SACW | Oct. 06-14, 2006 | Pakistan Coup 7 years on; Nuclear North Korea; Against Death Penalty

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | October 6-14, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2301

[1]  Pakistan: Musharraf's Coup - Seven Years Later (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
[2]  Grim warning from North Korea (Praful Bidwai)
[3]  India: Voices against Death Penalty for Mohammed Afzal:
    (i) Why Afzal Must Not Be Executed (Praful Bidwai)
    (ii) Appeal for Presidential Pardon for Mohd Afzal Guru (Dilip Simeon)
    (iii) Should Mohammad Afzal Guru be hanged? (Ram Puniyani)
    (iv) Capital Punishment: The Afzal Guroo Case (Badri Raina)
    (v) Intelligent design? (Ajit Bhattacharjea)
[4]  Announcement: Indian Public TV to Telecast 
Anand Patwardhan's War and Peace (15 Oct 2006)

____


[1] 

MUSHARRAF'S COUP - SEVEN YEARS LATER
(Dawn, 12-10-2006)

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

Some had feared - while others had hoped - that General Pervez Musharraf's
coup of October 12, 1999, would bring the revolution of Kemal Ataturk to a
Pakistan and wrest the country from the iron grip of mullahs. But years
later a definitive truth has emerged. Like the other insecure governments
before it, both military and civilian, the present regime also has a
single point agenda - to stay in power at all costs. It therefore does
whatever it must and Pakistan falls further from any prospect of acquiring
modern values, and of building and strengthening democratic institutions.

The requirements for survival of the present regime are clear: on the one
hand the Army leadership knows that its critical dependence upon the West
requires that it be perceived abroad as a liberal regime pitted against
radical Islamists.  But, on the other hand, in actual fact, to preserve
and extend its grip on power, it must preserve the status quo.

The staged conflicts between General Musharraf and the mullahs are
therefore a regular part of Pakistani politics. This September, nearly
seven years later, the religious parties needed no demonstration of muscle
power for winning two major victories in less than a fortnight; just a few
noisy threats sufficed. From experience they knew that the Pakistan Army
and its sagacious leader - of "enlightened moderation" fame - would stick
to their predictable pattern of dealing with Islamists. In a nutshell:
provoke a fight, get the excitement going, let diplomatic missions in
Islamabad prepare their briefs and CNN and BBC get their clips - and then
beat a retreat. At the end of it all the mullahs would get what they want,
but so would the General.

Examples abound. On 21st April 2000, General Musharraf announced a new
administrative procedure for registration of cases under the Blasphemy
Law. This law, under which the minimum penalty is death, has frequently
been used to harass personal and political opponents. To reduce such
occurrences, Musharraf's modified procedure would have required the local
district magistrate's approval for registration of a blasphemy case. It
would have been an improvement, albeit a modest one. But 25 days later -
on the 16th of May 2000 - under the watchful glare of the mullahs,
Musharraf hastily climbed down: "As it was the unanimous demand of the
ulema, mashaikh and the people, therefore, I have decided to do away with
the procedural change in the registration of FIR under the Blasphemy Law".

Another example. In October 2004, as a new system for issuing machine
readable passports was being installed, Musharraf's government declared
that henceforth it would not be necessary for passport holders to specify
their religion. Expectedly this was denounced by the Islamic parties as a
grand conspiracy aimed at secularizing Pakistan and destroying its Islamic
character. But even before the mullahs actually took to the streets, the
government lost nerve and the volte-face was announced on 24 March, 2005.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said the decision to revive the
religion column was made else, "Qadianis and apostates would be able to
pose as Muslims and perform pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia".

But even these climb downs - significant as they are - are less dramatic
than the astonishing recent retreat over reforming the Hudood Ordinance, a
grotesque imposition of General Zia-ul-Haq's government unparalleled both
for its cruelty and irrationality.  Enacted into the law in 1979, it was
conceived as part of a more comprehensive process for converting Pakistan
into a theocracy governed by Sharia laws. These laws prescribe death by
stoning for married Muslims who are found guilty of extra-marital sex (for
unmarried couples or non-Muslims, the penalty is 100 lashes). The law is
exact in stating how the death penalty is to be administered: "Such of the
witnesses who deposed against the convict as may be available shall start
stoning him and, while stoning is being carried on, he may be shot dead,
whereupon stoning and shooting shall be stopped".

Rape is still more problematic. A woman who fails to prove that she has
been raped is automatically charged with fornication and adultery. Under
the Hudood Law, she is considered guilty unless she can prove her
innocence. Proof of innocence requires that the rape victim must produce
"at least four Muslim adult male witnesses, about whom the Court is
satisfied" who saw the actual act of penetration. Inability to do so may
result in her being jailed, or perhaps even sentenced to death for
adultery.

President and Chief of Army Staff General Musharraf, and his Citibank
Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, proposed amending the Hudood Ordinance. They
sent a draft for parliamentary discussion in early September, 2006. As
expected, it outraged the fundamentalists of the MMA, the main Islamic
parliamentary opposition. MMA members tore up copies of the proposed
amendments on the floor of the National Assembly and threatened to resign
en masse. The government cowered abjectly and withdrew.

Musharraf's government has proved no more enlightened, or more moderate or
more resolute and behaved no differently from the more than half a dozen
civilian administrations, including two terms of Benazir Bhutto as Prime
Minister and several "technocrat" regimes. None made a serious effort to
confront or reform these laws.

But the pattern is broader then deference to the mullahs. General
Musharraf has been willing to use the iron fist in other circumstances.
Two examples stand out: Waziristan and Balochistan. Each offers
instruction.

In 2002, presumably on Washington's instructions, the Pakistan Army
established military bases in South Waziristan which had become a refuge
for Taliban and Al Qaeda fleeing Afghanistan. It unleashed artillery and
US-supplied Cobra gunships. By 2005 heavy fighting had spread to North
Waziristan and the army was bogged down.

The generals, safely removed from combat areas, and busy in building their
personal financial empires, ascribed the resistance to "a few hundred
foreign militants and terrorists". But the Army was taking losses (how
serious is suggested by the fact that casualty figures were not revealed),
soldiers rarely ventured out from their forts, morale collapsed as junior
officers wondered why they were being asked to attack their ideological
comrades - the Taliban - at American instructions. Reportedly, local
clerics refused to conduct funeral prayers for soldiers killed in action.

