Netherlands Embassy Islamabad Make Anti and Pro Establishment Minds Sit Together on Human Rights Day

ISLAMABAD : The Embassy of Netherlands in Pakistan hosted 3 journalists and students of Bahria University and admins of NUSTGRAM to facilitate an interaction on 10 Dec , International Day of Human Rights with speciall connection to Press Freedom in Pakistan.

The three selected journalists were Mati Ullah Jan, Cyril Almeida and Asad Ali Toor. All are known in Pakistan for their hard stance on the establishment, military and speak most often aganist their interventions in politics and judiciary. All have faced the pressures as well as have been picked up by the unknown or tortured in the past.

Baria University and National University of Sciences and Technology NUST, both belong to Pakistan military, one with Navy and the other with Army. NUSTGRAM is Insta page designed and updated by the students of NUST.

At the event, a documentary “State of Silence” was screened on what the makers of the documentary claim Press is not free in Pakistan. It was follwed by a discussion between the invited journalists and the students.

Reporters without Borders (RSF) urges Shehbaz Sharif’s government not to criminalize comments about Armed Forces

The chemistry of both sides, the journalists and the students , leads to the speculation that it was an effort to bring the Anti and Pro Establishment together to exchange their views on the state of human rights in Pakistan.

European countries are seeing the latest 27th amendment in the constitution as against the human rights. Gov actions and Imran’s trial are also matter of concern for the west. Military matters , especially the extension and intervention in politics and judiciary is widely discussed in such get togethers.

Ambassador Mr. Robert-Jan Siegert is quite new in Islamabad. The event was organized at the residence but the ambassador was not present. He called on Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Naveed Ashraf at Naval Headquarters Islamabad couple of days ago but neither the embassy nor the Navy released any details of this meeting.

Here at the embassy too, interestingly, the embassy screened documentary on Silence and held event of expression on freedom of press but itself , did not share the details as , who said what and what was the conclusion or do the participants reached any conclusion or not ?

The Embassy itself is Silent on the discussions and not sharing any details in the press.
Why Netherlands is more concerned about Pakistan than any other country in the world ?

In April 2023, Netherland included articles on alleged corruption of Sharifs and Zardaris in Pakistan. Editor Pakistan in the World Mr. Tazeen Akhtar published the following report at that time.

Netherlands to Review the Articles in Curriculum Books on Alleged Corruption of MNS & AAZ

Corruption in Pakistan from micro to macro level has always been discussed in and out of country only because it is a genuine issue of Pakistan. Certainly the world community, especially those who deal with Pakistan on Gov or B-to-B levels are more concerned about the problem that has affected Pakistan’s own growth as well. Mostly recently, the main manifesto of the self claimed the most popular political party repeatedly alleged its main political rivals, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former President Asif Ali Zardari as the most corrupt people in Pakistan that Chairman PTI Mr. Imran Khan could never prove even during his own so called ONE PAGE government.

It was only in the background of above mentioned scene that when an information about an article on the alleged corruption of Mr. MNS and Mr. AAZ poured in from somewhere and went viral on social media. Sooner it was picked by mainstream media and aired with additional spices for the viewers attraction only.

This scribe contacted to the concerned in the Netherlands Government to confirm the information and received the answer as the Netherlands will review the articles next year in the light of latest state of the cases against the above mentioned persons.

The spokesman of the Ministry of Education of Netherlands has shared ,” This is an older textbook, which refers to a news article of that time. It’s very normal to discuss news items, of all sorts, in classrooms. Especially in subjects such as citizenship and social science, to which this book refers”.

 “The publisher has informed us the current method is being reviewed for a new edition next year. If articles are outdated or do not display the current facts, they will be replaced, The spokesperson added.

The spokesperson concluded, “We would like to note that in the Netherlands, publishers of school books are responsible for the contents of these books and methods, not the Dutch government.”