Shah Mehmood Qureshi

Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 31 March 2008 – 9 February 2011
Prime Minister	Yousaf Raza Gillani
Preceded by	Inam-ul-Haq
Succeeded by	Hina Rabbani Khar
Born	22 June 1956 (1956-06-22) (age 54) Murree, Pakistan
Political party	Pakistan Peoples Party
Alma mater	Forman Christian College University of Cambridge
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Islam

Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Hussain Qureshi (born June 22, 1956) is the former Foreign Minister of Pakistan in the coalition government of PPP, Muttahida Quami Movement[MQM], ANP and JUI-F formed after the 2008 general elections.He is a senior leader of Pakistan Peoples Party, where he was the president of PPP Punjab.He is the head of the Qureshi family and has many followers in the country and in South Asia. Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi is also the current Sajjada Nashin and custodian of the Mausoleum of Shah Rukn-e-Alam and of the Shrine (Darbar) of Hazrat Baha-ud-din Zakariya.
Education
He received a bachelor's from Forman Christian College in Lahore. The Western-style private university was established in 1864 by American Charles William Forman. Qureshi also received a law degree from Cambridge University. He is becomming new leader of Pakistan.
 Latest
Shah Mehmood Qureshi is was snubbed in the 2011 Cabinet reshuffle.Many observers believe this was because he disagreed with the PM over weather Raymond Davis was legally a Diplomat.According to Qureshi Raymond Davis was not a dipolomat.

Minister of Foreign Affairs (2008 - 2011)
After taking charge of the office, Qureshi immediately made clear that he was committed to establishing peace in the region and that maintaining friendly ties with neighboring India were amongst his top priorities.Qureshi recently went on his first visit as foreign minister to China with Ahmad Mukhtar and President Asif Ali Zardari. On his arrival back, he was given praise for his work. Qureshi has visited many states as Foreign Minister and has been very busy explaining Pakistan's stance on the war on terror to the foreign world.
An agriculturalist by trade, Qureshi is also the president of the Farmers Association of Pakistan.
Of late, there have been rumors that he will soon be appointed as the Prime Minister of the People's Party led coalition government in order to revive this administration's image that has fallen to single digit popularity in credible polls

Dark day for Pakistan

Dark day for Pakistani Christians as senior politician is assassinated for opposing the blasphemy laws.

London: January 4, 2011. (PCP) An assassin has murdered a senior Pakistani politician for opposing the country's controversial blasphemy laws under which Christians are being persecuted.

Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab, was gunned down on January 4 by one of his own elite force security guards.

The man fired two bullets into Mr Taseer as the politician climbed out of a vehicle on arriving for a lunch at Khosar Market, an upmarket shopping and dining area in Islamabad, the country's capital.

The attacker was injured in a shoot-out with police before surrendering. Five other people were also wounded in the crossfire.

Mr Taseer was immediately taken to the Poly Clinic Hospital in Islamabad, but he died on the way from his injuries.

Afterwards the killer boasted that he shot Mr Taseer because "the governor described the blasphemy laws as a black law".

An intelligence official interrogating the suspect, identified as Mumtaz Qadri, told the Associated Press said he was proud to have killed a blasphemer.

The Pakistani government has come under international pressure to either repeal or amend the laws because it is being routinely used by Islamists to harass the Christian minority.

Under the code it is a capital offence to insult Mohammed, the founder of Islam, but human rights groups say Christians are being prosecuted on the basis of false allegations.

In November, Asiya Bibi, a Christian mother of five, became the first woman to be sentenced to hang for insulting Mohammed.

She argued that she was falsely accused following an argument with a Muslim woman who objected to sharing a drinking font with a Christian, and is appealing against sentence and conviction.Mr Taseer, 56, was among those politicians close to President Asif Ali Zardari who were pressing for the laws to be changed in the light of evidence of widespread abuse.

Nasir Saeed, a leading campaigner for the abolition of the laws, described the governor's murder as a "very dark day for Christians in Pakistan".

"It's a great loss for Pakistani religious minorities, because Salman Taseer was a vocal about minority rights, changes to blasphemy law on several occasions, and on the release of Asiya Bibi from prison particularly," said Mr Saeed, the director of the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement.

"The killing is a terrorist act against the Christians of Pakistan and it is a serious attempt to stop any possible changes to blasphemy law," he said.

Mr Taseer, he added, had petitioned the President to change the law and there was a danger that his plea will now be ignored.

The government has indicated it has no proposals under consideration to amend the blasphemy law and that the petitions by Mr Taseer and Sherry Rehman are being considered only as individual acts.

"This is very dark day for Christians in Pakistan," said Mr Saeed. "This is an act of oppression and of humiliation of the entire community and it is taking away from them the chance from to be represented and to be heard."

The murder represents the most high-profile assassination of a political figure in Pakistan since the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.

Mr Taseer was a member of Mrs Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and a friend of President Zardari, her widower.

A business and media tycoon who used Twitter to publicise his opinions, he was appointed to the ceremonial position of Punjab governor in May 2008.

Farahnaz Ispahani, an aide to President Zardari and friend of Mr Taseer, described him as the "most courageous voice after Benazir Bhutto on the rights of women and religious minorities".

Mr Taseer had continued to press for changes to the law in spite of receiving threats from a number of Islamic organisations.

The Pakistani government has indicated that it is keen to find out if his assassin acted alone or if he carried out the killing as part of a wider plot involving Islamist groups.

Dozens of innocent Pakistanis are prosecuted each year under the blasphemy law, which has its origins in colonial era legislation designed to protect the then minority Muslims from oppression by the Hindu majority of India.

The current form dates back to the 1980s military rule of General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and human rights activists have long complained that it is used to take revenge against Christians or and persecute rile.

Pakistani Governor killed by own guard in capital

Pakistani Governor killed by own guard in capital

The governor of Pakistan's powerful Punjab province was shot dead in the capital Tuesday by one of his guards, who told interrogators afterward that he was angry about the politician's stance against the country's blasphemy law, officials said.

The killing of Salman Taseer was the most high-profile assassination of a political figure in Pakistan since the slaying of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, and it rattled a country already dealing with crises ranging from a potential collapse of the government to Islamist militancy.

Aitzaz Ahsan

Aitzaz Ahsan

Ex-President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (Pakistan)
Preceded by	Munir A. Malik
Succeeded by	Ali Ahmad Kurd
Born	27 September 1945(age 64) Murree, Pakistan
Nationality	Pakistan
Political party	Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)
Spouse(s)	Bushra Ahsan
Relations	Ahsan hails from Punjab'sWaraich clan of jats.
Residence	Lahore, Pakistan
Profession	Barrister-at-Law / Politician
Religion	Islam

Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan (Urdu: چودھری اعتزاز احسن) (born 27 September 1945) is aPakistani barrister and politician who served as President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan

He is married and a father of two daughters and a son, Ali Ahsan.

Early life and education

Aitzaz Ahsan was born in Murree, Rawalpindi District, Punjab in 1945 during British rule. After being educated at Aitchison College and the Government College, Lahore, Ahsan matriculated to Downing College, Cambridge to study law, and was called to the Bar atGray's Inn in 1967.^[1]

Professional life

Political career

In 1975, Ahsan was elected to the Punjab Assembly after Chaudhry Anwar Samma, a member representing the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), was murdered. After his election, Ahsan was invited to join the cabinet and given the portfolio of information, planning and development. After the police opened fire on a rally of lawyers during thePNA demonstrations against the alleged rigging of elections by the PPP government in 1977, Ahsan resigned as a cabinet minister in protest, and was later expelled from the PPP.^[1]

Following the 1977 coup d'état of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Ahsan became involved in the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy, and rejoined the PPP following the declaration of martial law. For his participation in the MRD he was repeatedly imprisoned.^[1] Ahsan was elected to the National Assembly as a PPP candidate in 1988, serving as Minister for Law and Justice, the Interior and Narcotics Control before winning re-election in 1990 and losing in 1993. In 1994 he was elected to the Senate of Pakistan, where he sat as Leader of the Opposition until 1999. He was re-elected to the National Assembly of Pakistan as a Peoples Party candidate in the 2002 General Elections.^[2]

Parliamentary session in 1998-1999. From Left: Chaudhry Muhammad Barjees Tahir, Ajmal Khattak, Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, Benazir Bhutto.)

As a lawyer

A Senior Advocate in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and senior partner of the firm Aitzaz Ahsan & Associates Ahsan is a well respected Pakistani lawyer, consistently given the highest rank by Chambers and Partners ranking of legal professionals ^[3]. He also made legal history of by having defended two Prime Ministers in the court of law. Having previously fought cases in defence of Benazir Bhutto in 2001 he took up a case in defence of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

During his most recent tenure as a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan he was a member of the Standing Committee on Interior and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Chief Justice case

Recently Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan and his team comprising of Shahid Saeed, Gohar Khan and Nadeem Ahmed successfully representedChief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry's case in the Supreme Court of Pakistan [PLD 2007 SC 578]. They were pitted against a team comprising of 16 senior lawyers representing the Federation in this misadventure. The hearing was being conducted by a full court headed by Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday, and the 13-member panel reinstated the Chief Justice declaring his suspension by Pervez Musharraf regime "illegal."

Human rights activist

He is also a human rights activist and a founder and vice-president of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. He has been incarcerated under arbitrary detention laws many times by military and authoritarian regimes. During one such prolonged detention, he wrote The Indus Saga. Aitzaz Ahsan has been selected in the world's top 2008 intellectuals.

During and after Emergency

Aitzaz Ahsan was arrested soon after the declaration of emergency/martial law^[4], ^[5]. At the time he and his team [Shahid Saeed, Gohar Khan and Nadeem Ahmed] were arguing against the eligibility of General Musharraf to contest the 2007 Presidential Elections before a full bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. There have also been rumours that he is being kept in solitary confinement and being tortured. Recently, 33 US Senators wrote to President Musharraf to release Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan immediately, as he is widely respected all around the world. He withdrew his papers of nomination to run for the National Parliament, this in deference to National Lawyers' Convention decision to boycott elections under Mr. Musharraf. It has lifted his stature by putting the lawyers cause above his own.

Barrister Ahsan is succinct in his resolute to restore democracy and pre-emergency judiciary in Pakistan with peaceful resistance. He was rearrested during his three days reprieve for celebrating religious holiday; when he decided to offer prayers with Mr. Iftikhar Chaudhry and was heading to Islamabad. He has served detention in his house for 90 days and has declared his detention as illegal. It is reported (Nawaiwaqt 19 Jan 2008), with a dour determination he refused to abandon restoration of judiciary movement and was reticent to negotiate when approached by Attorney General. His role in PPP after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto will be pivotal since he commands the respect of representatives of Punjab, the nations lawyers; elected President of Supreme Court Bar Association by an overwhelming majority, and public at large.

Aitzaz Ahsan, has been awarded the Asian Human Rights Defender Award by the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) along with Munir A Malik (past President SCBA)(Dawn 23 Jan 2008). The annual Award for Distinction in International Law and Affairs will be presented to Aitzaz Ahsan in asbentia as more than 5,000 lawyers gather for the annual meeting of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA). Freed for two days, Mr. Ahsan was rearrested for 30 days on 2 February 2008 before he was to board a flight to Sindh to offer his condolences to Benazir Bhutto's husband (Dawn 2 February 2008).

Literary contribution

He has also authored the book The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan and its Urdu translation, Sindh Sagar Aur Qyam-e-Pakistanwhich presents the cultural history of Pakistan.^[6]

He has also co-authored the book Divided by Democracy with Lord Meghnad Desai of the London School of Economics.^[7]

Honours

Aitzaz Ahsan has been admitted to an Honorary Fellowship at Downing College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge.^[8] In an Internet poll of the US magazine Foreign Policy, Ahsan was voted one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world in May 2008.^[9]

Fauzia Wahab

Fauzia Wahab

Fauzia Wahab Urdu: فوزیہ وہاب ) is a Pakistani politician in the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). She is currently a member of National Assembly from Sindh, returned on a reserved seat for women after the February 18, 2008 general elections.