In 2004, the army made peace with the militants in South Waziristan. It
conceded the territory to them, which had made the militants immensely
stronger. A similar "peace treaty" had been signed on 1 September 2006 in
the town of Miramshah, in North Waziristan, now firmly in the grip of the
Pakistani Taliban.

The Miramshah treaty met all demands made by the militants: the release of
all jailed militants; dismantling of army checkpoints; return of seized
weapons and vehicles; the right of the Taliban to display weapons (except
heavy weapons); and residence rights for fellow fighters from other
Islamic countries. As for "foreign militants"  who Musharraf had blamed
exclusively for the resistance, the militants were nonchalant: we will let
you know if we find any! The financial compensation demanded by the
Taliban for loss of property and life has not been revealed, but some
officials have remarked that it is "astronomical". In turn they promised
to cease their attacks on civil and military installations, and give the
army a safe passage out.

While the army has extricated itself, the locals have been left to pay the
price. The militants have closed girl's schools and are enforcing harsh
Sharia laws in all of Waziristan, both North and South. Barbers have been
told "you shave, you die". Taliban vigilante groups patrol the streets of
Miramshah. They check such things as the length of beards, whether the
"shalwars" are worn at an appropriate height above the ankles, and
attendance of individuals in the mosques.

And then there is Balochistan. Eight years ago when the army seized power,
there was no visible separatist movement in Balochistan, which makes
nearly 44% of Pakistan's land mass and is the repository of its gas and
oil. Now there is a full blown insurgency built upon Baloch grievances,
most of which arise from a perception of being ruled from Islamabad and of
being denied a fair share of the benefits of the natural resources
extracted from their land.

The army has spurned negotiations. Force is the only answer: "They won't
know what hit them", boasted Musharraf, after threatening to crush the
insurgency. The Army has used everything it can, including its American
supplied F-16 jet fighters. The crisis worsened when the charismatic
80-year old Baloch chieftain and former governor of Balochistan, Nawab
Akbar Khan Bugti, was killed by army bombs. Musharraf outraged the Baloch
by calling it "a great victory". Reconciliation in Balochistan now seems,
at best, a distant dream.

Musharraf and his generals are determined to stay in power. They will
protect the source of their power - the army. They will accommodate those
they must - the Americans. They will pander to the mullahs. They will
crush those who threaten their power and privilege, and ignore the rest.
No price is too high for them. They are the reason Pakistan fails.
-----------------

The author teaches at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. This article
was published on the anniversary of the coup.

_____


[2] 

The News International
October 14, 2006

GRIM WARNING FROM NORTH KOREA

by Praful Bidwai

The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a 
researcher and peace and human-rights activist 
based in Delhi

North Korea has shocked and challenged the world 
by punching a big hole through the global nuclear 
order. The effects of its test will ricochet for 
a long time, changing the Asian balance of power 
and impacting Iran.

The explosion underscores some plain unvarnished 
wisdom: the best way to deal with "problem cases" 
like North Korea is to discard nuclear weapons as 
a currency of power by pursuing the global 
nuclear disarmament agenda. The alternative is to 
risk a more unsafe world with yet more 
nuclear-armed states.

North Korea shows that a small (pop 23 million), 
poor, economically and politically isolated 
country, which recently experienced famines, can 
build nuclear weapons if it is determined to. 
Splitting the atom requires neither high science 
nor very advanced technology.

The science is more than 60 years old, and the 
technology no more sophisticated than what a car 
garage has--once you have fissile material or 
reactors. The test sets a terrible example. Some 
40 countries have significant civilian nuclear 
programmes, which can be diverted to make weapons.

Why did North Korea test? It has a long history 
of conflict with South Korea and the United 
States. During the 1950-53 Korean War, General 
Douglas MacArthur had plans to launch nuclear 
strikes against the North. The Cold War has not 
ended in the Korean peninsula.

More recently, President George W. Bush torpedoed 
the reconciliation process between the Koreas. In 
2002, he named North Korea an "exis of evil" 
state and reneged on aid promises. This negated 
the improvement in Washington-Pyongyang 
relations, including the 1994 Agreed Framework, 
under which North Korea suspended its nuclear 
activities.

In 2003, Pyongyang quit the Nuclear 
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Six-party Talks 
with Pyongyang (involving the US, Russia, China, 
Japan and South Korea) faltered largely because 
of inept US diplomacy. Yet, in September 2005, 
Pyongyang signed a preliminary denuclearisation 
agreement in Beijing. Four days later, Washington 
declared economic war on it.

After the US-led invasion of Iraq, North Korea 
became desperate to prevent a regime change in 
Pyongyang. More recently, it became uncomfortable 
with the appointment of militarist Shinzo Abe as 
Japan's prime minister and the lead taken by 
South Korea's Ban Ki-Moon in the election of the 
United Nations secretary general.

On October 3, Pyongyang foreign ministry said: "A 
people without a reliable war deterrent are bound 
to meet a tragic death and [loss of] sovereigntyŠ 
This is a bitter lesson taught by the bloodshedŠ 
in different parts of the world." The blast 
followed six days later.

North Korea's test exposes the folly of relying 
on purely physical controls--like International 
Atomic Energy Agency safeguards under the NPT--to 
prevent nuclear materials from being put to 
military use. IAEA safeguards are leak-prone.

In some past years, IAEA inspections failed to 
account for over 20 kg of plutonium in 
reprocessing plants--enough for half-a-dozen 
bombs. Besides, a country can quit the NPT at 
three months' notice. That's what Pyongyang did, 
and Iran might do if cornered.

More important than safeguards, and critical to a 
country's decision not to cross the 
nuclear-weapons threshold is its political will. 
Without this, safeguards, even sanctions, won't 
work. In many countries, this will has got 
greatly weakened--because the nuclear-weapons 
states (NWSs) have refused to undertake nuclear 
arms reduction, leave alone disarmament. 
Thousands of nukes remain on high alert.

The five NPT-recognised NWSs have flagrantly 
violated its Article VI, which mandates complete 
elimination of nuclear weapons--a legal 
obligation under a 1996 World Court verdict.

India and Pakistan slavishly imitate them in 
their hypocrisy. India's nuclear deal with the US 
is widely seen as involving double standards: 
indulgence for America's friends (India, Israel, 
Pakistan), and punishment for Iran or N. Korea. 
But double standards are not Washington's 
monopoly. All NWSs practise them.

