Al Jazeera English
진보 성향
정치
부정적Israel intensifies strikes in southern Lebanon killing 12 people
Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto reports on the strikes he witnessed in and around Tyre.
"TYRE" · 총 86건
필터 보기현재 지수
49.5
0 = 부정 우세
50 = 중립
100 = 긍정 우세
최근 7일 기준 78,394건을 분석한 결과, 뉴스 심리지수는 49.5(균형)입니다. 긍정 9,761건(12.5%)·중립 56,623건(72.2%)·부정 12,010건(15.3%)이며, 중립 비중이 뚜렷하게 높습니다. 성향 지수는 종합 19.9(중도 균형)입니다.
Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto reports on the strikes he witnessed in and around Tyre.
The wife of a Lebanese army captain, who was killed by Israeli bombardment, salutes as mourners carry her husband’s coffin at his home village in southern Lebanon.—AFP • Woman, child among 12 killed in attacks on Zifta, Tyre • Beirut counts 3,491 Israeli strikes since April 17; fresh bombardment damages Unesco heritage site • Hezbollah denies contact with Trump BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon killed 12 people on Monday as Lebanese Defence Minister Michel Menassa revealed Israel has carried out nearly 3,500 air strikes since a US-brokered ceasefire took effect in April. The Lebanese health ministry said the dawn raid on the town of Zifta in the Nabatieh district resulted in seven deaths, including a Syrian child and a woman, and wounded eight others. Meanwhile, an Israeli strike on Tyre in southern Lebanon on Monday killed five people and wounded eight, the health ministry said, as Israel said it would continue strikes despite Iranian threats. “An Israeli enemy raid on the city of Tyre, near the Red Cross centre, resulted in five martyrs and eight wounded, four of whom were Red Cross paramedics,” the ministry said in a statement. The continuing violence underscores the fragility of the ceasefire that came into effect on April 17. Nearly 3,500 Israeli attacks During a cabinet meeting on Monday, Menassa said that between April 17 and June 7, Israel conducted 3,491 air strikes, 407 controlled demolitions and six razing operations, flattening entire villages in southernmost Lebanon. PM Nawaf Salam said the escalation has caused additional waves of displacement. More than 1 million people have been displaced and over 3,600 killed since Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the conflict on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel to avenge the US-Israeli killing of Iran’s supreme leader. The heavy bombardment in Tyre also damaged a Unesco World Heritage site. Ali Badawi, the culture ministry’s regional director of archaeological sites for south Lebanon, said Sunday’s bombardment had “the worst impact” on Tyre’s ancient areas since the war began. “The amount of debris and damage at the site is high,” Badawi said. “Some archaeological artefacts were damaged when rubble fell on them, as debris fell over a large area, impacting a large number of elements at the site — columns, capitals, column bases, mosaics.” Tyre’s ruins include Roman baths, a second-century triumphal arch and a hippodrome. Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salame appealed to protect the sites, charging that Israel “does not respect” the Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property. ‘No contact with Trump’ Amid the ongoing conflict, a senior Hezbollah official denied statements from US President Donald Trump suggesting the two sides had communicated. Senior Hezbollah official Mahmud Qomati said in written remarks that “there has been no direct contact between President Trump and Hezbollah officials”. Trump told reporters last Wednesday that “we actually spoke with Hezbollah for the first time, ever,” and later claimed he had a “very good call” with the group through highly placed representatives. Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2026
Ghassan Salame called on the international community to protect the antiquities of Tyre from destruction
• ‘Proscribed’ JAAC to go ahead with rally from Bhimber to Muzaffarabad, sit-in outside assembly • Officials say govt ‘will not allow’ march to go ahead; large crowds unlikely since group’s leadership is ‘on the run’ MUZAFFARABAD: In the aftermath of Sunday night’s fierce clashes that claimed the lives of seven civilians and four law enforcement personnel in Rawalakot, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) braced for a shutter-down and wheel-jam strike on Tuesday (today) , announced by the proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC). According to initial plans, the JAAC had decided that protesters would start a long march from the southernmost district of Bhimber, passing through Mirpur, Kotli and Poonch before reaching Muzaffarabad on June 10 for a sit-in outside the Legislative Assembly. Government officials, meanwhile, appeared hopeful about the prospects of a tepid response to the protest call for several