ISLAMABAD: The annual 19th Cholistan Desert Jeep Rally started in Bahawalpur this week, with over 150 racing enthusiasts from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and other countries participating.
The Cholistan Desert in southern Punjab forms part of the Greater Thar Desert, which extends to Pakistan’s southern Sindh province and the Indian state of Rajasthan. Cholistan was once a center for caravan trade, leading to the construction of numerous forts in the medieval period to protect trade routes, of which the Derawar Fort in Bahawalpur is the best-preserved example.
The 19th edition of the desert rally, which spreads over 500 kilometers, started on Tuesday. Drivers from Saudi Arabia, the UK, Afghanistan, Iran, and the US are participating this year, Managing Director of Tourism Development Corporation of Punjab (TDCP) Humaira Akram told state-run APP.
“The women’s category has been made more active,” the official said. “The event will highlight the history and culture of the Cholistan Desert, the historical palaces of Bahawalpur, historical buildings, historical backgrounds, tourism, and culture through beautiful cultural dances in addition to light and sound shows.”
A qualifying round was held in Cholistan on February 22, followed by the first round of prepared cars on February 23, and a stock category race along with a dirt bike race on February 24, followed by a cultural show.
“On February 25, the prepared category race and truck race will take place, followed by the prize distribution ceremony,” Additional Deputy Commissioner Headquarters Sumera Rabani told media.
“The Cholistan Fort will be adorned with beautiful decorations during the Cholistan Rally. The Sports Department will organize competitions including Kabaddi, traditional wrestling, volleyball, and tug of war.”
PESHAWAR: Pakistan’s polio eradication program said on Tuesday three new cases of the crippling virus had been detected in the country, bringing the nationwide tally for 2024 to 59.
Pakistan, along with neighboring Afghanistan, remains the last polio-endemic country in the world. The nation’s polio eradication campaign has hit serious problems with a spike in reported cases this year that have prompted officials to review their approach to stopping the crippling disease.
The next national polio vaccination campaign is planned for mid-December to reach more than 44 million children. Pakistan’s chief health officer said last month an estimated 500,000 children had missed polio vaccinations during a recent countrywide inoculation drive due to vaccine refusals.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of three wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan, bringing the number of total cases in the country this year to 59,” the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication said in a statement.
The new cases have been confirmed in DI Khan, Karachi Keamari and Kashmore.
“DI Khan, one of the seven polio endemic districts of southern KP, has now reported eight polio cases, Karachi Keamari has three cases, while Kashmore has the first polio case this year,” the statement added.
Of the 59 cases reported in 2024, 26 are from Balochistan province, 16 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 15 from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad, the federal capital.
Poliovirus, which can cause crippling paralysis particularly in young children, is incurable and remains a threat to human health as long as it has not been eradicated. Immunization campaigns have succeeded in most countries and have come close in Pakistan, but persistent problems remain.
In the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 cases annually but in 2018 the number dropped to eight cases. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.
Pakistan’s polio program began in 1994 but efforts to eradicate the virus have since been undermined by vaccine misinformation and opposition from some religious hard-liners, who say immunization is a foreign ploy to sterilize Muslim children or a cover for Western spies. Militant groups also frequently attack and kill members of polio vaccine teams.
In July 2019, a vaccination drive in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was thwarted after mass panic was created by rumors that children were fainting or vomiting after being immunized.
Public health studies in Pakistan have shown that maternal illiteracy and low parental knowledge about vaccines, together with poverty and rural residency, are also factors that commonly influence whether parents vaccinate their children against polio.
ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) opposition party has said a task force set up by the federal government this month to counter online ‘propaganda’ against the state was meant to target the party and its supporters, with digital rights activists warning that it set a “dangerous and chilling” precedent.
Thousands of supporters of the PTI stormed Islamabad last month, demanding Khan’s release from prison. The government said protesters killed four security officers in clashes.
The PTI says 12 supporters died and “hundreds” were injured as security agencies used live ammunition rounds to disperse protesters, which authorities deny. Party leaders have described the raid on the protest site as a “massacre,” with social media platforms awash with pictures and video footage that the government has called “fake propaganda” by PTI followers. The government also says there were no civilian casualties.
On Dec. 1, the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced a 10-member joint task force to identify and bring to justice suspects behind a “malicious campaign” to spread “concocted, baseless and inciting” online news, images and video content in the aftermath of the protests.
“The task force is just another sham committee to basically violate all human rights of PTI workers and leaders,” Khan’s close aide and PTI spokesperson Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari told Arab News.
“It is further an attempt to increase scrutiny and torture of PTI workers, using the recent massacre as an excuse to try to eliminate the party.”
Bukhari said the party had evidence, including burial records and death certificates, of at least 12 protesters killed, proving that the government’s claim there were no civilian casualties was false.
“We do believe that the government is doing a huge cover-up about the total deaths,” Bukhari added. “The death toll will only continue creeping further up as the government is doing all they can to cover this up.”