The world has condemned the North Korean test. 
But it has few options to deal with Pyongyang. 
Military force isn't one. President Bush has 
ruled it out--not out of magnanimity, but 
compulsion. The US is bogged down in Iraq.

Over 37,000 US troops are stationed in South 
Korea. North Korea's 1.2 million-strong army, 
with 11,000 artillery pieces, and an arsenal of 
missiles, can make devastating conventional 
strikes against South Korea and even Japan, where 
another 40,000 US troops are stationed. There's 
the risk of a nuclear attack.

India and Pakistan have strongly condemned North 
Korea. This is another gross instance of 
hypocrisy. Pyongyang has cited the same reasons 
for going nuclear that they did. It doesn't lie 
in India's mouth to condemn Pyongyang. Nor is it 
remotely credible for Pakistan to do so after Dr 
A Q Khan allegedly traded uranium centrifuges 
with North Korea's missiles. Today, India and 
Pakistan both practise the same hypocrisy and 
double standards for which they (rightly) 
criticised the N-5.

India has strongly warned against "the dangers of 
clandestine proliferation". The reference is to 
Pakistan. Some Indian commentators cite President 
Musharraf's "In the Line of Fire", which says: 
"Dr Khan transferred nearly two dozen P-1 and 
P-11 centrifuges to North Korea" along with 
auxiliary equipment and instruments.

However, on all available evidence, the Korean 
test used plutonium, not uranium. The plutonium 
came from a reactor at Yongbyon, built by the 
Soviet Union in 1965. North Korea removed 8,000 
used-fuel rods from it and extracted 25-30 kg of 
plutonium, enough to make 4-6 bombs. It probably 
ran the reactor between February 2003 and April 
2005 too, and removed some more rods. It would be 
foolish for India to use the Korean test as a 
stick to beat Pakistan with. The demand that Dr 
Khan be subjected to interrogation for his Korean 
operations won't cut much ice anywhere.

North Korea's test will strengthen the 
non-proliferation lobby in the US and create more 
difficulties for the India-US nuclear deal, which 
already faces hurdles. Japan and South Korea 
would be singularly ill-advised to go nuclear in 
response to North Korea. That will trigger an 
arms race involving China. The whole world will 
be destabilised under the impact of such an arms 
race. If the US develops a "theatre ballistic 
missile defence" ("Star Wars") shield for 
Northeast Asia, China will respond with utmost 
hostility.

The time has come for a radically different 
approach, which reforms the global nuclear order 
by honestly implementing the two-way bargain on 
which it was originally based. Under the bargain, 
the non-nuclear weapons-states agreed not to make 
or acquire nuclear weapons and subjected 
themselves to IAEA inspections. In return, the 
NWSs committed themselves to serious negotiations 
to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. However, 
the NWSs have cheated on their part of the 
bargain.

The remedy lies in negotiating a return to the 
global disarmament agenda. What the world needs 
is de-alerting of all nuclear weapons, separating 
nuclear warheads from delivery vehicles, and 
phased destruction of nuclear armaments. Regional 
initiatives are also necessary to dissuade North 
Korea from a weapons programme by offering it 
security assurances and generous agricultural and 
industrial assistance and food and fuel aid. Such 
arrangements can lead to the creation of a 
Northeast Asian nuclear weapons-free zone which 
addresses the security concerns of all the 
regional states.

The world cannot afford any more breakouts before 
it takes the nuclear bull by the horns.


_____


[3]  VOICES AGAINST DEATH PENALTY FOR MOHAMMED AFZAL

(i)

Tehelka
Oct 14 , 2006

WHY AFZAL MUST NOT BE EXECUTED

Hanging him would be poor statecraft. What's 
worse, the sentence is legally flawed

by Praful Bidwai

The "black warrant" issued to Mohammed Afzal for 
his involvement in the 2001 Parliament attack has 
triggered widespread popular protests in Kashmir 
and revulsion among the country's liberals. Jammu 
and Kashmir's ruling coalition and chief 
minister, indeed all parties barring the BJP, 
have called for clemency for Afzal. The issue has 
precipitated a national-level polarisation 
between the opponents and supporters of Afzal's 
execution.

The second camp holds the strangest of 
bedfellows: on the one hand, Hindutva 
ultra-nationalists, for whom counter-terrorism is 
a stick to beat Muslims with, and on the other, 
rabid Islamist-separatists like Syed Ali Shah 
Geelani, who want a "martyr" to their anti-India 
cause.

Among their opponents are those who believe that 
hanging Afzal will have terrible political 
consequences, much graver than the execution of 
Maqbool Butt in 1984, which was among the factors 
which greatly increased Kashmiri popular 
alienation from India and eventually precipitated 
the azaadi movement. The timing of the execution, 
on the last Friday of Ramzan, and at a delicate 
political juncture, couldn't have been more 
disastrous.

The political argument cannot be lightly 
dismissed. Yet, there are three other, weightier, 
arguments too.

First and foremost is the moral case against the 
death penalty per se - far and away the most 
powerful argument. It holds that no individual or 
institution has the right to take the life of a 
human being. That violates the fundamental human 
compact on which any society aspiring to be 
civilised is based. Irrespective of their causes 
or consequences, there are some things that you 
simply don't do. Killing another person, except 
in self-defence, is one. A legitimate State is 
duty-bound to defend life, not cause death.

Afzal was guilty not of murder, but of conspiracy 
to commit murder. He was tried under POTA which 
punishes the second with life imprisonment, the 
first with death. Yet, the courts sentenced Afzal 
under a much harsher law
Capital punishment is always unacceptable, 
however heinous the crime. It is a crude form of 
retribution, in which bloodthirst and revenge 
masquerade as righteousness - without remedying 
or redeeming the original crime. The death 
penalty brutalises society and gives legitimacy 
to barbaric revenge.

It's a proven fact that the best judicial systems 
can go wrong by holding an innocent person 
guilty. They're intrinsically fallible. Capital 
punishment leaves no room for correction. Death 
is final, irreversible.

