Countdown to end of 2025: 90 days
Such conditions as have been faced by the people of AJK since the total internet shutdown by midday on Sunday the 28th of September 2025, were always as inevitable as horrid as they have proven to be.
The adage that it is better to have a wise enemy than a stupid friend rings true in the relationship between AJK and its occupier Pakistan.
Our dead count in double digits as we continue to record the true extent of the unnecessary misery piled on by the Pakistani State for the past 6 days, all for respectfully demanding our rights in the most peaceful manner possible.
If ever there was a time for our people to abandon this 'friendship', it is now.
The internet has emerged in some narrow pockets of the territory and hence this appearance, after an enforced disappearance from the blogosphere for 5 days, adding to the 1 day missed earlier this year.
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I am honoured to share the following press note from SAPAN (Southasia Peace Action Network) in memory of a notable peace activist Sabeen Mahmud killed in her line of duty in 2015 (Karachi, Pakistan):
“You Can Kill a Person, But Not an Idea”: Southasia Peace Action Network Film Club on 'After Sabeen'
By Southasia Peace Action Network
New Delhi / Berlin / Karachi / Southasia diaspora — Last week, the story of prominent social entrepreneur Sabeen Mahmud who was shot dead in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 2015, again resonated across the world, with several screenings of the powerful documentary After Sabeen by Berlin-based filmmaker Schokofeh Kamiz.
The Sapan Film Club of the Southasia Peace Action Network (Sapan), hosted a cross-border discussion around the film last Sunday, coinciding with the International Day for the Universal Access to Information. The 2018 film was also shown that day at a gathering in Berlin, underscoring Sabeen’s enduring resonance across Southasia and the diaspora.
Tehran-born Schokofeh Kamiz, joined the online discussion from Berlin before participating in the event in her adopted city, where she had first heard about Sabeen on the day of the assassination.
Sapan Film Club discussion on 'After Sabeen
The Mumbai-based Vikalp@Patrithvi, a collaboration of Prithvi Theater in Mumbai and Vikalp Films for Freedom, had screened the film for their monthly online series in September, and supported the Sapan Film Club discussion, along with Drik Photo Library in Dhaka.
Sapan brings together individuals and organizations in Southasia and the diaspora for a minimum common agenda -- "peace in Southasia," said moderator Aekta Kapoor in New Delhi, founder-editor of the digital eShe magazine. A founder member of Sapan, launched in 2021, she feels a special connection to Mahmud who would have turned 51 on 20 June this year, just 20 days after Kapoor.
'Beyond moving'
Sapan advocates "for freedom of travel, trade, and tourism within the region, upholding human rights and dignity, and collaboration in all areas," said Kapoor. The organisation's aims are shrined in its Founding Charter online at <Southasiapeace.com/founding> endorsed by 125 organisations and hundreds of individuals.
Volunteers are "an inter-regional, cross-diasporic, intergenerational group of peacemongers, who believe that the nations of the region must engage in dialogue and allow people-to-people contact,” Kapoor explained.
The artistically produced 60-minute film "is beyond moving," said Kapoor, confessing that she watched most of it through tears. Many participants reported being similarly moved.
Relying on quiet observation and interviews, the documentary features Sabeen's mother, educationist Mahenaz Mahmud who sustained bullets in the target shooting that killed Sabeen. It also draws on the memories and grief of Sabeen's friends and their ongoing efforts to continue her work and legacy.
Mahenaz Mahmud and her friend educationist Seema Malik in Karachi, who also features in the film, joined the event as silent observers.
Kamiz had first visited Pakistan some three years before Sabeen was killed. While working with a theater group on the complexities of democracy she had become friends with anthropologist Omar Kasmani. They were supposed to meet on 24 April 2015 in Berlin when he called to say that a dear friend had been shot and killed in Karachi.
Listening to Omar and the artist Bani Abidi talk about Sabeen for hours that night, "I fell in love with Sabeen without ever having met her," said Kamiz.
A BBC radio interview of Mahenaz made it clear why her friends felt the way they did about Sabeen. Kamiz later met Mahenaz in London. "I told her, I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't have money, I don't have any agenda, I don't have any concept, but I really want to make this film."
After Mahenaz agreed, Kamiz told her she was three-months pregnant. Some time after giving birth to her son, Kamiz flew to Karachi -- a one-person crew, financing the film through her day job, putting her earnings into the project.