reasons, including the recent crackdown. In action against JAAC, the authorities had rounded up more than 200 people across the region and forced others into hiding, official sources and witnesses said. “Situation is fluid. The JAAC leadership and crowd-pullers are on the run. So far, they haven’t been able to pull numbers on the streets, but there is a possibility of small protests at several places,” said one official. “But it has been firmly decided that protesters will not be allowed to assemble anywhere, let alone stage a long march from one part of the state to the other,” another official said. Some analysts were of the view that while shutters might remain closed and transport stay off the roads, the call for Tuesday’s strike was less likely to receive an overwhelming response due to the alleged stubbornness of the JAAC leadership. “It was a good movement for rights in the beginning, but some of the committee’s obdurate and myopic leaders pushed it into a blind alley, for reasons best known to them,” remarked a retired government servant, requesting he should not be named. “Abolition of 12 seats might be close to the majority’s hearts in AJK, but it should not have been made a matter of life and death,” he added. The officials who spoke to Dawn made it clear that the administration would neither force anyone to keep their shops open nor allow anyone to force others to shut down their businesses. “As long as people remain peaceful, the law will tolerate them. But the moment they try to create any problem, they will be dealt with firmly,” one of them said. Rawalakot violence On Monday, life remained normal in almost all parts of AJK, except Rawalakot, where shutters remained down for the second consecutive day and public transport stayed off the roads. Elsewhere, a partial strike was reported just from Dadyal, a lakeside town in Mirpur district. In Rawalakot, the epicentre of the violence, the administration and law enforcement agencies (LEAs) succeeded in dispersing protesters shortly after midnight on Sunday. According to divisional commissioner Sardar Waheed Khan, the protesters had not only blocked access to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) but had also virtually taken over the facility, forcing doctors and paramedics to flee for their safety. He regretted that those present inside the hospital not only obstructed treatment for LEA personnel but also caused further injuries to some of them, apart from allegedly disrespecting the body of a martyred police constable. Sharing details of the clashes, he alleged that the protesters possessed long-range firearms, petrol bombs and other ammunition. “They attacked law enforcers from side alleys with full planning, on the pattern of a guerrilla war,” he said. He said of the 30 or so hospitalised activists, three critically injured were airlifted to Islamabad along with four LEA personnel by helicopter. Six activists remained under treatment in the hospital as detainees while others were shifted to the police station, he added. Funeral prayers Meanwhile, funeral prayers for the three AJK policemen — identified as SHO Hajira Muhammad Inayat and constables Muhammad Faisal and Faheem Anwar — were offered at 5pm at Rawalakot Police Lines with full honours. Among those in attendance were Chief Secretary Khushal Khan, IGP Liaqat Ali Malik and General Officer Commanding Murree Maj Gen Zarrar Mahmood. The seven deceased civilians were identified as Usman Sabir of Koiyan village, Fahad Barkat of Rehara village, ex-serviceman Wasaid Siddique of Parrat village, Naqash Zardad of Matyalmera Danna village, Jamshed Ashraf of Hussainkot village, Muhammad Rasheed of Choti Nakkar Pakhar village, and Tariq Resham of Dothan village. The ex-serviceman was caught in crossfire, the commissioner claimed. Sources disclosed that the funeral and burial rites of three activists, including Shazeb Habib, whose body had been lying in the CMH mortuary since Saturday, were performed by the administration and police, while those of the others were carried out by their families without any agitation. In a statement posted on Facebook, a spokesperson for IGP Malik said that legal action against members of the proscribed committee allegedly involved in armed violence was continuing. He warned that strict legal action would be taken against those involved in attacks on LEA personnel and government property. Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2026
On Monday, an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed five people and wounded eight, four of whom were Red Cross paramedics, reported the Lebanese health ministry. Iran has warned that it will resume attacks if Israel continues striking Lebanon, yet Israeli leaders remain undeterred.
Polystyrene can be upcycled into carbon sponge material.