In the United States, over 500 people have been 
executed since the death penalty was reinstated 
in 1976. But more than 120 condemned prisoners 
were released because they had been wrongfully 
convicted. Last year, the only woman ever sent to 
the electric chair in Georgia was granted pardon 
- 60 years too late. She was a Black maid who 
killed a White man who held her in slavery and 
threatened her life.

Capital punishment is typically awarded to the 
poor, illiterate and otherwise underprivileged 
people who find it hard to defend themselves. 
Former Chief Justice PN Bhagwati, no less, called 
it a sentence quintessentially targeted at the 
poor.

The death penalty isn't a deterrent. In Canada, 
the homicide rate per 100,000 people fell from 
3.09 in 1975, a year before abolition of the 
death penalty, to 1.73 in 2003. In 2000, The New 
York Times found that over two decades, the 
homicide rate in states with the death penalty 
was 48 to 101 percent higher than in non-death 
penalty states. In India, the state of Travancore 
recorded fewer murders after abolition. The US 
homicide rate is four times higher than in 
abolitionist Europe.

Death is probably even less of a deterrent for 
terrorists driven by extremist or deeply 
irrational ideologies.

The second, jurisprudential argument pertains to 
one of the central doctrines under which numerous 
death sentences have been pronounced in India 
(and elsewhere): waging war against the State. 
This is a modern version of lese majeste, or 
affront to the Sovereign or Crown who claims 
divine authority.

This early medieval doctrine has an obnoxious 
theological origin: treason not only offends 
social mores; it's a crime against God's 
arrangements on earth. Like an unpardonable sin 
against God, it "cannot be expiated", but must be 
axiomatically punished by death.

Such reasoning should be abhorrent to any 
civilised conscience. In India, a worthy 
sentiment is gathering in favour of abrogating 
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which 
criminalises homosexuality because it's held be 
"against the order of nature". Lese majeste is 
its analogue.

The third argument is a legal one. The punishment 
awarded to Afzal is grossly disproportionate. 
Afzal was guilty not of murder, but of conspiracy 
to commit murder. He was tried under pota, which 
makes a clear distinction between terrorist acts 
causing death, and conspiracy in causing them. It 
punishes the second with life imprisonment, the 
first with death.

Yet, the courts sentenced Afzal under a much 
harsher law (Section 302 of IPC, etc). But 
draconian punishment shouldn't be applied under a 
general criminal law when a terrorism-specific 
law is in existence.

Even in the Gandhiji assassination case, the 
courts didn't interpret Section 302 as applying 
to conspirators. Gopal Godse, who was deeply 
involved in the conspiracy, was not executed; his 
brother was.

An element of anti-terrorist zeal is evident in 
the simplistic manner in which our courts have 
dealt with complex issues of differential 
culpability, especially after Indira Gandhi's 
assassination. Kehar Singh was executed although 
he did not kill her.

The evidence of conspiracy against Afzal hinges 
on his own testimony - he confessed that he 
brought one of the five men involved in the 
Parliament attack of 2001 from Srinagar to Delhi 
and helped him buy a used car - and on the 
recovery of explosives from his house, and most 
crucially, on records of cellphone calls to the 
five.

But the evidence is open to doubt. The explosives 
recovery record is not watertight. The police 
couldn't explain why they broke into his house 
during his absence while he was in jail - when 
the landlord had the key.

The cellphone record traced several calls from 
the five men to number 98114-89429. The police 
allegedly impounded the instrument from Afzal 
while arresting him in Srinagar. The instrument 
had no sim card. So the only identity mark was 
its imei number, unique to each instrument.

There are only two ways to find this tell-tale 
number: open the instrument, or dial a code and 
have the number displayed. But the officer who 
wrote the recovery memo said on oath that he 
neither opened nor operated the instrument. 
Besides, the testimonies regarding the date of 
purchase of the phone with a new sim card 
(December 4) and its first recorded operation 
(November 6) don't match.

The conclusion is plain: there's a large grey 
area in the evidence, which calls for leniency in 
determining Afzal's guilt and punishment. The 
courts took the opposite view. This grave flaw 
must be corrected.

Afzal's death sentence violates the Supreme 
Court's own guidelines, which say that capital 
punishment should be awarded in "the rarest of 
rare cases" - when a murder is conducted in an 
extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical and 
revolting manner or is targeted at a specific 
community or caste. In the Machhi Singh case, the 
court stipulated five considerations: motive, 
socially abhorrent nature of the crime (e.g. 
targeting dalits or minorities), magnitude, and 
the victim's personality. These don't 
collectively apply to Afzal.

Yet another factor speaks in Afzal's favour. He 
is a surrendered militant, who induced two others 
to give up militancy, but was harassed by the 
Special Task Force and subjected to extortion. It 
was an stf officer, Tariq, who asked Afzal to 
bring Mohammed to Delhi. In the murky world of 
Kashmir's insurgency-counter-insurgency, it's 
hard to pinpoint crime and complicity. By all 
indications, Afzal got embittered by the stf's 
misdemeanour, extortion and criminality.

Afzal is by no means beyond the pale of reform. 
President Kalam should act sagaciously and 
commute his sentence. It's his constitutional and 
moral duty to prevent miscarriage of justice and 
apply a humane touch.

Bidwai is a senior Delhi-based journalist

o o o

(ii)

Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2006 13:54:06 +0530
From: Dilip Simeon
To: "DR APJ ABDUL KALAM" <presidentofindia at rb.nic.in>
Subject: Appeal for Presidential Pardon for Mohd Afzal Guru

Dear Mr President

This is an appeal for a presidential pardon to 
Mohammad Afzal Guru, sentenced to death in 
connection with the attack on the Indian 
parliament in New Delhi. May I remind you that 
five terrorists were killed while carrying out 
the attack. Even according to the prosecution, 
Afzal Guru was accused of being a facilitator and 
not someone directly involved in the attack. 
Three others accused in the case have either been 
acquitted or had their sentences revoked on 
account of faulty evidence.

Mohammad Afzal Guru was the most under-privileged 
of the accused and did not have adequate legal 
counsel, having to make do with a court-appointed 
lawyer. I request Your Excellency to ponder that 
rich and privileged persons repeatedly get away 
with murder in our country and the mass carnages 
of 1984 and 2002 have seen repeated miscarriages 
of justice, with barely a handful of sentences 
obtained, and ample evidence of police complicity 
in criminal acts.

