foreignpolicy--2020-01-25--In Historic Impeachment Trial, Democrats May Have Talked Too Much

In Historic Impeachment Trial , Democrats May Have Talked Too Much Don ’ t bore your audience .
It is the injunction delivered to every TV and movie producer , and to every lawyer seeking to win over a jury .
And if there is one thing that will be most remembered about the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history—along with Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff ’ s brilliant performance as the lead prosecutor of President Donald Trump—it will be that the Democrats botched their case less through a lack of evidence than an excess of verbiage .
As the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ counter-arguments Saturday morning , they made a point of saying they weren ’ t going to make the same mistake , putting on multiple videos over and over again .
“ We ’ re not going to play it seven times , ” Trump ’ s personal attorney Jay Sekulow said with a grin .
The Trump lawyers promised their relieved audience a short day—they spoke for just two hours—and a swift move to judgement , a vote that is likely to happen in the coming week following two more days of Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the tall , unflappable Harvard Law graduate who wrote a new chapter in U.S. history this week , made the case against Trump almost single-handedly .
Even some Republicans conceded he did an outstanding job of arguing that Trump abused the power of the presidency to a degree that demanded , if not his removal , then certainly a rebuke of some kind .
Schiff also was praised for his eloquence in seeking to invoke a common American sensibility about fairness as he tried to persuade Republicans to agree to introduce witnesses and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the White House “ I ask you .
I implore you : Give America a fair trial .
Give America a fair trial .
She ’ s worth it , ” Schiff said in final remarks that concluded an exhausting three days of argument .
Schiff argued that the heart of American democracy—the sanctity of the constitutional balance of powers—was at stake over the issue of whether Trump abused his powers and the public trust and unconstitutionally defied Congress .
“ It ’ s all about the Constitution and his conduct , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t matter if you like him .
It doesn ’ t matter if you dislike him .
It matters if he is a danger to the country and will do it again … because he is telling us , he will.
” But by most accounts , few Republican senators were moved to change their minds at all , even on the narrow question of allowing witnesses , and even several moderates were annoyed by Schiff ’ s suggestion toward the end that they were sticking with Trump out of fear , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a pike ” otherwise .
As Politico ’ s veteran Capitol Hill pulse-takers John Bresnahan and Burgess Everett wrote : “ [ I ] t is very unlikely that more than one or two Republican senators are even considering a vote to convict Trump and remove him from office , far from the 20 needed to reach the 67-vote threshold required by the Constitution.
” The Trump defense team sought to ensure that conclusion as it began arguing on Saturday that not only was there no impeachable offense by Trump , “ you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrong , ” as lead lawyer Patrick Cipollone said .
The Trump lawyers said they planned to argue six “ key facts ” that will disprove Democratic charges that the president sought to extort the Ukrainians into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee .
The Trump rebuttal points are that the partial White House transcript of the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky , the main piece of evidence tying Trump directly to the case , shows no link between Trump withholding security assistance to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ; that Zelensky himself had said there was no quid pro quo ; that Zelensky didn ’ t even know Trump had ordered a pause in security assistance until more than a month after the phone call ; that none of the Democratic witnesses could definitively say Trump linked assistance to any demand ; that the assistance was restored on Sept. 11 , 2019 ; and that Zelensky finally did get a meeting with Trump ( on the sidelines of the United Nations ) on Sept. 25 even though he never announced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as Trump suggested in the transcript .
( The Democrats have argued that Trump released the aid only after his order to put it on hold was revealed publicly and Congress launched an investigation . )
Above all , the Trump defense team will argue that it is the Democrats , not Trump , who are interfering in U.S. elections by seeking to remove the president less than 10 months before the next election .
Perhaps the biggest problem with the Democrats ’ presentation was that Schiff ’ s performance took up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slew of other Democratic House managers spent the rest of the time saying mostly the same things over and over .
And thereby they lost a good part of the country .
As Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace—who is generally considered more even-handed than his Fox colleagues—remarked after Schiff ’ s opening argument : “ I thought he said it all .
Then I realized we have [ up to ] 21 hours and 40 minutes left to go .
You just wonder how many times you can keep making the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agency , the U.S. television audience for the Democrats ’ arguments dropped precipitously , by about 29 percent , by Thursday , the second day of arguments .
So the outcome of the trial seems preordained at this point , and there may be one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on : If the case led by Schiff and his Democratic colleagues ultimately succeeds , it won ’ t be in this trial—it will come in the November election .

Don’t bore your audience. It is the injunction delivered to every TV and movie producer, and to every lawyer seeking to win over a jury. And if there is one thing that will be most remembered about the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history—along with Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff’s brilliant performance as the lead prosecutor of President Donald Trump—it will be that the Democrats botched their case less through a lack of evidence than an excess of verbiage.
Don’t bore your audience. It is the injunction delivered to every TV and movie producer, and to every lawyer seeking to win over a jury. And if there is one thing that will be most remembered about the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history—along with Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff’s brilliant performance as the lead prosecutor of President Donald Trump—it will be that the Democrats botched their case less through a lack of evidence than an excess of verbiage.
As the president’s defense team began its counter-arguments Saturday morning, they made a point of saying they weren’t going to make the same mistake, putting on multiple videos over and over again. “We’re not going to play it seven times,” Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow said with a grin. The Trump lawyers promised their relieved audience a short day—they spoke for just two hours—and a swift move to judgement, a vote that is likely to happen in the coming week following two more days of Trump defense arguments beginning Monday.
Schiff, the tall, unflappable Harvard Law graduate who wrote a new chapter in U.S. history this week, made the case against Trump almost single-handedly. Even some Republicans conceded he did an outstanding job of arguing that Trump abused the power of the presidency to a degree that demanded, if not his removal, then certainly a rebuke of some kind. Schiff also was praised for his eloquence in seeking to invoke a common American sensibility about fairness as he tried to persuade Republicans to agree to introduce witnesses and documents that until now have been withheld by the White House
“I ask you. I implore you: Give America a fair trial. Give America a fair trial. She’s worth it,” Schiff said in final remarks that concluded an exhausting three days of argument. Schiff argued that the heart of American democracy—the sanctity of the constitutional balance of powers—was at stake over the issue of whether Trump abused his powers and the public trust and unconstitutionally defied Congress. “It’s all about the Constitution and his conduct,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you like him. It doesn’t matter if you dislike him. It matters if he is a danger to the country and will do it again … because he is telling us, he will.”
