LAHORE, June 16: An all-party conference on Thursday demanded that the government should stop selling out national assets like the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd. Through a unanimously adopted resolution, the conference decided to hold a protest demonstration against the PTCL privatization near Shimla Hills on Saturday at 4pm.

It demanded early release of all those arrested while opposing PTCL sale and withdrawal of cases registered against them.

The workers who had been sacked for holding anti-privatization protests should be reinstated, it said, and demanded that all army, Rangers and paramilitary forces personnel should be withdrawn from the PTCL installations. It also demanded that the bar on trade unions to organize workers and give call for a strike should be lifted.

The resolution appealed to the electorates not to vote for the political parties which were in favour of privatization.

Trade unionist from the Muslim Commercial, Allied, United, Habib and National banks, railways, House Building Finance Corporation, Irrigation Department, State Life Insurance Corporation besides representatives of All-Pakistan Clerks Association, NGOs and civil society organizations participated in the moot organized by the Anti-Privatization Alliance.

Eminent lawyer Abid Hasan Minto, HRCP chairperson Asma Jahangir, Joint Action Committee coordinator Shah Taj Qizalbash, LHCBA president Fakharunnisa Khokhar, Saleemullah Khan of the JUP (Nifaz-i-Shariat), PPP-SB information secretary Farrukh Sohail, ARD’s Munir Gilani, ANP’s Ehsan Wyne and Neelam Shah, and PLF’s Abdul Qadir Shaheen were prominent among the participants.