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January 2, 2006
Radical Clerics In Pakistan Ignore Decree On Madrassas
Topics: War on Terror
Those madrassas in Pakistan, believed to be breeding grounds of terrorism, have apparently defeated Musharraf in a battle of wills.
Gen. Musharraf ordered that all non-Pakistanis be expelled by the end of 2005, but he backed down as the deadline passed on Saturday without the edict being enacted.
Gen. Musharraf relented on Thursday after clerics said they would rather be incarcerated than comply with orders to expel foreigners or give their names to the authorities.We have to count this as a win for terrorism at one of it's wellsprings, and a loss by the West in the War on Terror.Hanif Jalandhri, the head of the Federation of Madrassas, said that about 1,000 foreign students had left since July. Of the 700 who remained, those facing forced repatriation saw themselves as victims of the president's efforts to curry favor with the United States and Britain.
Fazlur Rahman, a cleric who heads Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), known for its close ties to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, said: "We'll do our best to keep the students with us and prefer arrest to giving the foreigners to police."
Pakistan's Interior Ministry abruptly dropped threats to begin arresting violators, and then denied that there had been any ultimatum in the first place. "There is no deadline for it," said Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao.The JUI leader accused Gen. Musharraf of violating both the Pakistani Constitution and the U.N. Convention on Human Rights by forcing out students in the absence of evidence that they had committed crimes.
What a "catch-22" we're faced with in Pakistan. Muaharraf is needed in the WOT, but to combat the terrorists in Pakistan he has to be in power. But to remain in power, it appears that he either needs the support of the Islamists or that he is not strong enough to shut them down at home. Those foreign student "victims" will continue to be fueled with hate and violence toward everything that is not "Islamic," while soaking in the venom of radical Islam.
Related coverage: The government of Pakistan appears to be caught between international pressure to meet the 31 December 2005 deadline for the expulsion of foreign students from the country's madrassas or Islamic seminaries and a fierce reaction by religious hardliners to the ban.
Posted by Richard at January 2, 2006 11:15 AM
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- Radical Clerics In Pakistan Ignore Decree On Madrassas - Jan 02, 2006
