Pakistan has justified its decision to outlaw a regional ethnic rights movement, citing alleged incitement of violence against the state and attempts to establish a “parallel judicial system” under the guise of peaceful public gatherings.
The group, known as the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), has openly criticized the powerful Pakistani military and mainly gets support from residents of the militancy-hit northwestern tribal districts bordering Afghanistan.
On Sunday, the government listed the PTM as a proscribed organization, saying it was engaged in activities “prejudicial to the peace and security of the country.” The ban drew backlash from local and international human rights groups.
Wednesday, Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told a televised news conference in Islamabad that PTM leaders were using “abusive language” against security institutions at their rallies and promoting “racial discrimination” in Pakistan.
The ban under the country’s anti-terrorism law allowed authorities to seal PTM offices, assets and bank accounts; seize literature; and prohibit public advocacy such as media statements or speeches.
Naqvi spoke hours after hundreds of enraged PTM supporters clashed with police near Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa border province, resulting in the deaths of at least three activists.
The violence took place in an area where the PTM had planned to hold a three-day public gathering Friday, called a "Pashtun National Jirga [assembly] Court.” It was intended to protest the civilian casualties and regional losses of property and commerce due to the increased Islamist militancy and army operations to counter the threat.
"We cannot allow anyone to set up a parallel judicial system in the country,” the minister said. "You are allowed to engage in discussions about politics and rights, but you are not allowed to encourage people to revolt against national institutions or to provoke them to take up arms against these institutions,” Naqvi stated.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, or HRCP, denounced the ban on the PTM as “neither transparent nor warranted” and criticized the subsequent use of force by police against the group’s members.
“We oppose any use of unwarranted and unlawful force against those protesters who are unarmed. The state has already taken disproportionate measures by proscribing the PTM and attempting to prevent it from holding this assembly," the watchdog said.
The HRCP noted that a provincial high court ruling had protected PTM supporters’ “right to assemble peacefully.”
Amnesty International has also demanded Pakistan immediately revoke the ban on the PTM.
“The listing of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement as a proscribed organization, days ahead of their gathering scheduled on 11 October, is part of a systematic and relentless clampdown by the Pakistani authorities on peaceful protests and assemblies by dissenting groups,” the global rights defender said in a Tuesday statement.
“This latest arbitrary ban under overbroad powers of the terror law is only the tip of the iceberg — for years, the Pakistani authorities have suppressed such movements from marginalized regions by resorting to unlawful use of force, enforced disappearances, and media bans on the coverage of protests or rallies,” said Babu Ram Pant, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for South Asia.
Pakistan has experienced a surge in terrorist attacks claimed by or blamed on Tehrik-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, which is listed as a terrorist group by the United Nations.
An alliance of banned Pakistani groups, TTP is commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, and its fighters are mainly active in border districts, allegedly conducting cross-border attacks from sanctuaries in Afghanistan with the support of the Taliban government there.