Speaking to the media last week, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal asked the PTI to share the names of its supporters who had been killed, saying the government had exercised “utmost restraint” to prevent bloodshed at the hands of what he described as a “violent mob.”
Last week, Pakistani journalist Mattiullah Jan was arrested after investigating claims of casualties in the PTI protest march, his lawyers said. He was released on bail on Sunday.
Arab News could not reach members of the task force or a government spokesperson for comment.
In Pakistan, a country of 240 million people, Internet use has risen at staggering rates recently owing to cheap 4G mobile Internet. Around 110 million Pakistanis were online this January, 24 million more than at the beginning of 2023, according to monitoring site DataReportal. In this environment, social media has become a hotbed of unverified news, pictures and video clips, according to fact checkers.
But digital rights also warn of the perils of deploying measures like task forces against online spaces.
Nighat Dad, executive director of the non-profit Digital Rights Foundation, said nothing could be “more dangerous and chilling” than setting up a task force without accountability mechanisms like parliamentary oversight.
“This move further entrenches a culture of impunity and raises serious concerns about transparency,” she told Arab News.
Instead of resorting to “draconian measures,” the government should have focused on building a “robust and responsive narrative” to counter disinformation and fake news.
“Establishing a task force without clearly outlining its own accountability in decision-making is a massive question mark on the government’s intent and process,” Dad added.
“Such measures not only stifle dissent but also undermine fundamental rights and democratic principles in Pakistan.”
Usama Khilji, a director at Bolo Bhi, an advocacy forum for digital rights, also said the announcement of the task force reflected shrinking democratic space in Pakistan:
“It shows the intolerance of the regime to accept any criticism from those who do not support them.”
Deepfakes weaponized to target Pakistan’s women leaders
Sexualized deepfake videos being published to discredit role nation’s few female leaders, targeted politicians say
Deepfakes now prevalent across the world but Pakistan has legislation to combat their deployment in disinformation campaigns
Updated 03 December 2024
AFP
LAHORE: Pakistani politician Azma Bukhari is haunted by a counterfeit image of herself: a sexualized deepfake video published to discredit her role as one of the nation’s few female leaders.
“I was shattered when it came into my knowledge,” said 48-year-old Bukhari, the information minister of Pakistan’s most populous province of Punjab.
Deepfakes — which manipulate genuine audio, photos or video of people into false likenesses — are becoming increasingly convincing and easier to make as artificial intelligence (AI) enters the mainstream.
In Pakistan, where media literacy is poor, they are being weaponized to smear women in the public sphere with sexual innuendo deeply damaging to their reputations in a country with conservative mores.
Bukhari — who regularly appears on TV — recalls going quiet for days after she saw the video of her face superimposed on the sexualized body of an Indian actor in a clip quickly spreading on social media.
“It was very difficult, I was depressed,” she told AFP in her home in the eastern city of Lahore.
“My daughter, she hugged me and said: ‘Mama, you have to fight it out’.”
In this photograph taken on November 20, 2024, Azma Bukhari (C), Information Minister of Pakistan’s province of Punjab, speaks with media after attending her deepfake video case hearing in Lahore. (AFP)
After initially recoiling she is pressing her case at Lahore’s High Court, attempting to hold those who spread the deepfake to account.
“When I go to the court, I have to remind people again and again that I have a fake video,” she said.
In Pakistan — a country of 240 million people — Internet use has risen at staggering rates recently owing to cheap 4G mobile Internet.
Around 110 million Pakistanis were online this January, 24 million more than at the beginning of 2023, according to monitoring site DataReportal.
In this year’s election, deepfakes were at the center of digital debate.
Ex-prime minister Imran Khan was jailed but his team used an AI tool to generate speeches in his voice shared on social media, allowing him to campaign from behind bars.
Men in politics are typically criticized over corruption, their ideology and status. But deepfakes have a dark side uniquely suited to tearing down women.
“When they are accused, it almost always revolves around their sex lives, their personal lives, whether they’re good mums, whether they’re good wives,” said US-based AI expert Henry Ajder.
“For that deepfakes are a very harmful weapon,” he told AFP.
In patriarchal Pakistan the stakes are high.
In this photograph taken on October 21, 2024, staff members work at the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF), an NGO aims to strengthen protections for human rights defenders in digital spaces, in Lahore. (AFP
Women’s status is typically tied to their “honor,” generally defined as modesty and chastity. Hundreds are killed every year — often by their own families — for supposedly besmirching it.
Bukhari describes the video targeting her as “pornographic.”
But in a country where premarital sex and cohabitation are punishable offenses, deepfakes can undermine reputations by planting innuendo with the suggestion of a hug or improper social mingling with men.
In October, AFP debunked a deepfake video of regional lawmaker Meena Majeed showing her hugging the male chief minister of Balochistan province.
A social media caption said: “Shamelessness has no limits. This is an insult to Baloch culture.”
Bukhari says photos of her with her husband and son have also been manipulated to imply she appeared in public with boyfriends outside her marriage.
