Editorials in Dawn, The Daily Times and The Express Tribune

a) PAKISTAN: ANOTHER VOICE SILENCED

Editorial, DAWN (Dawn, April 26^th, 2015)

THE assassination of Sabeen Mahmud, director of T2F, a self-described community space for open dialogue in Karachi, is a desperate, tragic confirmation that Pakistan’s long slide towards intolerance and violence is continuing, and even quickening. Profoundly troubling too are the circumstances surrounding Ms Mahmud’s murder. On Friday, T2F hosted the Baloch missing-persons activist Mama Qadeer, after the Lahore University of Management Sciences cancelled an event with Mr Qadeer earlier this month under pressure from the intelligence agencies. Mr Qadeer’s activism has been consistently opposed by the security establishment, to the point where few in the media or the activist community choose to interact with him now. Those who do engage with him often report threats. But clearly, in the tumultuous city of Karachi and given the variety of causes Ms Mahmud championed, the security agencies are not the only ones perceived as suspects in her assassination. Ms Mahmud’s work had attracted criticism and threats in the past, particularly from sections of the religious right, which viewed her promotion of the arts, music and culture with great hostility.

While only a thorough investigation can get to the root of the matter, what is clear is that there is not so much a war between ideas in Pakistan as a war on ideas. Free speech, robust debate, academic inquiry, the promotion of individual rights — anything that promotes a healthy, inclusive and vibrant society is seemingly under attack. Before Sabeen Mahmud there was Rashid Rehman, the lawyer and rights activist who was murdered for defending a college lecturer accused of blasphemy. Before Rashid Rehman there was Perween Rahman, director of the Orangi Pilot Project Research and Training Institute, murdered in Karachi apparently for her work on behalf of poor people against the city’s land mafia. Before Perween Rehman there was Malala Yousafzai, shot in the head as a young teenager by the Taliban for championing the cause of female education. Before Malala, there were Shahbaz Bhatti and Salmaan Taseer, murdered for daring to question the misuse of the blasphemy laws. Each one of those victims may have been attacked for different reasons and by different groups, but all of them have one thing in common: they were fighting for a better, kinder, gentler Pakistan. And all of them used words and ideas, never weapons, to champion their causes. Pakistan is a poorer place for being without them — and in Malala’s case, for her being unable to return home.

Tragically, the state seems to have all but surrendered to the forces of darkness — that is when sections of the state themselves are not seen as complicit. Dialogue, ideas, debate, nothing practised and promoted peacefully is safe anymore. Instead, it is those with weapons and hateful ideologies who seem to be the safest now. Sabeen Mahmud is dead because she chose the right side in the wrong times.

b). LOSS OF AN ICON

Editorial - Daily Times , April 26, 2015

It is truly a sad day for Pakistan’s liberal, moderate and compassionate voices. It is a sorry time for all those who prize justice, freedom and humanity over and above everything else. There is a resounding silence within the confines of civil society in the whole of Pakistan, and in Karachi in particular, with the news of the coldblooded murder of a beacon of light that will shine no more in the port city. Sabeen Mahmud, the founder and director of The Second Floor (T2F) café, a space dedicated to open discussion, dynamic ideas, artistic endeavours and uncensored views, is with us no more. She was shot dead by the typically referred to ‘unidentified assassins’ who roam our nation’s streets extinguishing the few sources of light we have left. On her way home from a discussion event at T2F on Friday evening, travelling in her car with her mother, she was shot dead at point blank range. Her mother also sustained bullet wounds and is still fighting for her life. This was a targeted attack, of this there is no doubt, but why was this beautiful woman, this activist with a heart of gold, targeted so brutally? There are many fingers pointing in many directions but what needs to be taken stock of are the circumstances in which she was murdered, the coincidences involved and the need now to bring those who snuffed out this voice of reason to justice.

Sabeen was on her way home from hosting an event called Unsilencing Balochistan: Take 2, featuring the chairperson of the Voice for Missing Baloch Persons Mama Qadeer, an activist and crusader for missing people in Balochistan. This is the same talk that was forcibly cancelled at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Balochistan is a very sensitive topic, with many using hushed tones to skirt around the issue. That Sabeen was hosting such a contested event has made it very easy for many to reach conclusions concerning those who would rather silence voices concerned with Balochistan than to hear anyone speak out about the issues. What we also know is that Sabeen was a moderate, a woman, a freethinker and inclusive soul. That makes her the kind of target militants would waste no time in eliminating. It has been reported that she also received death threats from Islamist militants. While the timing of her murder does seem suspicious and related to the event she had just hosted, one cannot say for sure which elements are involved.

Sabeen’s murder has been filed under the Anti-terrorism Act. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has announced that the intelligence agencies will assist in the investigation into her death. Now is the time for the nation to mourn her loss and the only way to do that is bring her killers to justice. Whoever they are, whatever their agenda, whatever the motive, Sabeen’s murder cannot be in vain. Pakistan has lost too many moderate and rational minds; it has suffered the loss of too many of its intellectuals and liberals. Sabeen was a symbol of the kind of Pakistan we want to leave for our children, an icon of free thought and progressive ideas. She will be missed because the kind of Pakistan we have now is a dead place, an airless wasteland with no sense or purpose.*

c). PAKISTAN: FALLEN HERO, EDITORIAL, THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE

(The Express Tribune - April 26, 2015)

There are others but few have achieved what she did, establishing a space where her own values found a comfortable home and where those of a similar ilk were encouraged to flourish as well.

Sabeen Mahmud, murdered on April 24 as she drove to her home accompanied by her mother, was a woman who wanted to make a difference. She was the founder of The Second Floor (T2F), a cafe-cum-library-cum-performance space and gallery in Karachi. Over the last seven years T2F, as it was affectionately known, has quietly established a reputation as a venue where challenging ideas may get aired, boxes were there to be thought out of and music and dance were for the enjoyment of all. She was a high-profile social activist and champion of human rights, and some of her causes are unlikely to have found favour with powerful quarters. It is reported that she had received threats recently.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has expressed his condolences at the killing of Sabeen Mahmud and vowed that her killers will be tracked down and caught. Desirable as this is, it is highly unlikely that they will ever be identified or punished. No organisation has claimed her murder and apart from her many friends around the world — she was a woman with an international profile — her death will quickly fade from public awareness.

