Pakistan is facing an internal financial crisis, the economy needs more investment and we need a positive image of Pakistan to end our increasing international isolation. For that to happen one of the many things we need is to get off the global Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Grey list.
However, the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan to permit the globally designated terrorist organization, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and its humanitarian arm Falahi Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) to continue relief and charity work in Pakistan. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has placed both these organizations on its list of sanctioned terrorist organizations.
In January of this year the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), prohibited companies from “donating cash to the entities and individuals listed under the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions committee’s consolidated list”. This sanctions list “includes the names of al-Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, JuD, FiF, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other organizations and individuals.”
That Pakistan has allowed a globally designated terrorist Hafiz Saeed, someone who has put on the UNSC sanctions list as a terrorist in 2008, to run charity operations inside the country sends just the wrong message to the global community.
According to a news story: “The two-member SC bench including Justice Manzoor Ahmed Mulk and Justice Sardar Tariq Masood rejected the federal government’s appeal against Lahore High Court’s verdict. JuD’s network includes 300 seminaries and schools, hospitals, a publishing house and ambulance services. The JuD and FIF alone have about 50,000 volunteers and hundreds of other paid workers, according to two counter-terrorism officials.”
