Aurat March can’t be stopped under constitution, says LHC
lahore — Wrapping up a petition against the holding of a women’s march, the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday reiterated its earlier remarks that the rally could not be stopped under the constitution, Dawn reported.
The LHC also directed the Lahore district authorities to speed up its decision on an application that sought permission to hold the march.
The country-wide event, known as Aurat March, using the Urdu word for women, has been attended by tens of thousands over the last two years to mark International Women’s Day on March 8.
The petition, filed by Judicial Activism Council chairman Azhar Siddique, had alleged that “there are various anti-state parties funding the march with the sole purpose of spreading anarchy in public”.
In the petition, he also termed the gathering “against the norms of Islam” with a “hidden agenda” to spread “vulgarity and hatred”.
During the hearing, LHC Chief Justice Mamoon Rashid Sheikh said that “under the law and constitution of the country, the Aurat March cannot be stopped”. However, the court said that the marchers should “refrain from hate speech and immorality”.
Earlier, the police department submitted a written response on the matter, assuring that the march would be provided foolproof security. But the police reminded the organisers that Lahore’s Mall Road was off-limits for public gatherings of any kind. Reiterating his statement from the previous hearing, the petitioner, Azhar Siddiqui, told the court: “We never wanted for the Aurat March to be stopped.”
Nighat Dad — a digital rights expert and activist who is defending the holding of the march in court — told the petitioner: “You wrote in your petition that the march is anti-state, which is a very dangerous claim.”
Siddiqui responded by saying: “Women are the beauty of our society. Then they talk about slogans like ‘Mera jism, meri marzi’ (my body, my choice). The perception in the world is that we oppress our women.”—