MUZAFFARABAD: At least seven civilians were killed during Sunday’s clash between police and the newly proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) protesters in Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s (AJK) Rawalakot, an official told Dawn on Monday. Poonch Commissioner Sardar Waheed Khan confirmed the civilian death toll to Dawn a day after the clash in which four law enforcement personnel were martyred. The commissioner and AJK Inspector General (IG) Liaqat Ali Malik also told Dawn 30 people had been taken into custody late on Sunday. The officials also said that 23 policemen were injured during the clash. The clash broke out after tensions flared over the death of a trader, who was allegedly shot during a confrontation with law enforcers on Friday night. Officials have accused the demonstrators of attacking the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Rawalakot on Sunday. Initially, his family had announced his funeral would be held on Saturday, but they later changed their mind and brought the body back to CMH, apparently for post-mortem examination, and deferred the funeral until Sunday. The body was shifted to the hospital’s mortuary, but a post-mortem examination was not conducted. In the meantime, scores of people continued a sit-in outside CMH. According to witnesses, when a police party arrived to disperse the protesters, a charged group of demonstrators confronted them. Riot police then resorted to baton charge and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the group. In response, the demonstrators pelted the police with stones, but no one was hurt. The family of the deceased man, meanwhile, declared they would not bury him until the home department notification, proscribing the JAAC, was withdrawn. Tensions have gripped AJK in recent days, with the region’s government declaring the JAAC a proscribed organisation and the latter insisting on its demand to abolish 12 refugee seats in the AJK Legislative Assembly. These are reserved for refugees from Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir who settled in mainland Pakistan after 1947. JAAC alleges that these seats were often used by mainstream Pakistani political parties to influence the formation of governments in Muzaffarabad. On Friday, the AJK government declared JAAC a proscribed organisation, days ahead of a planned protest by the group scheduled for June 9, stating that it was “engaged in terrorism” and had acted in a manner “prejudicial to peace and security” of the state. On Saturday, AJK authorities launched a crackdown on the JAAC, arresting scores of its leaders and activists from different areas. AJK police also sealed the head office of the JAAC, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported on Sunday. Meanwhile, the flow of information from AJK remains curtailed due to the closure of mobile data services. AJK authorities have also advised intending visitors to postpone their trips until June 20, citing security concerns ahead of the planned protests. Islamabad has also dispatched federal paramilitary forces to reinforce the region’s thinly stretched police force.
Azad Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel standing alert. — AJK Police websiteIG condemns attack on personnel.Officials say assault was preplanned.Protest group banned before rally.RAWALAKOT: Four law enforcement personnel were martyred and more than 20 police and security...
• Ghalibaf says violation makes US, Israeli assets ‘legitimate targets’ • Trump calls for ‘surgical attacks’ against Hezbollah • Lebanese army says its chief travelled to Pakistan to meet top officials SMOKE rises after an Israeli airstrike targeted Tyre.—AFP BEIRUT: Israeli warplanes struck Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday, hitting apartments in two residential buildings in the densely-populated Tahwitat al-Ghadir area, despite a US-brokered ceasefire between the Lebanese government and Israel. These were the first attacks on the Lebanese capital since President Donald Trump announced a truce plan for Lebanon last week. While the latest Israeli strikes claimed two lives, Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 3,613 people and wounded 11,072 others since Israeli forces along with the US launched the war on Iran. Iran’s chief peace negotiator, parliamentary speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, said US bases and Israeli assets were legitimate targets because of hostile acts including the “violation of agreements over Lebanon”. Tehran has long said any peace deal with the United States would depend on a ceasefire, also holding in Lebanon. “They showed that they only understand the language of power,” he wrote on X. Ebrahim Rezaei, an influential lawmaker who also serves as spokesperson for parliament’s national security committee, posted on X that Iran would deliver a “decisive and painful response” to Sunday’s Israeli strikes on Lebanon. Although he has leaned on Israel to scale back its war against Lebanon to allow room for a peace deal with Iran, US President Donald Trump called for “more surgical strikes” against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in an interview broadcast on Sunday. “I’d like to see Lebanon have a better life. I’d like to see a more surgical attack on Hezbollah. I think it should be more surgical,” he remarked. Asked whether he was demanding that Lebanon be included in the Iran deal, Trump replied: “No, no.” “Not at all. I’m not demanding,” he said. “I think they’d like to see it, but I’m not demanding.” Trump has said previously he would like to “separate” the discussions on Lebanon from the negotiations on an agreement with Iran, while Tehran wants to link the two conflicts. But Israel has never fully halted its attacks on Lebanon, which have killed thousands of people and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes. Hezbollah, which was not party to the US-brokered truce, has made it clear that it would not give up weapons unless Israel withdraws its troops from Lebanon. Elsewhere in Beirut on Sunday, mourners held a military funeral for Brigadier General Wissam Sabra, a senior military officer killed in a strike on his vehicle. Earlier on Saturday, Lebanon’s army said its commander General Rudolf Haykal had departed for Pakistan, which is currently making efforts to mediate an end to the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, which has also spilled into Lebanon. The Lebanese army said the visit was at the invitation of Haykal’s Pakistani counterpart, Field Marshal Asim Munir, but did not immediately provide further details on its purpose or duration. There was no official word from Inter-Services Public Relations at the time of going to press. Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2026
