A court has gave the go-ahead to the country’s largest women’s rights event but told organisers 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 organisers and participants of the march, whom the complainant said had an agenda to “spread anarchy, vulgarity, blasphemy and hatred” against Islam.
The court told organisers to consult local officials to finalise arrangements for the event, which campaigns for reclaiming space for women as well as the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (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 organisers had been ordered to devise a code of conduct but already had one.
Local police authorities, told to ensure security for the march, submitted a report to the court stating that the event faced a threat from groups, including Pakistani Taliban militants.
The police told the court they would provide security but it was essential for organisers to prohibit participants from engaging in “controversial acts”.
There was uproar in conservative circles over slogans at last year’s event.
The slogans included “My body, my choice!”, “My body is not your battleground!”, and “Stop being menstrual phobic!”
Following last year’s event, organisers said they faced a backlash including murder and rape threats.
Ahead of this year’s event, volunteers and organisers in Islamabad and Lahore say posters and murals are being vandalised.
Federal Minister for Human Rights of Pakistan Shireen Mazari has condemned those religio-political parties and their leaders who were instigating people to forcibly stop the Aurat March.
“Strongly condemn those political ldrs [leaders] calling on ppl [people] to forcibly stop #AuratMarch. Women like other segments of society have a right to peacefully protest and demand their rights already enshrined in our constitution,” the minister tweeted.
“Our government is committed to ensuring an end to discrimination against and harassment of women and it has put in place programmes, policies and legislative measures to empower women and girls,” Mazari said.
Though in her tweets the minister did not name any political party or its leader, she tweeted a few days after a recent announcement made by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam – Fazlur (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman urging his party workers to disrupt any activity carried out on roads in the name of human rights.
Rehman had said that no one would be allowed to defy Islamic and national norms.
He had told his party workers that if they saw such an activity taking place on the roads, they should first seek the involvement of the government to stop it, and if there was no response from the government, the workers should stop that activity themselves by force.