Fauzia Wahab has been appointed as the new central Information Secretary of the Pakistan Peoples Party in place of Ms. Sherry Rehman on March 18, 2009 by Co-Chairman, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari.

Marriage

She married in 1978 to Wahab Siddiqui, a journalist and TV anchorman in political talk shows in later years on Pakistan Television. For the next fourteen years, she was a housewife and had four children. In February 1993, Wahab Siddiqui died of a massive heart attack and her life took a new turn^[2]. She then re-married prominent cardiologist Dr Athar Hussein.

Political career

Fauzia Wahab is worked for the Pakistan Industrial & Commercial Leasing as a Marketing Manager between 1993 and 1996. During this period, she was nominated as Member Advisory Council of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) in October 1994. Initially she was given charge of the a Municipal Ward 59, area comprising of Cooperative societies of Karachi. She was also nominated as Chairman of the Information Committee of KMC. In the meanwhile, then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto nominated her to become the Information Secretary of women's wing of the PPP in Sindh, a position Fauzia held till early 2002. After the dissolution of the PPP government in November 1996, general elections were held in February 1997 in which she was nominated to contest the elections on NA-193, as a PPP candidate. The PPP lost the elections and was confined to the opposition benches in the subsequent National Assembly.

With the vilification campaign and politically motivated cases established against the PPP leadership, a multi pronged stragegy was initiated by the party to defend its leadership. It included contesting cases in the courts and apprising international institutions about the conduct of these cases. Later on in 1998, Benazir Bhutto nominated Fauzia Wahab to become the Central Coordinator of the Human Rights Cell and was tasked to correspond with human rights defending organizations abroad. During the incarceration period of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari, she wrote on various pressure tactics of the National Accountability Bureau and various government agencies against the couple as well as party leaders and workers.^[3][4][5][6] She was also an active proponent for the repealing of theHudood Ordinance as well as Blasphemy law.^[7]

When the Pakistani general election, 2002 were called in October, she was nominated as a candidate for the reserved seats for women in the National Assembly. She took oath as a legislator and was also made part of Standing Committee on Privatization and Standing Committee on Economic Affairs. She was also a senior member of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly that looked after the budget of the assembly.

In 2003, she attended the National Defence College course for bringing the politicians and Armed forces close to each other. She was one of the initiators of relationship with the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and was invited to attend the "Win With Women – Global Initiative" of the Institute in December 2003. In June 2004, she was invited by the NDI to attend the 2004 Democratic National Convention^[8] in Boston where Senator John Kerry was nominated for United States presidential election, 2004.

Fauzia also represented her party on a study tour of the German Parliamentary System in 2004.

With the 2005 Local Government elections taking place in August, she was made responsible to work out an adjustment with theJamat-e-Islami in the District East of Karachi. Later on, she was nominated to contest the elections of Nazim of the City District Government Karachi, however, her candidature was withdrawn in favor Naimatullah Khan.

During the National Assembly of 2002 and 2007, she was a very active member of the opposition involved in a number of questions, calling attention notices, adjournment motions, resolutions and motions. She was also a mover of a number of bills including a bill onthe environment and a ban on polythene bags.

She was nominated again for a second term by the PPP and returned to the National Assembly. She took oath as a Treasury bench member on March 6, 2008.

After Information Minister Sherry Rehman resigned from her government position, the party position she held was taken away and Fauzia Wahab was appointed the Information Secretary of the PPP. By virtue of being the Information Secretary, Fauzia Wahab became an ex-officio member of the Central Executive Committee of the Party. Now she serves as paid servant of Zardari and talk shows joker.

Benazir Bhutto's return and assassination attempts

PPP Chairperson Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan after an eight year exile on October 18, 2007. A crowd of nearly 3 million people had assembled outside the Karachi's Jinnah International Airport. The convoy carrying the PPP Chairperson was attacked at midnight by a Suicide bomber in which more than 180 citizens and party workers were killed and more than 500 were injured. Fauzia was also on the truck carrying the Chairperson and was injured in the explosion