News
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Grand jirga demands SC action on drone attacks* 2,000 Pakistanis rally against US drones
By Ali Hassan
ISLAMABAD: Wazriristan Grand jirga participants unanimously passed a resolution against drone strikes in Pakistan and appealed to the Supreme Court to take action against them.
Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan, while addressing the jirga, urged the Pakistan Army not to fight America’s war in the country.
He observed that whenever an innocent was killed in a drone strike, his family members started backing the militancy to take revenge, which, according to him, was natural.
The jirga was attended by tribal elders, families of the victims of drone attacks and human rights lawyers.
At the end of the jirga, the participants unanimously passed a.
In the resolution, the participants also appealed to the United Nations secretary general to prevent the extra-judicial killings of civilians in drone strikes. The jirga was organised by Pakistan ’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights and British legal charity, Reprieve. Imran Khan’s former wife and renowned human rights campaigner Jemima Khan also participated in it.
The participants also unanimously agreed that the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas was actually fanning terrorism.
Addressing participants, the cricketer turned politician said that drones were counter-productive and were a source of insurgency.
Khan said that the army should halt its operation in the Tribal Areas as the people of that region were against military action there.
“Some elements are manipulating facts to prove that tribal people favour military and drone strikes in Waziristan,” Imran Khan said. Khan also demanded of the government to announce compensation for all civilians killed in drone strikes.
Speaking on the occasion, British human rights activist Clive Stafford Smith said that America was claiming that terrorists were being killed in drone strikes, but the reality on the ground was completely different. “Innocent women, men and children are being killed in drone strikes,” he said. Former diplomat Ayaz Wazir, tribal elders including Malik Muhammad Khan Marjan, MNA Kamran Khan, Mufti Mahmoodul Hassan, Karim Khan, Hashmat, Dr Bashir Ahmed, Noor Bahram, Safdar Hayat and Advocate Shahzad Akhtar also spoke on the occasion.
After the jirga, a rally protesting against drone strikes was organised by the PTI which started out from D-Chowk after Friday prayers and ended outside parliment. The rally was headed by Imran Khan. Hundreds of people participated in the protest, including the Insaf Students Federation (ISF), a student wing of PTI, Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT) of Jamaat-e-Islami and other student organisations
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk