Incitement attempt? Shuhada Foundation barred from holding presser

Spokesperson briefly arrested; immediate recovery of all missing persons including bloggers demanded

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad administration and the police on Friday forcibly stopped office-bearers of the Shuhada Foundation from addressing a press conference at Lal Masjid on the issue of missing persons.

Shuhada Foundation, a non-profit which ostensibly handles court cases of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Aziz or relating to Operation Sunrise, had announced it would hold a press conference in the mosque on the issue of missing persons, including the recent disappearance of five social media activists. The foundation has on occasion held press conferences at the mosque.

The city administration, however, told them to refrain from holding a press conference, while threatening them with arrest.

Subsequently, dozens of police officials in riot gear and plainclothes gathered outside the mosque with a prison van in tow ahead of the scheduled press conference.

As soon as Advocate Tariq Asad, who is president of the foundation, started speaking, City Magistrate Ali Javed came forward and announced that the press conference was not permitted and asked them to stop. “This is a state-run mosque. If you want to hold a press conference, go to the press club. You have no no-objection certificate (NOC) for this press conference,” he said.

But when the handful of organisers there at the time  failed to obey his orders, policemen in plainclothes picked up Ihtisham Ahmed, spokesperson for the foundation, and took him away.

He was shifted to Aabpara Police Station but was released a few hours later after a report was logged against him.

Later, a press statement issued by the foundation condemned all sorts of enforced disappearances in the country. It said the trend had started during the Musharraf regime and continues to date.

It also claimed that people were being killed in fake police encounters, particularly in Punjab.

About Salman Haider and other missing bloggers, it said, “No institution has the right to keep them ‘missing’”.

It demanded the immediate recovery of all missing bloggers as well as missing clerics.

Internal rift?

At the start of the press conference, Maulana Aamir Siddique, who is a nephew of Aziz and the current naib-khateeb of the mosque, also came forward and objected to the press conference. He said nobody had sought permission for the event from the mosque administration and requested them to call it off.

He accused the organisers of the press conference of misusing the mosque for their personal politics.

In response, the organisers said Siddique had been conniving with the authorities and the government for his own vested interests.

When asked, Siddique said the Shuhada Foundation had nothing to do with Lal Masjid.

Siddique had been appointed as the naib-khateeb of the mosque in 2007 after Aziz was suspended in 2004.

After being released by the police Ahmed said the Shuhada Foundation itself had pushed for Siddique’s appointment as naib-khateeb but will now challenge his position in the Supreme Court. He insisted that the foundation still represents “Lal Masjid and its head Abdul Aziz”.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2017.