There will be vigils attended by the dwindling band of liberals who are increasingly corralled in an ever-shrinking space, and she will become just another number in a wider statistic.

To be liberal and outspoken in the Pakistan of today is tantamount to painting a target in the middle of your forehead. Sabeen Mahmud was one of those who rose above the crowd, who may well have been afraid for her life but was undeterred, a woman of courage and principle. There are others but few have achieved what she did, establishing a space where her own values found a comfortable home and where those of a similar ilk were encouraged to flourish as well. It is to be hoped that somebody will pick up the baton she carried for the last decade and ensure that T2F continues as her legacy. Because there has to be somewhere in the looming gloom where we can rage against the dying of the light.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 26^th, 2015.

1.1 Editorials Outside Pakistan

#dnaEdit: Killing dissent in Pakistan

Daily News and Analysis (DNA) Wednesday, 29 April 2015

The murder of Sabeen Mahmud reveals a ruthless State determined to keep the Balochistan insurgency out of public discourse

Who killed Sabeen Mahmud? While Pakistani investigators get on with the task of identifying the actual killers who gunned down the activist in Karachi last week, the question is really about the forces behind the hand that pulled the trigger. And the answer points to sections of a State intolerant to voices raised in dissent, particularly when it comes to issues such as insurgency in Balochistan.

The killing of the much loved activist spotlights not just the shrinking space for free debate in a fragmented society but also the volatile situation in Balochistan, the largest of Pakistan’s provinces bordering Afghanistan and Iran, resource-rich and also the poorest where a military operation has been underway for many years to suppress a separatist movement.

The chronology of events is evidence enough to make the link between Mahmud’s murder on the evening of April 24 and the situation in Balochistan, where there have been allegations of gross human rights abuses and where thousands of people have gone missing over the years. The director of The Second Floor (T2F), described on its website as a “community space for open dialogue”, was driving home with her mother when unidentified gunmen opened fire in the city’s upscale Defence locality. The 40-year-old received five bullets and died on the way to the hospital while her mother was in a critical condition.

Just hours earlier, T2F had hosted a talk on Unsilencing Balochistan Take 2 by prominent Baloch activists to focus on rights abuses in the province. The same talk was originally scheduled to be held at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) but was cancelled, reportedly at the instance of Pakistan’s spy agency ISI. The courageous, outspoken Mahmud, who has been the focus of rightwing ire for her liberal views, had then taken the decision to organise the event in Karachi.

Everybody knows who killed her and why, Mama Qadeer Baloch, who had addressed the gathering that evening, told a reporter. The 72-year-old, whose son went missing in 2009 and whose mutilated body was found two years later, had last year led a 3,000 km march from Quetta to Islamabad. As they analyse the ramifications of what Mahmud’s killing holds for Pakistani civil society, others have voiced the same suspicions. The demand for Baloch independence threatens the idea of a unified Pakistan and therefore the crackdown on the people of Balochistan — and those who speak up for them. The parallels with the situation in Kashmir and Pakistan’s animus with India are not just obvious but ironical too.

In a country where democracy is still taking baby steps and where the military continues to be all powerful, Mahmud is not the only one to have been killed. And Balochistan not the only issue. There have others before her, some silenced forever and others like Malala Yousufzai who survived the bullet. Malala has become a celebrated spokesperson for women’s education but from foreign lands, unable to return home. Their ‘causes’ have all been different, their motive the same — to push for a more inclusive, tolerant society that can withstand the forces of extreme violence and extreme regressive thought.

According to one columnist, to be liberal and outspoken in the Pakistan of today is tantamount to painting a target in the middle of your forehead. And Mahmud herself had told a magazine, “Fear is just a line in your head… You can choose what side of that line you want to be on.”

She chose her side. And paid for it. As the crisis for open discourse deepens, how many more will join the list of casualties?

 2. PAKISTAN: MURDERED ON THE STREETS OF KARACHI: MY FRIEND WHO DARED TO BELIEVE IN FREE SPEECH

Kamila Shamsie

The Guardian - 27 April 2015

“Be careful,” I said to my childhood friend Sabeen Mahmud when I saw her in London in 2013, soon after she’d received a death threat – neither the first nor last. “Someone has to fight them,” she replied.

“Fear is just a line in your head,” Sabeen had once said in an interview with Wired magazine – and she and I lived on different sides of that line. On Friday night, Sabeen was murdered, gunned down in her car in Karachi as she drove home with her mother.

There aren’t too many people from Karachi with a clear conscience. It’s a city of many horrors powered by even more guns, and fear makes most people live in a silence that becomes complicity. But Sabeen was always a woman made of different stuff, thanks in large measure to the two great influences of her life: her mother, Mahnaz (shot twice during the attack), from whom she inherited her socialist tendencies, and her friend and mentor Zaheer Kidvai (Zak) who introduced her to the idea of counterculture, via everything from Abbie Hoffman to revolutionary Urdu poets. While most of us at our elite school in Karachi lived in a fairly apolitical bubble, Sabeen was developing class-consciousness and identifying political heroes. Post-university, when most of her schoolfriends were choosing not to return to an increasingly embattled city, she decided to take another approach.

“I wondered if I could create a minuscule postmodern hippie outpost, a safe haven for artists, musicians, writers, poets, activists, and thinkers — essentially anyone who wanted to escape the relentless tyranny of the city for a little while,” she wrote in Innovations magazine. The answer was yes, she could – by maxing out credit cards, taking loans, and pushing herself to the point of exhaustion.

In 2007, the community space T2F (originally called The Second Floor, after its location in an office building) was born. It quickly became the city’s leading venue for concerts, readings, science courses, coffee drinking, art exhibitions, Pakistan’s first Civic Hackathon, and, of course, political activism. Everything that went on at T2F represented some facet of Sabeen’s own, astonishingly wide-ranging interests. While she was far from being a national figure, with every year, she and T2F gained prominence and credibility for fighting to make civil society matter – whether the issue was minority rights, opposition to religious extremism or freedom of expression – she brought these issues into T2F, taking to the internet and the streets in protest and solidarity.

