A turn of the screw — maybe

With the echoes of the New Year’s Day Tweet by President Trump still echoing around, the capital administration has also on the first day of the year issued orders prohibiting activities by banned organisations. The ban includes organisations that are on UN watch lists as well as individuals so named. A list of 71 people and organisations has been given to the police and the capital administration. The move has been prompted by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) that issued orders prohibiting a number of organisations from collecting money. The SECP noted that several of the banned groups had been busy in Islamabad — which rather begs the question that if the SECP knew about it then so did everybody else and why was nobody doing anything about it?

Any visitor to Islamabad will have seen collection boxes of banned groups in a range of markets, and some maintain a round-the-clock street corner presence and have done so for months if not years — in plain sight and untouched by any law-enforcement agency. It must also be noted that identical collection boxes are to be found in numerous locations across the country, they are not confined to the capital.

Just how serious this or any other government is about limiting the activities of banned or extremist groups can be gauged by these innocuous collection points, the open gatherings and rallies, the wall-chalking and the banners and posters. And it is clearly none-to-serious and indeed may be supposed to be sympathetic to these groups and individuals, and more than happy to tolerate their presence and activities.

The imposition of Section 144 may be purely cosmetic, and credibility will only be gained from the very public and swift take-down of all collection-boxes and the like and the closure of street-corner presences by groups that snub the rule of law. We await action eagerly. Or not.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2018.

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