Pakistan police arrest parents for refusing polio vaccine

[Bosonic]

Source: AFP

PESHAWAR: Police in northwest Pakistan have arrested more than 450 parents for refusing to vaccinate their children against polio, officials said on Monday (Mar 2).

Riaz Khan Mehsud, deputy commissioner of Peshawar, the main town of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told AFP that 471 parents were detained and sent to jail for refusing the vaccine.

Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world where polio remains endemic but years of efforts to stamp it out have been badly hit by reluctance from parents, opposition from militants and attacks on immunisation teams.

The virus is most prevalent in the country's restive northwest and a fresh immunisation drive began on Monday aimed at vaccinating more than 2.7 million children in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Read more: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/pakistan-police-arrest/1689792.html

[RKP5637]

1. What is their objection to the vaccine? It's insane, do they really want their children

to suffer the ravishing effect of polio? I didn't see it in the article.

[Archae]

2. One of the popular (there) conspiracy theories...

Vaccines are actually conspiracies to keep Muslims from having children.

I know, crazy, but I see just as many crazy conspiracy theories here in the US, including about vaccines and here at DU.

[RKP5637]

3. Some days I feel like we live in a sea of universal ignorance. Absolutely amazing! What astounds

me in the US are even those well educated believing the US version of the same anti-vax crap.

[samsingh]

6. its the repug way

[Enrique]

4. regarding "crazy" conspiracy theories

CIA organised fake vaccination drive to get Osama bin Laden's family DNA

The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader's family, a Guardian investigation has found.

As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the "project" in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic, according to Pakistani and US officials and local residents.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna

[bananas]

5. Pakistanis face a deadline: Surrender fingerprints or give up cellphone

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistanis-face-a-deadline-surrender-fingerprints-or-give-up-cellphone/2015/02/23/de995a88-b932-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html

Pakistanis face a deadline: Surrender fingerprints or give up cellphone
By Tim Craig and Shaiq Hussain
February 23

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Cellphones didn’t just arrive in Pakistan. But someone could be fooled into thinking otherwise, considering the tens of millions of Pakistanis pouring into mobile phone stores these days.

In one of the world’s largest — and fastest — efforts to collect biometric information, Pakistan has ordered cellphone users to verify their identities through fingerprints for a national database being compiled to curb terrorism. If they don’t, their service will be shut off, an unthinkable option for many after a dozen years of explosive growth in cellphone usage here.

Prompted by concerns about a proliferation of illegal and untraceable SIM cards, the directive is the most visible step so far in Pakistan’s efforts to restore law and order after Taliban militants killed 150 students and teachers at a school in December. Officials said the six terrorists who stormed the school in Peshawar were using cellphones registered to one woman who had no obvious connection to the attackers.

But the effort to match one person to each cellphone number involves a jaw-dropping amount of work. At the start of this year, there were 103 million SIM cards in Pakistan — roughly the number of the adult population — that officials were not sure were valid or properly registered. And mobile companies have until April 15 to verify the owners of all of the cards, which are tiny chips in cellphones that carry a subscriber’s personal security and identity information.

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