But by most accounts, few Republican senators were moved to change their minds at all, even on the narrow question of allowing witnesses, and even several moderates were annoyed by Schiff’s suggestion toward the end that they were sticking with Trump out of fear, because “your head will be on a pike” otherwise. As Politico’s veteran Capitol Hill pulse-takers John Bresnahan and Burgess Everett wrote: “[I]t is very unlikely that more than one or two Republican senators are even considering a vote to convict Trump and remove him from office, far from the 20 needed to reach the 67-vote threshold required by the Constitution.”
The Trump defense team sought to ensure that conclusion as it began arguing on Saturday that not only was there no impeachable offense by Trump, “you will find that the president did nothing wrong,” as lead lawyer Patrick Cipollone said.
The Trump lawyers said they planned to argue six “key facts” that will disprove Democratic charges that the president sought to extort the Ukrainians into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee. The Trump rebuttal points are that the partial White House transcript of the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the main piece of evidence tying Trump directly to the case, shows no link between Trump withholding security assistance to Ukraine and Trump demanding an investigation into Biden; that Zelensky himself had said there was no quid pro quo; that Zelensky didn’t even know Trump had ordered a pause in security assistance until more than a month after the phone call; that none of the Democratic witnesses could definitively say Trump linked assistance to any demand; that the assistance was restored on Sept. 11, 2019; and that Zelensky finally did get a meeting with Trump (on the sidelines of the United Nations) on Sept. 25 even though he never announced an investigation of the Democrats and Biden, as Trump suggested in the transcript. (The Democrats have argued that Trump released the aid only after his order to put it on hold was revealed publicly and Congress launched an investigation.)
Above all, the Trump defense team will argue that it is the Democrats, not Trump, who are interfering in U.S. elections by seeking to remove the president less than 10 months before the next election.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the Democrats’ presentation was that Schiff’s performance took up only a few hours, and a slew of other Democratic House managers spent the rest of the time saying mostly the same things over and over. And thereby they lost a good part of the country. As Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace—who is generally considered more even-handed than his Fox colleagues—remarked after Schiff’s opening argument: “I thought he said it all. Then I realized we have [up to] 21 hours and 40 minutes left to go. You just wonder how many times you can keep making the same point.”
According to the Nielsen ratings agency, the U.S. television audience for the Democrats’ arguments dropped precipitously, by about 29 percent, by Thursday, the second day of arguments.
So the outcome of the trial seems preordained at this point, and there may be one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on: If the case led by Schiff and his Democratic colleagues ultimately succeeds, it won’t be in this trial—it will come in the November election.


foreignpolicy--2020-01-24--The Rohingya Find Some Justice in Court

The Rohingya Find Some Justice in Court

The Rohingya Find Some Justice in Court The International Court of Justice ( ICJ ) ruled on Thursday that Myanmar is to undertake a set of provisional measures to prevent further attempts at genocide against the roughly 600,000 members of the Rohingya Muslim minority remaining in Myanmar .
The decision comes after more than two years of so-called clearing operations waged against the Rohingya by the military of Myanmar .
This was the first time that a genocide case has been brought before the ICJ by a signatory county .
The case was brought on behalf of the Rohingya not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but by the government of the African country of Gambia—a majority-Muslim nation , operating with the help of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to protect fellow Muslims .
It was the first time that the 17 judges of the ICJ have unanimously mandated such provisional measures—less than two months after the case started .
That ’ s not only a powerful rebuke to the Myanmar government but also a strong precedent for future cases .
To be clear , this is not yet a ruling on whether the military or the broader state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of genocide under international law .
Those kinds of rulings take years , and the standard of evidence required is very high : so high in fact that even the Bosnian and Croatian genocides in the 1990s were found to fall short of it , and the final verdict was war crimes and crimes against humanity .
This was a judgment that the Rohingya yet remaining in Myanmar are , on the weight of the evidence before the court , currently facing a credible threat of genocide .
To use an imperfect analogy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a caution on the government of Myanmar .
The measures were that Myanmar will be expected to : • actively seek to prevent genocide against the Rohingya , under all definitions of genocide ; • prevent the military and paramilitary groups from carrying out , conspiring to carry out , or inciting genocide ; • preserve all evidence related to the allegations of human rights abuses in the affected region ; and • report on the situation every six months through the proceedings of the ICJ .
This is not the harshest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about as proactive as can be expected at this early stage in the legal process .
Nevertheless , the ruling is remarkable for its clarity and for its evaluation of the clear and present danger facing the Rohingya remaining in Myanmar .
This is particularly the case against the background of how conservative the court tends to be , as seen in previous cases , and how careful it tends to be around any issue that might infringe on claims of national sovereignty .
This case took an unexpected turn in November 2019 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the longtime pro-democracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize laureate , and currently the most powerful person in the civilian government in Myanmar , announced that she would defend her country against the charges of genocide in person before the court at The Hague .
The 2015 general election that brought Aung San Suu Kyi to government should have been the turning point for Myanmar in its long and fraught transition to democracy .
Instead , it marked what seems even now to be the beginning of the end of the Rohingya people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its crackdown on the minority group .
The army eventually began a coordinated campaign of so-called clearing operations that led some 800,000 to 1 million Rohingya to flee across the border to Bangladesh , where they still languish in the refugee camps around Cox ’ s Bazar .
For a while , Aung San Suu Kyi ’ s former friends and allies in the international community sought to make sense of what was happening to the Rohingya by casting her as a prisoner of fate to the military establishment that still controls most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country .
But as she became an increasingly prominent apologist for the army , even adopting the language of those clamoring for the genocide by denying the very identity of the Rohingya and casting them as foreign “ Bengalis , ” there is little doubt about her culpability remaining .
All possible doubt was finally dispelled when she appeared before the ICJ , casually admitting that war crimes had taken place but that what had happened could not be a genocide because there was no genocidal intent .
She made this case while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rohingya ” and insisting that she was talking about “ Bengalis ” —an “ Other ” she should not be expected to be responsible for .
Whatever the political calculation that brought her before the court in The Hague was , it has backfired .