• Two killed, dozens hurt as riot police use tear gas, batons to disperse protesters • IGP terms attack on CMH ‘outright terrorism’ • AJK SC says changes to Constitution ‘not a concession to be wrested from govt’ MUZAFFARABAD: At least four policemen were martyred and 20 were injured after fierce clashes broke out with supporters of the newly-proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) in Rawlakot, police said on Sunday. A statement issued on Sunday night by the office of AJK police chief Liaqat Ali Malik said four police personnel were martyred when demonstrators “attacked” CMH Rawalakot on Sunday. The statement maintained the men had been shot by firearms and shotguns, terming it outright “terrorism” and vowing not to compromise on the safety of citizens and public peace. Additionally, officials said that at least two people from among the protesters had lost their lives, while dozens were said to be injured. Locals fear that the toll could be much higher. The flow of information from AJK has been curtailed by the closure of mobile data services across the region. Tensions flared in Rawalakot over the death of a trader, who was allegedly shot during a confrontation with law-enforcers on Friday night. Initially, his family had announced his funeral would be held on Saturday, but they later changed their mind and brought the body back to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH), apparently for post-mortem examination, and deferred the funeral until Sunday. The body was shifted to the hospital’s mortuary but a post-mortem examination was not conducted. In the meantime, scores of people continued a sit-in outside CMH. According to witnesses, when a police party arrived to disperse the protesters, a charged group of demonstrators confronted them. Riot police then resorted to baton charge and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the group. In response, the demonstrators pelted police with stones, but no one was hurt. The family of the deceased man, meanwhile, declared they would not bury him until the home department notification, proscribing the JAAC, was withdrawn. “Our son faces the allegation of being a terrorist. We will not bury [him] until the notification branding [JAAC] as a terrorist group is withdrawn,” a source quoted a member of his family as saying. A senior administration official, who spoke to Dawn on condition of anonymity, said the sit-in outside the health facility was causing a great deal of inconvenience to patients, their families and other commuters. He said that the protesters had been asked to disperse peacefully, but to no avail. The area had not been cleared of protesters until the filing of this report. AJK SC’s opinion Meanwhile, in its advisory opinion on a reference sent by AJK President Chaudhry Latif Akbar, the AJK Supreme Court has observed that any amendment in the region’s constitution was “not a concession to be wrested” from the government. The reference dealt with the JAAC’s demand for the abolition of 12 refugee seats in the legislative assembly ahead of the July 27 elections. The 12 seats are reserved for refugees from Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, who settled in mainland Pakistan after 1947. JAAC alleges that these seats were often used by mainstream Pakistani political parties to influence the formation of governments in Muzaffarabad. The presidential reference had sought answers to five key questions over the constitutional status of the refugee seats, the legislature’s competence to introduce a fundamental constitutional amendment at the present stage, the constitutional limits of the rights of assembly and association, and the state’s obligation to protect the electoral process and reject extra-constitutional demands. In the advisory opinion, dated June 6 and available with Dawn, AJK SC Chief Justice Raja Saeed Akram Khan held that the constitution of the AJK was the “supreme law” of the state and its provisions the “property of the people of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and of the whole Kashmiri people”. “The amendment of the constitution is a solemn constitutional act, not a concession to be wrested from a government under duress,” the opinion declared. “It can only be accomplished through the process the constitution itself prescribes, by an assembly possessed of the full democratic mandate of the people, after deliberation, consultation, and consensus-building,” the advisory opinion read. The court’s opinion came a day after the region’s government proscribed the JAAC, days before the group is scheduled to stage a protest on June 9. The JAAC’s latest protest call centred around the highly contentious demand to abolish the 12 refugee seats in the region’s Legislative Assembly. It has also been calling for economic reforms to lower energy prices and provide free healthcare. Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said on Sunday that most of those demands had been met. “It’s negative and false propaganda that the government hasn’t addressed the demands. Out of 38 demands, 35 have been addressed,” he told a press conference. Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2026
Dévoilée en France au Printemps des comédiens, la nouvelle création de la performeuse argentine confronte l’introspection au martyre palestinien.
