sameen mohsin

Traveller, explorer, writer, passionate human.

[Asma Humayun @AsmaHumayun]

𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶

Using terms such as 'mentally ill', 'psycho', or impaired 'zehni tawazun' in a political context to discredit individuals is unfortunate and stigmatizing. Furthermore, it is a misleading concept that people with mental illness cannot make a statement or a decision.

There is no evidence (during the press conference) that the Commissioner’s capacity was impaired. His expressions (mentioning suicide/ hanging) might have been emotionally influenced by stress/duress, but the content of his confession/accusations cannot be ascribed to any mental disorder.

Either he is being truthful or he isn’t. In either case, an inquiry into the facts is needed, not his mental state. Being untruthful is certainly not synonymous with being mentally unwell.

If anything, he should be protected from further pressures so that he can fully contribute to the process of investigation.

[Usama Khilji @UsamaKhilji]

Arrest of @salmanAraja for exercising right to peaceful assembly is unacceptable. Rob the people’s mandate, rig his constituency, & then arrest him for protesting is an affront to democracy & fundamental rights. Also counterproductive as this will raise temp. #ReleaseSalmanRaja

[Hussain Nadim @HNadim87]

Not a youth, women or any dignity in sight.

Welcome to PDM 2.0, only this time built on a stolen public mandate.

#Election2024pakistan
#PakistanElection2024
#Election2024

[sidra qasim @sidraqasim]

.@RBatniji is one of the most respected entrepreneurs in Silicon valley. He lost 37 members of his family on 18th Nov by an Israeli airstrike. He recently met with Secretary Blinken and here is what he shared,

"I am Rajaie Batniji. I take no pride and no honor in being here.

I was born in Gaza and immigrated to California as a young child. I am Rajaie Batniji. I take no pride and no honor in being here. Many of my fellow Palestinian Americans discouraged me from speaking with you today, concerned that this discussion was solely performative. I share their concern.

I come here out of a sense of duty, to try – as futile as it may be – to save my family in Gaza from being killed. I was born in Gaza and immigrated to California as a young child. I grew up visiting Gaza often, and those visits shaped me in many ways. I personally experienced some of the violence of occupation.

I studied the history of the region at Stanford, completed my doctorate in international relations at Oxford as a Marshall Scholar – honoring the legacy of one of your predecessors in this office – and became a physician focused on the health of those that have the least privilege. I’m an entrepreneur who builds teams and technologies that improve American health care.

I would rather not be here today. Mr. Secretary, you have provided the weapons and the political cover that enabled the murder of 65 members of my family, mostly women and children, over the past four months. In strikes in mid-November, three generations of my family were killed by missiles as they sought shelter and safety. I carry their memories with me. I see their crushed bodies when I close my eyes.

The survivors in my family are homeless. Some 70% of homes in Gaza have been destroyed, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal, along with almost all the schools, all the universities, many of the hospitals, the mosques, the churches, the historical sites and the public records.

My paternal grandparents’ home in Shejaiya had been among the last homes of my family still standing. This is the home where I was born. It collapsed in a “controlled demolition” just before the new year.

According to our own US intelligence agencies, Israel used 29,000 air-to-ground munitions during the first two months of its assault on Gaza. That’s more than were used in the years of the Iraq War – and Gaza is less than one thousandth the size.

No one I know in Gaza has a home, or possessions beyond what they carried as they fled Israeli bombardment.

My family may be better off than most in Gaza and they are still hungry. I spoke with my mom’s brother this week, and he told me he has lost almost 20 kilograms (44 pounds). Despite your promises, food aid has not been able to reach Gaza to come anywhere near meeting the need. It is blocked at every opportunity, including by Israeli protestors at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, and by Israeli inspections and within Gaza by the Israeli military. According to the United Nations, 4 out of 5 of the hungriest people anywhere in the world are in Gaza. You know that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, provides food for most Gazans and critical infrastructure for other aid organizations. Yet, after Israel made unverified allegations that a handful of UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 attacks, you cut the funding for UNRWA in what I can understand only as an act of collective punishment. I fear this makes you, and me – as an American – party to the use of starvation as a weapon of war.

My cousins in Gaza, who are physicians like me, have no place to practice medicine. Their hospitals have been destroyed or incapacitated. After moving from Shifa to al-Aqsa hospital, only to be evacuated from each by the Israeli military after seeing patients and colleagues killed, they are now living in tents in Rafah and al-Mawasi, using their surgical skills to repair leaks in their tents while the bodies of wounded Palestinians go untreated, and often unretrieved.

I have worked extensively in global health and wrote a series of research papers in 2009 on what we thought then was a Palestinian health crisis. We could never, though, have imagined this – the complete destruction of Gaza’s health care system is unprecedented.

Even the dead among my family were not spared. Satellite images show that Israeli bulldozers and tanks desecrated the graveyards where my grandparents and great grandparents were resting. I hope to bury their remains again one day.