And doctored videos regularly circulate of Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif — Bukhari’s boss — showing her dancing with opposition leaders.
Once targeted by deepfakes like these, women’s “image is seen as immoral, and the honor of the entire family is lost,” said Sadaf Khan of Pakistani non-profit Media Matters for Democracy.
“This can put them in danger,” she told AFP.
Deepfakes are now prevalent across the world, but Pakistan does have legislation to combat their deployment in disinformation campaigns.
In 2016, a law was passed by Bukhari’s party “to prevent online crimes” with “cyberstalking” provisions against sharing photos or videos without consent “in a manner that harms a person.”
Bukhari believes it needs to be strengthened and backed up by investigators. “The capacity building of our cybercrime unit is very, very important,” she said.
In this photograph taken on October 21, 2024, Nighat Dad, a Pakistan-based digital rights activist, works on her laptop during an interview with AFP in Lahore. (AFP)
But digital rights activists have also criticized the government for wielding such broad legislation to quash dissent.
Authorities have previously blocked YouTube and TikTok, and a ban on X — formerly Twitter — has been in place since after February elections when allegations of vote tampering spread on the site.
Pakistan-based digital rights activist Nighat Dad said blocking the sites serves only as “a quick solution for the government.”
“It’s violating other fundamental rights, which are connected to your freedom of expression, and access to information,” she told AFP.
ISLAMABAD: More than 54,000 applications have been received from across Pakistan under the Hajj scheme run by the federal government, the religious affairs ministry said, as the process to apply ends today, Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia has allotted Pakistan a total quota of 179,210 pilgrims for the upcoming Hajj pilgrimage, to be divided equally between the government and private schemes. Around 15 designated Pakistani banks started receiving applications for Hajj 2025 from intending pilgrims on Nov. 18. The deadline to file Hajj applications is Dec. 3 while the draw for the government scheme will be held on Dec. 6.
“Tomorrow [Tuesday] is the last day for receiving Hajj applications in the government scheme,” a spokesman for the religious affairs ministry said in a statement. “More than 54,000 applications have been received from across the country so far.”
The religious affairs ministry announced the country’s Hajj 2025 policy last month, under which pilgrims can pay fees for the annual pilgrimage in installments for the first time.
Under the government scheme, the first installment of Hajj dues, Rs200,000 ($717), must be deposited along with the Hajj application, while a second installment of Rs400,000 ($1,435) has to be deposited within ten days of the balloting. The remaining amount has to be deposited by Feb. 10 next year.
Pakistan’s religious affairs ministry has launched the “Pak Hajj 2025” mobile application to guide and facilitate pilgrims. The app is available for both Android and iPhone users.
The Pakistan government has also announced a significant reduction in airfares for Hajj 2025, with a Rs14,000 drop in ticket prices. Pilgrims enrolled in the federal program will now pay Rs220,000 for airfare, down from last year’s Rs234,000. National carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Saudi Airlines, and other private airlines have agreed to the relief package, according to the Pakistan government.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is prioritizing the participation in leadership roles of people with disabilities, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said as he joined the international community in commemorating the International Day Of Persons With Disabilities today, Tuesday.
The 2024 theme for the annual day is ‘Amplifying the leadership of persons with disabilities for an inclusive and sustainable future,’ connoting the basic requirements of participation, representation and inclusion and calls for persons with disabilities to actively shape the conditions of their lives.
People with disabilities can play important roles in leadership, and their unique perspectives can lead to better services for people with disabilities, rights bodies say. They can also help ensure that organizations are accountable for actions that affect people with disabilities.
“This year’s theme, ‘Amplifying the Leadership of Persons with Disabilities for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future,’ highlights a vital truth: the journey toward a more inclusive world must be led by those who understand its challenges firsthand,” Sharif said in a statement.
“We are prioritizing their participation in leadership roles, ensuring that their perspectives guide our national development strategies, and building a society that values their contributions as leaders, innovators, and changemakers.”
An estimated 1.3 billion people – about 16 percent of the global population – currently experience significant disability. As many as 27 million people in Pakistan may be living with disabilities, both intellectual and physical, according to Human Rights Watch.
Sharif said initiatives such as enhancing access to assistive technologies, improving inclusive infrastructure, and ensuring the implementation of disability-friendly laws were central to Pakistan’s vision.
“We are taking meaningful steps to ensure that persons with disabilities are provided with equal opportunities in education, employment, health care, and public life. Our government is working diligently to implement comprehensive policies that address accessibility, empower individuals with disabilities, and break down societal barriers that hinder their full participation.”
Sharif also highlighted the need to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of caregivers, advocates, and organizations working to support persons with disabilities.
“I urge our institutions, businesses, and civil society to play their role in breaking down barriers and fostering environments where persons with disabilities can contribute as leaders,” the PM added.
“We must also make conscious efforts to challenge behaviors and attitudes that perpetuate stigma and discrimination, replacing them with understanding and respect.”