She stood before the court , yielding to its jurisdiction and its right to pass judgment on her government ’ s handling of the Rohingya situation—and it has found her government responsible for preventing further atrocity , if not yet guilty of past offenses .
The extent to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ground for the Rohingya , either those who still remain in Myanmar or those who have crossed the border to Bangladesh , will now depend on the response of the international community .
Normally , judgments passed by the ICJ compel the United Nations Security Council to get involved in mitigating a situation like this where there is a live threat of genocide in a region .
The Western members of the Security Council have long been critical of the actions of the state of Myanmar toward the Rohingya , but any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vetoed by Russia and China , which are both working to construct closer ties to Myanmar .
China in particular sees Myanmar as a pivotal protectorate in Southeast Asia .
Beijing lost ground there during the switch to democracy but is reclaiming it through offering a shield of protection over the Rohingya issue .
Both Russia and China also seek to avoid setting a precedent of strong enforcement of human rights laws by international bodies , given their own activities in contentious places such as Syria and Xinjiang .
That said , however @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.N. Security Council might now be unavoidable .
The provisional measures ordered by the court are supposed to be legally binding .
If Myanmar fails to meet the demands of the court , they will require enforcement—and it ’ s more than likely the country will fail to do so .
If that comes to pass , the U.N. Charter calls for the U.N. Security Council to carry out the required enforcement .
If even at that point Russia or China flat-out vetoes any proposal for enforcement as required by the law and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will seem at the least hypocritical— if not in outright violation of international law themselves .
There are lots of ways this could go , but in the meantime this remains an important step for international law—and a rare beacon of hope for the Rohingya .

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Thursday that Myanmar is to undertake a set of provisional measures to prevent further attempts at genocide against the roughly 600,000 members of the Rohingya Muslim minority remaining in Myanmar. The decision comes after more than two years of so-called clearing operations waged against the Rohingya by the military of Myanmar.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Thursday that Myanmar is to undertake a set of provisional measures to prevent further attempts at genocide against the roughly 600,000 members of the Rohingya Muslim minority remaining in Myanmar. The decision comes after more than two years of so-called clearing operations waged against the Rohingya by the military of Myanmar.
This was the first time that a genocide case has been brought before the ICJ by a signatory county. The case was brought on behalf of the Rohingya not by Myanmar’s neighbors like Bangladesh but by the government of the African country of Gambia—a majority-Muslim nation, operating with the help of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to protect fellow Muslims.
It was the first time that the 17 judges of the ICJ have unanimously mandated such provisional measures—less than two months after the case started. That’s not only a powerful rebuke to the Myanmar government but also a strong precedent for future cases.
To be clear, this is not yet a ruling on whether the military or the broader state of Myanmar are guilty of the crime of genocide under international law. Those kinds of rulings take years, and the standard of evidence required is very high: so high in fact that even the Bosnian and Croatian genocides in the 1990s were found to fall short of it, and the final verdict was war crimes and crimes against humanity.
This was a judgment that the Rohingya yet remaining in Myanmar are, on the weight of the evidence before the court, currently facing a credible threat of genocide. To use an imperfect analogy, this is like a restraining order and a caution on the government of Myanmar.
The measures were that Myanmar will be expected to:
actively seek to prevent genocide against the Rohingya, under all definitions of genocide; prevent the military and paramilitary groups from carrying out, conspiring to carry out, or inciting genocide; preserve all evidence related to the allegations of human rights abuses in the affected region; and report on the situation every six months through the proceedings of the ICJ.
This is not the harshest of rulings, but it’s about as proactive as can be expected at this early stage in the legal process.
Nevertheless, the ruling is remarkable for its clarity and for its evaluation of the clear and present danger facing the Rohingya remaining in Myanmar. This is particularly the case against the background of how conservative the court tends to be, as seen in previous cases, and how careful it tends to be around any issue that might infringe on claims of national sovereignty.
This case took an unexpected turn in November 2019, when Aung San Suu Kyi, the longtime pro-democracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and currently the most powerful person in the civilian government in Myanmar, announced that she would defend her country against the charges of genocide in person before the court at The Hague.
The 2015 general election that brought Aung San Suu Kyi to government should have been the turning point for Myanmar in its long and fraught transition to democracy. Instead, it marked what seems even now to be the beginning of the end of the Rohingya people in Myanmar, as the military stepped up its crackdown on the minority group. The army eventually began a coordinated campaign of so-called clearing operations that led some 800,000 to 1 million Rohingya to flee across the border to Bangladesh, where they still languish in the refugee camps around Cox’s Bazar.
For a while, Aung San Suu Kyi’s former friends and allies in the international community sought to make sense of what was happening to the Rohingya by casting her as a prisoner of fate to the military establishment that still controls most of the reins of power in the country. But as she became an increasingly prominent apologist for the army, even adopting the language of those clamoring for the genocide by denying the very identity of the Rohingya and casting them as foreign “Bengalis,” there is little doubt about her culpability remaining.
All possible doubt was finally dispelled when she appeared before the ICJ, casually admitting that war crimes had taken place but that what had happened could not be a genocide because there was no genocidal intent. She made this case while still refusing to utter the word “Rohingya” and insisting that she was talking about “Bengalis”—an “Other” she should not be expected to be responsible for.
Whatever the political calculation that brought her before the court in The Hague was, it has backfired. She stood before the court, yielding to its jurisdiction and its right to pass judgment on her government’s handling of the Rohingya situation—and it has found her government responsible for preventing further atrocity, if not yet guilty of past offenses.
The extent to which this ruling will affect life on the ground for the Rohingya, either those who still remain in Myanmar or those who have crossed the border to Bangladesh, will now depend on the response of the international community.
Normally, judgments passed by the ICJ compel the United Nations Security Council to get involved in mitigating a situation like this where there is a live threat of genocide in a region. The Western members of the Security Council have long been critical of the actions of the state of Myanmar toward the Rohingya, but any formal censure or U.N. intervention has been vetoed by Russia and China, which are both working to construct closer ties to Myanmar. China in particular sees Myanmar as a pivotal protectorate in Southeast Asia. Beijing lost ground there during the switch to democracy but is reclaiming it through offering a shield of protection over the Rohingya issue. Both Russia and China also seek to avoid setting a precedent of strong enforcement of human rights laws by international bodies, given their own activities in contentious places such as Syria and Xinjiang.
