PESHAWAR, Oct 14: The victory of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal in the NWFP has given birth to various apprehensions among the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) functioning here in different fields.
Most of the NGO workers believed that in NWFP, where a number of NGOs are working, are faced with anti-NGO tendencies.
The NGOs, specially working in the fields of women empowerment and discriminatory laws against women, would face difficulties in the new setup, claimed most of the NGOs activists on Monday.
“The component parties of the MMA specially the JUI(F) is known for adopting hostile posture towards the NGOs and their coming into power in this province may hinder activities of NGOs,” said Ms Bushra Gohar, member of the National Commission on the Status of Women and an active member of the Joint Action Committee of civil society groups.
She pointed out that the leadership of these parties had on numerous occasions criticized the NGOs and they had never stopped their workers from their anti-NGOs activities in different parts of the province.
Another important thing, she believed, was that they had not put forward any programme except to eradicate obscenity and mould the society in accordance with Islamic teachings.
During the last couple of years the tension between the religious circles and the NGOs continued in this province and various cases of hostilities were reported. Even in some of the areas the clerics had issued religious edicts, asking their followers to forcefully marry the girls from NGOs.
In southern districts hand-grenades were hurled at the offices of different NGOs and a month back a grenade was thrown on the office of Global Development Programme (GDP) in Bannu.
An MNA from Bannu district, Maulana Naseeb Ali Shah, registered a complainant against an NGO last year on the charges of hurting his religious sentiments. The NGO had arranged a seminar on peace and disarmament.
“We are yet not sure what will be the stance of these religious parties towards the NGO movement, but keeping in view their past record it appears that we will face problems by their hands,” said Shakeel Waheedullah Khan, representative of the Civic Awareness Promotion Society, an NGO whose community school was attacked by a group of anti-NGOs people last year in the suburb of Peshawar.
He also claimed that JUI(F) was a staunch opponent of NGOs and that party might be the real trouble maker. He added: “As they never raised voice against real issues and their attention remained focus on non-issues, they might once again highlight non-issues like obscenity in the society and NGOs.”
Another NGO activist, Ms Aneela Qamar, who is chief executive of Khwendo Khor (KK), was optimistic, stating that after coming into power, the MMA parties might feel responsibility and do away with their past traditions of harassing NGOs.