KARACHI: Pakistan Peo­ples Party (PPP) announced on Thursday that it would be launching a movement against the federal government with a power show in Nawabshah on June 21 to record protest against the arrest of party co-chairman Asif Ali Zard­ari and other opposition leaders, the Centre’s alleged plan to roll back the 18th Amen­d­ment and the recently announced budget.

The decision was made at a meeting of PPP Sindh chapter at the residence of the party’s provincial president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro.

The meeting said the Nawab­shah gathering would be addres­sed by the party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. The party leadership would strengthen ties with people and rallies would be staged in all district headquarters to express anger against the government’s “anti-people policies”, said a statement issued by the party after the meeting.

“The meeting decided to organise a rally in Nawab­shah on June 21 which will be attended by hundreds of thousands of people from all over Sindh,” it said.

“In the next phase of protests, rallies will be organised in district headquarters of the province to mobilise people for the movement against the ‘selected’ government and cruel policies of Prime Minister Imran Khan who is pursuing a policy of vendetta against opposition leaders instead of resol­ving peoples’ economic woes,” he said.

Mr Khuhro said that the former president’s arrest was just for optics. The real objective of the government was to pressurise the PPP to roll back the 18th Amend­ment, he said.

He said that history was witness to PPP’s “sacrifices” for democracy and it was need of the hour to launch a mass contact movement led by party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to raise voice against all injustices, inflation, economic crisis and fast deteriorating democratic culture in the country.

“This is the first elected government which has created censorship. Those who don’t toe its line are facing repercussions,” the statement quoted Mr Khuhro as saying.

PPP rally against Zardari’s arrest

BADIN: A large number of PPP workers took out a rally and staged a demonstration outside press club in Tando Bago town on Thursday to register protest against the arrest of the party co-chairman.

Local party leaders Basheer Ahmed Zaur, Mir Muneer Ahmed Talpur, Mir Kashif Talpur and others condemned “selective” accountability of political rivals of the federal government and claimed Mr Zardari’s arrest was an attempt to terrorise democratic forces, which had already warned of launching a movement against the rulers and their wrong policies.

They said that Imran Khan and his government had become security risk for the country.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2019