She visited Karachi several times the next few years, staying with Mahenaz and capturing poignant elements of her daily life, including moving shots with Sabeen's grandmother, and cat Jadoo.
"It was not easy because we have these hormones when we are new mothers," said Kamiz. At one point, she "really crashed behind the camera and was just crying".
What kept her going was her ten-year long journalistic experience and having seen "a lot of very harsh stuff" including Libya during the civil war, and as an Iranian "witnessing eight years of war". That experience reminded her: "This is not about me, it's about the person in the front of the camera who trusted me " and "to be patient, be quiet, just listen".
Ethics pledge
These lessons align with the Social Media Ethics Code and Responsibility Pledge shared by Sapan co-founder and journalist Beena Sarwar about (sapannews.com/social).
Sabeen is like a Sapan founding member although the organisation was launched six years after her passing, said Sarwar. Sapan acknowledges her along with others "whose legacy we build on, whose vision we take forward".
She and Sabeen were on the founding board of the South Asia Foundation started by the late UN Goodwill Ambassador Madanjeet Singh. While they weren't granted visas to attend a SAF event in Kashmir, Sabeen features in Sarwar's short film, 'Milne Do' (Let Kashmiris Meet), for which she conducted several interviews at The Second Floor, T2F, the cafe-gallery space Sabeen founded in Karachi in 2007.
Film 'Milne Do' (Let Kashmiris Meet), 2009, featuring Sabeen Mahmud
The film 'After Sabeen' conveys a universal message about how regressive forces that feel threatened by free speech, rationalism, and humanist ideals, strike out with violence against such voices.
"You can kill a person, but not the idea," said veteran activist Lalita Ramdas in India, who along with her late spouse Admiral L. Ramdas is a Sapan founder member. "That is what keeps us going, that their message and what they lived for did not die."
Joining from Portugal, Zarminae Ansari, founder of bilingual organization Joy of Urdu, shared what Sabeen had told in Paris while staying with her just weeks before the murder: "Maren gey to mar den, aaj tau jee lein" (If they kill us, they kill us. At least today, we live).
Talking to Sabeen about her Joy of Urdu idea helped Ansari gain clarity about the concept. Joy of Urdu, she said, "exists because of Sabeen, like so many other initiatives that she was a champion of".
They had planned to show Kamiz's film on Sabeen at a festival in Dubai, 2020, to mark five years of the tragedy. The title Carpe Diem: Celebrating Sabeen, drew from Sabeen's words in Paris. Then the pandemic hit and the event had to be cancelled. It can still be revived as everything is in place, said Ansari.
Sabeen's words in Paris reminded Lalita Ramdas of acclaimed filmmaker Anand Patwardhan's recent musical tribute to Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant, singer-songwriter and labour organiser who was executed in Utah on circumstantial evidence. Patwardhan recently adapted the song to include Sabeen, besides others killed in the name of religion and nationalism, and Palestinian journalist Anas al Sharif, among the many others killed by Israel's bombs and food blockades.
Anand Patwardhan's song for Joe Hill, "adapted for our times and region," September 2025
"What has haunted me, enthused me, and kept me going," said Ramdas, is that each one of the people Anand sings about, "they didn't die".
Patwardhan, a co-founder and co-curator of Vikalp@Prithvi, said the issue of human rights defenders and rationalists being attacked resonates beyond Pakistan, in India and the region. Vikalp@Prithvi had selected Kamiz's film after Film Southasia, the biennale Kathmandu-based festival, screened it following Sabeen's murder.
Feminist activist Khushi Kabir in Dhaka, another Sapan founding member, highlighted Sabeen's abiding relevance. What happened to her "rings a bell in all of us, in all our countries. It's not just Sabeen, and it's just not Pakistan".
Sabeen's murder coincided with that of the bloggers killed around 2013-15 in Bangladesh, including writer Avijit Rao, "fiercely secular, a humanist, a rationalist, a freethinker, and an atheist" who was macheted at a book fair in Dhaka that he had travelled to from America where he lived.
It is sad that such people, who would never hurt anyone, are targeted just for their beliefs, said Kabir. The situation of the Chittagong Hill tracts in Bangladesh also resonates with that of Balochistan, she added.