That said, however, some kind of action from the U.N. Security Council might now be unavoidable. The provisional measures ordered by the court are supposed to be legally binding. If Myanmar fails to meet the demands of the court, they will require enforcement—and it’s more than likely the country will fail to do so.
If that comes to pass, the U.N. Charter calls for the U.N. Security Council to carry out the required enforcement. If even at that point Russia or China flat-out vetoes any proposal for enforcement as required by the law and Charter of the U.N., their situation will seem at the least hypocritical— if not in outright violation of international law themselves. There are lots of ways this could go, but in the meantime this remains an important step for international law—and a rare beacon of hope for the Rohingya.


foreignpolicy--2020-01-24--In Afghanistan, Religious Schools Are a Breeding Ground for Islamic State Influence

KUNAR , Afghanistan—A small group of boys sits cross-legged on the floor , reciting the Quran under their breath , their bodies moving rhythmically to the Arabic words , in the light-flooded rooms of the religious school connected to the mosque in the village of Lamatak .
“ At first I ’ d read the Arabic text without understanding , but our teachers are always here to answer our questions , ” Fazil Haq , a green-eyed 14-year-old student , said excitedly .
“ God will be happy when I study the Quran.
” All of the children here in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kunar province are getting their education free of charge .
But Afghan security officials are increasingly concerned that too much of the money going to newly mushrooming madrassas such as this one could be encouraging extremism in the region .
With the Kabul administration only able to financially support a minority of mosques and religious schools , money from Islamic State sympathizers might fund a growing majority of these institutions .
Afghanistan ’ s Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs says there are likely tens of thousands of mosques in the country , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ministry .
“ Of course that ’ s a problem , and it is mainly due to lacking funding , ” said Fazal Mohammad Hussaini , the ministry ’ s spokesman .
“ The messages and Friday sermons in the registered mosques are largely controlled and prepared by the ministry , but not all of Afghanistan is under government control , and we don ’ t know for certain what some mosques might be teaching.
” “ Not all of Afghanistan is under government control , and we don ’ t know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ teaching.
” Afghanistan ’ s intelligence agency , the National Directorate of Security , says some madrassa funding helps support Islamic State activities , though most religious leaders of both mosques and madrassas deny this .
But as peace talks with the Taliban falter , some Afghan officials are worried about a rebirth of radical Islamism .
Mullawi Abdul Rahman , 25 , who teaches about 90 students , said around 30 of them have come from all across Kunar and stay in the madrassa ’ s dorms , while the rest of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Lamatak—home to about 300 families—villagers claim that at night , Islamic State fighters have been coming down from the nearby mountains , seeking shelter for the night in both houses and the mosque , before scattering again at dawn .
Rahman denied this .
Lamatak ’ s mosque and madrassa , where Rahman is one of two teachers , was built four years ago with funding from Nejat , which in Arabic means “ rescue , ” an Afghan nonprofit with Kuwaiti funding and a base office in Jalalabad , the provincial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mosque triumphs in bright colors over the otherwise simple mud houses that make up the village .
But according to a security official who spoke under the condition of anonymity , family members of Nejat employees were detained for allegations of being linked to the Islamic State and remain in custody .
Rahman , wearing a white tunic and a white scarf covering his head , considers himself a Salafist and studied Islam in a madrassa in nearby Pakistan when he was a teenager .
He estimates that around 75 percent of people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ numbers are steadily expanding , not least due to the support of Gulf countries .
“ The vast majority of Salafists are peaceful .
While it is a marker of conservative Islam , it shouldn ’ t be equated with terrorism and extremism , ” said Shiraz Maher , the author of Salafi-Jihadism : The History of an Idea and director at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King ’ s College London , adding that “ most Salafists aren ’ t politically engaged.
” “ The vast majority of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a marker of conservative Islam , it shouldn ’ t be equated with terrorism and extremism.
” Salafism dates back centuries , and its followers consider the earliest form of Islam to be the purest practice of the religion , adhering to a literal interpretation of the Islamic texts and laws .
But many terrorism experts say it has been used to justify militant jihadism , and Islamic State militants claim to adhere by its principles .
“ Some madrassas across the country have been infiltrated by ISIS since 2015 , ” said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ It ’ s the perfect breeding ground for them , ” an Afghan security official who spoke under condition of anonymity told Foreign Policy .
“ People are joining [ the Islamic State ] because the narrative of jihad is still alive , and they are partly funded through nonprofits or madrassas because it ’ s easier for money to enter the country through these official channels .
The Islamic State wants central command in Afghanistan , and they want this to be in the east .
It ’ s a strategic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capital , Kabul , and Pakistan ’ s border.
” Afghanistan has seen decades of war , but large-scale military campaigns in recent months have seen the Islamic State presence shrink in eastern Nangarhar , with President Ashraf Ghani saying that the group ’ s “ backbone was broken.
” But while countless Islamic State fighters surrendered in Nangarhar and both the Afghan government and the Taliban are battling the group , thousands of fighters are still estimated to be active in Kunar province .
Kunar and Nangarhar , both in eastern Afghanistan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a small haven for Islamic State fighters in the past , with some local villagers stating that they don ’ t mind the expansion of the group .
Abdul Hadi , a 48-year-old laborer from Kas Kunar district , said he has seen several young people in his village join the Islamic State .
“ They do it because there is no justice in the government .
It ’ s corrupt , and young people are angry .
Daesh has become a new option for them , ” he said , using the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Afghans use .
Hadi has noticed the shift in opinion throughout his district .
“ An acceptance for Daesh is growing because , like us , they are Salafists—and Salafism teaches us peace , ” he said .
But Maher explained that Salafism can turn violent .
“ The issue of who becomes violent , or who becomes violent when , turns on the issue of legitimacy .
So even for [ Salafist ] groups who might give loyalty and allegiance now , if they feel the government has later strayed into illegitimacy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ armed resistance , ” he said .
While most Salafists aren ’ t politically engaged , Maher added .
“ some believe in giving counsel or even in advising governments .
Salafism is all around the world , partly because it is supported by the Gulf , but there are different traditions within it.
” While Nejat is supporting Salafist mosques throughout Kunar , an Afghan security official said that another nonprofit , the Afghan People ’ s Relief Committee , supports a similar agenda in neighboring Nangarhar province , with—according to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arabia , which has supplied money to extremist groups in the past .
