Newsweek reports on an unlikely heroine emerging in Pakistan –

Soon after Mukhtar Mai was savagely gang-raped on the orders of a village council three years ago, she considered her options. She had never been accused of any crime. (The rape was carried out as supposed retribution for an alleged and implausible affair between Mai’s teenage brother and a 30-year-old woman.) But according to rural Pakistan’s strict Islamic code, she was forever “dishonored.” The local Mastoi clan, which dominates the village council, expected her to keep her mouth shut or simply disappear. Her own Gujar clan refused to support her. “My choice was either to commit suicide or to fight back,” Mai recalled last week. “I decided to fight back.” …Mai also has become a model for Pakistani women pressing for more rights. She’s been a guest speaker at women’s forums across the country, and has even taken her message to Spain and India. By broadcasting her case, she has embarrassed authorities. The Pakistani government, aiming to show its support, has paved the dirt road leading into Mai’s village and is now connecting local homes to the electricity grid. “The U.S. civil-rights campaign had Rosa Parks, who helped to spark an entire movement,” says Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani activist and opposition member of Parliament. “We have Mukhtar Mai.”

Somehow, a “you go girl!” just isn’t enough in cases like these. Still, as a technologist myself, I can’t help but notice the degree to which broadcast media, the Internet, and cheap/easy air travel transformed this case into an icon when undoubtedly so many before her were simply lost in a sea of statistics. Continue reading →

Although you may have already seen it in the comments on the sidebar, this is an important enough issue that I’m elevating it to a full post. A spokesman at the US Embassy in New Delhi announced that Chief Minister Modi has had his Visa DENIED [see previous posts 1,2]. This is a huge victory for grass roots activism (props to CAG) and I hope it will serve as a great example of Hindu/Muslim unity within the U.S. From Rediff:

The US has denied visa to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to visit the country, apparently because of Gujarat riots.

Modi has been denied diplomatic visa and his tourist/business visa already granted has also been revoked as per the US Immigration and Nationality Act, a spokesman of the US Embassy in New Delhi said.

The CM was to pay a five-day visit to the US from March 20.

Modi is expected to address a press conference at 1400 IST to give his reactions.

“We can confirm that Chief Minister of Gujarat state Narendra Modi applied for, but was denied, the diplomatic visa under Section 214 (b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act because he was not coming for the purpose that qualified for a diplomatic visa,” the spokesman said.

“His tourist/business visa was revoked under Section 212 (a) (2) (g) of the Act, which makes any government official who was responsible for, or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom, ineligible for visa,” he added.

Assuming that the U.S. Embassy in India was working under orders from the Bush Administration, this means that Bush and the State Department are officially recognizing Modi as someone who committed a “violation of religious freedom,” thus acknowledging the validity of the State Department’s own assessment. If Karen Hughes is as on the ball as we expect her to be, then she better “use” this.

Continue reading →

Salman Rushdie will be speaking at the Dallas Museum of Art. The venue is, well, an interesting one I suppose but, the real hook to the story is this small catch – the airlines won’t fly him –

Salman Rushdie has apparently been denied a flight to Dallas, where he is scheduled to speak tomorrow night to 800 people at the DMA for Arts & Letters Live. Mr. Rushdie is apparently too dangerous to board an airplane. Well, he’s not dangerous, he’s a pussycat, but you get my meaning.

But, luckily, the spirit of volunteerism is alive and well –

Salman Rushdie will make it to Dallas tonight for his Arts & Letters Live appearance, courtesy of the indefatigable editor of Texas Monthly who already had a plane flying in from New York to Austin bringing some celebrities for the Texas Film Hall of Fame awards. Turns out he had an extra seat.

So instead of being sandwiched in the center seat between a crying baby and smokaholic, Rushdie will share a private plane with Lauren Bacall, Marcia Gay Harden, and Dennis Quaid. Note to Mr. Quaid – think carefully before speaking of Padma.

