LAHORE: A Pakistani court on Tuesday gave the go-ahead to the country’s largest women’s rights event but told organizers to ensure participants adhere to “decency and moral values.”
The country-wide event, known as Aurat March, using the Urdu word for women, has been attended by tens of thousands over the last two years to mark International Women’s Day on March 8.
A court in Lahore was petitioned last month to place restrictions on the organizers and participants of the march, whom the complainant said had an agenda to “spread anarchy, vulgarity, blasphemy and hatred” against Islam.
The court told organizers to consult local officials to finalize arrangements for the event, which campaigns for reclaiming space for women as well as the LGBT community.
Global watchdogs have expressed concern in recent years over what they see as a growing clampdown on rights campaigns in Pakistan.
“The court remarked that the participants should not ignore decency and moral values while carrying placards and chanting slogans,” the movement’s lawyer Saqib Jilani told Reuters, adding that organizers had been ordered to devise a code of conduct but already had one.
Local police, told to ensure security for the march, submitted a report to the court stating the event faced a threat from radical groups including Pakistani Taliban militants.
The police told the court they would provide security but it was essential for organizers to prohibit participants from engaging in “controversial acts.”
There was uproar in conservative circles over slogans at last year’s event. Some said: “My body, my choice!” “My body is not your battleground!” and “Stop being menstrual phobic!“
Following last year’s event, organizers said they faced a backlash including murder and rape threats.
Ahead of this year’s event, volunteers and organizers in Islamabad and Lahore say posters and murals are being vandalized.
Pakistan court gives green light to women’s march — with conditions
https://arab.news/gcn4f
Pakistan court gives green light to women’s march — with conditions
- ’Participants should not ignore decency and moral values while carrying placards and chanting slogans’
- Following last year’s event, organizers said they faced a backlash including murder and rape threats
Four people, including two policemen, killed in twin blasts in northwest Pakistan
- Attack on police van in South Waziristan and motorbike-mounted IED in Lakki Marwat hits KP province
- Violence comes amid a surge in militancy and cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: At least four people, including two policemen, were killed and about 20 others wounded in two separate blasts in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, officials said, the latest violence in a region grappling with militant violence.
One explosion targeted a police patrol van in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan district near the Afghan border, while another blast caused by explosives mounted on a motorbike struck a market area in Lakki Marwat district, according to police officials and preliminary reports.
The incidents come amid rising militant violence in Pakistan’s northwest, where authorities say armed groups operate from across the border in Afghanistan, straining relations between Islamabad and the Taliban administration in Kabul, with both sides engaged in a military conflict since last month.
“The control room received information in the evening about a bomb blast targeting a police van in Wana Bazaar,” a police official in the area, who did not want to be named, confirmed while speaking to Arab News over the phone.
He confirmed two deaths in the incident while saying more than 25 people had been injured.
The official said rescue teams responded promptly and shifted three seriously injured people to a nearby hospital in Wana.
In another incident during the day in Lakki Marwat, an improvised explosive device attached to a motorbike exploded near shops.
“Two people have been killed and about 10 have been injured in an IED blast in Lakki Marwat,” Raza Khan, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Bannu, told Arab News.
“The deceased are identified as Shoaib Ur Rehman and Furqan Ullah,” he added. “Shoaib, the owner of the shop, was the brother of the Lakki peace committee head.”
Peace committees in the region are informal, community-based groups that work with security forces to report militant activity and maintain order, making their members frequent targets of attacks.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and expressed grief over the incidents.
“I strongly condemn the blast near a police patrolling vehicle in Wana Bazaar,” Naqvi said in a statement, confirming the killing of four people, including two police personnel.
“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police are on the front line in the war against terrorism,” he said, noting the force had made “unforgettable sacrifices” in the fight against militant groups.
Militant violence has surged in Pakistan’s border regions in recent months, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of allowing militant groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to operate from Afghan territory — a charge Kabul denies — as cross-border tensions between the two neighbors have escalated.
