Pak court orders registration of FIR against Aurat March organisers for displaying 'obscene posters'
Mar 27, 2021
Karachi [Pakistan], March 28 : A Pakistani court directed authorities to register a First Information Report (FIR) against the organisers of this year's Aurat March in Islamabad for allegedly displaying "obscene posters" and making sacrilegious remarks against religious personalities.
A local court in Karachi directed on Saturday the police to record the statement of an applicant and, if any cognizable offence was made out, then register an FIR against the organisers of the march in Islamabad, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported.
The Aurat March is an annually-held demonstration, organised in various cities of Pakistan including Lahore, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Karachi, Islamabad and Peshawar to observe International Women's Day.
The directive comes two days after a similar order was issued by a local court in Peshawar, which had ordered the registration of an FIR on Thursday.
On Saturday, the additional district and sessions judge (South) gave this direction to the Station House Officer (SHO) of the City Courts police station on an application, filed by Advocate G M Arain under Section 22-A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) against the same SHO for allegedly not entertaining his request to register an FIR against the organisers of the Aurat March.
In the application, Arain contended that the respondents, including Marvi Sarmad, Tooba Syed and others, had organised an event by the name of Aurat March in Islamabad on March 8.
He further mentioned that vulgar and anti-Islam slogans were raised during the event.
According to Dawn. the applicant stated that he, along with other members of the Karachi Bar Association, had watched the event's telecast on television channels from the capital.
He alleged that during the event, sacrilegious remarks were made about respectable religious personalities and their wives, adding that provocative slogans were also raised.
Earlier this month, a video from the demonstration held in Karachi was doctored to falsely show participants raising blasphemous slogans and widely shared online.
The organisers of Aurat March clarified that the participants of the march did not raise such slogans and their video was edited to defame their struggle.
