Pakistan launches crackdown on religious protesters, setting off violent clashes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...d1e45a6de3d_story.html?utm_term=.3378cd2c23f6
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Protests erupted across Pakistan on Saturday after security forces launched an early-morning crackdown on thousands of religious demonstrators camped on a highway in the capital. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the angry crowd, which fought back with clubs and pelted police with stones from slingshots.”
Army officials urged the government to respond to the protests “peacefully,” saying that violent confrontation was “not in the national interest,” but police and civilian officials seemed overwhelmed by the day-long outpouring of unrest. Demonstrators blocked highways, shut down sections of metropolitan Rawalpindi, Karachi and Lahore, and filled dozens of public squares and crossroads across Pakistan’s four provinces.
Officials blocked all television news channels at midafternoon, but information from scattered communities traveled by phone and text messages. Hundreds of injuries were reported among both protesters and security forces, and two fatalities were reported at the scene. Protesters attacked and injured a legislator from the ruling party and vandalized the home of the federal law minister, whose resignation they have demanded.
Clashes continued all day at Faizabad, an interchange on the main highway between Islamabad and the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi, where religious groups had first gathered since Nov. 8 to protest what they believed was a deliberate attempt to change Pakistani electoral laws with language that insulted the prophet Muhammad.
The original protests were spearheaded by a movement dedicated to defending the honor of Muhammad, a 7th-century figure whom Muslims believe to be final prophet in Islam, and the country’s strict laws against religious blasphemy. The group also reveres a man who assassinated a provincial governor in 2011, acting out of religious anger because the official had defended a Christian peasant woman accused of blaspheming against Islam.
A police officer fires rubber bullets to disperse protesters during a clash in Islamabad. Pakistani police have launched an operation to clear an intersection linking capital Islamabad with the garrison city of Rawalpindi where an Islamist group's supporters have camped out for the last 20 days.
The leader of that movement, Maulvi Khadim Allama Hussain Rizvi, remained at the Faizabad site all day, wearing a gas mask and using a wheelchair because of a permanent disability. According to news reports, he chanted slogans praising the “finality of the prophet” and welcoming new protesters who arrived from mosques, shrines and homes to join the besieged rally.
Rizvi reportedly read out lists of towns and cities where crowds had blocked roads, adding “all praises to Allah.” Emotionally charged protesters chanted, “Long live the finality of the prophet.”
The assault at Faizabad had been expected but repeatedly delayed for days, as religious leaders refused government orders to disperse and ignored repeated deadlines. The demonstrations began three weeks ago and have grown steadily, with emotionally charged crowds calling for the removal of a cabinet minister.
The protesters are upset about a previous proposed change in election laws — just a few words of text — that weakened the specific oath that all candidates for public office must repeat, swearing they believe that Muhammad was the prophet. The government apologized for the “clerical error” several weeks ago, but Rizvi and his supporters have continued to push relentlessly for further action, especially the firing of law minister Zahid Hamid.
Despite the presence of thousands of security forces, protesters at Faizabad continued to resist or escape them throughout the day, and by nightfall crowds were roaming the streets. Meanwhile, the reports of sympathetic rallies elsewhere spread, creating a growing sense of confrontation and loss of government control.
As the unrest spread, the demands of the protesters broadened; instead of calling for Hamid’s dismissal, there were growing chants and speeches demanding the resignation of the entire government, which is led by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Party-Nawaz. Some security officials reportedly called for martial law to be imposed, although the army said it would act only on civilian orders.
From Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and a major seaport, a Washington Post correspondent reported that many malls and commercial areas had been shut down amid throngs of milling protesters, and that dozens of people had been injured. As crowds gathered near the city’s international airport, some flights were canceled.
“The fight with the police is in the streets, and they are on the run. We are winning, and we will be on the roads as long as the government stays,” said Sayed Sabtain, 26, a protester in the Faizabad crowd Saturday morning. “Earlier, this was about the law minister resigning, but now all the government has to go. If they think they can defeat us with bullets, we are here to die for the respect of the prophet.”
The group that started the protests, which have blocked traffic for days on the major expressway between the federal capital and nearby Rawalpindi, was once considered a fringe religious movement built around the cult of Mumtaz Qadri, a 26-year-old bodyguard who assassinated Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer. Qadri was hanged for murder last year, and supporters built an ornate shrine to him on the outskirts of the capital.
The group, called the Movement in Service to the Finality of the Prophet, has recently become involved in politics, fielding candidates in two parliamentary elections. It claims to be peaceful and nonideological, and it has been steadily gaining support among the Muslim populace. Pakistan, a poor country of 207 million, is 95 percent Muslim.
The movement also crusades against Ahmedis, a religious minority that claims to be Muslim but follows a 19th-century prophet, and it has accused the government of favoring Ahmedis by trying to change the election law.
In recent days, as hundreds of thousands of people have been prevented from getting to work, school and home by the traffic snarls, the Abbasi government has attempted to negotiate with the protest leaders, fearing a major confrontation, but they refused to back down from demanding that Hamid be fired for allegedly engineering the proposed change in the electoral law.
Officials have so far refused to fire Hamid but launched an investigation into the origins of the proposed legal change. Earlier this week, after the Islamabad High Court called the protest illegal and an “act of terror” against the public, the government still gave the protesters more time to disperse.
On Thursday, the Islamabad court threatened to hold the federal interior minister with contempt for failing to evict them. The government then gave a final dispersal deadline of midnight Friday, and at dawn the police assault commenced.
