LAHORE, Dec 10: More than 4,000 people gathered at the Nasser Bagh on Monday to commemorate the International Human Rights Day.

Organised by the Punjab NGO Co-ordination Council (PNCC), the rally managed to draw crowds from all over the Punjab. Showing an unwavering belief in the significance of the day, human rights and political activists, working for different non-governmental organizations, came from Khanewal, Bahawalpur, Multan, Sialkot, Lodhran, Faizabad, Okara, Kamoke and other small and big cities of the province. The underlying message of the assembly was to uphold peace in Afghanistan by bringing an immediate end to the US bombing of that battered country.

But, before the topic of Afghanistan could claim the centre-stage, the organizers of the event had to take care of certain logistical problems. The peace rally participants had originally planned to hold the meeting on The Mall, but they were not allowed to do so by the district administration. As an alternative, the PNCC decided to use the Nasser Bagh as a starting point from where it would subsequently set off towards the Data Sahib.

Even though we had applied two weeks in advance for a permission to hold the meeting, the police informed us at the last minute that they had not received the go-ahead signal from the Nazim, explained Mrs Tahira Mazhar Ali, one of the forerunners of the Human Rights Day meeting.

The fact that the march was essentially in support of commitment to global and national peace, the administrators arbitrarily forbade the event’s organizers to take the march outside the bagh. It is unfair of the government to allow only the religious extremists to use The Mall to express themselves. We were not burning tyres or torching shops, it was a peaceful event. But the government would not have it. The district administration did not even allow us to use the back route to go to the Data Sahib, said Shazia Khan, secretary-general of the Punjab NGOs Co-ordination Council.

So, in spite of the district administration’s glitches, the commemorative council of the Human Rights Day did not feel discouraged enough to call off the event.

Concerned people and conscientious citizens voiced their concerns in speeches made to the huge crowd. Passionate appeals were made to the government of Pakistan to take a stand against “the indiscriminate war on terrorism”. One of the most potent speeches on the occasion was delivered by Dr Mubashar Hasan. He called for an immediate cessation of the US bombing on Afghanistan. He said that now that the Taliban were finished and the government formed in Afghanistan by the United Nations agreement at Bonn, would assume office on Dec 22, 2001, the permission given by Pakistan to the US military aircraft to drop bombs in Afghanistan should relapse.

Now, the government of Pakistan should inform the US government that if Pakistan’s airspace was to be violated and used by military aircraft, the request for such flights should come from the established government of Afghanistan, stated Dr Mubashar Hasan succinctly. He also stressed the unfairness of further use of Pakistan’s airspace by the US forces.

After Dec 22, it would not proper for Pakistan to permit any aircraft to fly over its territory without the express request of the new government in Kabul. In fact, the authorization for any future military action should come from the UNSC, elaborated Dr Hasan.

A joint resolution of the PNCC asked the world bodies to ensure the safety of the Afghan women, children and the minorities. The council also wanted the coalition to treat the POWs according to the rules laid out in the Geneva Convention, and asked for an immediate inquiry into killings at the Qila-i-Jangi fort in Mazar-i-Sharif.

It is worth mentioning that the event at the Nasser Bagh could have had a momentous impact on the administration as well as the people if the Joint Action Committee (JAC) had also participated. In fact, a conspicuous split was visible between the PNCC and the absence of some of JAC’s vociferous entities. Chaired by the Human Rights Commission’s chairperson, Afrasiab Khattak, the Joint Action Committee is holding a seminar on the subject of human rights in Islamabad.

The Joint Action Committee has a different line of reasoning. It believes that religious fundamentalism should not be tolerated, explained Mrs Tahira Ali. Should it be assumed then that religious fundamentalists fall beyond the purview of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? — Shehr Bano Khan