Residents of the port city do not want Tyre to be 'used by armed groups for military purposes,' including Hezbollah.
Here are a few new Canadian releases to put on your short list. From Ragged Ass Road to Rideau Hall: Stories of Canada Whit Fraser Douglas & McIntyre For many years, journalist Whit Fraser had a front-row seat when major news stories broke across Canada’s north. Many of those stories resonate today. Fraser […]
Israel's military warned residents of south Lebanon's Sarafand, a town on the coastal road between Tyre and Sidon, to immediately evacuate on Friday ahead of expected attacks against Iran-backed Hezbollah. FRANCE 24's Antonia Kerrigan reports from Beirut, Lebanon.
Israeli strikes overnight in the historic south Lebanon city of Tyre killed seven people, a source from the civil defence told AFP on Friday, despite a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war. A conditional truce was announced by Lebanese and Israeli envoys this week that would require Hezbollah to stop firing, withdraw from near the border and would see Lebanon's army deploy to new "pilot zones" in the area. But Hezbollah has rejected the agreement, calling for a full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
Israeli strikes overnight in the Lebanon city of Tyre killed seven people, despite a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Israel continued its strikes on southern Lebanon on Friday killing seven overnight in the city of Tyre, including in an attack near a hospital. This despite a ceasefire agreement signed between Israel and Lebanon, which has been rejected by the Hezbollah militia whose leader called the negotiations “absurd, humiliating and insulting.” Follow the latest events in our liveblog.
The health ministry said it had been informed that the young man Haitham Ezzedine Omar Hmeida was martyred by occupation gunfire in the village of Beitin, north-east of Ramallah.
An Israeli strike in eastern Lebanon killed five people on Thursday, while another attack near the southern city of Tyre killed three more, the Lebanese health ministry said. The strikes also left eight wounded, including three children and two women. They came a day after the Lebanese and Israeli governments agreed a ceasefire plan for Israel's war with Hezbollah, which the group has rejected. FRANCE 24's Antonia Kerrigan reports from Beirut.
Junaid Hafeez | Social Media Dear Junaid Hafeez, We are writing to reassure you that, although we sentenced you to death nearly seven years ago, you should take some solace in the fact that we have never hanged anyone convicted of blasphemy. You might ask, if we don’t intend to carry out the sentence, why for the past six years are we not listening to your appeal? Why are we denying you your day in the court? A day on which a judge can overturn your sentence and release you. Or go through the evidence against you and confirm your punishment, so that you can file another appeal and then another and, finally, when your death sentence is confirmed by the highest court in the land, you can file a last mercy petition. You have been waiting for 13 years to find out what it is that we intend to do with you. You might argue that, if you had committed second degree murder, got caught and convicted, with some good behaviour, you would be nearing the end of your sentence now. But you didn’t kill anyone, you didn’t commit treason, you hatched no plans to overthrow the government, you didn’t challenge the authority of any institution. Instead, you read books, you talked about books, you wanted to live a bookish life, you went to a classroom, you were accused of blasphemy, you were sentenced to death. There may be a tacit promise by the state that you’ll not see the gallows, but we’ll also deny you the opportunity to prove your innocence and go home. Junaid Hafeez has been in jail on blasphemy charges since 2013. His appeal against his 2019 death sentence is pending in the Lahore High Court since 2020. May 18 was supposed to be yet another date for his hearing, which passed by without his appeal being heard You might think that in the 13 years (do you still count days or are you counting years now?) you have been behind bars, the world has forgotten you. But your name does appear on human rights organisations’ annual reports, your picture does come up on our social media memories. It has even been suggested that Junaid Hafeez gets more attention than hundreds of other victims of our slow justice, because it’s easy to identify with him. He is every working class parent’s dream boy, who tops every board exam, gets into Pakistan’s top medical college and, midway through his medical education, decides to pursue a life of letters, gets a Fulbright fellowship, returns home and continues to teach and learn. Here’s the kind of boy we always say is the bright future of this country. There are many others who get far less attention than you. There are hundreds waiting trials, more than 50 who have been sentenced to death, their appeals not heard for years, sometimes for 10 sometimes for 20 years. In order to give you some hope, we might have given you Zafar Bhatti’s example, a medicine salesman who spent 14 years in jail on blasphemy charges. Last