In such a situation, Your Excellency it would be 
a grave miscarriage of justice to hang a man who 
was not even accused of killing anyone. Such an 
action would be pandering to blood-lust and 
primitive feelings of revenge, motives that are 
completely out of place in a constitutional 
system working under the rule of law. It would be 
disproportionate according to the Supreme Court's 
understanding that death be awarded only in the 
'rarest of rare' cases.

I would add Your Excellency, that for the State 
to kill someone in revenge is a barbarous 
practice in any event, and that it is not 
sufficient to argue that the needs of justice 
require an eye to be taken for an eye. I know 
that certain other countries do believe this, and 
that militants of various kinds resort to the 
heinous practice of political murder. But the 
wrong-doing of others is no justification for the 
Indian Union to continue with such a cruel 
practice. It must rather, set an example in the 
exercise of restraint and compassion, by which 
alone the rising tide of political violence may 
be contained.

Your Excellency, I repeat my appeal to you to 
consider favourably the mercy petition on behalf 
of Mohammad Afzal Guru and set aside the sentence 
of death passed on him

With respectful regards

Dilip Simeon
Senior Research Fellow
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library
New Delhi

Dated October 7, 2006

o o o

(iii)

Issues in Secular Politics
October 2006 I

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Should Mohammad Afzal Guru be hanged?

by Ram Puniyani

As per the Supreme Court has given the judgment, 
Mohammad Afzal Guru is to be hanged to death on 
20th October 2006. Guru was one of the accused in 
the case of assault on the Parliament on 13 
December 2001, in which, many a security 
personnel were killed. Guru was not found to be 
to be part of any terrorist outfit, nor did he 
play any direct role in the same. In the trial 
which took place the provisions of International 
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights had not 
been respected. Supreme court noted that there is 
no direct evidence of his involvement. The 
evidence was mainly circumstantial. All three 
courts including Supreme Court have acquitted him 
of the charges under POTA of belonging to either 
a terrorist organization or a terrorist gang. 
Court also noted that the evidence was 
fabricated. Most importantly he was not given any 
worthwhile legal assistance to defend him during 
interrogation. When Ram Jethmalani offered to be 
his lawyer the Hindutva goons attacked his 
office. One also recalls here that the lawyers 
offering to hold the brief of accused in 11 July 
2006 Mumbai blasts were also threatened by 
Hindutva outfit, a real case of cowardly display 
of pseudo patriotism . At best Guru was 
facilitator in the crime and not a part of 
directly perpetrating the crime. Supreme Court 
notes, that "The incident, which resulted in 
heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation 
and the collective conscience of the society will 
only be satisfied if capital punishment is 
awarded to the offender." So does it mean that 
the punishment is being given to assuage the 
collective national conscience? One must add what 
is presented as this conscience is the 
consciousness of the section of dominant middle 
classes.

Many a Human rights activist of repute sat on a 
dharna demanding the commutation of the death 
sentence, to life imprisonment. They issued 
appeals to the same effect and also have floated 
the petitions for clemency. Not to be left behind 
another section of activists have floated counter 
petitions demanding nothing short of death 
penalty for this terrorist. In various talk shows 
the angry audience is hooting down those talking 
of the facts of the case and asking for leniency 
in the light of the holes in the story built by 
the police authorities. There are two major 
questions involved in the case. One, that death 
penalty should be given in the rarest of rare 
cases, and two when world over the brutal capital 
punishment is being done away with, should we 
stick to it. The other peripheral issues which 
are trying to undermine the basic issues are the 
hysterical nationalism of Hindu right and 
sections of society who cannot think that the 
crime of those accused of acts of terror also 
needs to be proved before they are punished, and 
that the punishment has to be commensurate with 
the crime. For them once Supreme Court has ruled 
the doors for clemency are closed.

  The base on which Supreme Court has given the 
judgment has been built by the police with 
methods which are questionable, which have also 
been reprimanded by the court in this case. The 
argument on the other side is that if Guru is not 
hanged it will be an insult to those who have 
laid their lives for defending the parliament. 
The other question, which has got mixed up this, 
is the fate of peace process, which is going on 
in Kashmir and South Asia as a whole. In the 
visual media debates, one can see the hysterical 
nationalism oozing from every pore of Hindu right 
wing and some others. Some Muslim spokespersons 
of this or the other party are finding this as 
the best opportunity to wear their patriotism on 
their sleeves by taking blinded firm positions 
against any consideration of clemency. This 
became most obvious when Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi of 
BJP went to the extent of denying that Bhagat 
Singhs kin can ever make a clemency petition in 
this case, to the loud applause of the studio 
audience. As matter of fact the appeal by Bhagat 
Singhs kin Prof Jagmohan Singh and Anand 
Patwardhan, the noted documentary film maker and 
rights activist, had issued the appeal carried by 
the media. It is unlikely that the BJP 
spokesperson would have missed it; any way some 
times even ignorance is bliss to pursue once 
political assertions! The response of letter 
writers in the newspaper columns is no different. 
Most of them demanding the blood of this 
'terrorist'! Nothing else can reflect the state 
of social common sense in the society. By now 
communal violence has become passé in the 
society. It is justified to the extent that those 
involved in this are neither punished nor even 
looked down upon. On the other hand any body 
remotely linked to acts of terror can be hanged 
without any pangs of conscience, communal 
patriotism at is worst is on display.

While Supreme Court deserves all the respect, one 
has to see that the primary investigation done by 
the police, whatever its flaws, forms the base of 
the judgment. When that investigation has holes 
should it be accepted as it is presented? When 
the primary culprits are either dead are some of 
them absconding, can 'the whole truth be out'? Or 
is it that somebody has anyway to be punished to 
quench the thirst for revenge, and who better 
than the one who has a Muslim name and happens to 
be from Kashmir. Kashmir has been reduced to 
'our' real estate, where we are putting lakhs of 
our army to deal with couple of thousand of 
militants! Surely if there is one Indian soldier 
for every seventh Kashmiri, no wonder Kashmiris 
will see it as an occupation army. After having 
said that the punishment being meted out to Guru 
is not commensurate with the crime done by him, 
one will also endorse that the very notion of 
capital punishment is nothing but barbarism, and 
it does not become dignified if it is given to a 
terrorist. Many of those otherwise swearing by 
non violence are so communalized at core that 
they are at the forefront of some or other moves 
demanding the hanging of Guru.