Foreign Policy visited Nejat ’ s office in Jalalabad ’ s Angur Bar neighborhood and was welcomed with Arabic greetings when entering the compound .
The head of the office refused an interview .
In Charakai village of Kunar , Mullawi Qary Hanifullah , 23 , said none of his students are allowed to join militant groups after they finish their studies .
He sits on a mat on the floor , a thick silver ring on his finger .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Peshawar , where he studied under a teacher who had been educated in Saudi Arabia , he said .
“ I teach my students to study hard and work for their country , ” he said of the approximately 180 students .
His mosque has likewise been supported by Nejat , indicated by a large sign near the entrance .
The Taliban , he said , wouldn ’ t send their children here , as they follow the Hanafi tradition of Islam .
“ This is a Salafi mosque and madrassa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exactly that tradition—and it is still on the rise .
”

KUNAR, Afghanistan—A small group of boys sits cross-legged on the floor, reciting the Quran under their breath, their bodies moving rhythmically to the Arabic words, in the light-flooded rooms of the religious school connected to the mosque in the village of Lamatak.
KUNAR, Afghanistan—A small group of boys sits cross-legged on the floor, reciting the Quran under their breath, their bodies moving rhythmically to the Arabic words, in the light-flooded rooms of the religious school connected to the mosque in the village of Lamatak.
“At first I’d read the Arabic text without understanding, but our teachers are always here to answer our questions,” Fazil Haq, a green-eyed 14-year-old student, said excitedly. “God will be happy when I study the Quran.”
All of the children here in the madrassa in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province are getting their education free of charge. But Afghan security officials are increasingly concerned that too much of the money going to newly mushrooming madrassas such as this one could be encouraging extremism in the region. With the Kabul administration only able to financially support a minority of mosques and religious schools, money from Islamic State sympathizers might fund a growing majority of these institutions. Afghanistan’s Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs says there are likely tens of thousands of mosques in the country, but only about 7,000 are registered with the ministry.
A group of boys stands outside Lamatak's mosque on Sept. 16, 2019.
“Of course that’s a problem, and it is mainly due to lacking funding,” said Fazal Mohammad Hussaini, the ministry’s spokesman. “The messages and Friday sermons in the registered mosques are largely controlled and prepared by the ministry, but not all of Afghanistan is under government control, and we don’t know for certain what some mosques might be teaching.”
“Not all of Afghanistan is under government control, and we don’t know for certain what some mosques might be teaching.”
Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, says some madrassa funding helps support Islamic State activities, though most religious leaders of both mosques and madrassas deny this. But as peace talks with the Taliban falter, some Afghan officials are worried about a rebirth of radical Islamism.
Mullawi Abdul Rahman, 25, who teaches about 90 students, said around 30 of them have come from all across Kunar and stay in the madrassa’s dorms, while the rest of the boys are local villagers.
But in Lamatak—home to about 300 families—villagers claim that at night, Islamic State fighters have been coming down from the nearby mountains, seeking shelter for the night in both houses and the mosque, before scattering again at dawn. Rahman denied this.
Lamatak’s mosque and madrassa, where Rahman is one of two teachers, was built four years ago with funding from Nejat, which in Arabic means “rescue,” an Afghan nonprofit with Kuwaiti funding and a base office in Jalalabad, the provincial capital of neighboring Nangarhar province. The mosque triumphs in bright colors over the otherwise simple mud houses that make up the village. But according to a security official who spoke under the condition of anonymity, family members of Nejat employees were detained for allegations of being linked to the Islamic State and remain in custody.
Students study at the mosque in Charakai village in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar Province on Sept. 16, 2019.
Rahman, wearing a white tunic and a white scarf covering his head, considers himself a Salafist and studied Islam in a madrassa in nearby Pakistan when he was a teenager. He estimates that around 75 percent of people in Kunar follow Salafism today, but numbers are steadily expanding, not least due to the support of Gulf countries.
“The vast majority of Salafists are peaceful. While it is a marker of conservative Islam, it shouldn’t be equated with terrorism and extremism,” said Shiraz Maher, the author of Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea and director at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, adding that “most Salafists aren’t politically engaged.”
“The vast majority of Salafists are peaceful. While it is a marker of conservative Islam, it shouldn’t be equated with terrorism and extremism.”
Salafism dates back centuries, and its followers consider the earliest form of Islam to be the purest practice of the religion, adhering to a literal interpretation of the Islamic texts and laws. But many terrorism experts say it has been used to justify militant jihadism, and Islamic State militants claim to adhere by its principles.
“Some madrassas across the country have been infiltrated by ISIS since 2015,” said the independent researcher Nahid Ali Khan.
“It’s the perfect breeding ground for them,” an Afghan security official who spoke under condition of anonymity told Foreign Policy. “People are joining [the Islamic State] because the narrative of jihad is still alive, and they are partly funded through nonprofits or madrassas because it’s easier for money to enter the country through these official channels. The Islamic State wants central command in Afghanistan, and they want this to be in the east. It’s a strategic location with good supply roads—both near the capital, Kabul, and Pakistan’s border.”
Boys study the Quran at the madrassa in Lamatak village on Sept. 16, 2019.
Afghanistan has seen decades of war, but large-scale military campaigns in recent months have seen the Islamic State presence shrink in eastern Nangarhar, with President Ashraf Ghani saying that the group’s “backbone was broken.” But while countless Islamic State fighters surrendered in Nangarhar and both the Afghan government and the Taliban are battling the group, thousands of fighters are still estimated to be active in Kunar province.
Kunar and Nangarhar, both in eastern Afghanistan and bordering Pakistan, have previously become a small haven for Islamic State fighters in the past, with some local villagers stating that they don’t mind the expansion of the group.
Abdul Hadi, a 48-year-old laborer from Kas Kunar district, said he has seen several young people in his village join the Islamic State.
“They do it because there is no justice in the government. It’s corrupt, and young people are angry. Daesh has become a new option for them,” he said, using the Arabic term for the group that most Afghans use. Hadi has noticed the shift in opinion throughout his district. “An acceptance for Daesh is growing because, like us, they are Salafists—and Salafism teaches us peace,” he said.
But Maher explained that Salafism can turn violent. “The issue of who becomes violent, or who becomes violent when, turns on the issue of legitimacy. So even for [Salafist] groups who might give loyalty and allegiance now, if they feel the government has later strayed into illegitimacy, they may feel new obligations towards armed resistance,” he said.
