Tag: Students Solidarity March

  • Aurat March Manifesto is out, here is what it says

    Aurat March Manifesto is out, here is what it says

    It is not a secret that women get unequal treatment in the Pakistani society. Their rights are infringed, their labour is not recognised, and they are underpaid. 

    The enlightened class, mostly students, who take interest in social and political issues have now started to raise their voice for women rights.

    Last year when the poster of Aurat March was released, it received lots of comments, ranging from sexists jokes to rape threats.
    Despite the overwhelming backlash, the Aurat March will be organized on the 8th March of 2020. This time here is what they are fighting for.

    Economic Justice: 

    The exploitation of women working in formal and informal industries should be liberated from capitalistic exploitation. Also, a safe working environment as per the workplace act 2010 should be ensured by providing a harassment-free environment.

    Environmental Justice 

    Apart from women rights, they also demand protection for animal rights, clean drinking water, and recognization of women role in the production of food. 

    Accountability against violence

    The activists demand an immediate end of gender-based violence against women and minorities in the online and offline world.

    There should be strong accountability against the state repression against women and transgenders. Moreover, they demand strong implementation of anti-harassment laws in workplaces to make offices and public spheres a safe place for suppressed genders.

    Police brutality  

    Police reforms acts should be implemented to curb the abuse of power by state institutions. The activists also stand in solidarity with the victims of police brutality like the family of Naqeebullah Mehsud or Sahiwal massacer.  

    Enforced disappearances 

    The state should immediately halt the unlawful practice of abducting people unlawfully as it is the gravest violence of human rights. Women have also been disappeared and a huge number of families have suffered because of the state violence.

    Inclusion 

    The public spaces should be made friendly for disabled people, their efforts should be recognized. People with less visible disabilities like chronic and mental illnesses should be recognized and victims should be accommodated. 

    Reproductive justice

    They petition the government to amend the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 and the minimum age should be raised from 16-18. 

    The women and suppressed gender should have total autonomy over their bodies and quality reproductive and sexual health facilities should be made accessible to women and genders.

    Access to public space

    They demand safe access for women in public space and streets for their social and political activities. They also demand affordable and inclusive public transport and clean public toilets for women.

    Furthermore, there should be no moral policing against women.  

    Anti-war

    They believe that war is a business and no one wins except corruption, and it further strengthens hatred and masculinity that deeply divides society. Moreover, they argue that the Kashmir issue is deliberately created by the stakeholders of power for their vested interests. 

    Kashmiris should be given the right for self-determination and the violence of the state and non-state actors should be condemned. As feminists, they denounce warmongering, militarization, and politics of destruction – they will keep their activism against it. 

  • ‘Treason’ for a better Pakistan

    On November 29, hundreds of thousands of students marched in 50 cities of Pakistan. Their main demand was that the ban on student unions be lifted; other demands included right to free education, better education facilities, etc.

    Any civilised country would have celebrated that the country’s youth came out on the streets to ask for their rights. In a country where more than 64 per cent of its population is under the age of 30, Students’ Solidarity March should have been a moment of pride for Pakistan. Instead, we saw that the top trend on Twitter the following day (November 30) was #StudentsMarchExposed.

    From calling these students ‘foreign agents’ to ‘traitors’, this and many other comments on social media portrayed this march in a negative colour. This isn’t entirely a Pakistani phenomenon. In our neighbouring India, the same card has been used against students. The sedition case against Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students comes to mind. A sedition case was registered against JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and eight others for allegedly raising ‘anti-national slogans’ during an event at JNU in February 2016.

    This is not to say that all comments pertaining to the Students’ Solidarity March in Pakistan were negative – our mainstream media and many on social media praised the students for organising such a successful march on the streets of Pakistan. But we must question this negativity regarding an indigenous movement that should be lauded for its efforts.

    On December 1, an FIR pertaining to sedition charges was registered against the organisers of the march in Lahore as well as some of the participants, including Iqbal Lala who is the father of Mashal Khan, a student lynched on allegations of blasphemy, academic Ammar Ali Jan, labour rights activist Farooq Tariq, Alamgir Wazir Mohammad Shabbir and Kamil Khan. One can only wonder why sedition charges were brought against peaceful protestors.