At T2F she often hosted people and events deemed high-risk. The last of these was Unsilencing Balochistan, a panel discussion on Friday that centred on the “disappeared” of the state of Balochistan. There is no area of conversation in Pakistan that is more “no-go” than Balochistan – Baloch activists continue to seek outlets to talk about the thousands claimed to have been abducted and killed by the state – but there is a virtual media blackout around the subject, particularly since the attempted assassination of powerful news anchor Hamid Mir was linked to his speaking out on the subject. Earlier this month, a university in Lahore cancelled a talk about Balochistan, involving the prominent activist Mama Qadeer, and issued a statement to say the cancellation was by order of the government. So, of course, Sabeen invited Mama Qadeer to come and talk at T2F instead. The event was packed, she uploaded a picture to various social media sites, and according to the journalist Saba Imtiaz she “laughed, smiled, shushed people and talked about what matters”. Shortly after leaving T2F, two gunmen shot her dead.
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This was a woman equally at home soldering wires, discussing Urdu poetry, playing cricket, attending every progressive political demonstration in Karachi, singing the back catalogue of Pink Floyd, and being my self-proclaimed “geek-squad for life”. In 2013, she took on the religious fundamentalists by countering their “say no to Valentine’s Day” propaganda with posters saying “Pyaar hone dein” (Let there be love). Later that same year, she helped form a human chain around a church in solidarity with Pakistan’s Christian community after an attack on a church in Peshawar.

Those of us who loved and admired Sabeen now find ourselves asking: why? She didn’t seek political power, she didn’t have the sort of reach that major TV personalities command. Perhaps it was enough that, like Malala Yusufzai, she wasn’t frightened of those who seek to control through fear. Her death is the latest in a series of high-profile assassination attempts (most of them tragically successful) of women in Pakistan who fearlessly take on one group or another that seeks to terrify its opponents into silence. It is better, as a friend advised me, to find sense in a life well lived than try to find the sense in a death.

I can’t imagine her lifeless. Instead I keep seeing Sabeen as a teenager, silhouetted against a blue Karachi sky. She flicks her arm and a ball flies across the schoolyard with astonishing velocity. I can only watch, and wonder, where is all that power coming from?

3. PAKISTAN: “I STAND UP FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IN, BUT I CAN’T FIGHT GUNS”

Sabeen Mahmud interview by Karima Bennoune

Sabeen Mahmud alleviated intellectual poverty until the day she was murdered, 24 April 2015. In an interview with Karima Bennoune in 2010 Mahmud explained why she founded a politico-cultural space in Karachi.

Sabeen Mahmud, founder of the NGO Peace Niche and director of Karachi’s cultural institution, T2F, was assassinated on Friday night while leaving the centre with her mother, who was also gravely injured in the attack. T2F had just hosted an event about human rights in Balochistan, and Sabeen had reportedly been receiving threats.

See on ESSF (article 34906), Pakistan: Prominent rights activist Sabeen Mahmud, shot dead: “I stand up for what I believe in, but I can’t fight guns”

 4. PAKISTAN: CRUSHING VOICES OF DISSENT

Manan Ahmed Asif

Activist Sabeen Mahmud’s assassination in Pakistan proves that the state sees in intellectuals a threat to its unitary vision of nationalism.

Why kill intellectuals? Why kill feminists? Why kill artists or writers?

On April 24, 40-year-old Sabeen Mahmud, the director of a literary and cultural space in Karachi, The Second Flood (T2F), was assassinated by unknown assailants. She was driving home with her mother after an event at her cultural centre when the assassins shot her five times on a road in the upper class Defence Housing Authority area. The bullets that pierced her shoulder, chest and abdomen killed her before she could reach a hospital. Her mother, who was shot twice, was critically injured.

Mahmud established the cultural centre in 2008 and turned it into a welcoming space, hosting everything from book readings, seminars on philosophy, talks on digital humanities and computer programming to converting it into a playing area for children. A few hours before her killing, she had organised a panel discussion titled “Unsilencing Balochistan (Take 2)” on enforced disappearances in Balochistan, at T2F.

It was a “Take 2” because the event, originally scheduled to be held on April 9 at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), was cancelled. The University said they received “orders from the government to cancel the event, which was most unfortunate indeed.” When “Take 2” was held in Karachi, it was attended by, among others, Mama Qadeer, a 72-year-old activist for rights in Balochistan. Qadeer’s son Jalil Rekhi went missing in February 2009. Two years later, his mutilated body was found. In October 2013, Qadeer began to walk for over 3,300 kilometres from Quetta to Islamabad, with a small gathering of families that included his grandson, to ask for justice in the case of nearly 3,000 other documented ‘disappearences’.

Targets of the state

Why kill intellectuals? Why kill historians? Why kill scholars of literature?

In March 1971, the Pakistan Army attacked Dhaka University. They killed students, professors — all those whom they believed were sympathisers of the Bangladesh Awami League. They concentrated the attack on Jagannath Hall, a student dormitory. Gary J. Bass’s recent work The Blood Telegram (2013) provides a grim documentation of those killings. In 2013, a Special Court in Dhaka convicted the leaders of the paramilitary organisations attached to the Pakistan Army, al-Badr and al-Shams, of the killings. The names of the victims, which were on a list recovered after the massacre, included historians Abul Khair and Ghiyasuddin Ahmad. We still do not know why these intellectuals were targeted — we only have a belated conviction from the state in Bangladesh, and a continuing silence from Pakistan. One can, however, surmise.

