Salman Taseer

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Salman Taseer (2009)

Salman Taseer ( Urdu سلمان تاثیر; * June 12, 1946 in Lahore ; † January 4, 2011 in Islamabad ) was a Pakistani businessman , author and politician for the Pakistani People's Party (PPP). From May 15, 2008 until his assassination on January 4, 2011 by one of his bodyguards, a radical Islamist, he was the 26th governor of Punjab Province . He was considered a close confidante of the Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his wife Benazir Bhutto, who was murdered in 2007 .

Life

Private life

Salman Taseer was married to Aamna Taseer, with whom he had three children. He had three other children from a previous marriage. He also had an illegitimate son, the Indian writer and journalist Tavleen Singh , the writer and journalist Aatish Taseer , who was born in 1980. His book Terra Islamica: In Search of My Father's World (original title: Stranger to History: A Son's Journey through Islamic Lands ) about the difficult relationship with his father and his religion was a bestseller in Asia.

When Salman Taseer attended St. Anthony's High School in Lahore, his later political arch-rival Nawaz Sharif (Prime Minister 1990–93 and 1997–99) was one of his classmates.

Political career

Salman Taseer began his political career as a student in the late 1960s when he became a supporter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistani People's Party (PPP) . In the following years he became one of the central young politicians in Pakistan and was actively involved in a movement against the arrest and subsequent execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, about whom he later published a political biography. In the 1988 elections, he was elected to the Punjab Provincial Assembly for his home district of Lahore . In the 1990 and 1993 elections, he failed each with his candidacy for a seat in the Pakistani National Assembly , which is why he changed his constituency within Lahore for the 1997 elections, but failed again with his candidacy. Then Taseer left politics and concentrated on his work as a businessman.

In 2007 he returned to the political stage and was appointed minister at the federal level. From November 2007 to March 2008 he was responsible for industry, production and special needs in the interim government under Prime Minister Muhammad Mian Soomro .

On May 15, 2008, Taseer succeeded Lt. General Khalid Maqbool was appointed to the post of governor of his home province of Punjab and sworn in two days later. His appointment was viewed with suspicion by the competing Pakistani Muslim League, and its leader, Nisar Ali Khan, referred to it as part of a conspiracy.

Political controversy

As a liberal politician, Taseer was one of the sharpest opponents of the Pakistani Taliban . He spoke openly about their existence in the Punjab province, but also that they had no support in his home province, that they were not represented in parliament and were also unpopular with the population. He repeatedly accused the ruling Muslim League of tolerating extremists, if not actively supporting them.

Taseer advocated an amendment to the constitution, in which the followers of the Ahmadiyya faith community are considered non-Muslims. He also publicly opposed the death sentence against Christian Asia Bibi for blasphemy in a television interview and criticized the Pakistani blasphemy law. He called on Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari to pardon Asia Bibi because she had not received a fair trial. Other members of his family also support Taseer Asia Bibi. Among other things, he and his wife and one of his daughters met Bibi personally on November 20, 2010 in the prison where she is awaiting her death sentence.

Due to an unregistered multi-day trip abroad to Sri Lanka in December 2010 and the failure to notify the spokesman for the Punjab Provincial Assembly, which was therefore unable to carry out its work, a constitutional violation was brought against Taseer and his resignation was requested.

Business career

After several unsuccessful candidacies for a seat in the National Assembly of Pakistan, Salman Taseer decided in 1995 to found the brokerage company First Capital Securities Corporation (FCSC) . A year later he founded the telecommunications company WorldCall, which operates in Pakistan . A 65% stake in the company was acquired in 2008 from Oman Telecommunications Company , Oman's largest telecommunications company , for $ 200 million.

Taseer was also extensively active in the media landscape. He owned the news channel Business Plus and the children's channel Wikkid Plus. He was also the owner of the liberal English-language Pakistani daily newspaper Daily Times, founded in 2002 .

attack

On January 4, 2011 in Islamabad , Salman Taseer was shot from behind by his bodyguard, who belonged to an elite police unit, with his service weapon, an AK-47 , while he was getting out of his car. The perpetrator then turned himself in to the authorities and gave Taseer's comments regarding the blasphemy law and the Asia Bibi case as a motive . After the attack became known, protests broke out in Punjab and especially in Lahore. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced a quick investigation into the crime and three days of national mourning. Taseer's PPP announced a two-week mourning period within the party.