One can understand that for RSS and its 
affiliates this is the golden opportunity to 
display their patriotism, partly also to wash the 
sin of accompanying the terrorists to Kandhar by 
one of their ministers. One can also understand 
the success of RSS in communalizing the social 
thinking to the extent that now truth and humane 
values have ceased to matter in the face of 
communal thinking. Justice is being converted 
into revenge and punishment is meant to further 
communalize the society rather than a means of 
reform, rather than being an occasion to 
introspect as to why such crimes are going on. 
Surely no one is born a terrorist and no one 
likes to resort to these means by choice. What 
are the deeper circumstances due to which these 
acts of violence are taking place needs to be 
given a thought. One understands that terrorism 
is a mere symptom of the underlying disease, 
which has roots in injustices somewhere. One 
understands the terrorism cannot be finished by 
killing the terrorists. For that the underlying 
causes have to be addressed.

The double standards of our society and legal 
system are becoming glaringly apparent. The 
perpetrators of communal violence not only get 
away with their crimes but also some times they 
get promotions, as in the case of Ramdeo Tyagi of 
Maharashtra. Hundreds of police officials who 
have been named in the inquiry commission reports 
are enjoying the 'fruits' of their crimes of 
omission and commission. Thackeray and Modi who 
have been the main architects of Mumbai and 
Gujarat riots respectively, could not even be 
touched by the long arm of law. On the contrary 
they landed up increasing their political clout 
after presiding over these genocides. While the 
perpetrators of Mumbai riots are having a gala 
time the culprits of subsequent bomb blasts are 
being meted out the punishments due to them. The 
general impression is gaining ground in the 
society that by now there are two legal systems 
in the society. One for the followers of Hindu 
communalism, where killer of Pastor Stains, Dara 
Singh, is spared the noose and is hailed as Hindu 
Dharma Rakshak (protector of Hindu faith), the 
perpetrators of communal violence who get away 
with ease. The other one is for those who belong 
to minorities. In their case even the remotest 
association with the terror attacks is ground 
enough for hanging or the severest possible 
punishment.

In Kashmir, Indian army is seen as the occupation 
army, thousands of innocents have been tortured 
by this army, Chittsingpura is just a tip of 
iceberg. The hanging of Maqbool Bhat in 1984 did 
give a feeling of alienation and later a boost to 
militancy. Who do we blame for that? Those 
calling for a hangman for Guru surely are bent 
upon repeating the process. Nation can watch the 
hanging of those who have not committed the crime 
of such a severe proportion, but while hanging 
them what processes will be unleashed need to be 
seen overcoming the communal myopia. We must 
distinguish between the hysterical nationalism of 
the likes of those demanding the hanging and the 
humane nationalism wanting to call for 
reconsideration of the punishment meted out, to 
sooth the feverish pitch of communalized sections 
of society. This hanging will surely reinforce 
the perception of two sets of legal norms which 
are prevalent in the country.  

o o o

(iv)

ZNet - October 11, 2006

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: THE AFZAL GUROO CASE
by Badri Raina

In recent weeks, the Indian public mind (often 
cutely managed by a savvy media world), has been 
much drawn towards two happenings.

One of these concerns the propagation of 
"Gandhigiri" (a rather unfortunate analogue of 
"Chamchagiri" or sycophancy, and "Dadagiri"  or 
ganglordism) by a Bollywood film wherein Gandhi's 
preferred methods of non- violence are sought to 
be made applicable to everyday  life. 
Interestingly, some polls have it that this film 
has done more to popularize Gandhi  than anything 
that has been done hitherto.  Some thought that.

The other happening relates to the confirmation 
of the death sentence on Afzal Guroo who was one 
of the accused in the Parliament attack case 
(December 13, 2001).

Amazingly, many of the very same social groups 
who are taken in by the Gandhian approach to 
problems-as depicted in the film-are also the 
ones  hot for  Afzal's  death by hanging. 
Altogether a rather gruesome contradiction. One 
would think you can either have Gandhi or you can 
have hanging.

Here is what Gandhi had to say on the subject of 
capital punishment: "I cannot in all conscience 
agree to anyone being sent to the gallows.  God 
alone can take life because He alone gives it."

Given the high regard in which the Supreme Court 
of India is held for its competence and probity, 
few ought to question the determination of guilt 
it has made in the case of Afzal Guroo.  After 
all, it is to that competence and probity that 
S.A.R. Geelani owes both his life and his 
freedom, having been earlier sentenced to death 
by the trial court in the very same criminal case.

Gandhi's allusion to "conscience" here  does, 
however, seem to rebuke  a phrase in the text of 
the judgement delivered by the  Honourable Court 
upholding the death sentence.  The Honourable 
Court has averred that only the death sentence 
would satisfy the "collective conscience" of the 
country in the matter. One must ask as to which 
order of conscience ought to have taken 
precedence in the matter of sentencing-one that 
abhors taking life or one that seeks it to 
propitiate popular sentiment.  In that conundrum, 
we stand with the Mahatma.

As we also know, Gandhi's rejoinder to the Code 
of Hammurabi ("eye for an eye, tooth for a 
tooth") was a  witty and telling one:  eye for an 
eye and surely one day it would be a blind world!

Staying with Gandhi for a minute, perhaps his 
most discomfiting moment in relation to capital 
punishment was to come when the revolutionaries, 
Bhagat Singh, Sukh Dev and Rajguru were sentenced 
by the British to be hung.

The question has often been asked did Gandhi do 
all he could to seek their reprieve from King 
George, with whom he was then preparing to share 
the first Round Table conference.  No easy 
answers here, although Gandhi did point out to 
the colonial government that the sentence was not 
an "irreversible" one. He was on several 
occasions to plead that there is little he could 
do.  What, however, is on record in the matter is 
the following statement from Gandhi:

   "The government certainly had the right to hang 
these men.  However, there are some rights which 
do credit to those who possess them only if  they 
are enjoyed in name only."
(Collected Works, Ahmedabad, Navjivan, Vol.45, pp.359-61, Gujarati)

The direction from "Gandhigiri", then, is 
explicit enough: you may have the right to 
sentence Afzal Guroo to death, but it would do 
you credit not to exercise that right.

