[sacw] PAKISTAN: Religious Leaders Take on NGOs

[Harsh Kapoor]

11Sept.1999
FYI
Harsh Kapoor
------------------------------
** ips.english: 419.0 **/
** Topic: RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Religious Leaders Turn On NGOs for
Empowering **
** Written 9:07 PM Sep 9, 1999 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.english **
Copyright 1999 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

*** 09-Sep-99 ***

Title: RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Religious Leaders Turn On NGOs for Empowering
Women

By Muddassir Rizvi

BALAKOT, Pakistan, Sep 9 (IPS) - Religious leaders in Pakistan's
North West Frontier Province (NWFP) have sharpened their attack
on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in raising the
status of women in the area's backward villages.

''The situation in the NWFP is a matter of serious concern,''
an alliance of the province's NGOs, Sarhad NGO Ittehad, wrote in
a statement to the province's chief minister, a close aide of
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Threatened with physical harm to members, the Aga Khan Rural
Support Programme (AKRSP) shut down its offices -- ''for the time
being'' -- in Chitral, a small mountain town in the Hindukush
ranges, nearly 400 km northwest of the Pakistan capital.

AKRSP which has faced constant harassment was accused by the
Sunni scholars of the area of the Aug. 19 murder of Maulana
Obaidullah Chitrali, local leader of the fundamentalist Jamait
Ulema-i-Islam faction led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

Rehman's party has strong links with the Taliban rulers of
Kabul, and has declared war against the United States warning it
of serious consequences if it tries to capture Saudi dissident
Osama bin Laden, who is in hiding in Afghanistan.

The party has wide support among mosque 'khateebs' (one who
delivers the sermon) who regularly preach that NGOs are the
agents of the West, funded by the Zionist lobby and ruining women
by enticing them away from the confines of their homes.

''They (NGOs) are altering our traditional systems, wreaking
havoc with family systems and destroying cultural values through
a well-planned agenda of the West,'' fumes Qazi Khalil Ahmed, the
khateeb of Balakot, the district headquarters of the serene
Kaghan Valley in the Hazara Division, 200 km from Islamabad.

''They (NGOs) are indulging in objectionable activities and
instigating our women to take up roles which are specifically
meant for men,'' he adds.

Khalil has been running a campaign against the Sungi
Development Foundation, which works with disadvantaged
communities in the remote areas of the conservative Hazara
Division.

Besides other development work, the major activities of the
NGO include civil rights advocacy and the mainstreaming of women.
''We will not let Sungi work in the Kaghan Valley unless they
agree not to work with women. We will not tolerate obscenity --
our women belong inside the house,'' he said in an interview.

Sungi maintains that it is sensitive to the socio-cultural
traditions of the province. ''We have separate female staff that
works with women of the area,'' explains Shazia, a field
coordinator at the Sungi office in Balakot.

Acknowledging that their work was affected by the hate-
campaign led by the 'maulvis' or clerics, she says: ''We find the
space for our work shrinks -- but this is not going to deter us
from our mission nor will it make our partner women's
organisations stop the process of change that has started.''

While NGOs in NWFP have made people aware of their rights, it
has pitted them against the traditional elites including the
politically powerful timber mafia of the Kaghan Valley.

For years they plundered the forests, but now they ''find it
hard to buy the trees at nominal rates from their owners ... The
NGOs have educated the people about their rights as owners,''
schoolteacher Ataullah from Paras Village points out.

''This mafia has been representing us in the assembly with the
billions of rupees earned by cutting trees. Now, people are
questioning them, and they feel threatened. The easiest is to
hide behind traditions and use religion against the organisations
that create rights awareness in the area,'' he says.

Khowindah Kor, a women's rights group has received threats
from the Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (Movement for the
Enforcement of Islam), which also has close links with the
Taliban. They have been warned to shut down all activities in
Dir, or have their offices attacked and burnt down.

''We are constantly threatened by Tehrik activists -- they
accuse us of spreading obscenity. All we are doing is working
with uneducated women, educating them about their rights and
responsibilities as citizens of Pakistan,'' says an activist.

Even the European Union-funded IUCN Dir-Kohistan Biodiversity
Project in Dir, 250 km northwest of Islamabad, has not been
spared by religious leader who said its women's programme was
''immoral''. The NWFP government conducted an investigation, and
''found all allegations against the IUCN baseless and

concocted''.

NWFP NGOs want the government to ensure local administrations
allow them to work fearlessly. ''Uncivil elements'' have been
encouraged to ''rise up against women's and human rights
activists'' because of the ''inaction of the government'' they
said in the communique presented to Chief Minister Mehtab Khan
Abbasi.

''We request you to set up a consultative process in the
province with a view to creating an enabling environment for
social development and rights-based organisations with a focus on
women,'' the Alliance pleads. The government is still to respond.
(END/IPS/mr/an/99)