While most Salafists aren’t politically engaged, Maher added. “some believe in giving counsel or even in advising governments. Salafism is all around the world, partly because it is supported by the Gulf, but there are different traditions within it.”
A group of boys gather outside Lamatak's mosque on Sept. 16, 2019.
While Nejat is supporting Salafist mosques throughout Kunar, an Afghan security official said that another nonprofit, the Afghan People’s Relief Committee, supports a similar agenda in neighboring Nangarhar province, with—according to the official—much of the funding coming from Saudi Arabia, which has supplied money to extremist groups in the past.
Foreign Policy visited Nejat’s office in Jalalabad’s Angur Bar neighborhood and was welcomed with Arabic greetings when entering the compound. The head of the office refused an interview.
In Charakai village of Kunar, Mullawi Qary Hanifullah, 23, said none of his students are allowed to join militant groups after they finish their studies. He sits on a mat on the floor, a thick silver ring on his finger. Growing up, Hanifullah lived in Pakistan’s Peshawar, where he studied under a teacher who had been educated in Saudi Arabia, he said. “I teach my students to study hard and work for their country,” he said of the approximately 180 students. His mosque has likewise been supported by Nejat, indicated by a large sign near the entrance.
The Taliban, he said, wouldn’t send their children here, as they follow the Hanafi tradition of Islam. “This is a Salafi mosque and madrassa, and most people in Kunar follow exactly that tradition—and it is still on the rise.”


foreignpolicy--2020-01-24--Pakistan’s Secret Weapon Against Polio

Pakistan’s Secret Weapon Against Polio

NOWSHERA , Pakistan—When 30-year-old Meher Nigar , a polio vaccinator from Pakistan ’ s northwestern city of Nowshera , knocked on a woman ’ s door last April , she was greeted with anger and immediately asked to leave .
A month before , another woman had chased Nigar out of the house with a knife , saying that she would not accept her vaccination .
“ It ’ s very difficult , ” Nigar told me last May .
“ In some areas , the entire community is against us .
In my opinion , the authorities can not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ front-line health worker for the Pakistani government , Nigar had encountered obstacles before , but she has still been shaken by the scale of vaccine refusals .
Over a three-day period in spring 2019 , Nigar tallied that nearly 300 of the homes she visited had rejected the polio vaccine .
Today , Pakistan has the world ’ s highest number of polio cases , and it remains one of only two countries in the world ( along with Afghanistan ) where the virus is endemic .
The number of new cases surged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first spike in incidents since 2014 .
In October 2019 , the World Health Organization released a statement saying it was “ gravely concerned ” about the “ widespread ” uptick in cases in Pakistan , lamenting that the figures represented a reversal in progress made in recent years .
Part of the resistance to the vaccine stems from the legacy of a fake vaccination program run by the CIA a decade ago in Abbottabad , Pakistan , as part of the effort to ferret out information on the al Qaeda leader Osama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some areas , moreover , locals vehemently believe that the vaccine is part of a Western project to sterilize Muslims .
For years , administering the vaccine to children placed front-line health workers directly under attack , with a 2012 Pakistani Taliban fatwa inciting the deaths of polio workers .
Last April , two armed guards and a vaccinator were killed , drawing the total death count to more than 90 over the past seven years .
Last spring , Nigar ’ s neighbors sat in her home and angrily implored her not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , citing concerns that the vaccine might poison their children or lead to infertility .
During polio campaigns , the government provides Nigar with an armed security guard and also gives her 2,000 rupees ( about $ 13 ) on top of her monthly 18,000-rupee ( $ 116 ) salary to help her achieve key health objectives .
But the guards do little to assuage her anxiety .
“ Even if there is a security guard with me , I am still a little afraid of the situation , ” Nigar says .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases in the country , it ’ s Pakistanis who should be alarmed .
Polio primarily affects children under the age of 5 , sometimes causing paralysis or permanent disability .
It often spreads through contaminated water or food .
In extreme cases , it can even spread when under-vaccinated communities are exposed to a different strain of the polio virus than what they ’ re protected against .
Starting last July , in Pakistan ’ s northern Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions , several cases of polio began appearing that were markedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are three types of the polio virus : types 1 , 2 , and 3 .
Only types 1 and 3 circulate in Pakistan ; the country stopped administering a vaccine against the type 2 virus in 2016 , after cases stopped appearing in Pakistan .
Last summer , however , the type 2 virus came roaring back in the form of vaccine-derived cases in remote areas of the country .
First , during a normal immunization day , a health worker noted that a 2-year-old girl was limping and unable to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worker knew that any child exhibiting this type of muscle weakness might be presenting symptoms of polio , prompting him to send her stool sample to a lab in Islamabad .
Later in the summer , he returned to Gilgit-Baltistan to investigate the case further , collecting stool samples of children to see if it was an isolated case or a trend .
In the lab , the virus did not resemble the type 1 or type 3 virus circulating in Pakistan , leading officials to worry that another vaccine , used to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , had been imported and had led to incidents of that disease .
Given that a weakened form of the polio virus exists in every oral vaccine , it is possible for vaccine-derived poliovirus cases to materialize in under-vaccinated communities where basic sanitation , nutrition , and health outcomes are already poor and immunity is weak .
In these cases , the introduction of a mutated virus can endanger and even disable children .
With the type 2 vaccine now only used in Africa , health officials believe the virus may have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of travelers coming from the Horn of Africa , perhaps either itinerant religious travelers known as Tablighi Jamaat or a Pakistani contingent of a United Nations peacekeeping mission that had been in Africa .
The vaccine-derived cases were sent to the Washington-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for verification , but they were not included in a public count of Pakistan ’ s polio cases .
After the country ’ s polio program was accused of covering up information , Pakistan has since started listing the number of vaccine-derived cases on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regularly buffeted by misinformation—and already set back by one of the worst years for polio outbreaks—the allegations of a cover-up were bad news .
However , the episode did underline the importance of two groups vital to the success of Pakistan ’ s polio campaign : female vaccinators and religious leaders .
In high-risk areas , Pakistan relies on a predominantly female workforce of vaccinators drawn from the local community .