The problem may be that India's highly 
meritorious forward classes are as severely 
brutalized by events as any in America.  Thus a 
certain tribalism seems to have overtaken their 
view of things.  It remains a thought, 
nonetheless, that the "eye for an eye, tooth for 
a tooth" dictum does not obtain in most crimes 
committed. For example, no country yet has a law 
that decrees that an arsonist must be punished by 
an official bonfire of all his belonging, nor a 
rapist be punished by being required to offer his 
womenfolk for retaliatory rape (except in some 
tribal communities).  The instinct, therefore, to 
seek death for murder seems to answer to some 
residual animality wholly repugnant to civilized 
life.

The most forcefully telling indictment of the 
practice of capital punishment that I know of is 
that of Albert Camus:

     "What is capital punishment if not the most 
premeditated of murders to which no criminal act, 
no matter how calculate, can be compare
(cited in Wolfe Burton H. Pileup on Death Row, 
N.Y. Doubleday&Co.,Inc. 1973, p.419).

Clearly, as Michael Radelet points out, " a 
civilized society must be based on values and 
principles that are higher than those it 
condemns." (Facing the Death Penalty:Essays on 
Cruel and Unusual Punishment, N.Y., 1989)

It must have been on the basis of such an 
understanding of civilized life that the 
Hammurabi Code was opposed  by Voltaire, Diderot, 
Thomas Paine, Adam Smith, and David Hume.  Quite 
some gathering there, wouldn't you say?  Immanuel 
Kant was to put that opposition on the clearly 
articulated anti-utilitarian 
perception/conviction that "people are valuable 
in themselves, regardless of whether they are 
useful, or loved, or valued by others." (cited in 
MacKinnon, Barbara, Ethics: Theory and 
Contemporary Issues, 2nd ed., N.Y. Wadsworth 
Pub., Co., 1998).

MacKinnon makes the further excellent observation 
that  "using the concern for life that usually 
promotes it to make a case for ending life is 
inherently contradictory"(p.133).  But, when the 
blood is screaming, especially among the socially 
endowed, who cares for contradictions. 
Nonetheless,  since capital punishment has indeed 
been abolished in many countries, the case for 
pushing the argument remains a strong one.  It 
may perhaps be a useful reminder to the Hindutva 
lobby here in India that among those honourable 
countries is one named Nepal! Three cheers for 
Nepal.

As part of that case-building, it must be 
repeatedly underlined that the utilitarian 
argument-quite apart from the 
philosophical/humanist one-remains flawed and 
fallacious.

For example, the death penalty has nowhere 
deterred the crime of murder. In 1989, Senator 
Edward Kennedy stated before the House Judiciary 
Committee:
"Not one of those countries (western democracies) 
has capital punishment for peacetime crimes, yet 
everyone of them has a murder rate less than half 
of the United States."  Likewise, FBI statistics 
for 1976-1987 state: "In the twelve states where 
executions take place the murder rate is exactly 
twice the murder rate of the thirteen states 
without the death penalty."
(source: The Information Series on Current 
Topics: Capital Punishment, Cruel and Unusual? 
Wylie:Information Plus, 1998.)

I have on purpose adduced above instances from 
the United States of America, since our own 
endowed social groups are rather more prone to 
acknowledging the truth of anything if it has a 
US of A label on it.  This is a bit sad, because 
our own Fali Nariman, Shanti Bushan, justice 
Bhagwati and others have made telling critiques 
of the logic of capital punishment.

Even when the injunction about the "rarest of 
rare" cases is accepted for argument, does the 
case of Afzal Guroo meet that requirement?  Here 
is a clue from what Shanti Bushan has to say:

  "Merely because someone colludes with the actual 
perpetrators does not mean he/she gets death 
penalty.  The role of conspirators needs to be 
assessed. Hundreds were killed in Gujarat after 
Godhra.  Does it mean there would be death 
penalty for all of them?"

Let us recall, for example, that in the Gandhi 
assassination case, Nathuram Godse who pulled the 
trigger received the death sentence, but his 
brother, who was intimately part of the 
conspiracy, did not.  Afzal Guroo was neither a 
chief plotter nor a participant in the actual 
attack on December 13; if provenly anything, he 
was a sympathetic, small-time facilitator, 
although guilty nonetheless.   Remembering that 
he seemed not to have received the benefit of 
legal representation through the trial, one must 
ask whether the death sentence fits the merits of 
his case.  This speculation independent of the 
fact that we regard capital punishment for any 
offence as deeply offensive to the very raison d 
etre of human existence.

Speaking of which, let us not forget the other 
troublesome question, that of human error. 
Michael Radelet counted, since the turn of the 
century, 343 cases "in which a defendant facing a 
possible death penalty was wrongfully convicted. 
Of these, 137 were sentenced to death, and 25 
were actually executed"(Ibid.,).  Closer at home, 
Nariman and Bhagwati have persuasively pointed 
out that the executed Kehar Singh (Indira Gandhi 
murder case) may actually have been innocent.

As the government of India mulls over the mercy 
petition submitted by Afzal Guroo's family, they 
would do well to keep all of those things in 
mind.  Most of all, they should remember that in 
the very same case, as stated earlier, 
S.A.R.Geelani was pronounced guilty and sentenced 
to death, only to be subsequently exonerated from 
all culpability. To return to America: it should 
be recalled that just recently one to the 9/11 
attackers, Zachariah Mossaveih, was not given the 
death penalty just on the basis that his 
childhood was too abused to render him wholly 
responsible.  No insanity, mind you, just 
childhood abuse.  This is when he was otherwise 
found guilty in the first degree.

As to "collective conscience," it can work at 
dangerous cross purposes among different sections 
of the population, and in different regions of 
India.  If politics are to be a consideration, 
the largest and the most fruitful view must 
necessarily be taken of the matter.  Such a 
course would not be out of sync with what 
far-sighted rulers have done repeatedly in 
history.


o o o

(v)

Hindustan Times
October 13, 2006

INTELLIGENT DESIGN?

by Ajit Bhattacharjea

October 12, 2006

Four Octobers ago, a well-known Kashmiri 
journalist, Iftikhar Gilani, was in Tihar jail 
facing indefinite incarceration on concocted 
charges. He had been jailed after a cursory trial 
on June 9, 2002 and was abruptly released after 
seven months when the charges were withdrawn. 
Gilani had a rough time, but was relatively 
fortunate. As chief of bureau of the Kashmir 
Times in Delhi, he had many journalist friends 
and others who campaigned for his release. The 
charge against him under the Official Secrets Act 
was found to be fabricated.