What do you wish to be your legacy, Secretary Blinken? You cannot say you didn’t know. You cannot say that you did not knowingly and materially support these deaths, which a US federal court and the International Court of Justice have both determined plausibly constitute genocide. I am the father of three young children in San Francisco. As adults, I am certain they will reflect on this “genocide” with horror. It will be taught in our classrooms and remembered in our museums as we vow never to repeat it.

I ask you to use the full power of your office and every bit of leverage the US has to allow aid to reach all of Gaza, including in the north, where hundreds of thousands of people remain in desperation. And, to resume the funding for UNRWA, which will be essential to the distribution of any aid. I ask you to uphold a rules-based order – which serves our long-term interests – by calling Israel’s indiscriminate bombing that has largely killed women and children, the attacks on health care and the use of starvation as a weapon of war as the war crimes you and I know they are. Your words matter, Mr. Secretary.

I feel indignity sitting before you in this comfortable conference room while my family desperately awaits word about a ceasefire, in the dark, hungry, and in tents in fear that the Israeli military will kill them at any moment.

In a dignified world, I would be asking for justice, not mercy. That day will come.

I hope that you, and this administration, can act quickly to bring our nation to the right side of history before it is far too late.I ask you to uphold a rules-based order – which serves our long-term interests – by calling Israel’s indiscriminate bombing that has largely killed women and children, the attacks on health care and the use of starvation as a weapon of war as the war crimes you and I know they are. Your words matter, Mr. Secretary.

I feel indignity sitting before you in this comfortable conference room while my family desperately awaits word about a ceasefire, in the dark, hungry, and in tents in fear that the Israeli military will kill them at any moment.

In a dignified world, I would be asking for justice, not mercy. That day will come.

I hope that you, and this administration, can act quickly to bring our nation to the right side of history before it is far too late.

[sameen mohsin @sameenmohsin]

@manihammad Good luck!

[Quds News Network @QudsNen]

"If you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms."

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell suggests that the US revisits its policy on arming Israel.

[Dawn.com @dawn_com]

Editorial: Powerful quarters should realise that meddling in civilian affairs is no longer acceptable to voters.

Read the full editorial: https://t.co/c1aaQxhVcM

#DawnToday

[Asad Gokal @asadgokal]

Heartening scenes in Kurram Agency. Interfaith unity slogans being raised after PTI backed MWM's Hameed Hussain emerged victorious in NA-37. Defeat of extremists striving fr sectarian divide in the area. May this unity prevail & flourish Kurram in next 5 years.

[H. @pseudowitch6]

This is so fascinating, so brave : two men have put up a fight all night long in one of the NA constituency, NA 85. The candidate Khudadad Kalyar didn’t back down, the RO Shoaib Nissoana didn’t sign the fake result. This is a fight for civilian supremacy playing out in real time.

[shah. @xzydc]

Nawaz Sharif had to cheat against a cancer patient to win & Khawaja Asif had to make late night calls again to beat an elderly mother who he terrorised.

Small men in big offices.

[Zunaira Inam Khan @ZunairaInam]

#Elections2024Pakistan

[Kapil Dev کپل دیو @KDSindhi]

A proud moment for #Pakistan as Dr Mahesh Kumar Malani has once again become the #ONLY candidate from #Hindu or any #minority community to win an NA seat in #GeneralElections2024. He got 132,061 votes against ex CM Sindh Arbab Ghulam Rahim from NA215 Tharparkar. #PakistanForAll

[Containeristan @guldaar]

Amina, daughter of incarcerated leader Mian Mehmood ur Rasheed, addressing the peaceful gathering of NA128 voters outside of the RO office.

The courage & resilience of women in this sham election is exemplary. Legends emerging, humbling men, mobilizing workers, creating allies.

[Umair Javed @umairjav]

Old NA-126/now NA-128 is a PTI safe seat by every measurable metric (highest HDI, literacy, HH income in the country btw), and has been for 12 straight years.

Comical to think that a random upstart on a non-N ticket could even come close to winning.

[Salaar Khan @Brainmasalaar]

A bunch of ‘independents’ - with random vegetables and household items as their symbols - have put up one of the greatest fights that this nation has ever witnessed.

[sameen mohsin @sameenmohsin]

That's my constituency, where PTI has won every time. Nobody's buying this complete flipping of results.

[Syed Muzammil Shah @SyedMuzammilOFL]

I myself surveyed NA 128 in Lahore last week. 8 out of 10 people did not even know who Aun Chaudhary was. Turns out, he defeats Salman Akram Raja from Lahore today; PTI’s most popular and promising candidate this time around. I mean, what a farcical bulldozing. Don’t tell us to believe this.

[Dr.Arfana Mallah @Arfana_Mallah]

Sindh is the only province that elected two Hindu candidates for NA seats from the Muslim-majority areas while defeating JUI and JI. Sindhi voters are truly secular and progressive among all.

[Tamkenat @TamkenatM]

We’ve all been speaking up against the genocide in Gaza but it does mean that we give up on our own country. This is what the Palestinians have been fighting for; a sovereign state. Fighting for the rights of our nation & of Palestinians doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.