Pakistani delegates refused visas to Canada: World Youth Congress

By Syed Hassan Ali

The Canadian High Commission turned down visa requests by all intending participants of the Fourth World Youth Congress from Pakistan citing fear that they might not return home after the 10-day event, scheduled to kick off on August 11 in Quebec.

Most delegates have received letters from the high commission each stating that the applicant could not satisfy the immigration authorities that he will leave Canada at the end of the temporary period if he is authorised to stay.Among those who have been refused visas are young graduates, professionals and civil right activists who were invited by the Peace Child International, an educational charity registered with a UN organisation, ECOSOC, having a network of more than 500 youth eco-groups in 150 countries. The agency works closely with the United Nations and its agencies to empower youth to support its member states in achieving the millennium development goals.The organisers are baffled by the situation, especially since they had notified the Canadian authorities more than two years ago about the event.One of the 17 delegates from Pakistan, Salman Dhedhi, who studies in a private university and works with the Participatory Development Initiatives as a volunteer, says they all underwent a rigorous nomination process for which over 5,000 people from across the world had applied for participation last year. In a four-month process, the 17 participants from Pakistan were finally short-listed.Though the accommodation charges of around 350 Canadian dollars were waived for its member countries by the Canadian International Development Agency, the visa and travel expenses to Quebec were nearly 100,000 Canadian dollars for which each candidate had struggled to find some sponsors. “After managing the funds, we applied for the visa but at the final stage, we learned that we cannot travel because of the assumption that we may not return after the event is over,” he adds.“Pakistan is being denied representation at the event that is expected to bring together 600 young delegates from over 120 countries, including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal,” he argues.The letters issued by the visa officer to almost all the Pakistani delegates says: “In reaching this decision, I considered several factors, including: your (the applicant’s) travel history, your immigration status, your family ties in Canada and your country of residence, length of proposed stay in Canada and purpose of visit, limited employment prospects in your country of residence, your current employment situation, personal assets and financial status.”When asked about the reason for turning down their requests for visa, Senior Media and Public Diplomacy Officer at the high commission Anjum Nida Rahman said: “As a federal government department, the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship (CIC) is bound by the Privacy Act not to discuss the details of any case with anyone except the applicant and certain authorised people.“CIC considers nearly one million applications a year. In many cases, because of the volume of work, even if a person is informed of the reason for the refusal, the information given may be quite brief. For instance, you may be told that based on the information available, the visa officer is not satisfied that the applicant is a genuine visitor who will leave Canada when required to.”However, she makes it clear that each application is assessed on individual merits and a multitude of factors are considered in reaching a final decision.Under the Canada Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, there is no formal right of appeal on temporary resident visa decisions, she says, adding that once the case is not approved, there are limited avenues of appeals though an applicant can always reapply if he wants to add some new information that he thinks can help him obtain the visa.Pointing out that more than 8,000 people were issued Canadian visas by the high commission last year, she says more than five million people from across the globe visit the country every year.Having lived abroad for 13 years, Mishelle Raza is another delegate who has been denied a visa. The visa officer claimed that the applicant has a low travel history though she has attended several international conferences in the past, most recent being the international Young Leaders Conference, she laments.“We have no business to stay in Canada after the congress. This is a learning opportunity for us and we hope that we can grow and groom ourselves through such an experience,” she clarifies. However, the denial of visas to almost all the delegates on the same grounds puts a question mark on their claim that they assess the case of every individual separately, she observes.Khalida Brohi is yet another delegate selected from Karachi for the event. Presently working for a non-governmental organization, the last international event she had attended was held in the Philippines. However, like other applicants her request for a visa was turned down by the Canadian High Commission.The delegates selected from other parts of the country were Tahseen Asghar, Waqas Banori, Farhan Bogra, Anam Gill, Maimoona Gul, Adnan Hakeem, Javed Hussain, Mohammad Iqbal, Tamour Ishraq, Sohaib Khaliq, Saima Khan, Faridullah Khan, Sumair Khattak and Anila Zahid.“Following the visa refusal, we started contacting the secretariat for youth affairs, ministry of foreign affairs, the Canadian High Commissioner in Islamabad, Governor General of Canada Michaelle Jean and Canadian Minister for Citizenship and Immigration Diane Finley, amongst the countless others,” Mr Dhedhi recalls, adding that Federal Secretary for Youth Affairs Ashfaq Mehmood forwarded a letter to Malik Qamar Abbas Khokar, the Assistant Director (Americas) at the Foreign Ministry recommending our cases. However, despite our repeated attempts and the requests forwarded by the international director of the World Youth Congress Series and the foreign office in Islamabad, a positive response by the high commission is still awaited, he says.It is pertinent to note that dozens of major conventions are held in Canada as part of the 400th anniversary celebrations of Quebec. However, organisers of a series of conventions, including the Francophonie Summit, planned for the coming months are pulling their hair out over Canadian immigration authority’s denial of visas to a number of guests from various countries.According to media reports, opposition parties in Ottawa accuse the federal government of being overzealous by refusing to let many of the invited guests in. They say the situation is shameful and it hurts Canada’s image.When the issue was raised in the House of Commons, Immigration Minister Diane Finley said “It was impossible to guarantee that all requests would be approved because every single one was reviewed individually.”“The security and protection of our people here is our first responsibility,” Ms Finley said without further explaining the reason for turning down so many visa requests.

