The Bail Refused

December 15, 2006

The Additional District & Session Judge, Malik Abudl Qayum, while hearing the bail application of Faisal, has rejected the application and instead advised to take the bail application to High Court.

So Faisal would remain in Adiala Jail for more days till High Court decides his bail application.

The case is fast becoming a human rights violation as will now become an international embarrassment for President Musharraf. With such sloppy work conducted by FIA/PTA was not enough, now the judge fails to see a reason to grant the bail to an innocent person.

Shocking new development

Another very shocking development. It’s lately discovered that PTA/FIA has raided the wrong office and premises. In the FIR filed by FIA against Cogilent, IP address 203.99.57.224/29 is mentioned as the culprit from where the alleged illegal activity was taking place. However, upon close inspection, it was discovered that the IPs were not in use by Cogilent Solutions at all and were never assigned to them. The IP address 203.99.57.224/29 mentioned in FIR is in use by some other individual within the country.

This has proven without doubt that PTA/FIA team has in fact raided the wrong place, wrong company without investigations and due diligence. They’ve nabbed wrong and innocent person and severely damaged reputation of the young software house. Poor Faisal is still in jail for last 10 days and now he’s proven innocent without any shred of doubt. Let’s hope that he gets out on bail tomorrow.

Peaceful Protest

December 13, 2006

In order to get the innocent incarceration of the Cogilent’s CEO ended from FIA custoday, the friends of Faisal and Cogilent organized a protest rally in Islamabad in front of the Ministry of Information Technology.

The protest was to bring to light the injustice which continues to this day (10 days and counting) with no relief in sight. We tried to approach everyone and presented our case to the best of our abilities, but no one seems to be listening and helping out. It is now clearly established that there was no illegal activity and that the raid itself was illegal. And the longer an innocent person remains behind bars, the bigger the human rights violation case it becomes in Pakistan.

The protest rally was supported by PASHA (Pak Software Houses Assoc), ISPAK (Internet Service Provider Assoc. of Pakistan), ACCO (Association of Call Centers), and many other networks including Pakistan ICT Policy Monitor Network. As a result over 150 people showed up to protest peacefully at the Ministry’s office in Islamabad. The event was well covered by the media. GEO, ARY, AAJ, ATV and other channels. The News, The Jang and other newspapers were also present to highlight the issue. However, PTV, the government mouthpeace, was reluctant to cover the event.

We do hope that this ordeal will end soon and PTA would realize their error and would take appropriate steps within their own organization.

In response to the protest, PTA decided to go on a smear campaign and published various press releases attacking the company and its activities. What alarmed and surprised everyone was that all the allegations made by PTA in the press release were baseless and devoid of facts. If they really had something, then some solid evidence should have been brought forward, but to this day, PTA/FIA have not produced anything. And such smear attacks are not good for the Industry. It shows the vendetta mentality within the government and will only create further paranoia within the nascent industry of government’s pigheadedness.

Wheels of Justice – Derailed

So what can I say.. the wheels of justice keep getting derailed …. here is the latest….that we received from Pakistan…

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As informed, yesterday (dec 11 2006) we had a detailed meeting with Gen. Shahzada (chairman) and his team at PTA. After confessing by the Director who conducted the raid himself, Mr. Sajjad Awan, that the raid and arrest of Faisal was a mistake, General agreed for withdrawal of the case immediately. We were told in the meeting that we’d get the letter from PTA to FIA for with drawl of the case same evening, yesterday. We discussed various legal modalities with PTA back and forth yesterday and discussions were held after consulting our lawyers to find out a legal solution that how Faisal could be got out of prison by today, Tuesday. An appropriate mode was agreed and PTA was working to issue the letter to FIA. We on behalf of ISPAK also sent the letter (copied below) to PTA as required by them to cover the legal formalities.

PTA didn’t issue the letter till last night. We were then told by Mr. Sajjad Awan (after many attempts to get him on phone) that letter would be delivered to FIA first thing in the morning and we could then pursue the case with FIA to present jointly to court for immediate acquittal of Faisal.

