ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned to Islamabad from London on Thursday morning. He will face corruption charges in the Accountability Court.
In July this year Pakistan’s Supreme Court removed Sharif from office after he failed to declare income from his son’s Dubai-based company.
Since his removal from office, Sharif has been trying to maintain his grip on his party. Last month, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) re-elected him as chairman after a constitutional amendment was passed by Parliament where the PML-N enjoys a two-third majority. The vote confirmed his position despite his removal.
Nawaz Sharif had traveled to London where his wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, underwent surgery for throat cancer.
Soon after returning from London, Nawaz Sharif moved into the Government Guest House in Islamabad where he held meetings with senior members of his party and discussed the political situation, party affairs, and the charges against him.
According to the PML-N leadership, Nawaz Sharif will face the charges and that he is determined.
Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry told reporters in Islamabad, “Nawaz Sharif is back in Pakistan, not only to face the court cases but to continue the politics.”
Last month an anti-corruption court indicted Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz, and her husband, Safdar Awan, but all three pleaded not guilty.
Before deciding to return to Islamabad, a high-level closed-door meeting was held in London between Nawaz Sharif, his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, who is also the chief minister of Punjab, and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. Party affairs and preparations for the next general elections due in 2018 were the primary focus of the consultative meeting.
Member of National Assembly, Rana Afzal, was among those who met Sharif after his arrival in Islamabad on Thursday morning.
Rana told Arab News, “In my meeting with ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, I found him very confident, very determined ... but he wants all state institutions to work within their jurisdictions.”
While commenting on the London meeting, Rana added, “The party is very clear that in case of any restriction on Nawaz Sharif’s political activities, his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif will lead the party.”
“There is no doubt in the party… Shahbaz Sharif performed very well in Punjab as chief minister.”
Though it was not officially stated, there are some party stalwarts, including former Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who want Shahbaz Sharif — a more suitable choice — as new party chief. In a recent press conferences, Khan was not shy in rejecting the notion of Sharif's daughter heading the party.
Maryam Nawaz was recently perceived as her father’s political heir after she played a proactive role and ran her ailing mother’s election campaign while other members of her family were mostly absent from the scene. This led to speculations of rifts within the Sharif family, which she rejected in her recent statements as “exaggerated.”
Political analyst Khadim Hussian told Arab News, “To unite the party is still a major challenge for Nawaz Sharif.”
Amid court cases, the political future of Nawaz Sharif, who leads one of Pakistan’s most powerful families and the ruling PML-N party, has been hanging in the balance.
There is a possibility that he will be jailed. Nawaz Sharif and his family members allege that the cases are all politically motivated.
Pakistan’s ousted PM returns to face court cases
Pakistan’s ousted PM returns to face court cases
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
