ISLAMABAD, May 20: The joint action committee of civil society organizations has condemned the May 14 attack on the women participants of a marathon in Lahore and asked the Punjab government to provide security to the symbolic marathon being organized in the provincial capital on Saturday.

The members of the committee were speaking at a press conference at the camp office of Rawalpindi-Islamabad Press Club here on Friday.

A message of Chairperson Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Asma Jehangir was read out on the occasion.

The message alleged that secret agencies personnel in plain clothes attacked the marathon and beat and “sexually harassed” the women participants.

Shabab-i-Milli was used by the agencies just to give a political colour to the event because by the time the activists arrived on the spot, the agencies had already maltreated the participants.

A joint statement read out by Farzana Bari of Pattan Development Organisation said oppression of women and control over women bodies had been central to the MMA’s policies and politics. “The MMA’s anti-women agenda is evident from the time of their alliance with the late military dictator Ziaul Haq whose Islamization could not move beyond introduction of discriminatory laws against women,” Ms Bari said.

She said the same religious parties had again extended their support to the military regime of General Musharraf, who in turn accepted their Madressah degrees as equivalent to BA and manipulated election results to bring them into power in NWFP and Balochistan.

The MMA government started Talibanization in NWFP by banning cultural activities, stopping women from seeing male doctors, forcefully segregating women in medical colleges, defacing billboards, attacking wedding parties and NGOs workers for mobilising women voters, banning women from working in public call offices (PCOs) and participating in sports, Ms Bari said.

She said there was an apparent contradiction in the government’s stance on “Enlightened Moderation”. MMA was allowed to hold rallies all over the country but the gatherings of liberal forces were continuously attacked on the pretext of violation of Section 144, she added.

She said it was highly condemnable that the military government was backtracking on some of its initiatives to promote their much-touted policy of “Enlightened Moderation” that included blasphemy law, restoration of religion column in passport, curriculum reforms and cancellation/postponement of women participation of marathons planned in various cities.