Postscript: Two applicants aspiring to attend the congress have been issued visa by the authorities as they re-applied after this story was carried by Daily Dawn, the most widely circulated Engligh newspaper in Pakistan, on July 19, 2008.

Lanf of the "impure"

I write this with numerous apologies to those who might think I am exaggerating.

August 14, 1947 was supposed to be a dawn of happiness and joy for millions of Muslims of the Sub-continent, when their struggle met a logical end in the form of a new state, which they named PAKISTAN or "land of the pure".

But over the years, this land has become so impure and dirty that the stench that arises from it is far awful than the decomposed body of an orphan who has died on the streets, while insensitive people pass by and throw money at him thinking he is alive and just acting to get alms.

I still remember the words that I read of an American lawyer in the Aimal Kansi case, who stood tall in a US court and said so proudly that "Pakistanis would sell their mothers for 20 dollars". Furious as it may make one, those words fit so well today on us Pakistanis, but we don't seem to be learning from our ignominious mistakes.

Handing over our own countrymen to outsiders for a couple of thousand dollars and earning millions like the "enlightened" general Pervez Musharraf said in his autobiography is one thing, but giving away our sisters, daughters and mothers to infidels so they can satiate their barbarity is something that should throw us deep down the abyss of shame and humiliation.

One such sister in case is Dr Afia Siddiqui or prisoner No 650, held in Bagram jail, Afghanistan, for over five years now. She has gone through every form of torture and cruelty that a sick and sadist mind can invent. But to our utter disgust, no Pakistani leader – secular, liberal or religious – has yet taken up her issue, while people in the British parliament can feel Dr Siddiqui's pain from thousands of miles away. That is the humanity that they have and we lack.

We as a nation have failed badly and as a state have flopped to the extent of surpassing all yardsticks of the meaning of the word. What is the use of a country when it cannot protect your dignity, when it cannot feed your wife and children, when you can be kidnapped by your own intelligence agencies and traded for money with foreigners? And then you know that you are now at their mercy; and that no one will raise their voice for you unless, of course, you are a British, American or Australian citizen.

Pakistan has from day one been a battlefield for outside forces – the British, Arabs, Americans and Chinese. Everyone has tested their strength in our land but through all the wars, we have foolishly owned them as our own; our leaders telling their foreign masters that it is "as much our fight as it is theirs".

Time is surely an excellent judge and today I am sorry to say that perhaps the making of Pakistan wasn't fruitful as it should have been. The huge sacrifices and numerous murders and rapes of the Muslims of the Sub-continent, who wanted a glimpse of this "paradise", have all gone down the drain. Pakistan has turned into the "land of the impure".

No Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Another hours-long sultry night has somehow passed without electricity in a third-floor apartment in the city’s suburbs.The window curtains remained open throughout the stifling night but no breeze blew to lessen the suffocation inside. Attempting to break the silence that overwhelmed the night before, birds started chirping, though the morning heralded no reason to be happy about since the air was yet still and power not restored.As I drew closer to the window in a bleak hope for wind to blow or clouds to shower, I could only see a news-hawker struggling to throw a newspaper roll, bound with a rubber band, into the fenced balcony of an apartment. After a few attempts he did succeed as the roll landed with a thud on the terrace and he moved on.The hawker must be in a hurry to drop dailies at several other residences before the sun rises and stands above in the sky. In the news business, freshness and deadlines matter. And in the quest for that freshness many people like me, who spent a stuffy night without sleep, were waiting for the newspaper knowing well what little relief could it really bring home when things around were not pleasant.Even towards the day’s climax the maddening calmness was to change only into chaos and commotion. Many poor people would die due to heat-stroke while waiting in long queues for their turn to secure a bag of wheat flour on a subsidy. While there was no respite for those better-off either in the absence of electricity as with the hike in fuel prices, generators have become unaffordable to a large segment of society.The morning broadcasts of holy verses on radio would soon convert to news bulletins which would be counting the toll of people dying due to heat-stroke or gunshots in the name of robberies, politics or religion. In this utter despair, is it the lawyers’ movement planned for the day or the postponed budget session that people can bank on? I fear neither.Taps were without water. The UPS had stopped working long ago. And I looked again for the typical fluffy clouds which might break the silence and the rain might decide to show up earlier than expected.—HA

Chiselling away impurities

Carving out images to life is not an easy task, but for some young artists who exhibited their sculptures last week, it didn’t seem very difficult either. From fibreglass to terracotta, wood and white cement, each material was distinctively chosen to suit the figures and their subjects that were put on display.
The Russian Science and Culture Centre (Friendship House), which has been hosting a variety of cultural activities for five decades in the city, offered its premises free of cost to the sculptors for the exhibition. The group show that remained open round the week ended here on Sunday.
Four large-sized relief sculptures in fibreglass by Saqib Jamal have one thing in common: all their figures are dancing. “The world looks to me in motion as if it has been placed on a dancing board. Everyone is running away from love, beauty and nature,” he says, describing his subject as naach. By using figures from different backgrounds, the young sculptor, a graduate of the Central Institute of Art and Craft, perhaps has tried to make the point that cultures do not make any difference when it’s about ‘the dance.’
The impassive face and the one with sad expressions depicting the growing despondency in the world are put up by Saleem Raza, an NCA graduate and currently teaching the art of sculpture at the Sadequain Institute. He has given a refined look to the wood that he used to express his subject. His small sculptures are equally impressive as he has skilfully used terracotta to perfect the heart-rending figures in desperate plight.
The very emblem of declining human values is two big and three small sculptures of limbs. Using mixed media for her artwork, Kanwal Khattak Khan – through big and strong to small and weak limbs in series – epitomizes the regression of mankind. An alumna of the Arts Council of Pakistan, the young sculptor says she does not want to compromise the art for the sake of commercialism. “See, one may not like to decorate his home with this ugly face of society,” says Ms Khan while referring to her sculptures and adds “these are my true feelings and I have not compromised on them.”
Shahid Hussain, who could not attend the exhibition for personal reasons, is represented by his four sculptures of a woman. He has used white cement and mixed media.
Of the three relief sculptures in fibreglass put up by Nazia Islam, ‘Approaching the hands of a wall clock’ grasps the viewer’s attention the most. The sculpture reflects time’s fleeting nature and people running after it. Rafia Maniar put up only two sculptures, both figuring a straight-faced man. They are so aesthetically sculpted that they look deceptively simple. Through their positioning, however, they become the bearers of the artist’s observation of the world around her. The kneeling man with an impassive face depicts the slavish behaviour of our society in general.
The force of profound hard work by young sculptors does touch the heart of viewers and the curator, Shakeela Waheed, who has also taught the art to some of the young exhibitors, deserves commendation for a job well done.—HA

