LAHORE, June 12: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has demanded immediate release of political workers held with the obvious purpose of preventing the rallies and warned the government that such a blatant display of contempt for peoples’ rights to assembly and free expression of their grievances would only aggravate the situation.

HRCP secretary general Iqbal Haider said thousands of activists belonging to political parties were reported to be in the jails across the country, most of them in Punjab. Claims by members of provincial government that only a handful of people had been detained over the past few weeks since the popular agitation triggered by the removal of Chief Justice of Pakistan intensified, hardly seemed credible. This was especially so in the lights of complaints by the PPP, the PML-N and the MMA that hundreds of their activists had been arrested in towns across Punjab.

HRCP had also received complaints from political parties regarding arrest of prominent figures. Labour Party of Pakistan’s Farooq Tariq was among those being held. Some of the activists had been detained for three months, he added.