THE Abbottabad inquiry commission`s recommendation that a case of treason be registered against Shakil Afridi, the doctor who set up a fake polio...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
vaccination campaign to try and get DNA samples from the residents of the compound the late Osama bin Laden
... who went titzup one dark and stormy night...
was hiding in, merits some debate. First, the legal principles at stake. The reports on the commission`s recommendation do not make clear whether it is a trial under Article 6 of the constitution (high treason) that is being sought or whether Dr Afridi is to be prosecuted for engaging in espionage activities for a foreign intelligence agency. At one level, the case may seem fairly straightforward: taking money to aid a foreign intelligence agency is a crime in countries across the world. Indeed, the recent case brought in the US against Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai for allegedly taking money from a Pak intelligence agency to lobby the US government is a pertinent example.
Yet, the case of Dr Shakil Afridi ought to be seen outside the confines of a narrow interpretation of the law. Dr Afridi was part of an effort to catch the world`s most wanted terrorist who was hiding on Pak soil. In doing so, it is highly unlikely that he was aware of the plans for a unilateral American raid on Pak soil; after all, in the past there has been much cooperation between the US and Pakistain on the capture of senior Al Qaeda leaders. So what exactly is the Pak national interest that has been harmed by Dr Afridi in helping locate the world`s most wanted terrorist on Pak soil? In most other countries, a case like Dr Afridi`s might have met with a different response. There is an even more distressing aspect to this tale of transnational subterfuge: reportedly, incensed by the American-sponsored ploy, the security apparatus has tightened its monitoring of international aid agencies and local NGOs involved in the health sector, potentially disrupting the urgent work of stamping out the polio virus that has been resurgent in Pakistain in recent years. Must innocent children suffer because of cloak-and-dagger games between states?