Mustafa Qadri

Blasphemy is the one thing that Pakistani Islamists agree on. The murder of a secular liberal politician has prompted a worrying union of Islamists and the Taliban, reports Mustafa Qadri from Karachi Pakistan’s blasphemy laws make it a crime to defile the Quran or to defame Prophet Mohammad, punishable by life imprisonment and death respectively. [...]

[Read more →]

Pakistan must reverse its policy of sitting idle as Islamists blur the line between legitimate civil society and militancy

Mustafa Qadri,
guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 July 2010 16.04 BST

After last night’s bombings in Lahore, an ancient sanctuary, which for centuries was a place for prayer and meditation, has been rudely introduced to Pakistan’s very modern conflict. Nothing short of a shift in national culture will rescue the soul of Pakistan’s Islamic traditions.

[Read more →]

Already ravaged by high inflation, massive energy shortages and political turmoil, Pakistan has been shocked by bombings in most of its major cities, writes Mustafa Qadri

Pakistan is enduring the most brutal spate of political violence since the Punjab-dominated Army was implicated in mass slaughter in 1971. Despite military victories in large swathes of the tribal areas that are home to the Taliban, Pakistan’s major cities have been rocked by an escalating series of violent events that, according to one estimate, have claimed 544 lives in a little under three months.

[Read more →]

The Taliban Has No Plan B

By Mustafa Qadri

The Taliban is stepping up its violent attacks but ordinary Pakistanis have had enough and the organisation is losing popular support, reports Mustafa Qadri from near the Swat valley…

[Read more →]

Isolating the Taliban

Violence in Pakistan can only be tackled if the state listens to devastated communities and recognises the Taliban threat

Mustafa Qadri

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 May 2009 18.30 BST

It was really only a matter of time before we would see this. A day after a bomb ripped through central Lahore, three explosions rocked Peshawar – two at the famous storytellers’ market, and another near the city’s railway station, destroying significant amounts of property, lives and livelihoods. It is too early to know what motivated these latest attacks in Peshawar. Like so much of the North-West Frontier Province, however, Peshawar businesses, particularly book music shops and women’s clothing stores, have been heavily hit, often after being told to shut for being unIslamic.

[Read more →]

I haven’t had many opportunities to write recently due to the lack of internet access. It has shown just how dependent I am on the technology. In my defence, without internet, small scale writers such as I would not be able to contribute very much. The cost of constant phone calls and transport, which I [...]

[Read more →]