LGBT celebrations: Police fight moralists near red zone
More than twenty-two activists of Jama’at-e-Islami’s student wing were arrested and booked for clashing with and injuring three policemen on Friday while violating section 144, which had been imposed in the city.
The Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT) activists baton-charged the police and pelted stones at the police when they were stopped from proceeding to the red zone for protest. The unruly mob was protesting against an event on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) rights held at the US Embassy two weeks ago.
Police said that between 50 and 70 leaderless youth gathered at Aabpara Chowk for an anti-US protest after Jumma prayers. However, the scene quickly degenerated as the protestors paid no heed to repeated requests from police and city administration officials to confine themselves to Aabpara Chowk. Members of the mob managed to break free of the security cordon and headed towards the red zone.
“The assistant commissioner and the superintendent of police tried to persuade them not to enter the red zone but the protestors insisted that they would continue on to the US Embassy,” said a police official.
Young students armed with batons tried to remove the barricade at a check point near a five-star hotel on Khayaban-e-Suherwardi. When the police tried to stop them, they were attacked by the mob. Inspector Zafar Kahut of the Aabpara police suffered a broken nose during the scuffle.
At least two other police officials were hit in the head and had to be shifted to a nearby hospital for emergency treatment as well. One of the youth managed to snatch a wireless set from a policeman before he escaped from the scene, said a police official.
The police retaliated by baton-charging the protestors and rounded up at least twenty two of them. The remaining IJT activists dispersed following the police’s response, said police.
“We chased them to make sure they do not return,” said a police official, adding that they arrested as many as they could under the circumstances.
Police said that the counterattack on the protestors was authorised by the administration only after the rampant youth defied all warnings and insisted on entering the red zone, which hosts a number of embassies including that of the US.
“They were offered permission to come to D-Chowk in front Parliament House [for a peaceful protest] but they rejected the offer and vowed to go to the red zone,” said a police official.
He opined that the protesters had only come with the intention of clashing with the police and creating a scene to attract television cameras. The arrested men were shifted to Aabpara Police Station, where they were booked on different counts including clashing with the police and stealing and damaging government property.
Police said the protestors will be produced before a court on Saturday to be sent to Adiala jail on judicial remand.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 9th, 2011.
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Its high time we recognise these transgender as one of us We need to come out of our rigid thought process and accept them.
they are not asking for any money of office or land or property, What they are asking is just a recognition Which will help lot of people who are hiding their sexuality because of fear of backlash from the society they too are human being, When we can be kind to Animals, why cant we be kind to Human beings? When we have a law to protect the rights of Animals, then why not have a law to protect a human being of another gender? We can workout a social law for them to operate them within the framework of our society? What is this fuss all about?
Well they certainly just exposed their lies in terms of how far they'd take things. It doesn't matter how much they disagree. They made a statement which included their intent is peaceful and will remain that way. The only way they could dodge this is to disown the students and even then nobody will be able to truthfully claim that their organization will always not condone any violent action. Regardless of whether you could call them splinter members, they're still doing it in the name of IJT. There's no reason to believe it won't happen again while claiming IJT affiliation. That's all it takes. They can't be trusted in their peaceful protests or preaching. There may be a lot who would not do such a thing but obviously there are plenty mixed in with them who have no problem deviating from that and they'll never know when the next time it is those specific ones will react. It could happen at any get-together with the right provoking comment by their "leaders" or anyone else in the crowd. Obviously they're free to continue the things they did previous to this. But it doesn't change the fact they're going to be looked at a lot differently while they're doing it.