Minister ousted in concession to demonstrators
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Muslim protest movement that paralyzed the capital and convulsed the country for days disbanded peacefully Monday after the government accepted the demonstrators’ main demands, including the resignation of the embattled federal law minister.
But the role of Pakistan’s powerful military in brokering the agreement raised sharp criticism from Pakistan’s judiciary, which accused army officials of an “alarming” reach into politics. Some analysts suggested the army was the real “winner” in the confrontation because it embarrassed the weak civilian government and enhanced the image of the armed forces.
The protesters were enraged over an apparent attempt to change a federal election law in a way that they believed insulted the prophet Muhammad and paved the way for a non Muslim minority group, the Ahmedis, to fully enter the political arena in a country that is 95 percent Muslim.
The leader of the protest movement, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, said he would call off its three-week occupation of a highway interchange outside the capital. A botched operation to break up the protesters on Saturday ended in violence and triggered nationwide sympathy protests, with hundreds injured and at least six people killed over two days.
Rizvi also asked protesters across the country to disperse and called for businesses to reopen. Most major cities were shut down for the past two days, with demonstrators flooding the streets and religious rallies held around the clock in scores of towns and communities.
The confrontation ended after late-night negotiations Sunday. Rizvi publicly praised Pakistan’s army chief and his aides for acting as “guarantors” of the agreement, which averted the situation from possibly spiraling onto a national religious uprising.
A long list of demands by Rizvi and his group, the Movement in Service to the Messenger of God, were accepted by the government. This included the removal of the law minister, Zahid Hamid, the release of all detained protesters, an official inquiry into Saturday’s police assault, and a public accounting of who was behind the attempted law change that provoked the protests.
The agreement signed by Rizvi and top civilian officials specifically thanked Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the army chief of staff, for “saving the nation from a big catastrophe.”
The military is the most powerful institution in Pakistan, and it has often intervened in civilian rule.
In a court hearing in Islamabad Monday on the protests, a senior judge demanded: “Who is the army to adopt a mediator’s role?” The judge, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, said this went “beyond the constitution.” Pamela Constable is a Washington Post writer.