RAWALPINDI, Feb 8: Without land reforms, democracy cannot flourish in the country because under feudalism real leadership never reaches assemblies.

This was stated by Aasim Sajjad, the secretary general of Awami Workers Party (AWP) Punjab, while speaking at a protest demonstration outside Rawalpindi-Islamabad Press Club on Friday.

He said to carry out land reforms the National Assembly had passed a law in 1977 under which no one could hold more than 100 acres of irrigated and 200 acres of barani land in the country. However, in 1990 the Supreme Court’s Shariat appellate bench declared land reforms as ‘un-Islamic’.

The protest was arranged by the AWP as part of its countrywide ‘day of action against big landed estates and in favour of land reforms’. Representatives of National Students Federation (NSF), Railway Workers Union and other organisations also attended the protest.

Mr Aasim Sajjad said Pakistani society had been destroyed by the establishment’s cynical use of Islam to deny the working people and oppressed nations their fundamental rights. “Land reforms are a major prerequisite if democracy is to take roots in Pakistan and this is why it is essential for the original 1977 legislation to be reinstated,” he said.

AWP information secretary Nisar Shah said party president Abid Hasan Minto had recently filed a review petition with the Supreme Court to challenge the Shariat appellate bench decision of 1990. The petition has been admitted for hearing, he added.

The AWP leaders also criticised the rhetoric of mainstream politicians who have been decrying ‘feudalism’ without ever actually taking practical steps inside or outside parliament to break the stranglehold of big landed families on politics.

They said it was only a genuinely anti-establishment party of the left that can bring about structural changes in the country for the benefit of the poor.

AWP Rawalpindi convener Masudul Hasan, secretary Shehak Sattar, Islamabad convener Nazish Zahoor and NSF general secretary Alia Amirali also spoke on the occasion.