ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court has extended the detention of Saad Rizvi, chief of the banned Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) religious party, for a month.
The order comes a day after a high court approved a petition against his prolonged detention.
In its decision taken during a virtual meeting on Saturday, the Supreme Court’s Federal Review Board said: “The detention period of detenue [Saad Hussain Rizvi] is extended for one month. The matter be placed in the next meeting.” A date for the next meeting will be issued later.
Rizvi was arrested in Lahore in April for threatening the government with rallies if it did not expel the French envoy to Islamabad over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) published in France last year.
Violent demonstrations by TLP supporters erupted in major cities after his arrest. Six policemen were killed and over 800 injured, according to official figures, in protests that lasted a week.
The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday approved a petition filed by Rizvi’s uncle against his continued detention under Pakistan’s antiterrorism laws.
“We are hopeful for Saad Rizvi’s release on Monday as the court’s written order will reach the relevant departments on first working day of the week,” Advocate Burhan Moazzam Malik, who represents Rizvi, told Arab News on Saturday before the order.
He said the court had declared the TLP leader’s detention illegal in its detailed judgment but a written order for the verdict’s implementation is awaited.
“The government failed to provide any plausible reason in the court to detain him under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997,” Malik said. “The right to protest is enshrined in the constitution.”
Rizvi has been detained at Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore, which is managed by the provincial government of Punjab. Punjab Prisons Minister Fayyaz-ul-Hassan Chohan declined comment on the case.
The party has built a wide base of support in recent years, rallying around cases of blasphemy, which are punishable by death in Pakistan.
It was banned following April’s protests.
Rizvi became the leader of TLP in November last year after the sudden death of his father, Khadim Hussein Rizvi.