These women reside in the same neighborhood as their target population ; their long-standing ties foster trust and decrease the probability of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say that this community-based model , widely used next door in India until it eradicated polio in 2014 , has been instrumental to restoring trust .
Female vaccinators , moreover , have been able to access domestic spaces men are blocked from , which has helped quell suspicions that a nefarious Western agenda lurks behind the polio campaign .
Approximately a third of vaccine refusals in Pakistan occur because of religious reasons .
Nosherwan Khalil , Rotary International ’ s Punjab coordinator for the polio program , said the inclusion of local women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Women in Pakistan have been the true heroes in our polio eradication program , ” Khalil said .
“ They face challenges from both within and outside the community but continue to work for the children of Pakistan.
” According to Rotary International , community-based vaccination teams led by women have brought the vaccine acceptance rate up to 95 percent in some areas of the country .
In addition to recruiting female vaccinators , for the past few years , Pakistan has also been mobilizing Muslim religious leaders to build awareness about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refusals in Pakistan occur because of religious reasons , Qibla Ayaz , the chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology , a body that worked with the government to endorse hundreds of pro-vaccine fatwas , told me this winter .
In high-risk areas like Nigar ’ s city of Nowshera , teams carry fatwa pamphlets with endorsements of vaccination from nearly every school of Islamic thought .
Countering ambivalence is the central aim , and the polio campaign works with mosque leaders who use their moral authority to convey its health benefits .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccinations could be arrested , but the state has recently walked back from enforcing that policy , believing that doing so may only imperil Pakistan ’ s larger eradication effort .
In Rawalpindi ’ s historic Markazi Jamia Mosque , Hafiz Iqbal Rizvi , a Muslim scholar , delivers pro-vaccine sermons and says that false propaganda has been circulating against the polio vaccine for years .
“ It is necessary to vaccinate children , ” he affirmed .
Rizvi is quick to distance himself from the right-wing Islamist groups propagating false information , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ religious establishment has nothing to do with it .
“ We have no cure for the propaganda , ” Rizvi said , adding that he even gives the vaccine to his own children .
“ We are with the government and its polio partners.
” “ We have no cure for the propaganda , ” Hafiz Iqbal Rizvi said .
“ We are with the government and its polio partners.
” Indeed , for nearly a decade , Rizvi has been personally involved in Pakistan ’ s fight against polio , standing firm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ waves of panic .
During times of concern , Rizvi has written letters to mosques to help vaccinators enter communities where paranoia and resistance still impede access .
Khalil said it ’ s been successful : “ Many Pashtun communities are still reluctant to administer the oral polio vaccine to their children until the imam announces in the mosque that all children must be vaccinated .
Religious leaders play a key role in illiterate areas of the community.
” “ Nobody comes up with any evidence , ” Rizvi said about the misinformation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media ablaze last spring and even led a frenzied mob to torch a government health facility in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province .
“ Whenever we go into meetings , we tell the community that this propaganda is false and we support the polio vaccination program.
” Questions about vaccine-derived cases have also flooded into the country ’ s newly established 24/7 WhatsApp polio help line and polio call center , leaving people like Rizvi and others to explain the urgency of accepting multiple rounds of immunization to cover different types of the poliovirus .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ million children during a campaign to specifically vaccinate against type 2 of the virus , requiring female vaccinators and religious leaders to step in and explain why so many rounds of vaccination were occurring in quick succession .
As the government redoubles its efforts to rebuild trust in the vaccine , it is clear that Pakistan ’ s most effective strategy may be to rely on women and religious leaders .
As the global polio campaign inches closer to eradicating the virus , success will depend on the backing of the Pakistan ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .

NOWSHERA, Pakistan—When 30-year-old Meher Nigar, a polio vaccinator from Pakistan’s northwestern city of Nowshera, knocked on a woman’s door last April, she was greeted with anger and immediately asked to leave. A month before, another woman had chased Nigar out of the house with a knife, saying that she would not accept her vaccination.
NOWSHERA, Pakistan—When 30-year-old Meher Nigar, a polio vaccinator from Pakistan’s northwestern city of Nowshera, knocked on a woman’s door last April, she was greeted with anger and immediately asked to leave. A month before, another woman had chased Nigar out of the house with a knife, saying that she would not accept her vaccination.
“It’s very difficult,” Nigar told me last May. “In some areas, the entire community is against us. In my opinion, the authorities cannot easily control the situation.”
As a front-line health worker for the Pakistani government, Nigar had encountered obstacles before, but she has still been shaken by the scale of vaccine refusals. Over a three-day period in spring 2019, Nigar tallied that nearly 300 of the homes she visited had rejected the polio vaccine.
Today, Pakistan has the world’s highest number of polio cases, and it remains one of only two countries in the world (along with Afghanistan) where the virus is endemic. The number of new cases surged to 137 in 2019, representing the first spike in incidents since 2014. In October 2019, the World Health Organization released a statement saying it was “gravely concerned” about the “widespread” uptick in cases in Pakistan, lamenting that the figures represented a reversal in progress made in recent years.
Part of the resistance to the vaccine stems from the legacy of a fake vaccination program run by the CIA a decade ago in Abbottabad, Pakistan, as part of the effort to ferret out information on the al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. In some areas, moreover, locals vehemently believe that the vaccine is part of a Western project to sterilize Muslims. For years, administering the vaccine to children placed front-line health workers directly under attack, with a 2012 Pakistani Taliban fatwa inciting the deaths of polio workers. Last April, two armed guards and a vaccinator were killed, drawing the total death count to more than 90 over the past seven years.
A child has his finger marked to indicate he has been vaccinated after receiving oral polio drops in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on April 23, 2019.
Last spring, Nigar’s neighbors sat in her home and angrily implored her not to visit during her door-to-door vaccination campaign, citing concerns that the vaccine might poison their children or lead to infertility. During polio campaigns, the government provides Nigar with an armed security guard and also gives her 2,000 rupees (about $13) on top of her monthly 18,000-rupee ($116) salary to help her achieve key health objectives. But the guards do little to assuage her anxiety. “Even if there is a security guard with me, I am still a little afraid of the situation,” Nigar says.
But given the growing number of polio cases in the country, it’s Pakistanis who should be alarmed. Polio primarily affects children under the age of 5, sometimes causing paralysis or permanent disability. It often spreads through contaminated water or food. In extreme cases, it can even spread when under-vaccinated communities are exposed to a different strain of the polio virus than what they’re protected against.
