Campaign: Awami workers stage rain march to Karachi

Dozens of activists of the Awami Workers Party (AWP) gathered in Rawalpindi on Thursday as they joined workers from other parts of the country for an anti-war train march to Karachi.

As part of their second workers’ congress, expected to be held in Karachi from October 15-16, dozens of workers of the party from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Rawalpindi and Islamabad gathered at the Rawalpindi train station on Thursday afternoon before they embarked on their march to Karachi via the Awam Express.

“AWP is the political alternative. It stands against all kinds of discrimination, be it class-based, gender-based, or religion based,” said a party worker Tooba Syed who was joining the march. As the activists gathered to board the train, they chanted their slogan “no war but class war”.

The march is being held to promote peace in a time of war rhetoric in Pakistan and India.

The congress is being held for building up the party, demanding equal opportunities for everyone and an end to oppression. The party said the government was constantly increasing defence spending at the cost of solving issues of the common man.

They also complained that while the National Action Plan was being used to target terrorists, it was also being used to crush the legitimate protests of farmers and labourers.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2016.