Pakistan to ban street marches

FE Team | Published: October 23, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Farhan Bokhari
Lahore: Pakistan's government plans to enforce new laws banning political marches on the streets during the upcoming election season in the wake of last week's devastating bomb blasts in Karachi that wrecked opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's homecoming parade and left at least 140 people dead.
Political parties will only be allowed to hold meetings in well-secured parks and public grounds rather than organise processions that may be targeted by suicide bombers, said a government minister.
The plan will be enforced once a caretaker government is installed by mid-November, which will mark the formal beginning of no more than two months of electioneering, with parliamentary elections planned in the first half of January.
"Public safety must come first. This is why we have to obviously restrict rallies [marches] during the election season," said Tariq Azeem, the junior information minister. He said there was intelligence information about "a number of suicide bombers in the pipeline and planning to target well known politicians".
A Pakistani intelligence official said there were reports of 20-30 suicide bombers from the tribal areas along the Afghan border, who were "ready to go for attacks" with backing from al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Ms Bhutto on Sunday urged the government to seek international assistance in investigating the bombing. Analysts said her remarks appeared to be another vote of no confidence in Pakistan's intelligence services, which are investigating the blasts.
The attacks have caused unprecedented concern over the safety of politicians. But observers said that new laws banning marches could create more of a political divide.
Leaders of Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's party denounced the plan. "Gen Musharraf's eight years in power have never seen a large wave of people who were out for a political cause," said one. "Now the government fears the PPP's political rise, they want to restrict our political space."