On January 5, 2011, Taseer was buried in his hometown of Lahore. Up to 6,000 people gathered at his residence for the funeral service. At the same time, the murder of Taseer because of his criticism of the blasphemy law and the Islamist Hadood Ordinances was welcomed by several hundred clergymen of the Islamic organization Jamaat Ahle Sunnat , which is a part of the Orthodox Sunni Barelwī movement , and the assassin was hailed as a hero. The assassin was also cheered by numerous people on his arrival in court. Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced on January 5, 2011 that the perpetrator had volunteered to guard Taseer and that the security guard responsible for assigning the security guards had been questioned to find out whether the perpetrator was alone or with the help of other people within the security apparatus have acted.

On October 1, 2011, the confessed assassin, Pakistani Mumtaz Hussain Qadri , who was 26 at the time , was sentenced to death by a court in Rawalpindi for terrorism and murder. The judge who pronounced the verdict left the country because of threats from extremists. The Pakistani Supreme Court upheld the death sentence on appeal in October 2015 .

Two months after Taseer, Shahbaz Bhatti was murdered on March 2, 2011, another politician who had campaigned for Asia and against Islamist laws.

On February 29, 2016, Mumtaz Hussain Qadri was hanged in Rawalpindi Central Prison . Protesters then blocked several streets and burned tires and portraits of Nawaz Sharif . Public bus transport has ceased and schools have been closed. Several people were injured in the riot. An avowed Taliban “avenged” the execution with a suicide attack on a court in the following week, killing 13 people.

Kidnapping his son

In 2011, Taseer's son Shahbaz Taseer was kidnapped. He was liberated by paramilitary border troops near Kuchlak in Balochistan Province in early March 2016 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Zardari confidante shot dead in Islamabad , blick.ch
  2. ^ Present In Our Memory Games , outlookindia.com
  3. ^ Partition of the heart , guardian.co.uk
  4. ^ Salmaan Taseer to be new Punjab governor ( Memento of November 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), dailytimes.com
  5. ^ Taliban opponents killed by bodyguards , n-tv.de
  6. ^ "Punjabi Taliban" are a reality, says Salman Taseer , tribune.com.pk
  7. ↑ Pakistan's Punjab region on knife-edge as extremists take hold, says governor , guardian.co.uk
  8. ↑ Pakistan's government promises a pardon for Christ , spiegel.de
  9. ^ Asia Bibi likely to be pardoned by President Asif Ali Zardari ( Memento of November 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), criticalppp.com
  10. ↑ ICAO also releases Taseer flight evidence , thenews.com.pk
  11. ↑ Resolution moved against Governor Taseer for violating law  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , thefinancialdaily.com@1@ 2Submission: Dead Link / thefinancialdaily.com  
  12. ↑ Omantel acquires 65 percent shares of WorldCall ( Memento of November 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), dailytimes.com.pk
  13. ^ Politicians shot dead by their own bodyguard , welt.de
  14. ^ Punjab Governor Salman Taseer assassinated in Islamabad , bbc.co.uk
  15. ↑ protests erupt assassination after Taseer , dawn.com
  16. ↑ AFP, governor of the Pakistani province of Punjab shot
  17. ^ Clergymen triumph over dead governor , spiegel.de
  18. ↑ 6,000 people gather for a funeral service , focus.de
  19. ↑ Killing of Governor deepens Crisis in Pakistan , nytimes.com
  20. ↑ Governor's murderer in Pakistan sentenced to death. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . October 1, 2011, accessed October 3, 2011 .
  21. ↑ Salman Taseer murder: Killer's appeal denied , BBC, October 7, 2015
  22. ^ Salman Taseer murder: Pakistan hangs Mumtaz Qadri. BBC News, February 29, 2016, accessed February 29, 2016 .
  23. ^ Riots in Pakistan after the execution of a murderer. In: The Standard . February 29, 2016. Retrieved February 29, 2016 .
  24. ↑ 13 dead in an attack on a court in Pakistan , DW, March 7, 2016
  25. ↑ Kidnapped governor's son freed , derstandard.at
personal data
SURNAME Taseer, Salman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Pakistani businessman and politician (PPP)
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Lahore , Pakistan
DATE OF DEATH January 4, 2011
Place of death Islamabad , Pakistan