The LUBP is honoured to be the first Pakistani blog to dedicate a full post written with an aim to introduce (and expose) the Commander-in-Chief of Pakistani pseudo-liberals, Syed Iqbal Haider.

According to Wikipedia:

Iqbal Haider (born 14 January 1945) is a Senior Advocate of Supreme Court and the Co-Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). He is also a former Senator, former Federal Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs from November 1993 to December 1994, and Former Attorney General of Pakistan.

Mr Haider’s political career is more in line with his mental and moral state. Not unlike other back-stabbers of the PPP (e.g., Meraj Khalid, Hanif Ramay, Ghulam Mustafa Khar, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat), Syed Iqbal Haider has managed to connive with the military establishment of Pakistan, on more than one occasions, thus being an active contributory to conspiracies against democracy.

His most recent performance, in service of his masters of the ISI, was the ugly role that he played in the Supreme Court in various politically motivated cases against President Zardari and the PPP (e.g., NRO, 18th amendment etc). Interestingly, Syed Iqbal Haider has not shown much interest in certain other cases (e.g., missing persons case, Asghar Khan’s case) which are pending in the Supreme Court and have potentially damning implications for the ISI.

These days he is frequently seen in Dr Shahid Masood’s and Kamran Khan’s talk shows in the company of Akram Sheikh advocate and Qazi Anwar advocate. Birds of a feather, indeed, flock together.

Most recently he back-stabbed his own benefactor, Asma Jahangir advocate, by campaigning in support of Ahmed Awais, a close relative of ISI’s General Hamid Gul, in the SCBA elections.

Syed Iqbal Haider’s is an opportunist political career which is consistent with a pseudo-liberal (lack of) morality. He joined the PPP only in 1989 when he was appointed an Advisor to the Chief Minister Sindh. Later he served as President of the PPP Karachi and certain other positions. However, because of his personal opportunism and selective morality, he could not continue to support the party while in opposition. Therefore, in 2005 Iqbal Haider resigned from the party in order to earn some fame and dollars through his ‘business’ in human rights.

For a complete introduction, it is pertinent to refer to some comments and posts which I found through a quick google search on the internet.

To my pleasant reassurance, all of these comments are from those persons who I really respect because of their clear political commitment to the people of Pakistan and to democracy.

However, I was hardly surprised to see that not a single pseudo-liberal blogger or media person had written a single post in condemnation of Syed Iqbal Haider’s mischievous role in today’s Pakistan. And why would they? After all, Mr Haider is their CnC.

Here are some worth reading comments / excerpts on Syed Iqbal Haider:

Raza Rumi writes:

Ironically, this time large sections of the electronic media are hyperactive participants in the process, which is most likely going to push the country towards another man-made disaster. It is appalling to note that TV talk shows are focusing on extra-constitutional remedies. For instance, a Mr-Know-It-All anchor, whose acrobatics are well-known, posed a question to his (utterly uninspiring) guests to discuss the merits and demerits of the Bangladesh model and the so-called ‘General Kakar formula’. While the responses of the guests were entirely predictable, the most shocking response came from none other than former minister and Senator Iqbal Haider who has been a dyed-in-wool democrat. He confidently and at times vociferously advocated the “General Kakar formula” which essentially relates to the intervention by the army chief in a situation where a political deadlock emerges. One had always sympathised with this reputed lawyer’s position on the problems with the way his former political party – the PPP – was led and managed but to hear pleas for an extra-constitutional intervention was shocking to say the least.

Senator Haider has also been the co-chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan – an organisation that has always resisted any role of the military in politics. If an experienced politician, a civil society activist, on an independent media channel, is calling for the military to intervene then it can be sadly concluded that whether the government survives or not, democratisation of Pakistan will remain a fanciful notion.

Shaheryar Ali writes:

The chilling fact that Dr Aafia Sidiqui was an ideologically motivated Islamist in contact with Al-Qaidia puts a lot of things in perspective, the people whom she identified with have blood on their hands, and they are responsible for heinous crimes against humanity, suicide bombings which have killed innocent civilians, woman and children. The want to bring a system in which there will no human rights and fascist states will be formed. She agreed to all this and was an active supporter of this monstrous ideology. Despite this Pakistani secularists and human rights activists climbed on the band wagon of Pakistani Right wing. The dispassionate interest of Pakistani human rights activists in this should only have been on making sure that Dr Siddique gets a fair trial. But even people like Senator Iqbal Haider became a party to this Jihadi propaganda by engaging in the emotional circus constructed by the family. Pakistani secularists went out of line and ignored the warning signals which were always there.

Rabia Shakoor writes:

Speaking of Iqbal Haider, he was on live with Talat Husain a few days ago endorsing the Swat peace deal. I think this is a pretty clear indication that this country is finished.

Sarah Khan writes:

There are a number of common features of this despicable group: aloofness from the working class, pride in English proficiency and accent, superiority complex, hegemonic ambitions, intolerance and autocratic ideas, benevolent sympathy for the disempowered, imitation of the west, hypocritical views, aimless lives and fake activism.

Another major problem with the Pakistani pseudo-liberals (mostly from upper and middle class) is that they sit in their lounges, drink coffee or whatever and opine about this that without any appreciation of ground realities. There is a long list of pseudo-liberals in Pakistan, Iqbal Haider is indeed one of them.

Qudsia Siddiqi writes:

Ultimately, these ultranationalist yuppies can never accept a leader who takes his case to the masses like Bacha Khan, ZAB, BB, Bizenjo , Haider Bux Jatoi and GM Syed. On the other hand, they would love to hangout with opportunistic and back stabbing lawyers like Aitzaz and Iqbal Haider and their pit bull, the corrupt, compromised, closet Taliban, establishment boot licker Chaudhary Iftikhar.

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