Petition in Pak for academic freedom

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani academics have started an online signature campaign to protest alleged stifling of critical thinking and academic freedom by the country's intelligence agencies.

An event on new political movements in Pakistan at the private Habib University was forcibly cancelled just an hour before it was to begin after a visit from intelligence officials. The focus of discussion was the Pashtun movement, said staff involved with the programme.

Academics are seeing a closure of intellectual space within the country. “Between April 12 and 13, four separate but related instances of repression took place on university campuses in different parts of the country,” they said in a statement. In the case of Habib University, one of the guest speakers was forced off campus.

An event at the Lahore University of Management Sciences on April 13 to mark the murder by a mob of student Mashal Khan at

OVER THE PAST TWO MONTHS, INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS HAVE BECOME ACTIVE IN MONITORING AND CONTROLLING ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES ON CAMPUSES, ACADEMICS HAVE SAID.

Abdul Wali Khan University last year was also forcibly cancelled. “It is a shame how we are being pushed into a corner," said Noman Naqvi, an academic.

In another instance, an assistant professor at Punjab University’s department of sociology, Dr Ammar Ali Jan, was suddenly fired with no official reason. Jan, a PHD from Cambridge University, had been working tirelessly alongside students since July 2017 to promote the idea of non-violence and critical thinking.

In the fourth instance intelligence officials questioned Gomal University in DI Khan about the content of their courses.