Just a few days back, Judicial Activism Council Chairman Azhar Siddique filed a petition to prohibit the Aurat March. Now the Lahore High Court (LHC) is willing to hearing the petition to ban the movement that calls for women empowerment.
LHC has summoned Additional Director Cybercrime Wing of the Federal Investigation Agency and Deputy Inspector General Operations on February 27th in this regard.
Azhar Siddique filed the petition. He claims that the Aurat March is a foreign conspiracy.
“There are various anti-state parties present who are funding this Aurat March with the sole purpose of spreading anarchy amongst the masses”.
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He further cited his objection to certain placards held at the march. He says that the march is ‘against the very norms of Islam‘Â and it has a hidden agenda to spread ‘anarchy, vulgarity, and hatred‘.
“During last year’s Aurat March, women were holding placards that had objectionable messages.”
LHC directed the federal government lawyer to seek instructions from the Ministry of Interior and inform the court about what can be done in this regard.
Previous Reports
The Judicial Activism Council Chairman has previously tried to file a first information report against ‘women holding objectionable placards at the march‘.
He had submitted an application to the Capital City Police Office (CCPO) Lahore. However, the police did not take any action.
Azhar Siddique had also submitted another application to enforce the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 and Citizen Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules, 2020 against the Aurat March.
He demanded that they;
“stop the promotion of anti-state activities such as Aurat March on social media”
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In yet another application, he demanded the promulgation of the Punjab Red Zone (Establishment and Security) Act, 2018 throughout all of Punjab, but no action has been taken yet.
“Silence the advertisement of Aurat March on social media and to regulate protests such as the Aurat March”.
It is to be noted that using the law to protect citizens’ right to free speech would not do Pakistan’s image any favors. Especially at a time when Pakistan is building a case against India’s suppression of religious minorities on the same grounds. In such circumstances, Pakistan should not take steps to curb free speech rights of an entire gender demographic by banning Aurat March.
Aurat March 2020
The Aurat March is organized around every International Women’s Day annually. This year the march is scheduled for March 8th.
Last year, women from all across Pakistan came together to participate in the Aurat March 2019. This included women from all walks of life from the elderly, and housewives to wage workers, and white-collar workers.
As usual, it received much backlash. In a country with deep-rooted cultural patriarchy, challenging the status quo is difficult.
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Initially what began as ridiculing the Aurat March on social media led to doctored images of posters at the march. This misinformation further stirred the pot.
What began with a trickle of comments on Twitter and Facebook, escalated quickly. Regardless of those who are ridiculing slogans like ‘khana khud garam krlo‘, ‘chai khud bna lo‘ , it is also a fact that they reflect some of the very real situations that incite violence against women.
Instead of banning the protests of women in Aurat March if Muslim men would work on learning about how our noble Prophet Muhammad SAW treated the women and applying his beautiful sunnahs to their lives then the Aurat March will die out automatically.