Aman Ittehad plans 100 rallies on January 1

Islamabad

The Aman Ittehad, an alliance of human rights associations and NGOs, has given a call to hold 100 rallies on the first day of the New Year (on Saturday) at 1pm across the country to express solidarity with those suffering from violence in any form, including suicide attacks, bomb blasts, target killings, kidnappings, disappearances, and torture killings.

According to the Aman Ittehad, the rallies will be held at more than 100 different locations across Pakistan. Announcing this at a press conference at the National Press Conference here on Thursday, Ali Asghar Khan, organiser of Aman Ittehad, along with Sehar Gul, Zahoor Awan, Naeem Mirza, Shibli Faraz and Raziq Faheem, said raising the issue of growing insecurities across Pakistan, the Aman Ittehad pleaded for an urgent action to devise a political solution to ensure the security of life and livelihood of the people of Balochistan according to their aspirations and in a manner that helped restore trust. He said the state should refrain from the use of force and immediately end military action in the province.

He said the Aman Ittehad called for mechanisms that provided effective recourse to those who were suffering at the hands of representatives of state institutions, influential people, extremists and militants using the current lack of law and order to exploit citizens by propagating terror and the use of force.

Asghar Khan said citizens from across the country would participate in the Solidarity Day rallies to demand that people’s interest become the only measure of national interest to define all actions and policies of the state. “The rallies will condemn the use of political, military or economic power for oppression or exploitation of citizens,” he said, adding the rallies would also demand an end to the protection of state and non-state actors, which took the law in their own hands and propagated or encouraged militancy and extremism by their words or actions.

He said the Aman Ittehad was a citizen platform calling for a shift from a security to a welfare state in Pakistan. “The Solidarity Day is an expression of the power of ordinary citizens, and a call to exercise their choice and free will,” he added.

Published in the News, December 31, 2011