A PTI worker lost his life and several others were severely injured when the government in Punjab deliberately blocked a rally organized to launch the party’s campaign for the upcoming elections in April. Booked under Section 144, which imposed a moratorium on all public gatherings and assemblies in Lahore, several PTI members were taken into custody on Wednesday for violating the ban. Interestingly, the ban came just a day before two major events-Aurat March and PTI’s rally. While Aurat March was eventually allowed to proceed as originally planned, the government did not make the same exemption for the rally.
The right to freedom of peaceful assembly is a fundamental right in any democratic society, functioning as a medium for political participation and engagement. But in Pakistan, the state arbitrarily interferes with this right, largely made possible through a legal framework rooted in colonial-era policing strategies. Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, a colonial-era law, authorizes the Executive Magistrate of any state to issue an order prohibiting the assembly of four or more people in the area.
Initially intended for emergencies and unique cases of apprehended danger, the law has been empowered by several successive governments to prevent protests regardless of the actual scale of the threat. The discretionary powers conferred to the government under this section are extraordinary-enabling them to suspend what should be a fundamental right in what they perceive to the greater interest of public safety. As such, it even permits the state to pass preemptive orders that direct citizens not to congregate in public.
When peaceful protestors aren’t being charged with sedition, they are told they cannot congregate in public due to security risks characterized too often as an emergency. A country that situates itself in a state of emergency all the time has effectively begun impinging on the right to free expression. We should be focusing on whether it is right for the government to use excessive force against peaceful protestors. As a result, an unarmed man has lost his life forever. *