Boycotting court proceedings: Lawyers observe strike against blasphemous caricatures

KARACHI: Thousands of cases were delayed in the Sindh High Court and the lower courts on Monday as lawyers boycotted proceedings in protest against the blasphemous caricatures published in French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Hundreds of cases fixed on the day had to be adjourned unheard, causing hardship for a number of the litigants. This was the third strike in the courts since the start of the year. Instead of appearing in the courts to plead their cases, the members of the SHC Bar Association held a general body meeting to condemn Charlie Hebdo. They passed a resolution taking note of the repetition of such cartoon in other newspapers and magazines in Western countries, terming them as 'hate speech'.

The association called upon the United Nations and the European Union to stop the publication of such caricatures and pay immediate attention towards this issue, which it claimed was promoting extremism and disturbing the peace all over the world. It also asked the Pakistani government to take the issue up with the International Court of Justice.

On Saturday, the legal fraternity held rallies in different parts of Karachi to condemn the publication of the caricatures. The office-bearers of the city's bar associations had demanded that the government lodge a protest with its French counterparts and summon an urgent meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Countries on the matter.

A member of the Karachi Bar Association told The Express Tribune that there was no plan to compensate for the boycotted days. "Protest is our democratic right, through which we register our concerns with the higher authorities," he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2015.