Thousands rally in Karachi for Pashtun rights

ISLAMABAD, May 14 (Al Jazeera): Thousands of protesters have called for an end to alleged rights abuses by Pakistan's military at the latest rally by a grassroots rights group, defying restrictions and a string of detentions of the movement's organisers.

The Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), a human rights group formed earlier this year, held the rally in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, the country's largest city, on Sunday.

The PTM calls for greater rights for Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun population, which forms roughly 15 per cent of the 207 million population and resides mainly in the country's northwest, where the fight against the Pakistani Taliban has remained focused.

Unusually for Pakistan, the group has often directly called out the country's powerful military, which has ruled for roughly half its 70-year history since independence, for alleged rights abuses committed against citizens in the war against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its allies.

In the lead-up to the rally, a number of PTM leaders were detained for varying lengths of time, and its leader Manzoor Pashteen was twice prevented from boarding flights to the southern city, PTM's Mohsin Dawar told Al Jazeera.

Pashteen eventually made the 1,400km trip from the capital Islamabad by road, arriving at the protest to a raucous welcome.