By Kiran Nazish
Pakistan’s civil society is under attack by “unknown miscreants” for speaking against the “good” Taliban.
Following the attack on a school in Peshawar, newspapers in Pakistan have been flushed with worrisome op-eds and analysis pieces on the country’s failure as a democracy and the consequences of its long cooperation with militant groups.
The criticism by the liberal English media has always existed but the Peshawar attack on a school by the Taliban, which killed more than 140 people, mostly children, swung the country’s civil society into a new urgency to protest. In big cities there have been demonstrations and vigils outside press clubs, and government buildings, many of them calling out terrorism and asking the government to go after the so-called “good” Taliban it formerly embraced over the past decade.
Protests called out on the government’s policy of differentiating between “good” and “bad” Taliban. “All Taliban are bad”, the slogans would say. Some children in protests in Karachi and Islamabad were seen holding placards that flashed, “Good Taliban, bad Taliban, we want dead Taliban.” Many journalists, lawyers and activists have come out in their cities, adding new strength to what had previously become a largely stifled liberal voice over the years.
But as their voice gained strength in the past few weeks, causing a threat to religious groups that either directly or indirectly support the militant mindset of Islam (including those that support the Taliban), their safety has been put at startling risk, with law and order organizations unable to do much to protect them.
Read the full story at The Diplomat