Police in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, accepted a First Information Report (FIR), a formal complaint that typically precedes charges, against 150 tied to the opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) for holding rallies that violate Chinese coronavirus containment protocol.
Pakistan began facing a significant spike in the number of confirmed Chinese coronavirus cases nationwide last month, following waves of radical Islamist mob actions in support of the beheading of a schoolteacher in France. At press time, Pakistan has documented a little over 420,000 Chinese coronavirus cases and 8,398 deaths.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, an Islamist who publicly supports the imposition of a global anti-blasphemy law through the United Nations, has imposed safety measures known as the “Standard Operating Procedures” (SOPs) on the nation’s businesses and urged political parties not to hold large rallies. He also canceled all political rallies scheduled for his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), but did not legally prohibit rallies. As a result, PDM has continued holding them, attracting tens of thousands to their events. PDM leaders have dismissed attempts to limit attendance at their events as attempts to intimidate voters into supporting the ruling PTI.
Groups like Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a radical Islamist organization, have also failed to cancel political events. TLP’s leader, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, died last month with symptoms of respiratory disease after organizing multiple mob actions against French President Emmanuel Macron, including a rally that lasted over 24 hours and attracted thousands.
While political events are still legal, organizers must comply with SOPs, which police said on Monday that the PDM had not done.
According to the Pakistani Express Tribune, about 150 supporters of the PDM received notice of police action after attending a rally on Sunday to generate energy for a larger scheduled rally to be held on December 13.
“The police filed the FIR on the complaint of Hamid Mahmood, a sanitary health inspector of the Rawalpindi Health Department. According to the FIR, the rally was organized in violation of coronavirus SOPs and might result in spreading the contagious disease,” the Express Tribune reported. An FIR is a necessary part of a criminal investigation that states that police received a complaint about potentially illegal activity. Further investigation is required to press charges, however.
Dawn, another Pakistani newspaper, reported that over 300 people attended the rally and that it transpired peacefully, but nonetheless presented the risk of coronavirus contagion given the large crowd.
PDM officials responded to the police action by denouncing political persecution.
“We will challenge the police action against political workers,” PML-N Divisional President Malik Abrar Ahmed to Dawn. PML-N — Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz — is one of the several opposition parties to join the PDM mission and the party that Khan’s election removed from power.
“We strongly condemn the government for registering cases and using coercive tactics to suppress the PDM,” Zia-ur-Rehman Amazai, an official with the Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (F) (the Assembly of Islamic Clerics, JUI-F), told the Express Tribune.
The PDM is not planning to cancel or implement any social distancing measures at the December 13 rally, stating the rally will happen “come what may,” though Khan has stated explicitly that police will act if they do not implement coronavirus provisions.
“The jalsa [political rally] will happen at any cost. The sanctity of the vote will be honoured,” Rana Sanaullah, another PML-N member, told the Express Tribune. He said the group expected “hundreds of thousands” at the event.
Admitting the delicate nature of urging a rival political faction to not organize crowded events, Khan has responded to the planned rally by stating that he would not ban political rallies completely to avoid giving the PDM “a chance to portray themselves as revolutionaries.” He has, however, vowed that police will sanction those who actively violate coronavirus SOPs, and that every single person who participates in holding the event, including the company renting seats (the event is scheduled to take place in a park), will be held responsible.
Khan’s remarks are slightly more aggressive than what he had said in November, when he announced the re-introduction of SOPs for public businesses as cases began to rise.
“We have canceled our jalsas [political rallies] and will ask other [parties] to do the same because that is one place where the virus spreads rapidly,” he said at the time, leaving the events open to the judgment of those organizing them.
That call apparently did not include the country’s Islamist organizations like TLP, which rarely seek political office and instead use mob violence to pressure those in power to do their bidding. TLP organized multiple large mob rallies, some threatening the French embassy, last month in response to the October beheading of Samuel Paty, a French schoolteacher, in a Paris suburb. Local Muslims killed Paty for showing students illustrations of Muhammad during a class of freedom of expression. French President Emmanuel Macron replied to the killing by declaring, “we will never give up cartoons,” prompting thousands of Muslims around the world to protest.
TLP organized a rally in response to Macron’s condemnation of beheadings in November attracting thousands, at one point threatening to storm the French embassy. The rally lasted from Sunday into mid-Monday afternoon despite police attempting to encourage rally-goers to go home.
Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the head of TLP, died about a week later, reportedly after beginning to experience difficulty breathing and other respiratory symptoms. No reports indicated that doctors tested him for Chinese coronavirus, so there is no confirmation of the cause of death.
Rizvi’s funeral is believed to have attracted hundreds of thousands of people, the largest in the history of Pakistan, tightly packed into the streets of Lahore.
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