Militarizing the Judiciary Reveals the Regime Lacks Authority in the Eyes of the People

The Supreme Court has been asked to reconsider its 1999 verdict in the Sheikh Liaquat Hussain case which declared military courts unconstitutional. In a petition filed before the apex court on 28 December, asking the court to empower the government to make laws or promulgate ordinances to establish military courts in order to help civil authorities curb terrorism and militancy. This petition comes in the wake of the regime's decision to establish military courts as part of its National Action Plan.

The regime has resorted to military force to establish its authority because the regime realizes it does not have popular support. In origin, authority is derived from the people or from the dominant faction within the people. This is because ruling includes the search for truth, the restriction to the law and fulfillment of justice. Authority pays no attention to material power.

Authority's strength should be derived its popular acceptance in discharging of the affairs of the people. However, when any authority becomes increasingly dependent on military force, it exposes the fact that it could not win the people over. The authority is transformed from an entity of justice and truthfulness into one of domination and coercion. Might is right. Thus, any role for the military within authority, however little, makes it a police state like the role of the police officers in relation to prisoners, not an authority which people respect and co-operate with.

As to why the regime has lost the support of the people, it is due to its alignment with a state whose values and objectives are foreign to the people. The people believe in Islam and its commands, including ruling by Islam and Jihad against occupying forces. This belief is embedded within the people deeply through their belief in Allah (swt) and His Messenger and deepened through hundreds of years of striving for Islam. It is this basis from which any authority within Pakistan should establish its strength. However, the Americans reject ruling by Islam and Jihad, and so have mobilized traitors within the regime to militarize the authority.

This state of affairs also reveals the end of American influence within Muslim Lands. America accepts its agents to resort to military force because it has failed the battle to win hearts and minds. All that remains for the armed forces in Pakistan to fulfill their role as protectors of the authority, by ejecting the traitors and restore the ruling by Islam.

Fuel Must Be Public Property to Prevent Collapse of Economy

With crude price falling below $57 a barrel in the Middle East, as of 29 December, the government announced increased taxation on 30 December to offset a shortfall in revenue, instead of passing on full benefit to consumers. Besides Rs6 to Rs14 per litre petroleum levy, the government used to charge 17pc GST on prices of all petroleum products. At present the petroleum levy is at its maximum permissible limit under the law. Now, in addition, the government raised the general sales tax on petroleum products by five per cent, above the normal 17 per cent, on Tuesday. The decision will take effect on Thursday (Jan 1). It is the highest GST rate ever imposed by the government.

The colonialists through their agents greatly increase taxation, in the form of levies, surcharges and General Sales Tax, on the population, further strangling the economy. This is done in order to raise revenues to pay back foreign interest based loans, even though Pakistan has paid back the principle sums of such colonialist loans many times over. It is this colonialist trap, which is designed to prevent Pakistan from ever escaping and rising as a power. In addition, through decades of privatization of the fuel sector, foreign and local private companies are continuously securing great profits, whilst local industry and agriculture falters and collapses with ever increasing costs of petrol, kerosene oil and diesel.

The cure to Pakistan's economic illness does not lie in privatization, foreign investment or colonialist loans for they are the disease itself. Islam has declared that energy is neither a private nor a state property but a public property for all the Muslims. RasulAllah (saw) said,

«المسلمون شرکاء فی ثلاث الماء والکلاء والنار»

"Muslims are partners in three things: water, pastures and fire (energy)" [Abu Dawood.].

Thus, although the Khilafah "Caliphate" state takes charge of managing the public property and state property, it is not permitted for the Khalifah to grant the ownership of the public property to any private party, whether an individual or group, as it is a property for all Muslims. Revenues are for the public, looking after its affairs and securing its interests, and not for the state.

America Reaffirms Continuity of its Occupation in Afghanistan

On 29 January America confirmed that the occupiers of Afghanistan are staying, under the excuse of assisting Afghan forces. "The United States ... NATO and the international community have renewed their commitment to a sovereign and stable and unified Afghanistan, a democratic Afghanistan," State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke told reporters in Washington. On 21 January, the United States and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) ended their combat mission in Afghanistan and launched a new mission aimed at assisting the official Afghan forces in combat.

As for the regime commanding the largest Muslim forces nearest the occupation, it is engaged in treachery against the sanctity of the Muslims' lands. It is undertaking measures to prevent Jihad against the occupying American forces in Afghanistan, under the banner of preventing "terrorism." Previously the regime claimed to distinguish between those who attacked Pakistan and those that attacked the American occupation.

