As many as 37 people taken into custody from a protest in support of the Pashtun Tahaffuz movement (PTM) on Monday night have been sent to Adyala Jail on a judicial remand.
A copy of the order issued in this regard by the Islamabad magistrate, available with Daily Times, says that the accused had violated section 144 by holding the protest.
The FIR registered on the matter with the Kohsar police contains at least eight distinct offenses, incuding sedition, a serious charge.
Commenting on the inclusion of such serious charges, Advocate Umer Gilani stressed that the PTM slogan (‘Ye Ju Dehshatgardi Hai, Iske Peeche Wardi Hai’) was not meant to degrade the institution of the Armed Forces of Pakistan. “It is meant to critique the country’s well-known duplicitous foreign policy stance towards the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan,” he said, adding that it was against the spirit of the country’s constitution to charge peaceful political critics with such offences. “It is colonial style despotism.”
Further, Gillani noted that critique of government policies meant to bring about change did not amount to sedition.
Regarding the imposition of section 144, he said protests took place in the federal capital almost every day and no one got arrested. “How come there was no violatino of the section when firebrand cleric Khadim Rizwi gathered scores of people and challenged the writ of the state last year?” he asked, continuing, “why has the discriminatory behaviour adopted solely against peaceful protestors of PTM?”
Advocate Asad Ullah, who is dealing with the case, told Daily Times that he would pursue the matter in court.
Published in Daily Times, June 7th 2018.