Frantz Fanon, writing on why the anti-colonial struggle targeted doctors and intellectuals, said the colonial doctor or the ethnographer was not merely a healer or an intellectual, but a critical participant in the daily life of the colony; the healers were torturers and the ethnographers were erasers of native pasts. For Fanon, the native doctor and the organic intellectual were the hope for the freed nation — they would carry the knowledge and tools of European thought through the burned colony, and build the new world. Yet, this never occurred. Not in Fanon’s Algeria and not in the poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Pakistan. The ill-labelled ‘postcolonial’ state saw in these intellectuals a threat to their unitary visions of nationalism. So, the doctors and intellectuals became targets of the state rather than the builders of a new social. The histories, poetry or languages they produced were deemed too multifarious for the ideals behind One Unit and, now, One Islam. In Karachi, in Swat, in Dhanak, in Quetta, the intellectuals, poets, and healers have been targets for those bent on asserting a unified ideology. The crime of the intellectual is to create the scene of the crime. The scene of the crime is a space — whether concrete or metaphoric — in which dialogue can exist. Their crime is in expressing or harbouring dissent. And the punishment is always death.

Some who are lucky escape to exile. Why target LUMS or T2F for having a conversation on Balochistan?What is so disturbing about Balochistan? Why kill those who ask for such spaces? Since 2005, a war has been raging in Balochistan for self-determination. In the 1930s and 40s, there were anti-colonial struggles for self-determination. From 1973 to 1978, there was a war for local rights, for collective bargaining. This history is analogous to other histories in the north-west and north-east of the Indian subcontinents. It is a history of borderlands and peripheries contesting against imperial and national ideas of control. When this history is peeled, endless debates are discovered between patriots and traitors, the civilised and the barbarians, the developed and the destitute, tribals and the urbanites. The divisions are all stark, and the space for dialogue is non-existent.

Contradictory dreams

On April 21, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Pakistan for the first time and signed a number of deals to inaugurate the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which will create railways, roads, pipelines, harbours, townships and markets across Balochistan. It will open up gas and oil to the mega-cities of Pakistan and Asia, and pivot the coastal access of Pakistan towards the Indian Ocean. The $46 billion dollar investment will bring political and economic stability to a nation state long dependant on energy cartels of the world. To secure the CPEC, the Pakistani state has promised to create a new 12,000-strong military division to protect the Chinese workers and investments in the region.

This is the dream of a nation state that lies in direct contradiction to the claims of self-representation from Balochistan. Pakistani nationalism, under pressure from religious extremists and military overreach alike, cannot find the political space to listen to the people of Balochistan. To harbour dissent, to absorb critique, is to admit defeat, to belie the dream. The state, along with wide support, deems the Balochi insurgents a threat to this prosperity promised by Capital; its response is to silence them, make them disappear, and eliminate them. On the one side is Reason and Capital; on the other is Indigenity.

And so, the spaces for discussion, and the people who articulate a need for them, are security threats. There is no evidence that Mahmud was killed by officials of the state, and this need not be assumed. Yet, there is also no doubt that Mahmud was eliminated for hosting dialogue that opens up differing perspectives to Pakistani citizens. The identity of the killers is besides the point. It seems unavoidable that Balochi claims will be crushed. Whether economic or sacral nationalism triumphs does not really matter in the end. The “prosperous” economic corridors will be built over the hidden mass graves and the charred dreams of self-autonomy. The dialogue has been silenced.

(Manan Ahmed Asif is a historian of Pakistan. He teaches at Columbia University in the City of New York.)

 5. SOUTH ASIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS STATEMENT ON THE KILLING OF SABEEN MAHMUD

South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) a regional human rights organization strongly condemns the killing of Sabeen Mahmud a Pakistani human rights activist and Director of T2F and Peace Niche and calls out to the government of Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure those responsible are brought to justice.

Sabeen Mahmud was one of the foremost human rights and free speech advocates in Pakistan. Her café T2F (The Second Floor), is a space used by Pakistani activists to conduct discussions on a variety of topics including religion, ethnicity and politics. The cafe had hosted a discussion on the situation of disappearances in Balochistan called ‘Unsilencing Balochistan’ which featured prominent Baloch rights activists Mama Qadeer, Farzana Majeed and Muhammad Ali Talpur.

Earlier, a similar discussion on the topic of Balochistan presenting the same speakers at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) had been cancelled allegedly under instructions from the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI). Sabeen had been vocal in her criticism of this incident and her café had been offered to hold the same discussion. Sabeen who had been present at the discussion was returning home with her mother when she was assassinated by a group of unknown gunmen.

SAHR expresses its concern regarding the deteriorating culture of human rights in Pakistan with palpable threats to human rights defenders and activists. Specifically, any discussion of human rights violations in the province of Balochistan where Pakistani military are accused of brutally oppressing movements for separatism remains a sensitive topic for Pakistani authorities.

SAHR urges the government of Pakistan to ensure the protection of human rights defenders in accordance with the spirit and provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and afford them the freedom required, including the right to freedom of expression, speech, assembly and protest, to carry out valuable work to protect and promote the rights of Pakistani citizens.

SAHR urges the government to ensure justice for Sabeen Mahmud and other human rights defenders who have been threatened, disappeared or killed and to create and support an enabling environment for a dynamic
national discussion on the situation of human rights in Pakistan.

Chairperson
Hina Jilani (Pakistan)

Co-Chairperson
Dr. Nimalka Fernando (Sri Lanka)

South Asians for Human Right (SAHR), Secretariat: 345/18,Kuruppu Road (17/7 Kuruppu Lane ) Colombo 08,SRI LANKA.Tel:94-11-5549183, Tel/Fax: 94-11-2695910, Email: sahr sltnet.lk Website: www.southasianrights.org

 6. #RISE4SABEEN: KEEP THE DIALOGUE GOING

Beena Sarwar

Below, some of the widespread condemnation and protest vigils against the cowardly murder of human rights activist and upholder of free speech Sabeen Mahmud, shot dead in Karachi on the night of April 24, 2015 after she hosted a conversation on human rights violations in Balochistan. Just published: Tanqeed’s partial transcript of the discussion. No, Sabeen was not a separatist, nor did she condone violence by anyone, whether in the name of nationalism, ethnicity, religion, or honour. She was a firm believer in open, civil dialogue. The best tribute we can pay to her is to keep her legacy alive by continuing to speak up and keep the dialogue going.