This morning, we contact PTA and Faisal’s brother, Tahir, who used to work in PTA went to PTA personally to get the letter issued. But PTA changed its stance and we were told that their DG Law has refused to issue with drawl letter for ‘legal’ reasons and that case can not be withdrawn at this investigation stage. We told them that we’ve already consulted our lawyers and they, after consulting FIA, told us the proper course to follow. But PTA didn’t move and no letter is issued as I write this. PTA told us that they would not oppose the bail application of Faisal to be heard by court on Friday. We told them that even if PTA opposes the bail application, Faisal would be out on bail inshallah as PTA/FIA don’t have a single evidence to present this to the court.

A Ray of Hope

A ray of hope ….
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This is in the series of articles on the events as they unfold in Pakistan. Please do read the previous articles to make a better sense of the fiasco created by ineptitude by Pak Telecom Authorities. This is what I received from Pakistan….

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Today, December 11, 2006, we had a detailed meeting with Chairman PTA. We also called Tahir to attend on the company’s behalf. Me and Saad were along with Tahir were there and General has called his team. After an hour long discussion, presentation of evidence by us and illogical remarks by his team, General agreed that the raid wasn’t correct and it was a mistake.

He agreed for withdrawal of case immediately. We told him that Faisal would be bailed out anyway by Thursday inshallah. So PTA must act and get him released by tomorrow, Tuesday. PTA team is working on this right now as I write this. They’ve to submit a written acquittal report to FIA and FIA would then present this report to Court tomorrow, if things go well and FIA is able to move quickly.

General was hoping that we’d make a mercy appeal to him whereas we contested our case on merits and innocence of the IT company. Finally, he had to agree to what we’ve been saying.

We’d again meet PTA/Ministry after this is done and would ask them to make policy changes in conducting such raids so that they don’t do this again.

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The Court Hearing

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This is Part 2 in the series of events that have unfolded in Pakistan and have brought to point the serious crisis facing the IT industry. Today, PASHA (Pak Software Houses Association), ISPAK (Internet Service Provider Association of Pakistan) and PSEB (Pak Software Export Board) stand together against the strong pigheadedness of FIA and PTA atrocities. May Allah help us all… Ameen

The most ironic part of this debate is that Minister of IT, Owais Leghari, has been too busy for the whole week to meet any representatives from the industry. The crisis lingers on with the government not cooperating.

Here is the latest ….
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Today, December 19, the CEO of the IT company was sent on judicial remand to Adiala Jail in RWP (from physical remand/custody of FIA). Given the legality of our judicial system, this was maximum success that we could have achieved today.

It was really shocking and sad to see him in handcuffs, a young an innocent looking CS professional with tears in his eyes, chained up for a ‘so-called crime’ that he and his team never committed. Even the Judge couldn’t bear this and ordered removal of his handcuffs in the court room telling the accompanying FIA Inspector that ‘He would not run away’.

On Monday, his bail application would be moved to Session Court and hopefully, he would be bailed out of jail by sometimes next week inshallah.

FIA failed to present any findings and evidence to the Court today. PTCL and PTA opted not to make a presence in the court. FIA asked for additional remand of 5 days of Faisal to gather more evidence. FIA said that they’re waiting for technical analysis from PTA in the light of which they would do more investigations with him. Judge snubbed this demand by saying that if PTA hasn’t yet provide you any evidence, how you expect more evidence to be forthcoming in next few days. So there wasn’t an iota of evidence with FIA on the case (no gateways, no SIMs, nothing..).

On the question of making outbound test calls using VOIP, the defendent lawyer presented to the Court a Determination of PTA of December 2002 in which PTA has determined that Net2Phone service was to become legal effective 01 Jan 03, the date PTCL’s monopoly over basic telephony expired. So PTA itself has determined that VOIP (PC to phone) calls were legal and there was no question about ‘illegality’ of the same.