    Well, if there is one thing common since Pakistan came into being, it is how the state hands out certificates of who is a ‘traitor’/‘anti-national’/‘anti-state’ to whosoever challenges the status quo. What to talk of others if someone like Māder-e-Millat (Mother of the Nation) Fatima Jinnah – who fought for Pakistan’s independence alongside her brother Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah – couldn’t escape the tag of being a ‘foreign agent’ by the then military dictator Ayub Khan. Nationalist leaders were also dubbed anti-state. From Bacha Khan to Baloch nationalists, from G.M. Syed to mainstream leaders like Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, all have been labelled ‘anti-national’ at one point of time or another.

    Dissenting voices that challenge how the state has failed its citizens or those who question the flawed policies of the Pakistani state are dubbed as ‘foreign agents’ working on the agendas of some foreign powers. Patriotism of politicians, students, human rights activists, civil society, NGOs, lawyers, social media activists, media groups, journalists and anyone who has crossed a ‘red line’ or gone against the status quo has been called into question. Just recently, Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa lamented how the three judges including the CJP were being called Indian agents, CIA agents, etc., for questioning the government’s notification regarding the army chief’s extension.

    Pakistanis should realise that dissenting voices are the conscience of a country and that freedom of expression is a fundamental right. We must not go down this dangerous path of silencing dissent for if we do, there will no one to speak for the rights of the marginalised, the rights of minorities, the rights of any human being. Let us not go down a disastrous path from where there is no turning back.

  • Imran vs govt? FIR registered against student marchers despite PM expressing support

    Imran vs govt? FIR registered against student marchers despite PM expressing support

    A sedition case has been registered against organisers and participants of the recently held Students’ Solidarity March despite Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan expressing his government’s willingness to allow the restoration of student unions subject to the establishment of a “comprehensive and enforceable code of conduct”.

    “Universities groom future leaders of the country and student unions form an integral part of this grooming,” the premier tweeted Sunday.

    Referring to the student unions of the past, PM Imran said that they had become “violent battlegrounds and completely destroyed the intellectual atmosphere on campuses”.

    He, however, clarified that unions will be “restored and enabled to play their part” in grooming the future leaders of the country. The premier said that a “comprehensive and enforceable conduct” based on the “best practices in internationally renowned universities” will be developed so that their restoration can be made possible.

    The tweets came a while after reports claimed that a sedition case had been registered against participants of Friday’s march.

    According to reports, Lahore’s Civil Lines police, on behalf of the state, registered the case on sedition charges against Ammar Ali Jan, Farooq Tariq, Iqbal Lala (father of Mashal Khan, who was lynched over allegation of blasphemy in Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan), Alamgir Wazir (nephew of MNA and Pashtun Tahafuz Movement leader Ali Wazir), Mohammad Shabbir and Kamil Khan, besides 250-300 unidentified participants.

    The action flew in the face of the recent statements by several ministers and government representatives, including the premier, who supported the students.

    On Friday, the students had taken to the streets in 50 cities of the country to voice their demands, including the restoration of student unions.

    According to the FIR, complainant Sub-Inspector Mohammad Nawaz said he was on patrol when he received information that a rally of 250-300 people led by Ammar Ali Jan, Farooq Tariq, Iqbal Lala, Alamgir Wazir, Mohammad Shabbir and Kamil Khan was being taken out. He said he reached Faisal Chowk on The Mall where the protesters were forcibly blocking the road to set up a stage to deliver speeches.

    “The speakers incited the students against the state and its institutions and speeches and slogans were recorded on mobile phones and can also be checked through PPIC3 cameras,” he claimed.

    Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Zulfiqar Hameed told Dawn that one of the suspects, Alamgir Wazir, was arrested two days ago in the case. He said the case was registered on behalf of the state because the students were delivering provocative speeches and chanting slogans against the state and its institutions. He said police would arrest the other people involved in the case as well.

  • Why are we marching?

    On November 2 and 3, 2019, in a meeting hosted by the Progressive Students’ Collective, more than twenty students’ organisations from all across the country, including Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) formed the Students’ Action Committee to demand revival of student unions and other issues in higher education.