Graffiti speaks

No one can fix an accurate price tag on defacement of walls and bridges in this city though some people profess to see an aesthetic value in the passion for what they call an artwork. Such ‘artwork’ is rarely reported though it covers everything from toilet doodles to political graffiti on street walls, bridges and flyovers.
There are so many of them in this city that one generally ignores such squiggles but a few do catch one’s sight. For instance, the poorly written one ‘Perfume Chowk’, born a couple of years ago in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, has spread to many other parts of the city by now. The psyche that public space is up for grabs perhaps works behind such ‘art’ potential to appear on walls.
If one looks closely, one will notice all kinds of slogans from advertising catchwords to political cries sprayed or painted on the walls of public property. One such picturesque site is a short wall along the city’s main artery near Karsaz that carries a public message by traffic police perhaps. It was almost two weeks ago that some graffiti artists sneaked over the place to draw their lines and successfully managed to give it an artistic touch. Interestingly, no one at the helms of affairs has caught its notice or may be there are some more important tasks ahead.—HA

Moving threats

What will you do if all of a sudden you find a bomb in your car? At least you won’t sit idle to let the bomb go off so easily unless you are a suicide bomber. With this preamble, I may mention that most cars on the city roads are carrying a great risk that involves the lives of all road users.
A decade ago when the compressed natural gas was introduced in the country as a cost-effective fuel for automobiles, we all rushed to get our cars converted to the environmentally-friendly fuel system. Over the years the city witnessed a mushroom growth of CNG vehicles and gas stations.
Experts say regular examination of cylinders is a must to avoid any mishap. But it seems procrastination is our national trait. In this case too, hardly any of us bothers to get the cylinder and gas kit properly examined on a regular basis. Our daring drivers and cagey car owners conveniently ignore their responsibility about such an inspection. Perhaps we, the Karachians, are accustomed to bomb threats or we prefer to learn through hard experience.—HA

Double one seven

“Pakistan Railway forms the lifeline of the country.” This is at least what the PR really claims to be according to its official website. No doubt, as far as the rail network is concerned it was very well designed by our British masters many decades ago.
Now after the years of neglect, new trains have been launched, railway stations have been given a much needed facelift, and above all e-ticketing system has been introduced, as the officials say, to cope up with the fast changing business demands. However, the picture is not all that bright, as a friend says problems start right from there as you call the well publicized railway inquiry number to obtain simple information about trains. His ordeal goes like this.
He was at his office one evening when his mother asked him to get her seat reserved in one of the trains for Khanelwal, a district in Punjab. Having no access to internet, he could not use the e-ticketing option. For information about train timings and fares, he kept dialing the number just to hold the receiver and hear the continuous monotonous bells. He left for the City Station to get the inquiry and reservation done. To his utter surprise, it wore a deserted rather scary look at night with all its lights off and windows of all counters closed. A man in civvies approached him to say that everything there gets closed at night and he better visit the station the next morning for an inquiry.
Feeling disgusted, he moved to inquire about the timings from the Cantonment Station on the gate of which he was charged ten rupees as the parking fee. Although that station looked better with all its lights on, he could not find a single staffer on duty to ask about the fares and timings except the platform’s ticket checker who did not know the exact fares. He found two policemen with cigarettes in their hands, puffing smoke in the air. When the friend asked them about a responsible officer of the railway to get the basic information, he was told to visit the assistant station master (ASM). With his tolerance level exceeding all limits, he took brisk steps towards the office of ASM as he thought to complain about all the sufferings he had been undergoing that night. In no time, however, he found out that it was not all that easy as there was no officer on duty. He waited for him outside the office for 20 minutes until he decided to return home with a heavy heart.
Just at that moment, he saw a police constable writing something in a register in the office of railway police. The friend knocked at the door and he was permitted to come in. The constable, in close to his retiring age, asked with a smiling face how he could help him. After getting all the required information about the train timings and fares and thanking the policeman, my friend with this dreadful experience decided never to buy a railway ticket what to talk of a journey by train in future.—HA