(hat tip – Virginia Postrel’s Blog) Continue reading →

The Times of India, whose Web edition is rife with inaccuracies, cut ‘n paste stories and jingoism, has pressured a media critic into shutting down his blog by threatening to sue for libel (thanks, H.):

… when one of the few noted [Indian] media critics, Pradyuman Maheshwari, criticized the Times of India on his Mediaah Weblog recently, the Times looked to squash him with a seven-page legal threat for libel. The threat worked, and Maheshwari decided to close his site, as he has a day job running the daily Maharashtra Herald in Pune…

“… if this goes where I think it’s going, it should go down in history as ‘The Great Indian Blog Mutiny,'” Gupta told me via e-mail. “The Times of India has simply shown how far they’ve come from being a respectable newspaper to being a common school bully…”

One of the ToI’s most criticized practices is selling front page space to PR firms for their clients’ publicity shots. The newspaper allegedly auctions off this space without disclosing that it’s pay-for-placement:

Maheshwari says much of what upset the Times was his criticism of its MediaNet initiative where businesses can actually buy photos and profile stories in the Times’ editorial section — what it calls “edvertorials.”

Here’s an example in the Bombay Times, a tabloidish paper owned by the ToI:

A McDonald’s spokesperson on the front page picture of Malaika Arora posing to announce McDonald’s home delivery service in Bombay Times dated April 12, 2004: “Yes, the photograph was paid for.”

Here’s a mirror of the offending posts and the ToI’s legal threat.

To follow up on my previous two posts [1,2] regarding the Justice Department battling the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, the New York Daily News provides us with the latest [thanks for the tip Ankur K.]:

The Transit Authority may be cracking down on workers wearing turbans, but the agency is ignoring secular headgear – everything from Russian-style winter hats to Mets caps to do-rags, a federal survey has found.

Conducting surveillance at subway stations, bus stops and terminals, the Justice Department, which has accused the TA of discrimination, spotted 208 TA employees blatantly violating dress-code regulations, the Daily News has learned.

The offenders wore hats that were not issued by the TA and lacked the agency logo.

The TA, meanwhile, has penalized a Sikh worker who wears turbans and Muslim employees clad in head scarves called khimars.

“These observations confirm that the TA has gone [and continues to go] out of its way to selectively enforce its uniform policies against a handful of Muslim and Sikh employees, while ignoring rampant and easily observable violations by a large contingent of its employees,” a Justice Department lawyer wrote to the TA late last week.

To give credit where credit is due, I want to point out that this is more than likely the same Civil Rights sub-division of the Justice Department that I last week criticized for its position with regards to the Salvation Army.

Continue reading →

A Canadian judge declared today that two men were not guilty of murdering 331 people who died when bombs exploded in 1985 aboard an Air India plane over the Atlantic, and at Tokyo’s Narita Airport:

Spectators in the courtroom, including dozens of victims’ relatives, gasped when the verdicts were read. Some started wailing…The defendants — Ripudaman Singh Malik, 58, and Ajaib Singh Bagri, 55 — were immediately removed from the courtroom. Malik sat impassively while the verdict was read, wiping his beard with a scarf. Supporters slapped his son on the back. [AP/S.F. Gate]

British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Ian Josephson explained that the two-year trial of Canada’s worst case of mass murder had failed to produce credible witnesses. The bombings stood as the largest terrorist strike before Sept. 11, and are believed to have been retaliation by Sikh separatists for a deadly 1984 raid by Indian forces on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

The decision stunned Canada’s Sikh community, which reacted to the verdict with surprise and dissapointment:

“Who did it?,” Mr. (Sarwan Singh) Rahawa asked. “Who put the bombs on the plane? This is not fair for those families whose loved ones are lost.”…“There should be a public inquiry. Every Canadian has the right to an answer. Something went wrong. Everyone’s disappointed after 20 years,” he concluded. [Globe and Mail]

AP/S.F. Gate: Indian-born Sikhs cleared in plane bombs
Globe and Mail: Decision stuns community

Continue reading →