    The committee vowed to
    launch a nationwide struggle for revival of student unions, against the cut in
    educational budget, increasing harassment cases in universities, security
    forces interferences in educational institutions, student torture cases, lack
    of educational infrastructure and ban on freedom of expression. It also decided
    that the first public activity under the banner of Students’ Action Committee
    would be the Students’ Solidarity March on November 29, 2019.

    The current crisis of
    higher education in Pakistan confronts students in the form of rising cost of
    education and a drastic decrease in immediate returns from a college degree.
    Not only is it harder to afford college education, but education expenses also
    leave students and their families in more debt and with limited job
    opportunities. A shrinking job market with employment opportunities swayed
    through social capital in the form of “contacts” has no space for a majority of
    graduates.

    We are marching on November 29 to organise and to seek institutional power in universities and create a way of holding onto that power. It’s our education — we should control it.

    It seems like a
    four-year degree only qualifies one to become a daily-wage labourer. Given this
    continual crisis, students are organising on campuses across the country for
    the forthcoming Students’ Solidarity March, after so many decades their
    struggles for the restoration of students’ unions are not fragmented but
    coordinated.

    Since the collapse of
    the students’ movement of the 70s and the subsequent ban on student unions in
    1984 under the dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq, most campus activism has
    taken the form of single-issue groups. There is a ban on any kind of political
    activity by students on campus and those who have tried to raise their voice
    for rights, have been rusticated, abducted and sometimes killed by fascist
    groups. By using anti-terror laws, their voices have been suppressed.

    Due to different kinds of repression on campuses, students haven’t been able to form an alliance that can give voice to all those being robbed of their rights and facing severe repression.

    From the past one year,
    students are agitating in different campuses on different issues, which include
    protests and sit-ins against fee hikes, sexual harassment, against the
    abduction of a number of students and for better housing, internet and transport
    facilities on campuses.

    While the resistance
    that popped up at Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) against budget cuts and tuition
    hikes remained partially successful in pressurising the administration to succumb
    to some of their demands, the fiscal situation and budget cuts at QAU are not
    unique.

    We are marching because if we want to create radical change on our campuses — change that addresses economic and cultural aspects of our life — we need to move towards students’ unionism.

    Provincial governments
    across the country are cutting funding to schools and universities; the
    university officials are using budget cuts to jack up tuition fees (hikes that
    will continue for a long time) and to cut essential services and programmes.
    While the students at QAU, Punjab University (PU), Sindh University (SU) and
    the University of Balochistan (UoB) are putting up an amazing response to fee
    hikes, sexual harassment and securitisation of campuses, a coordinated effort
    under the banner of Students’ Action Committee to revive student unions would
    be more beneficial for the student body to assert its power as a class that
    represents the youth of this country.

    Therefore, we are marching on November 29 to organise and to seek institutional power in universities and create a way of holding onto that power.

    Progressive policy
    changes are a great thing on our campuses and they should be fought for, but
    they should be fought for in the context of building student power at campus
    level as well as at national level. Building student power means gaining more
    and more control over our campuses and the decisions that affect us as students.
    In the end, student power means a student-run higher education system.

    It’s our education — we should control it.

    We are marching
    together to ensure that local victories do not become isolated pockets of
    progress and resistance. We are marching to ensure that this work spreads and
    students find ways to coordinate efforts with those underway at other campuses
    in their areas.

    Movements grow not only by example, but when they actively engage people and share resources and hard-earned lessons. Because the federal government still makes most of the higher education policy decisions, students also need to coordinate on the national level in ways that foster cross-campus solidarity and encourage local initiatives.

    We are also aware of
    the fact that coordinating efforts should never mean that local campus organising
    becomes merely an extension of some larger campaign because this sort of
    strategy cannot support long haul organising. We need coordination that is
    mutually beneficial to everyone involved.

    We are marching on November 29 because if we want to create radical change on our campuses — change that addresses economic and cultural aspects of our life — we need to move towards students’ unionism. Unions that are run by the rank and file students; that fight alongside faculty and workers; that seek to empower the historically oppressed and revolutionise our educational system.