tell the community that your bill of rights is coming. I remember this comment that was said to me by a leader in the community. She said, ‘Achha? [Really?] I don’t know what bill you’re talking about. But we pay our electricity and gas bill every month!’

“Look at that innocent response,” chuckles Nayyab. “It’s also reflective of how deprived and far removed from all of these things they are. They didn’t know they had rights.”

But, now they do.

Nayyab knows the road to change is not an easy one, especially for trans persons. She experienced this firsthand when she ran for elections from her hometown in Okara in 2018. Her opponents were shocked that a ‘khusra’ [a derogatory term for a transgender person] was standing against them. Voters would ask, ‘Oh now we’re supposed to vote for khwaja sirahs as our leaders?’

Still she powered through, securing 1,200 votes. “It was all very new for them [the people of Okara],” she says, adding that she believes this opened their minds a bit.

In her new position, Nayyab is directly fighting the violence against her community. Seeing the young 30-year-old VSO speak to distressed members of her community, reassuring them and helping them find solutions, one hopes to see similar desks set up across the country.

PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE

As a law-enforcement officer, Beenish believes that the most important thing is preventing a crime from happening. “The most important thing about this desk is that it gives a sense of security to the community,” says Beenish. “And [creates] a sense of fear among the aggressors because now they know that reporting is available. That fear is very important.

“When a crime has already been committed, your major loss is done,” she says. “If a child has been molested, for example, even if we’ve caught the perpetrator, and he went to jail, was sentenced etc., all of that doesn’t undo the trauma that has already been inflicted on that child.

“And so the key is prevention,” she says. “People don’t focus enough on that. You have to stop a transgender person from being molested. You have to prevent a child from being sodomised. You have to ensure that violence against women doesn’t take place.”

Beenish firmly believes that initiatives like the GPU and the Tahaffuz desk will act as deterrents as they provide vulnerable segments of the society access to police help.

She shares an incident during which the police investigated a crime against a transgender person, even when the victim declined to pursue the case. “The Tahaffuz desk in Rawalpindi was instrumental in this case,” she says.

Some time in 2020, a couple of transgender persons were performing at a wedding. Later they were forced to strip at gunpoint. “They didn’t report it but a mobile phone video clip from that incident went viral,” says Beenish.

The victims were unwilling to come forward and pursue the case. They feared repercussions by the perpetrator and a loss of the only meagre income they had if word got out that they were ‘trouble’. All very real concerns.

So the police became a complainant in the case and registered an FIR under its own cognisance, Beenish says. “The victim was never a party to the case.”

The police traced the source of the video to Kala Saeeda in Rawalpindi, found the perpetrators and arrested them.

For Nayyab too, the Tahaffuz desk is a major step forward in bringing justice to the transgender community and having their voices heard. But there is still a lot that still needs to be done, she says.

“The Transgender Act… I am relating to it again and again because it is the endorsement of fundamental rights of being a citizen of Pakistan,” she says. “But as transgender persons, even now, we’re struggling for fundamental rights.”

“We need inclusion, space, mainstreaming, basic rights and services, equality, and non-refusal of services, which happens normally.

“A very good thing that happened in hospitals is [the inclusion of] Sarah Gill [the first transgender doctor in Pakistan]. That’s a very good example of inclusion,” Nayyab says. “Acceptance is here, but now we need inclusion. Inclusion with dignity.”

Explaining the difference, Nayyab says that acceptance to her is people saying ‘Okay, these people are living with us in our mohallas, colonies and offices.’ “Inclusion for me,” says Nayyab, “is just being able to have a cup of tea together.”

*Name has been changed to protect identity

The writer is a member of staff. She tweets @madeehasyed

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 17th, 2022

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