KARACHI: Families of Pakistani crew members aboard a cargo boat, which set sail from Dubai to Somalia but was detained by Iran four years ago, appealed to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday for their release, citing a lack of cooperation from Iranian authorities.
Raisi, who arrived in Pakistan on Monday for a three-day visit, flew to Karachi today after a brief stopover in Lahore. During his stay in Karachi, the Iranian president is slated to meet with government officials and businessmen.
The family of Jalal Ahmed, the captain of the cargo boat, along with others, staged a demonstration in front of the Karachi Press Club to highlight the difficulties they have faced in securing the release of their loved ones, who have been incarcerated in Iran’s Minab city for the past four years.
“We have come here because my brother is imprisoned in the city of Minab in Iran,” Gul Saba, Ahmed’s sister, told Arab News while urging Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to intervene in the matter to secure the release of the detained crew members.
“We also appeal to Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi to release our brother and the other ten [people] who accompanied him,” she continued.
Saba added her 45-year-old brother, who has three children, was transporting cargo from Dubai to Somalia when his ship was stopped by the Iranian authorities.
She said her family members had traveled to Iran, but there had been no response from Iranian authorities.
“No statement has come [from Iranian officials] regarding why [the Pakistani crew members] have been imprisoned,” she added. “There may be no crime involved as their cargo ship was legal.”
Arab News could not independently verify the claims made by the affected family.
Jawad Jalal, Ahmed’s 10-year-old son, also participated in the protest along with his mother, Sadia Ahmed, and aunt Saba.
“When I was six, my father was imprisoned in Iran,” he said while reminiscing how Ahmed escorted him to school before being detained.
“He should be released so he can drop me off at school once again,” he continued, holding a placard emblazoned with the demand for his father’s release from Iranian prison.
Pakistani families urge President Raisi to release cargo crew detained in Iran
https://arab.news/rg8rs
Pakistani families urge President Raisi to release cargo crew detained in Iran
- Jalal Ahmed, the cargo boat captain, was on his way from Dubai to Somalia when he was caught by Iran four years ago
- The families of detained Pakistanis say they have not been informed of the charges against Ahmed, others on the boat
Pakistan parliamentary panel discusses rollout of local messaging app for officials next year
- Officials say ‘Beep’ aims to provide a secure, locally built messaging platform for government use
- The committee voices dissatisfaction with Internet services, calls for fair 5G spectrum auction
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani parliamentary committee on Tuesday discussed plans to roll out a locally developed messaging application for government officials next year, even as lawmakers voiced strong dissatisfaction with the country’s Internet services during a hearing marked by complaints over poor connectivity.
Local media reported that the proposed app for secure official communication came up during a meeting of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication, where members also raised concerns about sluggish mobile Internet speeds and the performance of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
Pakistani officials announced last year that local engineers had developed and successfully tested a government messaging platform intended to reduce reliance on foreign applications and strengthen data security. The National Information Technology Board (NITB) said the application — known as Beep — had been successfully undergoing trial runs since 2023.
“The purpose of launching Beep is to provide a secure messaging platform for public sector employees nationwide,” NITB Chief Executive Faisal Iqbal Ratyal told the committee during the hearing, according to Pakistan’s English-language broadsheet Dawn, expressing hope that the project would meet its June 30, 2026 deadline.
In an official statement issued after the meeting, the committee praised the National Information Technology Board, calling its performance commendable and its projects aligned with the broader national interest.
The statement said the committee also expressed dissatisfaction with the PTA’s performance, noting that complaints raised in successive meetings largely related to the quality of Internet services and that no significant improvement had been observed so far.
It said official assessments portraying services as satisfactory did not reflect ground realities, as the public faced “severe difficulties” accessing Internet services, with connectivity in some areas described as almost non-existent.
Lawmakers also called for the forthcoming 5G spectrum auction to be conducted in a fair and transparent manner, reiterated that the auction should be held in Pakistani rupees and said spectrum prices should not be set unnecessarily high.
Any concessions granted to telecom operators, the committee said, must be tied to improvements in network and infrastructure.
Pakistani users across the country have frequently complained of sluggish 4G Internet connections in recent months, citing disruptions to calls on messaging platform WhatsApp.
Last year, media reports said the government was installing an Internet firewall to monitor and regulate online content, prompting concern among digital rights activists.
The PTA has rejected assertions that a national firewall was responsible for disruptions, saying in September that slow Internet speeds were due to outdated infrastructure and rising data consumption.
