Pakistani police conducted raids and arrested opposition leaders, including members of the country’s lawyers’ movement, prior to a protest rally led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Police in Bangladesh charged more than 1,000 members of the Bangladesh Rifles in last week’s mutiny, which killed dozens of top officers, including the force’s commander.
The Committee to Protect Journalists protested the arrest of Sri Lanka newspaper editor Nadesapillai Vidyatharan on charges of collaboration with the Tamil Tigers, calling it part of a pattern of repression.
India’s Border Security Force remains on high alert after a two-day mutiny by the Bangladesh Rifles left scores dead. Unconfirmed reports in the Indian press link the mutiny to Pakistani intelligence.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court upheld a ruling that bars former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from holding office based on his conviction for “hijacking”—that is, attempting to thwart the 1999 military coup.
As fighting continues in Sri Lanka, Amnesty International has called upon the government and the Tamil Tigers to declare a truce and allow more than a quarter million trapped civilians to escape.
Hundreds of members of the Dongria Kondh formed a human chain at the base of their sacred Niyamgiri mountain Jan. 27 to prevent British mining giant Vedanta from bulldozing it.
Some 7,000, including hundreds of Dongria Kondh tribespeople, marched in India’s Orissa state against British mining firm Vedanta, which plans an open-pit mine on the top of the hill tribe’s sacred mountain.
Pakistani interior minister chief Rehman Malik boasted at an Islamabad press conference that authorities have arrested more than 120 in a crackdown on groups allegedly linked to the Mumbai attacks.
The TamilNet news service reports that Red Cross and other aid and medical evacuation vehicles are being barred access to the northern pocket of Sri Lanka still held by the Tamil Tiger rebels, which has come under heavy bombardment in… Read moreSri Lanka: Tamil territory under siege, bombardment
Hundreds of Muslim men, women and children held a silent march in Mumbai, stopping at each location which had been targeted by the armed attacks of what is becoming known in India as 26-11. For the first time, liberal groups… Read moreIndia: Muslims march against terrorism
A suicide bomber killed at least 130 at a campaign rally in Pakistan's Balochistan province— the deadliest attack in the country since 2014. A local candidate with the Balochistan Awami Party was among the dead. The local franchise of the Islamic State took credit for the attack. Radio Free Europe portrays the BAP as part of the Pakistani military establishment’s plan to undermine Baluch ethno-nationalist groups. Balochistan province is part of the larger region of Baluchistan, homeland of the Baluch people, long divided between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are movements for Baluch independence in each of these countries, but they have been unable to unite across the nation-state boundaries. The attack may point to an ISIS strategy to disrupt electoral ethno-nationalist initiatives, and co-opt the Baluch struggle across all three borders, wedding it to Sunni extremism. (Map via Atheer)