The primary evidence produced by the police was a 
document on the hard disk of Gilani's computer 
with details of the number of Indian security 
forces in Kashmir. But this was not secret 
information. It was, as he pleaded, a paper by 
one Nazir Kamal already published in the journal 
of the Pakistan Institute of Strategic Studies, 
Islamabad Papers, and taken from their website. 
Offers to demonstrate this by securing other 
copies of the paper or contacting the website 
were ignored. Gilani's copy was doctored to make 
it appear secret. These and other details of the 
frantic efforts of the prosecution, and the 
officials behind it, to frame Gilani are detailed 
in his book, My Days in Prison. Fortunately, the 
patent failure of justice became impossible to 
justify and he was released on January 13, 2003. 
But for the influential friends who pursued his 
case, he may still have been in jail. The maximum 
sentence prescribed for an offence under the 
Official Secrets Act is 14 years.

I recall Gilani's case because My Days in Prison 
indicates why the sentencing of Mohammad Afzal 
Guru to death by hanging has evoked passion and 
disbelief in the Valley. It documents the devious 
lengths to which investigative agencies are 
willing to go to be seen as saviours of the 
nation. Kashmir is familiar with stories of 
people being framed, of militants claimed killed 
by the security forces turning out to be innocent 
civilians, of young men disappearing without 
trace. Suspicions are reinforced when it is found 
that in Delhi, intelligence agencies are not 
above fabricating or distorting evidence to get 
credit for catching persons painted as threats to 
national security. In Afzal and Gilani's cases, 
evidence of fabrication surfaced during hearings.

With stories concerning national security certain 
to get headlines, intelligence agencies try to 
exploit mediapersons to substantiate their 
charges and embarrass the defence. Hints are 
dropped about activities that further damage the 
suspect's reputation or weaken his case. In the 
Gilani case, a newspaper reported that he had 
confessed his guilt, which he had not. In the 
Guru case, his counsel was quoted as suggesting 
that he preferred death by lethal injection to 
hanging, an implicit admission of guilt. He 
denied admitting any such preference. 
Intelligence personnel are keen on publicity. 
Arrangements to be filmed or photographed with a 
'catch' are part of the routine; presumably with 
an eye on a reward.

Gilani's account of his ordeal is detailed and 
credible. It contains names and designations. A 
copy of Afzal's letter to his lawyer from jail 
has been circulated. It makes more painful 
reading, with descriptions of torture and 
extortion, but does not have the imprimatur of a 
published document. Even so, Afzal's account of 
inadequate facilities for defence, the 
circumstantial nature of the evidence and other 
trial inadequacies seem sufficient to provide the 
scintilla of doubt about his guilt required to 
merit presidential clemency. It will be too late 
to make amends if evidence to the contrary is 
found after he has been hanged.

Justice must be seen to have been done especially 
in a case involving an attack on Parliament 
House. The Supreme Court did not find any 
evidence in the charge that Guru was a member of 
a terrorist gang or organisation. He was not 
directly involved in the attack or the planning, 
which was masterminded by three persons in 
Pakistan. Even if guilty as a conspirator, the 
view taken by the court raises more questions 
than it answers. The following is an extract from 
the judgment: "The incident which resulted in 
heavy casualties, has shaken the entire nation 
and the collective conscience of the society will 
be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded 
to the offender. The challenge to the unity, 
integrity and sovereignty of India by these acts 
of terrorists and conspirators can only be 
compensated by giving the maximum punishment to 
the person who is proved to be a conspirator in 
this treacherous act. The appellant, who is a 
surrendered militant and who was bent upon 
repeating the acts of treason against the nation, 
is a menace to the society [and] should become 
extinct. Accordingly, we uphold the death 
sentence."

Ajit Bhattacharjea is a former Director,
Press Institute of India

_____


[4]


Press Release
Anand Patwardhan's War and Peace
on DD National on Sunday morning 10.30, 15th October

It never rains, it pours!  Fast on the heels of 
Father, Son and Holy War which Doordarshan (DD) 
telecast last Sunday morning, DD National is set 
to telecast Anand's anti-nuclear documentary War 
and Peace on Sunday, 15th October at 10.30 AM

While Father, Son and Holy War took 11 years in 
court, War and Peace has had its own share of 
legal and extra legal battles.

A chronology of events

1. In February 2002 "War and Peace" a 163 minute 
anti-nuclear documentary won the Best Film/Video 
award at the Mumbai International Film Festival.

2. A few months later the Central Board of Film 
Certification under the obvious influence of the 
ruling BJP, refused to grant the film a 
certificate unless 21 cuts were made.

3. After a long appeals procedure, the matter 
finally went to court. In April 2003 the Bombay 
High Court ruled that the film be granted a "U" 
certificate without a single cut.

4. Ironically, in 2004, the same film won a 
National award for the Best Non-feature film. It 
was then submitted for telecast on Doordarshan. 
On five previous occasions the courts have 
ordered Doordarshan to show Anand's national 
award winning films.

5. The heads of Doordarshan and Prasar Bharati 
agreed to telecast if certain sequences were 
removed from the film. Anand refused and a long 
battle of attrition followed.

6. With Anand threatening to return his National 
award and go to court once again, DD agreed in 
writing to telecast the film but attempted to set 
the time slot at 11.30 PM on a Sunday night. 
Anand countered that as his film was long and 
would end only after 2.15 AM, this would 
constitute "censorship by sleep".

7. Finally in November 2005 DD agreed in writing 
to telecast the entire film at 10.30 PM on two 
successive Sundays. Almost a year then passed 
with DD refusing to set the actual dates of 
telecast.

8. In April 2004 DD dropped a bombshell by going 
back on its commitment to telecast the entire 
film and formally asking for cuts. Anand refused 
this and the matter went into limbo.

9. On August 25 the Supreme Court passed a 
landmark judgement criticizing DD and Prasar 
Bharati for forcing Anand to go to court for the 
telecast of each of his National Award winning 
films and ordering the telecast of the uncut 
Father, Son and Holy War.

10. On 8th of October DD complied with the order. 
This coming Sunday they will go a step further 
and show War and Peace, for once without being 
forced to do so by court.


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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