But this crackdown has been taken slightly out of proportion and I feel now westerners are going to suffer from this sudden excuse for harshly arresting/detaining people for the slightest reasons.
This American man below Gary Brooks Faulkner committed three major crimes in Pakistan and got away scott-free, yet an American and Swiss citizen were recently detained for the pickiest reasons.
Gary Brooks Faulkner was arrested in Pakistan in June 2010. According to sources he brought in swords and knives in his baggage which went undetected. This was one crime he committed for possessing illegal weapons. His second crime was not declaring these items to customs.
Police caught him red handed with guns he purchased in the country. He was also caught carrying Christian literature and claimed that he was "told by God" in a dream that it was his duty to hunt down and kill Bin Laden.
The man could have been convicted and prosecuted for two counts of illegal weapons possession and not declaring them to customs.
He was released upon being declared insane by doctors and did not even receive a criminal record or a fine. But according to family members he was not insane and actually believed in everything he claimed.
What's more is this individual was already jailed once before in America which is a display for his violent personality. Here was a religious fanatic posing a threat to public safety and broke the law, yet we let him leave Pakistan on the basis that he was insane.
If it was such, he should have been put away in a Pakistani mental institution until his claim would be retracted by him in a bid to get himself out and charges could be laid against him.
Imagine an Islamic fundamentalist from Pakistan in America or Denmark carrying illegal weapons and telling authorities that he had been instructed by God in a dream to kill anti-Islamic cartoonists.
He would probably be put away in Guantanamo Bay before even being given access to a lawyer.
But we didn't do anything. I am not just referring to our corrupt, confused and reckless government, but our people as well. Following the shooting incident in Lahore, the idea of releasing Davis was out of the question due to the public outrage and backlash that it could bring. It was really the public pressure that kept him held by us.
However, this man Gary Brooks Faulkner committed a similar crime of carrying illegal weapons and there was zero public pressure on him. In the aftermath of the incident involving Raymond Davis, the government has suddenly gone trigger happy in arresting westerners for the pickiest reasons.
Aaron Mark DeHaven (pictured above) is arrested and put on trial for the sole reason living on an expired visa.
I don't wish to be misunderstood and seen as advocating foreigners overstaying beyond their permit. But here's a man who is not yet shown to have committed any serious crime yet instead of simply being issued a legal notice or being put on surveillance, he is jailed.
Next a Swiss citizen in Balochistan is jailed simply for having improper documents and visiting a restricted area without permit:
Authorities are right to detain and question him. But to send him to jail? Imagine the impact this will bring on tourists who want to visit our country but are too scared out of fear for accidentally going into restricted areas.
With Gary Brooks we were presented with a rare opportunity to send a strong message to the West that we would not tolerate their citizens coming to our country and breaking the law. Carrying items like Gary Brooks did posed a serious threat to public safety.
Here was a man who had no secrets of breaking the law and his intention to walk around armed or of withholding information about his swords and knives from customs.
Instead we let him go and punish people on small charges of overstaying their visa or not having a special permit.
If Aaron Mark DeHaven is a spy like Raymond Davis since he was working for a private security agency, then charge him for espionage, but to detain him over a visa issue? It was raised in some news articles that there were hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis in America overstaying their visas.
My main point is that we are suddenly turning from being too soft on Westerners to being too harsh and prejudiced. Gary Brooks is the man who should have been jailed and charged. This would have gone as a strong warning to all those American marines who sometimes take their weapons outside embassy grounds and harass locals. This would tone down anti-American sentiment in Pakistan while at the same time safeguarding our laws and sovereignty.
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