However, now, the regime has declared them all as one and has ordered them all to be stopped, no longer distinguishing between the lowly murderer of children and the noble Mujahid fighting in the way of Allah against the Western crusaders. On 17 December 2014, Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, declared, "There will be no distinction between good and bad Taliban. The nation will continue this war with full resolve till the elimination of the last terrorist." This is despite the severe condemnation from Allah (swt) and His Messenger (saw) for abandoning the duty of Jihad in the path of Allah (swt). Allah (swt) said,

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مَا لَكُمْ إِذَا قِيلَ لَكُمُ انْفِرُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ اثَّاقَلْتُمْ إِلَى الْأَرْضِ أَرَضِيتُمْ بِالْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا مِنَ الْآخِرَةِ فَمَا مَتَاعُ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا فِي الْآخِرَةِ إِلَّا قَلِيلٌ

"O you who have believed, what is [the matter] with you that, when you are told to go forth in the Path of Allah (Jihad), you adhere heavily to the earth? Are you satisfied with the life of this world rather than the Hereafter? But what is the enjoyment of worldly life compared to the Hereafter except a [very] little." [Surah At-Tawba 9: 38]

And RasuAllah (saw) said,

«مَا تَرَكَ قَوْمٌ الْجِهَادَ إِلا عَمَّهُمُ اللَّهُ بِالْعَذَابِ»

"No people that abandoned Jihad except that Allah encompassed them with punishment." [Tabaraani]

Indian Hostility Will Only Be Effectively Dealt with By the Khilafah "Caliphate"

Exchange of fire took place in the Shakargarh sector of Narowal district late on Wednesday and continued until the early hours of Thursday 1 Jan, official sources said. Wednesday's incident in which four Pakistani troopers died on the border in Jammu and Kashmir followed the killing earlier in the day of an Indian border guard, Rakesh Sharma. The latest round of incidents began when Indian border guards killed two Chenab Rangers' personnel in Shakargarh sector on Wednesday after calling them for a flag meeting on the Working Boundary. Naik Riaz Shakir and Lance Naik Mohammad Safdar, who were deputed for the meeting sought by the BSF, died amid a hail of bullets.

Muslim blood is shed by the lowly mushrik Hindus and the regime merely resorts to verbal condemnation. This is because the regime is following the American plan for Pakistan to act submissively before India, so that it can rise as the dominant regional power to curb challenges to America from China and the Muslims. Islam did not allow the bending and prostrating of the Muslim before aggression from the lowly mushrik, whether Hindu or other than the Hindu. It did not allow submission to the Kuffar in our affairs. Rather Islam demands that Muslims counter the enemy with all that the Muslims possess, whether great means or little. Anas narrated that RasulAllah (saw) said,

«جَاهِدُوا الْمُشْرِكِينَ بِأَمْوَالِكُمْ وَأَنْفُسِكُمْ وَأَلْسِنَتِكُمْ» أخرجه أبو داود

"Fight the mushrikeen with your wealth, yourselves and your tongues." [Abu Daud]

Yet, rather than mobilizing our considerable strength against the enemy, the regime is using it all to strengthen India as part of America's larger strategy for the region. It is upon us all to join our nights and days to overturn this harm by working with Hizb ut Tahrir to re-establish the Khilafah "Caliphate", the shield of the Muslims.

End the Alliance with America, the Cause of Bloodshed and Fitna

The United States and the Raheel-Nawaz regime would hold a ministerial meeting of their bilateral Strategic Dialogue in Islamabad on 14 January 2015. US Secretary of State John Kerry would visit Islamabad for the meeting. This would be the second ministerial-level meeting since the dialogue resumed in 2013. Three editions were held in quick succession in 2010 before the dialogue was suspended due to events in 2011. "The US Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting Pakistan this month for Pakistan-US Strategic Dialogue. The arrangements are being finalised," FO spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said at the weekly media briefing on 1 January. The discussions would focus on how to advance bilateral engagement, Pakistan's Ambassador to US Jalil Abbas Jilani told Dawn by phone.

It is the alliance with American which is the source of insecurity in Pakistan. On the basis of this alliance America established a large intelligence and private military network within our walls which masterminds acts of brutality by the ignorant against our armed forces and civilians. It is this alliance which is used to prevent the Muslims of the armed forces and the tribals unifying to expel the American occupation of Afghanistan. And it is this alliance which is burning Pakistan in the fires of chaos, bloodshed and a war of Fitna in the tribal regions.

The solution is to end the alliance with America. As Hizb ut Tahrir has adopted in its Introduction to the Constitution, in Article 189, "States with whom we do not have treaties, and the actual imperialist states, such as Britain, America and France, and those states that have designs on the State, such as Russia, are legally considered to be belligerent states. All precautions must be taken towards them and it would be wrong to establish diplomatic relations with them." And in the same Article's Clause 4 it has stated, "States that are actually belligerent states, such as Israel for example, a state of war must be taken as the basis for all dealings with them. They must be dealt with as if a real war existed between us - irrespective of whether an armistice exists between us or not - and all their subjects are prevented from entering the State."