Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan occasion activists run from police throughout a protest in help of Palestinians, in Muridke, Pakistan, on Oct. 13.
Arif Ali/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
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Arif Ali/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan banned a hard-line Islamist occasion on Thursday, greater than per week after heated clashes with police that left not less than 5 folks lifeless.
The ban follows a march by the occasion, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), earlier this month from the jap metropolis of Lahore to the capital metropolis, Islamabad. It escalated right into a vicious road battle between TLP supporters and police in Lahore and the close by metropolis of Murdike, resulting in a crackdown on the occasion, which has come to be identified for these violent confrontations.
A assertion from the workplace of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif mentioned the ban was unanimously accepted by the federal cupboard, citing “violent and terrorist actions.” The ban is the most recent chapter in a sophisticated relationship between the Pakistani state and the TLP, which has amassed appreciable grassroots help lately for its hard-line views, notably on blasphemy or the denigration of Islam.
In keeping with Pakistan’s blasphemy legal guidelines, individuals who insult Islam or Islamic figures can face a attainable dying sentence. The TLP calls for dying as a punishment, and human rights teams say the occasion’s supporters generally perform brutal mob lynchings even earlier than folks accused of blasphemy go on trial. Pakistan has seen a important spike in blasphemy instances lately, according to the TLP’s rise.
The TLP was formally launched as a political occasion in 2017 by a fiery cleric, although its ideology took maintain earlier, following the 2011 assassination of the governor of Pakistan’s populous Punjab province, Salman Taseer, who was outspoken in opposition to the blasphemy legal guidelines. The homicide led to a wave of help for the governor’s killer, Mumtaz Qadri, considered one of Taseer’s bodyguards, who was hailed by some as a hero and defender of Islam. The TLP isn’t thought-about a mainstream political occasion, but it surely has a big ideological help base, particularly in Punjab province.
The transfer to ban the occasion got here from the federal government in Punjab, the place the latest protests passed off. Earlier than the ban, police in Punjab raided the home of the TLP’s chief, Saad Rizvi, and the federal government sealed mosques and seminaries related to the occasion. A number of the occasion’s associates at the moment are additionally dealing with anti-terrorism costs, based on Punjab’s info minister, Azma Bokhari.
“This isn’t a non secular or political occasion — they disguise behind faith to unfold dysfunction and attempt to do politics over lifeless our bodies,” Bokhari mentioned in an interview with native media.
The TLP introduced the protest as a present of solidarity with Palestinians following the U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and protesters had been set to collect in entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. Forward of the protest, the federal government suspended cellular web service within the capital and cordoned off main roads with transport containers to maintain protesters out.
Khurram Iqbal, an affiliate professor of safety research at Quaid-e-Azam College in Islamabad, says each exterior and inner components created the surroundings for this crackdown to happen, together with Pakistan’s latest realignment with the USA.
“We are able to unwell afford any strain group charging on the American Embassy,” he says.
Azaz Syed, a senior Pakistani journalist, says the TLP acknowledged this dynamic as a possibility.
“They thought that they might elevate the priority that Pakistan is supporting America, and America is bringing peace after a compromise with Israel,” Syed says. “They wished to additional put it to use for gaining extra help.”
However Pakistan’s civilian authorities and navy management additionally took this as an affront, he says, contributing to the crackdown. “It meant that they’re truly difficult them.”
The TLP was beforehand banned in 2021 after the occasion held violent protests in response to caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad revealed in France. The occasion referred to as for the expulsion of the French ambassador, and hundreds of individuals gathered within the streets to strain the federal government to behave on their demand. The ban was later eliminated with the situation that the TLP should chorus from violence.
Pakistan’s leaders have defended the present ban in opposition to the TLP as obligatory to keep up public order. In an interview with native media, Pakistani Protection Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif referred to as for a “laborious state” method in opposition to the occasion.
“Such spiritual extremist teams, which resort to violence and trigger injury to property, can’t be tolerated in Pakistan,” he mentioned.
Pakistan has additionally taken a hard-line method towards different political events, most just lately the occasion of imprisoned former prime minister, Imran Khan, beginning in 2023. Some leaders from Khan’s occasion held protests final week in opposition to the crackdown on TLP, calling it unconstitutional.