Starting last July, in Pakistan’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions, several cases of polio began appearing that were markedly different from the norm. Globally, there are three types of the polio virus: types 1, 2, and 3. Only types 1 and 3 circulate in Pakistan; the country stopped administering a vaccine against the type 2 virus in 2016, after cases stopped appearing in Pakistan. Last summer, however, the type 2 virus came roaring back in the form of vaccine-derived cases in remote areas of the country.
First, during a normal immunization day, a health worker noted that a 2-year-old girl was limping and unable to walk in Diamer, Gilgit-Baltistan. The worker knew that any child exhibiting this type of muscle weakness might be presenting symptoms of polio, prompting him to send her stool sample to a lab in Islamabad. Later in the summer, he returned to Gilgit-Baltistan to investigate the case further, collecting stool samples of children to see if it was an isolated case or a trend. In the lab, the virus did not resemble the type 1 or type 3 virus circulating in Pakistan, leading officials to worry that another vaccine, used to treat type 2 of the polio virus, had been imported and had led to incidents of that disease.
A public service announcement about the polio vaccine in Rawalpindi on April 23, 2019.
Given that a weakened form of the polio virus exists in every oral vaccine, it is possible for vaccine-derived poliovirus cases to materialize in under-vaccinated communities where basic sanitation, nutrition, and health outcomes are already poor and immunity is weak. In these cases, the introduction of a mutated virus can endanger and even disable children.
With the type 2 vaccine now only used in Africa, health officials believe the virus may have been introduced into the environment through the waste of travelers coming from the Horn of Africa, perhaps either itinerant religious travelers known as Tablighi Jamaat or a Pakistani contingent of a United Nations peacekeeping mission that had been in Africa.
The vaccine-derived cases were sent to the Washington-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for verification, but they were not included in a public count of Pakistan’s polio cases. After the country’s polio program was accused of covering up information, Pakistan has since started listing the number of vaccine-derived cases on a government website.
A child receives oral polio drops during a vaccination drive in Rawalpindi on April 23, 2019.
For a polio campaign regularly buffeted by misinformation—and already set back by one of the worst years for polio outbreaks—the allegations of a cover-up were bad news. However, the episode did underline the importance of two groups vital to the success of Pakistan’s polio campaign: female vaccinators and religious leaders.
In high-risk areas, Pakistan relies on a predominantly female workforce of vaccinators drawn from the local community. These women reside in the same neighborhood as their target population; their long-standing ties foster trust and decrease the probability of a vaccine refusal. Public health officials say that this community-based model, widely used next door in India until it eradicated polio in 2014, has been instrumental to restoring trust. Female vaccinators, moreover, have been able to access domestic spaces men are blocked from, which has helped quell suspicions that a nefarious Western agenda lurks behind the polio campaign.
Approximately a third of vaccine refusals in Pakistan occur because of religious reasons.
Nosherwan Khalil, Rotary International’s Punjab coordinator for the polio program, said the inclusion of local women has improved coverage and reduced refusals. “Women in Pakistan have been the true heroes in our polio eradication program,” Khalil said. “They face challenges from both within and outside the community but continue to work for the children of Pakistan.” According to Rotary International, community-based vaccination teams led by women have brought the vaccine acceptance rate up to 95 percent in some areas of the country.
In addition to recruiting female vaccinators, for the past few years, Pakistan has also been mobilizing Muslim religious leaders to build awareness about polio. Approximately a third of vaccine refusals in Pakistan occur because of religious reasons, Qibla Ayaz, the chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology, a body that worked with the government to endorse hundreds of pro-vaccine fatwas, told me this winter.
In high-risk areas like Nigar’s city of Nowshera, teams carry fatwa pamphlets with endorsements of vaccination from nearly every school of Islamic thought. Countering ambivalence is the central aim, and the polio campaign works with mosque leaders who use their moral authority to convey its health benefits. In the past, parents who refused vaccinations could be arrested, but the state has recently walked back from enforcing that policy, believing that doing so may only imperil Pakistan’s larger eradication effort.
Hafiz Iqbal Rizvi in Rawalpindi on April 23, 2019.
In Rawalpindi’s historic Markazi Jamia Mosque, Hafiz Iqbal Rizvi, a Muslim scholar, delivers pro-vaccine sermons and says that false propaganda has been circulating against the polio vaccine for years. “It is necessary to vaccinate children,” he affirmed. Rizvi is quick to distance himself from the right-wing Islamist groups propagating false information, saying that the country’s mainstream religious establishment has nothing to do with it. “We have no cure for the propaganda,” Rizvi said, adding that he even gives the vaccine to his own children. “We are with the government and its polio partners.”
“We have no cure for the propaganda,” Hafiz Iqbal Rizvi said. “We are with the government and its polio partners.”
Indeed, for nearly a decade, Rizvi has been personally involved in Pakistan’s fight against polio, standing firm that the vaccine is safe amid recent waves of panic. During times of concern, Rizvi has written letters to mosques to help vaccinators enter communities where paranoia and resistance still impede access. Khalil said it’s been successful: “Many Pashtun communities are still reluctant to administer the oral polio vaccine to their children until the imam announces in the mosque that all children must be vaccinated. Religious leaders play a key role in illiterate areas of the community.”
“Nobody comes up with any evidence,” Rizvi said about the misinformation campaigns surrounding polio, which set social media ablaze last spring and even led a frenzied mob to torch a government health facility in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “Whenever we go into meetings, we tell the community that this propaganda is false and we support the polio vaccination program.” Questions about vaccine-derived cases have also flooded into the country’s newly established 24/7 WhatsApp polio help line and polio call center, leaving people like Rizvi and others to explain the urgency of accepting multiple rounds of immunization to cover different types of the poliovirus. This month, the government reached 3.6 million children during a campaign to specifically vaccinate against type 2 of the virus, requiring female vaccinators and religious leaders to step in and explain why so many rounds of vaccination were occurring in quick succession.
As the government redoubles its efforts to rebuild trust in the vaccine, it is clear that Pakistan’s most effective strategy may be to rely on women and religious leaders. As the global polio campaign inches closer to eradicating the virus, success will depend on the backing of the Pakistan’s most influential agents for social change.