Latest news with #Yousafzai
Express Tribune
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Court restores powers to local representatives
The Peshawar High Court has nullified amendments made by the provincial government to the Local Government Ordinance that reduced the powers and funding of elected local representatives. The court accepted petitions challenging the changes and declared the provincial government's amendments unconstitutional. A two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Farah Jamshed presided over the case. The petitions were filed by Humayun Mayar, Zubair Ali, and others, and were argued by Advocate Babar Khan Yousafzai. During the hearing, Yousafzai informed the court that local government elections were held in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in February 2022, after which the newly elected representatives took oath and began performing their duties. However, the provincial government soon initiated efforts to curtail their authority and, later that year, amended the Local Government Act. Yousafzai argued that these amendments significantly rolled back the powers of elected local bodies and stripped them of their authority to allocate and utilize development funds. These powers were instead transferred to the district administration and other government departments. He pointed out that the majority of seats in the first phase of elections were won by opposition parties, prompting the government to tighten its control by changing the law. The lawyer further contended that by shifting most powers from the Act to the Rules, the government bypassed legal safeguards. Specifically, amendments were made to Sections 23A and 25 of the Local Government Act, altering the composition of the Tehsil Local Government structure originally defined in the 2019 version of the law. He emphasized that the 2022 amendments not only took away powers from local representatives such as Tehsil Mayors and Village Council members, but also deprived them of any developmental funds for the past three years. This, he noted, had created a situation of uncertainty and pressure, as representatives face public expectations without any resources to meet them. Yousafzai argued that if such amendments were deemed necessary, they should have been applied prospectively, during future elections, rather than retroactively undermining the authority of currently elected officials under the 2019 Act. In response, the Additional Advocate General contended that the amendments were lawful and within the authority of the provincial government. He claimed the changes were presented before the provincial assembly and that the elected representatives had been granted their due rights. After reviewing the arguments, the bench declared the provincial government's amendments invalid, restoring the original powers and funding mechanisms for local government representatives as per the 2019 Local Government Act.
Express Tribune
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
ANP leads drive against minerals bill
Under the leadership of the Awami National Party (ANP) Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, a series of All Parties Conferences (APCs) opposing the proposed Mines and Minerals Bill 2025 is being successfully held across the province. Following the provincial-level APC at Bacha Khan Markaz in Peshawar, district-level conferences have taken place in Dera Ismail Khan, Charsadda, and Lower Dir, where representatives from all political parties unanimously rejected the proposed bill. Addressing the APC in Timergara, Lower Dir, hosted by ANP Lower Dir, ANP Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa General Secretary Hussain Shah Yousafzai stated that these conferences are part of the party's public awareness campaign. He explained that after holding district council meetings in all districts, the ANP is organizing APCs to raise awareness about the bill and unite political forces. So far, conferences in three districts have been completed, and the remaining will be held within the current week. Yousafzai revealed that ANP has devised a comprehensive protest plan.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Malala Yousafzai calls for leaders in India, Pakistan to de-escalate tensions
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai urged leaders in India and her native Pakistan to cool tensions between the two teetering on the brink of military conflict. 'Hatred and violence are our common enemies, not each other,' Yousafzai, a Pakistani education and human rights advocate, said Wednesday in a post on the social platform X. 'The international community must act now to promote dialogue and diplomacy.' 'Peace is the only way forward for our collective security and prosperity,' she added. Yousafzai rose to prominence in 2014 when she became the youngest Nobel Prize recipient in history at 17 years old and was recognized for her work advocating for the education of women and children in defiance of Taliban efforts to ban girls from attending school. On Wednesday, she called for both nuclear-armed countries to 'unite against the forces of division.' The request came just hours after India launched missile strikes in Pakistani territory on Wednesday and Pakistan said it shot down five Indian Air Force jets in return — an escalation of simmering tensions between the countries that bubbled over with an attack that killed more than two dozen tourists in India-controlled Kashmir last month. Pakistan's military officials said India's retaliatory strikes killed 31 people, including women and children, and called the attack 'an act of war,' but officials in India argued that they targeted terror camps. The international community has called for restraint from both sides. Speaking to Britain's Sky News on Wednesday, Yousafzai noted she also has been the victim of extremism in Pakistan but argued that further aggression won't solve the problem. 'I think we have to talk about the root cause of it — we have to talk about how it comes about,' she said. 'Because I believe that nobody is born a terrorist, nobody is born an extremist. These things are taught. This is part of an indoctrination.' The laureate said she worries about the civilians, especially children, in both countries. 'Our common enemy is extremism, terrorism and violence — not each other,' added Yousafzai, who has also spoken out against the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. 'We have to unite against these forces that try to divide us.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The world knows him as Malala's father. He's now teamed up with a Utah-based nonprofit
