Ansar Abbasi (Urdu: انصار عباسی) born Ansar Abbasi al-Hashmi (Urdu: انصار عباسی الاہاشمی) on June 12, 1965, is an investigative editor fo...
Biography
Early life
Abbasi was born in Murree, Pakistan. He received his early education in his native village. Abbasi obtained matriculation from Sir Syed School, Rawalpindi. Later he joined Government College Asghar Mall, where he completed his Intermediate and Bachelor of Arts education. He received his Masters degree from Balochistan University, Quetta. He also earned another Masters degree from Goldsmiths College, University of London.[1]His research thesis was on child labor.
Career
After Masters in Mass Communication, Abbasi began his career as a professional journalist in 1991. His first stint was with an English language daily, The Democrat. Later, he worked for two months at Pakistan Times, before eventually joining The News International, of which he is now an editor.
Investigative articles
Chief Justice Choudhray
Abbasi was among the first to bring forth allegations against Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhray for gross misconduct in 2002, accusing him for admitting his son Dr. Arsalan to the Federal Investigation Agency undermining all merits.[2] Primarily based on this allegation the establishment moved a reference to Supreme Judicial Council against Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry.
President Musharraf
Abbasi has published work critical of the regime of former president Pervez Musharraf accusing him of building a multi-million rupees residence at Chak Shehzad, equipped with utilities at much cheaper rates with differential subsidized by the government.[3]
He was critical of the former general for removing the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Choudhry and submitting his case to the Supreme Judicial Council.[4]
Maulana Fazl ur Rahman
In November 2008, Abbasi published a story on the award of acres of military land worth millions of rupees to the family members of the leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Maulana Fazl ur Rahman. Abbasi alleged that the regime of the then president general Pervez Musharraf attempted to buy off Maulana's opposition to the general Musharraf's assumption of two public offices at a time.[5] The issue was silenced when Maulana Fazl ur Rahman publicly questioned how the multi-billion empire of Geo/Jang Group grew from a single room.[citation needed]
Justice Dogar
"Our Special Daughters", an investigative report by Abbasi in Daily News, found out that Justice Dogar's daughter Farah Hameed Dogar's examination paper for F.Sc. were reassessed in violation of a previous Supreme Court ruling.[6] While the results of 201 candidates were revised, only for her were the examination papers re-marked and the numbers increased. In the other 200 cases, only errors in adding the total marks were corrected.[7] The case later went on to the parliamentary committee for education.[8]
Life threats
Abbasi is alleged to have received death threats for which he blamed different groups, including those associated with the ruling coalition. His claims first appeared inThe News on December 25, 2008..
Religious views
Abbasi has always been vocal about the central role of religion in his life and career. He claims to be a pious muslim and has been seen to have deep rooted conservative views. Such views were made controversially public during 2009 when a video of a the Flogging of a Swat Girl was released.[9] He has publicly voiced Anti-Western 'standards' and morals, and calls for Pakistan to go back to the ways of Islam during the life of prophet Muhammed (SAW).[10] During the Swat Girl incident Abbasi stated that he did not find anything to be wrong with the idea of flogging even on a girl, and that is was appropriate punishment, and only due to the westernisation of Pakistan are people voicing complaints against it, what he calls "Liberl Facists"[11] which generated much controversy as the Taliban leader has claimed bombing many schools, hospitals and killing innocent women,children and ordinary citizens.
However, later the Swat Girl incident's video was claimed to be fake, no authentic sources have proved this claim.
COMMENTS