year, he finally had his day in court, and he was freed. Freed. After keeping him in jail for 14 years, we declared that he was innocent. He went home. He died after three days. Three days of freedom after 14 years of captivity for a crime that never happened. Our judicial system is often blamed for being an impossibly slow grind, and for being extremely reluctant to take up the appeals of those convicted on blasphemy charges. It seems as if opening the case file of a blasphemy convict will constitute blasphemy itself. We can’t judge our judges too harshly for not wanting to listen to these appeals. Let’s not name names but lawyers, a judge, a minister and a governor have been assassinated trying to get the likes of you out of prison. Since judges have to deal with murderers and terrorists, they are promised life-time police protection. Although they are courageous enough to convict and then preside over the appeals of dangerous criminals, they are wary of having a blasphemy convict in their court. “They know our society, they know our system, why would they trust it?” says your lawyer Asad Jamal. He also points out that the door to a hall on the premises of Lahore High Court Bar Association is named Baab-i-Khatm-i-Nabuwwat [Door of the Seal of the Prophets]. “Here’s a daily reminder to the judges of the times and places we live in.” We can assure you though that times are changing. In the past one year, there’s been a spate of bails, acquittals and people have got what we call ‘relief’. A woman who was snared into a blasphemy trap after playing a game of PUBG was acquitted after five years of imprisonment. Last year, Anwar Kenneth, accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death, was acquitted after spending 23 years in jail. After keeping him in jail all this time, we realised that he wasn’t mentally fit to stand a trial. Lawyers remind us that many of those accused of blasphemy have mental health issues. It’s difficult to prove in the court, as the psychiatrists who can testify for them are scared and either wouldn’t appear or want to remain anonymous. Since we insist on keeping you alive and locked, we must give you some hope, however flimsy. Those who made blasphemy the central plank of their politics, and threatened generals and judges and politicians, have been silenced for now. We sometimes fear that your acquittal might poke those monsters we have put to sleep. Or people who decide such things still suspect that these monsters might be unshackled to liven up our political circus. In 2013, the year you went to jail, in India, they hanged Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri citizen accused of terrorism in India. The Indian Supreme Court said in its judgment that “the collective conscience of society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender.” There’s no collective conscience here that needs to be satisfied. There are no hordes baying for your blood, only occasional voices pleading mercy, invoking your lost youth, your talent, your promise. You are a minor speck on our conscience because some of us are allowed to read books and write them and pursue our PhDs, but we can’t grant you the same privileges. Many political analysts tell us that, if you are released tomorrow, no roads will be blocked in protest, no rallies will be held, the country will not burn, nobody will set fire to a tyre even. You are not being kept in a jail to satisfy our nation’s conscience. You are not allowed your day in the court because then we’ll have to face that conscience and decide. Your current lawyer, Mr Saiful Malook, obviously frustrated at not getting your appeal heard, reminds us of the constitutional guarantee that citizens shall not be discriminated against on the basis of caste or colour or religion. But he is not naïve and knows that this is not how our society and justice system works. He simply pleads for equality of the condemned. “The courts are listening to appeals filed in 2023 by those accused of multiple murders and even sentenced to death,” he says. “Junaid’s appeal is from 2020 — why isn’t his appeal being heard? Even if we can’t treat all citizens equally, at least those sentenced to death should be treated equally.” What if judges are not scared for their safety but reluctant because of their faith? What if they don’t even want to touch a case file containing blasphemies, even if fabricated? Islamabad-based lawyer Talha Rehman, who represents more than 60 people accused of blasphemy, says that if the judges are of the view that blasphemy laws are effective, then why are they reluctant to help implement them? “The least they can do is hear the appeals,” he says, “and, if they feel the punishment is justified, they should confirm it, so that the accused can move to the next appeal.” Dear Junaid, as you count your days and years and wait for your day in court, we reiterate that we have never hanged anyone accused of and convicted of blasphemy. But we’ll fit a noose around your neck every morning and take it off every night. So that our conscience doesn’t bother us in our sleep. The writer is a novelist, essayist and journalist. His latest novel is Rebel English Academy Published in Dawn, EOS, May 31st, 2026