Why global terror financing watchdog FATF should blacklist Pakistan

Global terror financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) should blacklist Pakistan as the country is allowing terrorists to operate freely in the country. Terrorists in Pakistan are running recruitment drives, issuing threats, delivering sermons, writing in magazines, holding youtube workshops and openly calling for jihad.

Also read: FATF blacklisting will destroy Pakistani economy, says Imran Khan

While on one hand Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan warns that if Pakistan is blacklisted at the FATF, it will be destroyed due to inflation and a massive fall in Pakistani rupee. On the other hand, he is playing politics with opposition of his country by trying to propose legislations related to the FATF. Instead of clamping down on terrorists, Pakistan is misusing the laws to suppress critical voices with the arrest of journalists and threats of violence against editors. 

Pakistan was added to the grey list of FATF in 2018 after it failed to comply with 13 out of 27 parameters of the global watchdog.

There were four broad parameters on which Pakistan didn't comply: anti-money laundering and terror financing; prosecution and penalising terror financing; transparency and secrecy in financial institutions; and implementing an effective national mechanism to check illegal funding of terrorist outfits. 

Also read: FATF needs to blacklist Pakistan. At any cost

Pakistan has so far been saved by its allies: China, Turkey and Malaysia.

However, ahead of FATF meeting, a new Pakistani document issued in the name of director/commanding officer Wajahat Ali Khan, certifies Hizbul chief Salahuddin as 'bona fide' official of ISI.

Salahuddin, who also heads United Jihad Council (UJC), an umbrella organisation of terrorist outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), has security clearance which states he should not be stopped unnecessarily as security checkpoints.

While Pakistan pretended to increase financial curbs on the members of Jamat ud-Dawa, and Jaish-e-Mohammed last month to avoid getting blacklisted, the terrorists of the organisations are still operating freely in the country.

These include Masood Azhar, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hafiz Saeed Talha, the son of Hafiz Saeed and a member of Jamat ud-Dawa, Maulana Masood Ilyas Kashmiri, the chairman of the al-Rehmat trust in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, Maulana Talha al-Saif, the younger brother of Masood Azhar, and Mufti Rauf Asghar, another sibling of Masood Azhar.