Statement by Malala Yousafzai on the killing of Sabeen Mahmud, April 25, 2015

LUMS STATEMENT on Sabeen Mahmud’s murder, April 25, 2015

HRCP shocked at T2F director’s murder, demands justice, April 25, 2015

SAHR Statement of Concern on the killing of Sabeen Mahmud, South Asians for Human Rights, April 27, 2015

Karachi citizens press release, April 28, 2015

Report from Lahore rally for Sabeen, April 28, 2015

Malala’s statement on the killing of Sabeen Mahmud in Karachi, April 25, 2015

Malala: “I decided that I would speak up. Through my story I want to tell other children all around the world they should stand up for their rights”
Malala: “I decided that I would speak up. Through my story I want to tell other children all around the world they should stand up for their rights”

“I condemn the tragic killing of a Pakistani hero, courageous human rights activist Sabeen Mahmud. My heart goes out to Sabeen’s family and friends. I wish Sabeen’s mother a speedy recovery from her wounds. I call on authorities to arrest the perpetrators of this crime and to protect Pakistan’s human rights and peace activists, especially those facing death threats. Rest in peace, Sabeen.”

Malala Yousafzai is a student, co-founder of the Malala Fund and Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2014

LUMS STATEMENT on Sabeen Mahmud’s murder

From concerned members of LUMS faculty and student body-

#LUMS right now. Rest in Power Sabeen #RIPSabeen pic.twitter.com/Akt3ms8CRn

— Salaar Khan (@Brainmasalaar) April 27, 2015

Last night, we heard the shocking news of Sabeen Mahmud’s callous murder in Karachi following a debate on Balochistan. The debate, held at T2F, was entitled “Unsilencing Balochistan – Take 2”. As is now well known, this session was inspired by a roundtable on Balochistan to be held at LUMS on 9 April with the same title and same guests, but banned at the eleventh hour by state agencies.-While at this stage there is no direct evidence linking her murder to the Balochistan debate, the coincidence is chilling. It certainly contributes to further suppressing of any open and democratic debate on Balochistan. Concerned LUMS faculty and students express their deepest grief for the loss of a courageous, brave woman, whose only “crime” was to defend constitutional rights, most notably freedom of expression. We unreservedly condemn her targeted assassination, and call on the state to promptly investigate the circumstances and author(s) of her murder.-Concerned LUMS faculty and students see this murder as yet another evidence of the silencing of any and all dissident voices in Pakistan, and the stifling of public space. We reiterate their unwavering support for human rights guaranteed by the very constitution of Pakistan. Freedom of expression and of assembly, and the right to freely discuss issues of national importance, are not privileges granted to a few: they are the rights of all.-Five bullets in Karachi will not silence what Sabeen Mahmud stood for, nor will it weaken our resolve to defend and uphold human rights, or our commitment to justice for all in Pakistan.

Lahore, 25 April 2015.

Karachi citizens press release, April 28, 2015

We the concerned citizens for peace held a meeting at the Karachi Press Club on 28^th April to protest the assassination of Sabeen Mahmud, a champion for love, peace and free speech.

Sabeen was brutally gunned down on the evening of April 24^th soon after she had hosted a talk titled ‘Unsilencing Balochistan: Take 2′.

The people demand justice for Sabeen and that her killers be arrested and brought to trial.

The participants at the meeting also decided on holding a series of protests, first of which will be held on 30^th April outside Karachi Press Club at 4 pm.

A series of protests will take place every evening from 8-9 pm at Teen Talwar.

We appeal to all those who believe in justice and peace and are concerned about the violence in the city to participate in large numbers!

Lahore rally for Sabeen, April 28, 2015

Citizens in Lahore at a #Rally4Sabeen. Photo: Farooq Tariq

Dozens of political and trade union activists, civil society organisations and concerned citizens of Pakistan convened in front of the Lahore Press Club on Tuesday to reaffirm their commitment to continue Sabeen Mahmood’s mission of open dialogue, pluralism, secularism and humanity.

In a statement about the event, the Awami Workers Party, representing the progressives and leftists of Pakistan, said that taking forward Sabeen’s work includes continuing to hold conversations about Balochistan and enable free flow of ideas and information through constant dialogue and speaking out about issues like the gross violations of human rights in Balochistan and elsewhere.

Addressing the demonstration, AWP finance secretary Shazia Khan said Sabeen’s killing was only the most recent example of the silencing of progressive voices that have dared to speak about the plight of the oppressed classes and nationalities in Pakistan. Intellectuals like Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalib and leftist activists like Hasan Nasir and Abdul Rehman have in the past suffered the wrath of the powers-that-be for raising their voices for democracy, freedom of expression and civil liberties for all peoples and nationalities of Pakistan. She said the military establishment needs to learn from their past experiences and realise that its attempts to suppress such voices would never bear any fruit.

AWP general secretary Farooq Tariq highlighted the need for progressives to join hands in the struggle for promotion of civil liberties and political rights in the country. He criticised the leadership of major political parties for their failure to protect civilian supremacy. He said the series of events in the wake of the Peshawar attack like the establishment of military courts show that the civilian leadership in the country has completely surrendered its authority to the military establishment. The most recent example of this complete surrender of authority by the civilians is the passing of the Cyber Crimes Bill by the national assembly committee. “The bill proposes incriminates political speech and expression on the social media,” he said.

Bushra Khaliq said social movements have been allied with progressive forces from day one to secure political rights and liberties for the people. She said Sabeen Mahmud’s sacrifice should serve as a warning to the progressives that they could struggle against the oppressive state elite only through unity in their ranks. Samson Salamat, Hasham Bin Rashid and Zahid Pervaiz were among those who spoke at the occasion.

The protestors demanded a fair and impartial investigation of Sabeen Mahmud’s assassination. They said an investigation that ended in fixing the responsibility on na maloom afraad (unidentified persons) would be unacceptable to Pakistan’s progressive and leftist forces. They vowed to continue to hold demonstrations and occupy the streets until the perpetrators were exposed and brought to justice.

