PESHAWAR: ANP observes token hunger strike: Karachi killings, media curbs
Dawn Report
PESHAWAR, June 11: Leaders and activists of the Awami National Party observed a hunger strike outside the press club on Monday in protest against Karachi killings and restrictions on the media by the government.
ANP general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain said the ANP workers had set up hunger strike camps in divisional headquarters to express sympathy with victims of the Karachi carnage on May 12.
He said that the hunger strike was also aimed to show solidarity with the media persons who were under tremendous pressure by the military-led government.
Party leaders Mohammad Adeel, Afrasiab Khattak, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, Hameedur Rehman Mohammadzai, Mian Mushtaq, Wajid Ali Khan, Zahira Bibi and Bushra Gohar along with several activists observed hunger strike from 10am to 2pm.
Banners and placards inscribed with slogans against the MQM and General Pervez Musharraf were hung outside the camp.
Afrasiab Khattak said that after the tragic Baberha incident in 1948, the killing of party workers in Karachi was the second blackest day in the history of the Pakhtun nationalist movement.
He said that chehlum of the May 12 martyrs would be observed in Karachi on June 23 which would be attended by Asfandyar Wali Khan and others Pakhtun nationalist leaders.
He said that the bloodshed in Karachi allegedly by the MQM was not a ‘one-day affair’, but the ANP would now take it as a challenge to set free Karachi from the clutches of the ‘mafia’ and win rights for the Pakhtun living there.
He said that the Pakhtun in Karachi should be provided security as right of domicile, vote, identity card and admission to local schools and colleges was their basic right.He said that the ANP’s approach towards the May 12 incident was different from the Pakhtun Action Committee as the former wanted political as well as economic rights of the Pakhtun residing in the city.
He said that the ANP held the MQM responsible for the bloodshed in Karachi, whose activists were backed by the Sindh and federal governments to sabotage the lawyers’ movement against General Musharraf.
Regretting the role of intelligence agencies, which he alleged were working for the interests of an individual and a single institution, he said the affidavits presented by the spymasters against the Chief Justice of Pakistan showed that they had been involved in eavesdropping on honourable judges.
He said that apart from reviving democracy in the country the political parties should also now devise a strategy to bring under control the intelligence agencies.
SWABI: The Awami National Party set up a protest camp here on Monday against curbs on the electronic media.ANP district general secretary Jehanzeb Khan said that despite the withdrawal of the controversial Pemra ordinance by the government, its intention to gag the media was clear.“Every body knows that how the transmission of private TV channels has been blocked in various parts of the country during the judicial crisis,” he said.
ANP district president Rehmanullah said that on one hand the government claimed that there were no curbs on the press, on the other it targeted journalists.
The followers of Bacha Khan always advocated the freedom of press and democratic culture, he said. “We are still sticking to the philosophy of non-violence,” he said.
MPA Mukhtiar Khan said that the government had executed the plan of killing innocent people at the hands of Muttahida Qaumi Movement in Karachi.
KOHAT: Former MPA advocate Aurangzeb of the Awami National Party said that international and foreign policies of President Musharraf had backfired and he was losing support of the west which he enjoyed for his uniform and controlled democracy in return for fighting the Pakhtun and Arabs.
Speaking at a hunger strike camp set up near the Shah Faisal gate by the Awami National Party to express solidarity with journalists and to condemn the Karachi violence, he demanded that the people involved in the Karachi incident should be punished.
