Pakistan: Govt denies permission for ‘Aurat March’ fearing clashes with Islamists

On Saturday, March 4, the Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Lahore, Pakistan denied permission to carry the ‘Aurat March’ scheduled to be held on March 8, commemorating International Women’s Day. The permission was denied on account of ‘security concerns’ and ‘controversial’ placards and banners put up throughout varied cities within the nation, selling girls’s rights.

According to stories, the permission for the annual occasion, which was began about 4 years in the past, was denied additionally on account of the opportunity of clashes with Islamists collaborating in the counter-rallies known as the ‘Haya March.’

Haya March was began by members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan the place burqa-clad girls take to the streets to oppose the Aurat March on girls’s day.

The Aurat March organising committee had sought a no objection certificates (NOC) from the district authorities in order that it may plan the rally round Nasser Bagh in Lahore on March 8.

DC Rafia Haider, nevertheless, launched a press release through which it was said that the plea was rejected within the wake of menace alerts from safety businesses.

“Following the current security scenario, threat alerts, and law and order situation, and in light of activities like controversial cards and banners for awareness of women’s rights and the strong reservation of the general public and religious organizations, especially JI’s women’s and student wings, who had also announced a program against the Aurat March,” mentioned a press release issued by the DC.

Following the denial, the Aurat March organising committee posted a protracted thread of tweets whereby it castigated the DC for rejecting their software to carry the occasion. “The denial of NOC cites the ‘Haya March’ by the JI as the reason for denial. The DC herself acknowledges that the Jamaat has “announced a program against the Aurat March”, but it’s the March that’s being denied its constitutional proper, not the group inciting violence, the committee wrote in one of many tweets it posted condemning the choice taken by DC, Lahore.

We wish to ask @DCLahore @commissionerlhr why they denied permission to a peaceable march on girls’s day?

Why is the interim authorities permitting PSL to occur however not a political march for girls’s rights? @MohsinnaqviC42#AuratMarch2023 #MarchTuHoga https://t.co/nhXZt2Bp5y pic.twitter.com/N8XnKHn0IZ

— ⁧عورت مارچ لاہور⁩ – Aurat March Lahore (@AuratMarch) March 3, 2023

“The DC’s actions are a blatant denial of our fundamental rights as a people’s movement. We do not require an NOC to exercise our constitutional right to march. There is no legitimate “public order” rationale to stop us from assembling, marching and making our voices heard,” the committee added.

The DC’s actions are a blatant denial of our elementary rights as a folks’s motion. We don’t require an NOC to train our constitutional proper to march. There isn’t any respectable “public order” rationale to stop us from assembling, marching and making our voices heard.
4/n

— ⁧عورت مارچ لاہور⁩ – Aurat March Lahore (@AuratMarch) March 3, 2023

Aurat March was first organized in 2018 on the event of International Women’s Day on March eighth, after which it has turn into an annual occasion. On at the present time, girls march in varied cities of Pakistan demanding equality and freedom.

Like yearly, this yr’s Aurat March has additionally turn into the goal of the Pakistani Islamists who obtained triggered over the ladies elevating their voices. Several took to the microblogging web site Twitter to criticise the motion.

Islamists in Pakistan slam Aurat March

Twitter consumer @Kabeermkk98 was so triggered that he went on to check with the ladies who take part within the rally as a “bunch of a few frustrated blue and pink-haired Shabanas who get a chance to scream in the streets once a year.”

Aurat March is nothing however a political instrument and fraud. It isn’t even a “movement.” It’s only a bunch of few pissed off blue and pink haired Shabanas who get an opportunity to scream within the streets annually. They don’t signify the common lady’s points in Pakistan.

— Kabeer aka Dead Guy (@Kabeermkk98) February 25, 2023

Another Twitter consumer Muhhamad Owais opined that collaborating in ‘Aurat March was Haram.

It is totally HARAM for Muslims to participate or help Aurat March.

Their agenda is evident, to advertise liberal values in Pakistan within the guise of girls rights. pic.twitter.com/BfoMVOKHPS

— Muhammad Owais (@Muhammad_Owaiis) March 1, 2023

Still one other indignant Islamist going by the Twitter deal with @AbidiAlyFCMA, tweeted pictures of canine, suggesting that the women who participate within the “Aurat March” are nothing greater than canine.

Aurat March 🐕🐕#AuratMarch2023 pic.twitter.com/tXIKko2yfl

— سید علی حیدر عابدی (@AbidiAlyFCMA) March 4, 2023

Pakistani Twitter consumer Shehnila Zardari shared pictures of posters which have sprung all throughout Pakistan forward of the occasion, asking girls to take care of ‘modesty’ and ‘decency.’

Banners have sprung up everywhere in the metropolis demanding girls to have modesty and decency. This is few days earlier than #AuratMarch pic.twitter.com/sPCNi124Yb

— Shehnila Zardari (@ShehnilaZardari) March 1, 2023

This will not be the primary time the ‘Aurat March has triggered Islamists within the neighbouring nation. Last yr, the motion drew extreme backlash from the Islamic fundamentalists, who focused the march with mockery, threats, counter-rallies, slut-shaming, and known as its individuals “agents of Western immorality”.

Even the yr earlier than final, males in Pakistan spewed hate towards the ladies’s motion. Pakistanis had performed all of their energy to discredit the struggle of girls for justice and equal rights, from calling it “vulgar,” “un-Islamic,” and equating girls with greens and animals.