PAKISTAN: M-Q-M ANTI GOVERNMENT PROTESTS

Описание: (15 Sep 1999) Urdu/Eng/Nat

An ethnic-based party in Pakistan has warned that its activists could use violence in protest over what its says are relentless attacks on its workers by the government and police.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (M-Q-M), which represents the Indian
immigrant population, accused Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of ordering the police to arrest, torture and kill its workers.

Pakistan has been increasingly paralysed by a series of political rallies and mass strikes calling for Sharif's resignation.

On Friday, the government decided to impose a two-month ban on anti-government rallies in its southern Sindh province, where most of the protests have originated.

Pakistani police have arrested hundreds of opposition supporters and their leaders in the port city of Karachi in a bid to stop them staging an anti-government rally.

The protest is only one in a series of demonstrations that have befallen Pakistan.

The police crackdown follows a government ban announced on Friday against strikes and protest rallies in the southern Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital.

The anti-government rally was called by a 19-party opposition alliance, which has promised to stage protests throughout Pakistan to press for Sharif's resignation.

The opposition accuses Sharif of massive corruption, undermining the constitution and usurping the rights of three smaller provinces in favour of his home province of Punjab.

SOUNDBITE: (Urdu)
"The situation in the country is getting worse as the government prevents us from protesting, which is our constitutional right. It is our right to protest against the wrongdoing of government. Pakistan is a signatory of the United Nations charter on human rights which it is bound to respect."
SUPER CAPTION: Nawabzada Nassurullah Khan, President of the joint opposition "All party"

Karachi, Pakistan's financial hub, is considered to be a stronghold of the ethnic Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

The movement's protests are often marred by violence.

M-Q-M represents Indian Muslims who fled India and came to the newly created Pakistan when departing British colonialists divided the Indian subcontinent along religious lines in 1947.

The party wants a more equal share of opportunities for the Mohajirs, or immigrants, who make up about 70 per cent of Karachi's 12 (m) million residents.

They see the government's drastic restrictions on public movements as a desperate measure.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I see this as a total failure of the government, and the arrest is the result of a government that has no other recourse, no other political aim to offer to the people."
SUPER CAPTION: Senator Aftab Sheikh, Muttahida Qaumi Movement

Once a former ally of Sharif, the M-Q-M has joined ranks with the opposition to demand his removal.

They have even joined forces with their once vehement rival, Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.

The opposition parties say they need to concentrate their efforts to oust Sharif's administration.

Sharif won a landslide victory in the 1997 elections after Bhutto was thrown out of office on corruption charges.

His party still commands more than two-thirds of the seats in the parliament, which gives him the power to change the constitution.

But that hasn't made Sharif popular.

He now faces the same charges of cronyism and abuse that drove his predecessor out of power.

This rally in Lahore was organised by the Pakistan Awami Ittehad (PAI) - a multi-party alliance of various political and religious groups.





SOUNDBITE: (English)








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