PAKISTAN: RELIGIOUS POLICE TO BE ORGANIZED IN THE NORTH WEST FRONTIER PROVINCE

Pakistan Islamists pass ‘religious police’ bill

ISLAMABAD - Islamists ruling a Pakistani province passed a controversial bill on Monday to introduce what critics say would be Taleban-style religious police.

The Supreme Court had blocked attempts by the government of North West Frontier Province last year to set up a Hisba, or accountability, department by ruling several clauses of the bill unconstitutional.

The Islamist-led provincial government said it had drafted the Hisba Bill anew in light of recommendations made by the Supreme Court before presenting it to the provincial assembly. ‘This bill has been prepared according to the provisions of the constitution and the directives of the Supreme Court,’ NWFP Law Minister Malik Zafar Azam told Reuters after the provincial assembly passed the bill despite opposition from liberal groups.

Controversy over the bill reflects a drawn-out tug-of-war over the direction of society in the predominantly Muslim country between religious conservatives and liberals.

Liberal and secular critics say the proposed accountability body is modelled on the Taleban’s Department of Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue in Afghanistan, which ran the religious police before the group’s 2001 ouster.

The religious police roamed Afghan streets, forcing people to pray, ensuring women did not leave home without a head-to-toe burqa and confronting men who did not have long beards.
Dismissing criticism about the ‘Talebanisation’ of the western province bordering Afghanistan, Azam said the proposed Accountability Department was aimed at eradicating social evils such as gambling and obscenity through persuasion.

‘Virtues will be promoted and vices will be discouraged through persuasion and preaching,’ he said.

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Is the North West Frontier Province the same thing as Waziristan, the same place that Musharaf struck a deal with a few weeks back?!?!?

Pertinent Links:

1) Pakistan Islamists pass ‘religious police’ bill