The following equipment was confiscated from the IT company in raid on 05 Dec 06:

- One Notebook PC
- Two 8 Port LAN Switches
- One AZTECH ADSL Router
- One P-II 400 Mhz PC running Linux and Asterisk
- One P-III PC running Asterisk
- One PC running squid (web proxy server) server (this machine was called gateway by the young guys at the company and when PTA officials during raid were frantically asking for gateway or SIMs, the poor guys pointed to this machine as ‘gateway’ and FIA team happily confiscated that.
- One Desktop PC with monitor, web cam, key board, etc.

They had one 512 kbps/12 Gb DSL connection and their monthly consumption never exceeded this limit. They had only four PTCL phone lines with normal monthly billing.

Even an idiot can tell that this setup doesn’t work for a voice termination/origination gateway setup.

This shows that iron hand of law is only for small and helpless people in this part of the world. No one dares to take action against big names. They found an escape goat in the name of a small IT Company. This is the reason that bright and creative minded young professionals opt to leave this country and settle abroad, depriving the country of talent which is very hard to acquire these days.

Developed and bigger nations protect their citizen. Mirza Tahir, a Pakistani born British citizen waiting for his death sentence in same jail where our young IT guy would be spending first night of his jailed life at a horrible place, was bailed out and flown to London by personal efforts of Tony Blair and Prince Charles, even though he was not ‘White British’. On a contrast, our Government puts its own innocent computer professionals behind bars, what an ‘enlightenment’!

There has to be vocal joint action at all forums and legal suit of damages and criminal proceedings against the responsible and defaulting officials who violently and blatantly stepped out of their jurisdiction and abused the public powers.

Minister for IT has not yet found time out of his busy schedule for this burning issue of the Ministry of ‘IT’ that he’s supposedly heading.

Justice… where is justice in Pakistan?

Injustice at the hands of PTA/FIA

I wanted to share a recent harrowing experience that my company is going through in Pakistan. First a bit of a background.

I Co-founded an internet Startup company, in Islamabad, Pakistan, which runs a very successful job portal in the country. Among our innovations, we were one of the first companies in the world to launch an integrated Voice Resume system based on VoIP technologies. And our solution is being used by companies like TRG and others to hire quality talent for their call centers in Pakistan.

On Tuesday Dec 5, around noon, Pakistan Time, FIA (Federal Investigation Authority) and PTA (Pak Telecom Authority.. http://www.pta.gov.pk) walked into our offices in the software technology park and seized all our servers, mobiles and everything on the pretext that we are using it for illegal VoIP termination. They also locked up our current CEO, behind bars. Even when we explained to them that we are not doing call terminations, and only develop creative solutions for call centers to use, they would not listen.

Now, we are a small internet startup company based out of Islamabad. Nor do we have any connections with any major government or military establishments. We have no interest in call termination or anything of that sort. We are focused on BrightSpyre and bringing software revenue into the country through US based projects. Taking away all our servers and routers means, we cannot deliver on those projects and locking up our CEO without any notices, warnings is also not legally a good step.

So far, we have called up PASHA (Pakistan Software Houses Association), PSEB (Pakistan Software Export Board), ISPAK (Internet Service Providers Assocation of Pakistan) to assist and help us in this regard. But PTA/FIA have not budged from their unlawful acts….

On one side, the government is promising so many incentives to help the nascent software Industry in the country. On the other, it is using these horrendous acts of saboteur that it makes it impossible for us to work efficiently.

If there is an issue then they should send us a notice or talk to us first and discuss the matter. To barge into our offices, locking up our staff and siezing our hardware/software will not help in any way get them more investment in the country. The most ironic part of the incident was that our office is located in the Software technolgy park, less than 100 feet from Pakistan Software Export Board and two floors below Ministry of IT and Telecom. What a stupid thing for PTA/FIA to do.

Wheels of Justice

Sometimes, the wheels of justice are not meant for the weak. They have no say, and no protection. Sometimes, their cause is trampled upon to protect the few in the higher positions. Sometimes, the government, prefers to make them the scapegoat of their own errors.

This is a blog, where we will present such incidents and present them to the world. This is a place where we can read and share injustices caused around the world….so that the stories of the oppressed can be shared and are not forgotten.

So please share your stories with us. We will listen, even if your government is not!

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