Maya Khan: fired for refusing to tender an unconditional apology

From: Dr Kamran Iqbal (cc’d to signatories below)
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012
To: Zafar Siddiqi

Dear Mr Siddiqi,

Thank you for your prompt and courageous response. We appreciate the moral courage of SAMAA TV’s stance. We hope you will continue to lead by example in developing a code of ethics and directives, which you have issued for your channel that we urge, should be made public on your website. You may want to have a look at the code of conduct guidelines of the Society of Professional Journalists, to consult while drafting your guidelines.

Also, we would like to mention here that in Ms. Maya Khan’s team which is being terminated, innocent people should not be axed, and protection for those lower ranking workers, who had no say in what Ms. Maya was doing should duly be taken care of.

We will support you in taking the step to make directives and code of ethics and conduct guidelines made public. As a citizen media consumer group, would promote and spread these improvements in other channels one by one as there had been numerous examples which deserve similar attention and correction and it is clear that flaw has been at policy design level. A group of us would be happy to meet you and/or anyone you designate to initiate a discussion on this if you desire.

We look forward to seeing the directives on your website to share with the public.

Sincerely,

Ali Kazmi, Student, Islamabad
Ali Taj, Hedge Fund manager, Winchester Fund, Cerritos, California
Ally Adnan, Director, Huawei technologies, Dallas, TX
Amna Chishty, marketing consultant, Canada
Asadullah Khan, Head of Programming, Capital TV, Islamabad
Asif Alam, Financial Services Executive, New York, NY, USA
Asif Sattar, Admin Operations at Kiers Facilities Ltd, Slough, England
Beena Sarwar, journalist, Cambridge MA/ Karachi, Pakistan
Danielle Gehrmann, linguist, Sydney, Australia
Hassan Turi, student, Agricultural university, Peshawar
Hira Kamal, concerned citizen and media person, Jeddah
Syed Hussein El-Edroos, Business Development & Training Manager, Islamabad
Prof. Dr. Ijaz Khan, Chairman, Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Dr. Kamran Iqbal, Founder & CEO, Human Voice Initiative, Karachi, Pakistan
Kamyla Marvi, Citizen, Karachi Pakistan
Kiran Nazish, Freelance Journalist
Meera Ghani, Concerned Citizen, Lahore
Mira Hashmi, film critic and teacher, Lahore
Mohsin Sayeed, journalist, Karachi
Muhammad Faraz Faheem, Senior Software Engineer, Karachi, Pakistan
Munnazir Aziz, video producer, Lodhran, Pakistan
Nadia Fazal Jamil, actor, Lahore, Pakistan
Naheed Tofiq Mooraj, Proprietor of Candle Works, Karachi
Naziha Syed Ali, journalist, Karachi
Nighat Dad, advocate, Lahore
Noman Quadri, concerned citizen, Karachi
Dr. Osama Siddique, Law Professor, Lahore
Rabia Akhtar. PhD candidate, Kansas State University, USA/Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Raza Bashir, Corporate Banking, Karachi
Saadia Toor, professor, New York,
Saba Hamid, Actor, Lahore, Pakistan
Sahar Habib Ghazi, Journalist, Palo Alto, California
Shah Hayat Ahmad, Citizen, Karachi, Pakistan
Siraj Khan, Financial Executive, Boston MA USA
Shayan Afzal Khan, a concerned citizen, Islamabad
Tammie Mahmud, Trainer & Education Program Developer, Boca Raton, FL
Usmann Rana, student, Lahore

Amal Hassan, a young mother of three, began fighting to promote women’s rights in Yemen based on her own experiences of injustice. Amal always aspired to better herself academically as she felt she truly came alive when she was learning new things, her mind opening up to novel possibilities and ideas. Like many women across Yemen, Amal is bright and gifted, she only wanted to be given the opportunity to choose her path in life, not to be forced onto a mold by others.
Raised in a traditional Muslim Yemeni household which idea of morality and properness was to stifle their girls and relegate them to household duties for her father feared social stigma, Amal was denied her hopes and dreams.
And because Amal’s fighting spirit pushed her to challenge her elders’ authority, demanding to be taken seriously, her family chose to marry her, transferring the responsibility of looking after her to another.
When a University professor came to ask for her hand in marriage, Amal thought she had found her ticket out, convinced as she was that her husband-to-be would understand her academic aspirations. And if indeed he allowed her to attend University she had to make her own way, scrapping through her savings and selling off the gold she was given as dowry.
But most troubling of all, Ahmed turned out to be an abusive and controlling husband. For 13 long years Amal’s nightmare continued. Despite her cries for help and her visible distress her family chose to turn a blind eye for divorce in Yemen equates to becoming a social pariah.
Her brother, Mogib a freelance journalist came to her rescue and stood by her side against everyone else as she announced she was seeking a divorce from her monster of a husband.
Mogib revealed that although Ahmed was quite well off financially he let Amal and her children live in a state of semi-misery, spending his money on carnal pleasures and other frivolities.
“His status of Professor and his connections within the ruling party led him to believe he could do whatever he wanted without having to face his responsibilities.”
Upon discovering that her husband had taken yet another wife, Amal decided that it was time for her to claim her freedom and walk away from this unhappy and loveless marriage.
She filed for divorce.
After many trials and tribulations, Ahmed finally agreed to let her go given provision that she would pay him the sum of $15,000, money he claimed he spent on her over the course of their years together.
As Amal thought she had been given a new lease on life, Ahmed went on betraying her in the vilest way possible.
Whenever a divorce is pronounced in a Court of Law in Yemen, the legal text stipulates that the husband has the unilateral right to revoke the ruling, recall his wife and annul the divorce for a period of 3 months. 5 days before the end of the time-period, Ahmed went to a local clerk and exercised his “recall” right.
Unable to contemplate the idea of being forced back to her husband she despised, Amal fled to Egypt with her brother and children.
Scared to come back to Yemen after having left without the necessary marital authorization, Amal turned to human rights activists, NGOs, journalists, the UN…everyone for help; hoping that someone somewhere would listen.
And indeed someone did pay attention.
A few days ago, and with the help of Human Rights Minister Hooria Mashour, Amal and Mogib were allowed under escort to go through Sana’a International Airport without fear of being apprehended.
Touched by this young lady’s tale, Minister Mashour said that she wanted Amal to become the corner stone of a new campaign for Women Rights in Yemen, adding that the Ministry would put its weight behind the project.
And although Amal knows that she still has her long fight ahead of her, she now knows that she is not alone and that her plight has been heard. Indeed there is hope for a better tomorrow.
As thousands of women across Yemen, Amal is the victim of a system which so far denied women their God given rights, forgetting that the strong and powerful had the duty to protect those less fortunate.
Today Amal is becoming the voice of Yemen’s victims…we should listen!