 7. VIDEO TRIBUTE TO SABEEN MAHMUD

Credits: Madiha Tahir, Misha Rezvi, Fahad Desmukh, Alia Chughtai - Tributes and Remembrances / Pakistan, Audio / Video

http://sacw.net/article11128.html

8. PAKISTAN #INTELLECTICIDE: VIGILS FOR SABEEN – WHO WAS SHE AND WHY DID SHE DIE?

Beena Sarwar

 9. VIGILS AND PROTESTS FOR OUR SLAIN COMRADE AND FRIEND SABEEN MAHMUD

TAKING PLACE IN DIFFERENT CITIES OF PAKISTAN AND AROUND THE WORLD.

Vigils and protests for our slain comrade and friend Sabeen Mahmud are taking place in different cities of Pakistan and around the world. Anyone is welcome to submit online responses to the blog Sabeen Mahmud: A Tribute.

In Boston, students have organized a vigil for Sabeen on Tuesday, April 28, 7.30 pm at the John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard (Facebook Event). In Pakistan, friends are meeting at Press Clubs in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad to register their protest.

Bring an apple. Or a Beatles or Steve Jobs poster. Or Farida Kahlo or Farida Khanum, Faiz, Farid Ayaz… all the things she loved. Black armbands. She loved strong visual statements.

I was at Onpoint with Tom Ashbrook on NPR on Tuesday about Sabeen — sad to have to do that. To learn more about who she was, what she stood for and why she was targeted, see below:

‘You refused to cower in silence’: A letter to fallen Pakistani comrade Sabeen Mahmud – my article for Scroll

In Pakistan, This Activist Was Martyred for Her Moderation – a piece for the Daily Beast co-authored with Asra Nomani.

Pakistani analyst Cyril Almeida’s oped Blood and Balochistan in the mainstream daily Dawn. “A tediously good piece by Cyril Almeida on #Balochistan; good because it’s the truth, tedious because nobody cares,” to quote Ali Dayan Hasan, former Pakistan head of Human Rights Watch.
And not least, a moving account of Sabeen’s funeral by a friend in Karachi, below.

On 26 April 2015 at 12:26, Nadra Huma Quraishi wrote:

Today was a hard day! We had to say goodbye to a person who was an inspiration, a mentor, a friend and a beacon of hope for many of us. Last night Sabeen Mahmud was cruelly snatched from her family, friends and fans. She was fatally shot as she left T2F, her brainchild and her passion, with her mother. Her mother was also critically injured.

With her beautiful welcoming smile and her sparkling eyes, Sabeen had the knack of making people feel special and sparking a hope for better things to come! I met her at the Karachi Literature Festival at a session she was facilitating. She was amazing and I was impressed.

Later through the year we ran into each other at various civil rights protests and events organised to engage people in thinking about the civic problems. To me she became the symbol of the city I had returned to after 17 years abroad. Bright, vivacious, interesting and challenging!

She was a bright intellectual with a heart of gold and a down to earth attitude. Fearless about upholding what was right and passionate about helping victims of injustice, Sabeen’s dream was to engage people in open dialogue to promote critical thinking to create a stable, prosperous and egalitarian Pakistan. T2F provided the community space for such interactions and events.

Last night’s event hosted there, Unsilencing Balochistan Take 2: In Conversation with Mama Qadeer, Farzana Baloch and Mir Talpur proved to the last one ever to be led by her. She paid the price of raising her voice by making the ultimate sacrifice, that of laying down her life for her beliefs. The session was held at T2F and that is where Sabeen’s friends came to bid her goodbye this afternoon.

Unsilencing Balochistan (Take 2) with Wusat Ullah Khan, Mama Qadeer, Farzana Baloch and Mir Mohammad… https://t.co/k5W35d8XGb

— Sabeen Mahmud (@sabeen) April 24, 2015

T2F is where Sabeen’s mother Mehnaz Mahmud, an early childhood educationist, sat and met all the people who had come to pay homage to her slain child. She sat there with bullet injuries and consoled those who had come to console her. A strong mother of a strong daughter, her resilience, fortitude and stoic calm were remarkable. It is hard to fathom what turmoil she must be going through inside as she bade farewell to her only child.

An educationist and a progressive activist, Sabeen was forever a trendsetter, be it through the hackathon organised under Peace Niche, or the poetry readings, live theatre, book readings and other events hosted at T2F.

Her voice was silenced and she was laid to rest today in a graveyard in her beloved city. Even in death she led people to challenge norms and set a new trend. Karachi saw an unusual sight this afternoon.

The bier carrying Sabeen was followed by women in a large number, they came, the mothers, sisters, daughters of Karachi to pay homage to a fallen hero, one of their own. Women rode in the funeral hearse bus, and they said the funeral prayers. Then it was time to take Sabeen to her final resting place and they came there too. They walked to the graveyard, stood around the grave, the silent sentinels, tears falling but no sound escaping their lips till the end of the ritual, took part in all the funeral rites, covered her grave with flowers , the White lilies covering the traditional red roses another deviation from the norm, and prayed over her.

With tears blurring my vision I kept thinking once again Sabeen has engaged us and is making us reflect and decide on acting on what we believe to be right. She was a leader and a mentor right to the end!

Sabeen has left us but she has left a legacy, one that we must honour, that of raising our voice against injustice and making a positive difference. She lives on in every one of us!

Huma,-Karachi-25-04-15

 10. PAKISTAN: WAF AGGRIEVED OVER TARGET KILLING OF PEACE ACTIVIST

Press Release

April 26, 2015

The Women’s Action Forum (WAF) expresses its deep and heartfelt grief at the target killing of peace and rights activist Sabeen Mahmud in Karachi on April 24.

“The WAF is outraged at yet another target killing of a brave and courageous human rights defender in Pakistan. WAF strongly condemns the dastardly, cowardly act. We express our deepest sympathies with Sabeen’s mother, who was shot and wounded in the same incident, and is hospitalised. We pray for her early recovery.”

WAF strongly condemned the law enforcing authorities for failing to protect Sabeen, who had informed them of the threats she had been receiving. “How many more lives will be silenced before any action is taken?”