Raucous applause welcomed Ziauddin Yousafzai as he walked up to the podium in the Siempre in Draper, Utah, on Tuesday. Though he's an educator and New York Times bestselling author, Yousafzai acknowledged that he is best-known for his daughter, Malala, who is an advocate for girls' education and the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner. 'The world knows me as Malala's father. First, she was my daughter, but now I'm her father, and I'm so proud of this introduction — being known as father in patriarchal society,' he said. Yousafzai was the keynote speaker at the 2025 Bellwether International Annual Fundraising Gala, and he helped the organization highlight reasons for hope in a violent world. Bellwether International is a nonprofit focused on creating genocide-resistant societies and disrupting the genocide cycle. Its executive director, Rachel Miner, founded the organization while she was an undergraduate at Brigham Young University. Miner told the gala's attendees that Bellwether International's research shows, on average, genocides occur every two and a half years and that they're a premeditated act. 'Genocide is always premeditated. It's always planned. That's really morbid and gruesome, but it's also why we have hope. If it's planned, it's preventable. If it's premeditated, it's preventable,' Miner said Tuesday. Per its five-year report, Bellwether hopes 'to create a world where governments can prevent genocide (top-down), and individuals resist genocide (bottom-up) to create peaceful and plural societies.' It does that through its Bellwether Method, which consists of providing trauma healing to genocide survivors through cognitive behavioral therapy, implementing economic empowerment initiatives and advocating for religious tolerance by working with governments. Yousafzai first became acquainted with Miner and Bellwether at an interfaith and genocide art competition. His nonprofit, the Malala Fund, which he founded with his daughter in 2013, has since partnered with Bellwether International. 'Rachel is spiritually qualified to do this job,' Yousafzai said. 'This woman's heart is full of love for humanity.' Another longtime Bellwether friend also spoke at the gala: MP Brendan O'Hara from the UK Parliament, who is also a human rights spokesperson for the Scottish National Party. O'Hara recounted his first trip with Miner to Warsaw, Poland, which took place just weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine. He described running through department stores and children's clothing stores with Miner, attempting to buy 300 pairs of children's underwear for Ukrainian refugee children. 'In crisis, people show who they are, and in that crisis, I saw the Bellwether way,' he said. During his remarks on Tuesday, Yousafzai gave the backstory of Malala, who has taken after her namesake, folk heroine Malalai of Maiwand. Malalai of Maiwand was a teenage girl who rallied fighters during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Before becoming a father, Yousafzai saw a portrait of Malalai in a friend's home. The fact that Malalai of Maiwand had her own identity and voice stood out to Yousafzai. He thought to himself that if he was a father in the coming years, he would name his daughter after Malalai. 'I had this girl in my mind that she'd be known by her own name and she'd have her voice,' he said. Malala has gone on to raise her voice and advocate for the right to education — and she nearly lost her life for that cause. Malala became an education activist as a child after the Taliban took over Swat Valley, where the Yousafzai family lived, and prohibited girls from attending school. In 2012, when she was just 15 years old, Malala was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman. She was able to recover and continue her work. In just the past three years, the Malala Fund raised $65 million that's been invested in countries 'where the number of out of school girls is the highest,' Ziauddin Yousafzai said, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nigeria. According to him, Pakistan has six million girls out of secondary school. Nigeria has five million out of school, Ethiopia has two million and Brazil has 600,000. By speaking out, Malala went from being a voice for 50,000 girls to now 122 million out of school girls, her father said. 'When your rights are violated, you should be the first person to speak up,' Yousafzai said. Before concluding his remarks, Yousafzai posed a question to the audience. 'Do you want to be poor with rich values or rich with poor values? I will go for the first one,' he said. Bellwether International has three trips planned in the coming months to Bosnia, Cambodia and Cape Town, South Africa, as it continues its mission to prevent genocide.
Express Tribune
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Case delisting controversy refuses to die down
Islamabad High Court (IHC) Justice Sardar Ijaz Ishaq Khan on Thursday directed the Deputy Registrar Judicial to submit the High Court Rules to clarify whether the chief justice could withdraw a case from the court of a judge while pending hearing and send it to another bench. During the contempt proceedings against the deputy registrar, the judge said that he would pen down in his decision that there was no scope in the law to transfer a case in the way the contempt of court plea of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Mashal Yousafzai was delisted from the court's cause list. The matter started on Wednesday after all the cases related to the jail meetings of the PTI founder were slated for hearing before a three-member bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Sardar Sarfaraz Dogar on Thursday. The cases included Yousafzai's petition, which was to be heard by Justice Khan. The judge took notice of the cancellation of the cause list of his court. On the court notice, Deputy Registrar Sultan Mahmood appeared in the court and told the judge that the instructions had come from the chief justice's office. Continuing the hearing on Thursday, the judge remarked that he would not issue contempt of court notice to anyone. However, he stressed that the matter was not about the leader of a political party but about setting principles. Appearing on court notice, Islamabad Advocate General (AG) Ayaz Shaukat said that the court spoke its mind on Wednesday and now he should be heard. He added that the controversy arose to determine whether Yousafzai was the lawyer of the PTI founder or not. The AG referred to a statement from the focal person of the PTI founder who had stated that Yousafzai was no longer the lawyer of the PTI founder. Because of that controversy, the AG said, all the cases related to the PTI founder were combined and placed before a larger bench. However, Justice Khan remarked that the court had appointed a commission on that matter. He told the AG if a meeting of the commission with the PTI founder was arranged the matter would have concluded in mere 30 seconds. However, Justice Khan added, this matter was not before the court at the moment, rather the court was looking into the question whether a pending case could be transferred in this way. He said that when a lawyer tells the court that he was a lawyer, the court did not seek confirmation from every petitioner. The judge observed that the matter of combining cases and forming a larger bench was related to the judge who had been hearing the case. Accordingly, he added, the judge referred the matter to the chief justice and on that the chief justice issued an order. The court then addressed the AG: "Will you give the arguments before the larger bench on the contempt of court application?" He added that the contempt of court application would be heard by the same judge whose order had been violated. The hearing was postponed until after Eid.
