JAC protest campaign schedule announced

Published April 19, 2003

LAHORE, April 18: The Joint Action Committee of teachers, doctors and students has announced a schedule for its countrywide protest campaign against “government’s failure to honour its promises”.

Speaking at a press conference here on Friday, JAC chairman Nazim Hasnain, co-chairperson Prof Yasmin Rashid, Rana Arshad, Jan-i-Alam Khan and others said the JAC would go on hunger strike at a camp at Faisal Chowk on April 22, boycott the intermediate examination from April 26, hold a protest demonstration at Government Muslim High School-II on April 30, stage a long march and hold a sit-in near the Parliament House on May 3.

The leaders also announced that they would boycott classes in schools and colleges on May 5, 6 and 7. They said teachers and students would boycott classes at 10am and gather on roads outside their colleges to block traffic.

“The traffic will be blocked simultaneously in front of all schools and colleges in the province,” he said.

They said the JAC would be ready for negotiations with the government only after the reinstatement of three teachers and a doctor.

Meanwhile, students and teachers boycotted classes in all educational institutions from 10am to 12 noon on Friday.

Mr Hasnain said the Punjab Nationalized Teachers Association and Punjab Teachers Union had also joined the JAC to strengthen its campaign against the government’s anti-education, anti-health and anti-people policies.

They demanded that the government should withdraw the denationalization notification, reinstate the sacked teachers and the doctor, withdraw government schools from the control of NGOs and withdraw the Model University Ordinance.