Sabeen Mahmud was a strong supporter of WAF, through her ‘PeaceNiche’ at T2F. Her alleged ‘’crime’’ was that she gave people the opportunity to think, she provided space for dialogue and human interaction; she opened their eyes to political issues, to music, art, other forms of culture, to political and human rights.

She helped promote secular, progressive and rational thought. She encouraged intellectual discussion and academic debate, versus the violent alternative. She was an inspiration to countless activists, and a role model for the younger generation who flocked to T2F. For all this, and for her brave activism, her voice, like that of so many others, has been brutally silenced.

On the day of her target killing, Sabeen’s activism was well in evidence, when she organized and hosted a discussion on the Balochistan issue titled “Un-silencing Balochistan”, and invited Mama Qadeer Baloch and his colleagues from the VoBMP group. Earlier, this seminar was forcibly cancelled at the Lahore private university LUMS, but Sabeen did not accept such undemocratic curbs on academic freedom and the spirit of inquiry.

Voices for Human Rights, for freedom of expression, for free thinking, for academic and intellectual debate, are being systematically and ruthlessly silenced in Pakistan. The list of those killed or attempted killings is growing longer and women are no exception.

WAF demands that clear, prompt, visible, effectual and bona fide actions be immediately taken to stop such target killings, especially of human rights defenders, to restore a small measure of Pakistani citizens’ confidence in the State and to restore citizens’ fundamental rights, as enshrined in the Constitution.

We have not forgotten Parween Rehman, Rashid Rehman, and our many other silenced comrades, and we will not forget Sabeen Mahmud. We will not let the State forget them either. We will not be silenced.

source: Daily Times

 11. PAKISTAN: THE SILENCING OF SABEEN

Ghazi Salahuddin
(The News, Sunday, April 26, 2015)

[The silencing of Sabeen] In my long career as a columnist, I have been constrained to chronicle the sorrows of this unfortunate country. And the focus mainly remains Karachi where I have grown up. But this experience has not made it any easier for me to come to terms with a tragedy of this enormity and depth.

Sabeen Mahmud was shot dead late on Friday evening. If you know who she was and what she represented in the context of our struggle for survival as civilised human beings, you are bound to feel it as a very personal loss. She was a member of your family, and while you grieve and suffer incomprehensible pain, you should remember that Sabeen Mahmud is now a national hero.

It is obviously very difficult for me to collect my thoughts in any orderly fashion as I write these words on Saturday morning. What can one say? Those of us who were at the morgue until after midnight were too stunned to speak to each other. It will take time for us to grasp the meaning of this calamity. It felt as if the members of Sabeen’s tribe, spread across the world, were spiritually with us to share our bereavement.

In the immediate past, I can recall two other violent deaths that prompted somewhat similar emotions as Sabeen’s killing has aroused. Parveen Rahman of the Orangi Pilot Project was shot dead in Karachi and Rashid Rehman, a lawyer and human rights defender, was targeted in Multan. This is how some of the most precious and truly courageous individuals in our lives are removed from the scene by the dark and evil forces of intolerance and anti-liberalism.

To present a glimpse of Sabeen’s story, let me lean on reports published in Saturday’s newspapers. This is the intro of one front-page story: “Sabeen Mahmud, the director and founder of The Second Floor (T2F) café, was shot dead by gunmen in an upscale neighbourhood of the metropolis on Friday”.

Another newspaper said: “Sabeen Mahmud, social media campaigner and human rights activist who founded the social forum T2F, was shot dead on Friday evening, minutes after the end of an interactive discussion ‘Unsilencing Balochistan’ organised by her and attended by journalists and rights activists, including the founder leader of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, Abdul Qadeer Baloch”.

This report said that DIG Police of District South, Dr Jamil Ahmed “ruled out the killing as a result of a mugging attempt and said she had been attacked deliberately but he could not share any possible motive”. He was quoted as saying: “She was returning home with her mother in a car after the seminar she had organised on Balochistan”.

To learn a bit more about Sabeen, here are excerpts from a profile published on Saturday: “Peace activist and founder of T2F Sabeen Mahmud, who died from gunshot wounds on Friday, was a woman of many talents that mostly revolved around creating digital platforms for arts and culture…… She set up The Second Floor (T2F) as part of her non-profit umbrella called PeaceNiche of which T2F was her first major projection in 2007…The watering hole soon started organising talks, discussions, exhibitions, pioneering events (Pakistan’s first hackathon, stand-up comedy acts) with prominent local and international artists, writers and activists that it became essential for nearly everyone to attend these events at T2F as Ms Mahmud passionately worked for it day and night from fundraising, marketing to building maintenance”.

It is noted that she was an amateur sitar player and founder member of the All Pakistan Music Conference. She not only organised music programmes but also gave space to music educationists at T2F.

What emerges from this is that Sabeen was, in effect, the conscience of Karachi. I am very anxious to find out how our rulers would honour her for what she has contributed to society. The T2F idea is something that reflects our aspirations for a more meaningful existence in the midst of forces that represent death and destruction. Does this mean that Sabeen’s murder certifies a loss of hope in our future? This surely will depend on how the establishment responds to this tragedy.

I have my own memories of T2F. One session comes readily to mind when I moderated a discussion on Omar Shahid’s fictional account of violence in Karachi, The Prisoner. It is strange how almost every effort to celebrate a literary or cultural achievement in this city is rooted in a recollection of grief.

Very ominous it seems to me that I have to mourn the death of a civil society activist when I was all set to celebrate a very enterprising civil society campaign to establish peace in Karachi and to reclaim its public spaces. Yes, I am a member of the ‘I Am Karachi’ consortium and a grand event is scheduled today. The theme I had chosen was to compare what we have won and what we have lost in Karachi. With Sabeen’s murder, the balance has tilted drastically in the wrong direction.

In essence, T2F could be the model of what ‘I Am Karachi’ wants to replicate on a large scale. Concerned citizens of this city must come together and create an environment in which arts, culture and a rational discourse can flourish. I am personally involved with an initiative to promote dialogue and have participated in interactive discussions on some campuses.