"I, as a Balochistani, claim Sabeen, who died for our cause, for bringing the voice of Balochistan to people," said Fauzia Deeba, a physician and Sapan founder member.
Resilience amid shrinking spaces
Although the T2F café has been closed, the space continues to be used for dance and music classes and performances, seminars and workshops, book launches and even theatre -- a reminder of resilience amid shrinking civic spaces.
“How can a small venue that holds 30–40 people be considered a threat?” commented feminist activist Khawar Mumtaz, a Sapan founder member in Lahore. Sabeen's murder, she added, "reflects the ethos of current times, where there is no tolerance for dissension" - a trend visible across the region, from Sri Lanka, to Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Nepal.
Participants invoked Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh, shot dead in 2017, and other rationalists targeted for their views in India — artists and filmmakers who, by simply being who they are, become perceived threats to majoritarian politics.
Another featured speaker, the award-winning speaker, photographer, writer, filmmaker Shahidul Alam, could not join the discussion as he was on his way to join the Freedom Flotilla Coalition headed to Gaza.
"We at Sapan send him our love and solidarity and may he and all the others in the flotilla stay safe," said Kapoor. "He is combining his skills as a photographer with his commitment to raise his voice against a genocide as an activist".
The popular Assamese musician Zubeen Garg, who died recently, had taken strong positions on social and political issues through song and music, Kapoor reminded the audience.
Anand Patwardhan also spoke about the role of documentary cinema. “I don’t want to preach to the audience, but I do want to present the facts as I see them,” he said. “In a world saturated with disinformation, my work is to tell the truth as I see it, in front of my camera, without changing what's happening in front of me." The aim, he said, is to record what is happening, then juxtapose it responsibly, and let audiences arrive at their own conclusions.”
He acknowledged that his films take a strong position. "Maybe I see myself as a kind of a lawyer," he reflected. "I have to some extent made sense of what's going on and am presenting that evidence".
Acknowledging the constraints of the platform economy and shortened attention spans, he emphasized the value of long-form documentary as an archive of public memory.
Several participants mentioned having first met Sabeen through her mentor Zaheer Alam Kidvai, whose wife Nuzhat, a prominent women's rights activist passed away recently. To the question of why ZAK, as he is widely known, does not appear in the film, Kamiz explained that she was aiming for a minimalist approach and deliberately resisted expanding the roster of voices.
She said she would love to do a follow-up film: “What has changed now? How are things today?”
Peacemonger Ranjini Rao in Delhi highlighted the "timeless" lessons of the film and the beautiful, humanising details it captures, like scenes of Jadoo and how Mahenaz, who raised her daughter to be fearless, talks about knowing that Sabeen will not be back, but keeps her room ready, just in case.
These are "human beings who are heroic, ordinary, everyday people who have that insect repellent on the table... who become larger than life because of how they think, and because they are steadfast in being human".
Also joining from Delhi was the writer Mukta Lal in Delhi, daughter of the late acclaimed Urdu poet Jagannath Azad who is credited with writing Pakistan's first anthem, and was an authority on Allama Iqbal.
Content strategist Hira Mariam from Lahore heard about Sabeen only after the assassination, and became curious about why she was targeted. "What has she done?"
She was particularly moved by the scene in which Mahenaz talks about wanting to speak to the man who shot Sabeen. She has conversations with him in her head, asking "Why, what did she do to you? How did she violate you?"
Today, there seem to be fewer spaces left to express ourselves, said Mariam, making her realise that Sabeen's "vision was so big" creating such spaces where people could coexist peacefully and share ideas through art, discussions, politics.
-- Southasia Peace Action Network - www.southasiapeace.com
About Southasia Peace Action Network - Sapan
Founded in 2021, Sapan is a volunteer-driven, cross-diasporic network advancing peace in Southasia. Its members advocate for free travel, trade, and collaboration across borders, upholding dignity and human rights. Through various events like monthly online seminars and in-person events, Sapan sustains the voices and visions of regional changemakers such as Sabeen Mahmud.
Contact: Sarita Bartaula | Sarita@southasiapeace.com
Website: southasiapeace.com
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| Sabeen’s cat Jadoo, waiting for her. Still from the film ‘After Sabeen’ |
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| Mahenaz in Sabeen’s room: Still from the film ‘After Sabeen’ |
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| An online discussion resonating across the world |
End of press note from SAPAN..
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