Even when I do these things with full commitment, it is always hard for me to ward off the pessimism that is firmly lodged in my heart and in my mind. I keep telling friends that I am a proclaimed pessimist with a distinction that I must continue to do what I can. I will not give up and will not join the enemy. Yet, the prospects are incontrovertibly grim. Karachi, in particular, is in a state of decay – materially, intellectually, socially, politically, and spiritually. There is a lot of garbage on our streets and in our minds.

Someone might suggest that the situation is changing in the aftermath of the massacre of our schoolchildren in Peshawar and the ongoing operation in Karachi has produced some positive results. But the overall social conditions are not changing – and our rulers are unable to fight the war that is to be waged in the minds of men.

When I am told that there is a silver lining, my pessimism argues that every silver lining has a dark cloud. On the very day when Sabeen was killed by gunmen, two public rallies were held in Pakistan by ‘banned’ terrorist outfits. Draw your own conclusions.

The writer is a staff member

 12. Pakistan’s Loss: A Beacon of Free Thought

Bina Shah
(The New York Times, May 6, 2015)

KARACHI, Pakistan — In Pakistan, Karachi is known as the City of Lights. Whenever I fly back here and see those lights, my heart jumps happily because I know I’m home. But at the end of April, as I returned from abroad over the ribboning streets, my heart throbbed with infinite loss. Days before, the brightest light in Karachi had been extinguished forever.

That light, to me, was Sabeen Mahmud, whom I met in the 1990s, after I returned from studies in the United States. I became the editor of a computer magazine, and was interviewing Sabeen at a multimedia company she had helped start. The Internet had come to Pakistan in 1996, and suddenly everyone I knew was talking about websites and Internet service providers and dial-up access to an information superhighway. That highway would soon connect Pakistan, then hesitantly emerging from a dictatorship’s information control, to the rest of the world. But few people recognized its potential, and many dismissed the Internet with suspicion or scorn. Not Sabeen, though; she was too intelligent.

In a little office festooned with posters of John Lennon and Albert Einstein, Sabeen waxed lyrical about CD-ROMs, graphic design and Apple Macs. As she rhapsodized about user-friendliness (a huge accomplishment back then), I knew I’d stumbled on a very unusual person. She was a tomboy dressed in jeans, a knee-length shirt known as a kurta, and kolhapuri sandals. Totally comfortable in her skin, she wasn’t concerned about the usual obsessions of young women in Pakistan: finding a good match and settling down, or the latest fashions and parties. Here was someone passionate about bigger concepts and imbued with purpose; she was an oasis of individuality in a city where social conventions limit the roles of young women to serving husband, children and family.

Fast-forward 10 years. Sabeen had left the tech company to start something new: a cultural community space where people could gather, talk, listen to music and poetry, discuss politics and drink coffee. She was inspired by the Pakistani teahouses of the 1950s and ’60s, when students and poets, revolutionaries and socialists would discuss life and politics over cigarettes and endless cups of tea. But she wanted a modern iteration, imbued with technology: There would be a Wi-Fi connection, an Apple laptop for public use, a music system fed by iTunes. Also an espresso machine, but no smoking.

The cafe was being constructed, on the second floor of a new office building, when I visited. The walls were bare, the kitchen unbuilt. The task seemed impossible, but Sabeen’s creative impulse nevertheless turned that blank space above a dusty street into a beautiful cafe with pine furniture and colorful murals and the ever-present posters — Lennon and Einstein and Steve Jobs alongside the revolutionary Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and the Nobel laureate in physics Abdus Salam.

Within months, the cafe — The Second Floor, commonly called T2F — was up and running. People came, in trickles at first, mostly students drawn to an air-conditioned spot to study and hang out with girlfriends and boyfriends, away from the prying eyes of others. A comedian, Saad Haroon, hosted T2F’s first open-mike night on May 31, 2007; from then on, dozens of musicians came to perform, along with young people who had never dreamed they would stand on a stage and strum a guitar or sing a song. She invited any writers traveling through town to do readings; she organized talks on science and philosophy and poetry. Whenever I came, I felt able to breathe deeply in a city that can suffocate the spirit.

Word of T2F spread through Sabeen’s use of email and a website. Soon, people began asking to stage lectures or group meetings; Sabeen said yes to all who shared her vision of social change through open dialogue, cultural activities or public discourse and advocacy. In her emails and blog posts — for example, a tribute to the artist Asim Butt, who painted T2F’s murals and committed suicide in 2010 — she felt compelled to speak out and always end with the words “in complete solidarity” and “Peace/Sabeen.”

Karachi had been starving for a cultural space like this, where nobody was made to feel they didn’t belong. In 2008, I wrote a novel there; in 2011, I wrote another in a room I rented on T2F’s new premises. Meanwhile, Sabeen pursued her unique brand of activism: encouraging pluralism by urging multiple voices to express themselves not just in the cafe, but in action. They took to the streets, protesting against violence directed at minorities, or for deweaponizing Karachi. Online, she conducted clever viral campaigns against the fundamentalists who wanted to outlaw Valentine’s Day and the government that had banned YouTube. A photograph of her standing on the back of a police van and flashing a V-sign at a political protest became an iconic image.

And she won converts, schooling a new generation in protest and in solidarity with others: religious minorities, secularists and humanists, the L.G.B.T. community, anyone being persecuted for their otherness. By 2015, T2F was attracting 100 visitors each day, and had spawned other cafes like it. At the age of 40, Sabeen was among the most respected of Pakistan’s intellectuals, and a hero to many.

Her grace and dignity, her generous heart and fine mind won her thousands of friends, even as her counterculture stance earned her unseen enemies. Two weeks ago, two of those enemies took her life, gunning her down as she drove home with her mother from a talk by Baloch activists. T2F had hosted the event after the Lahore University of Management Sciences had heeded a warning by security agencies not to let the activists speak. Sabeen chose to ignore such intimidation; fear could not break her spirit.

She died as she lived: in peaceful resistance, her ideals and principles intact, and in complete solidarity with the people she loved.

Bina Shah is the author of several books of fiction, including, most recently, “A Season for Martyrs.”

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