Taliban threaten to go after Aurat March participants

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has threatened rights activists, who organised peaceful demonstrations to mark International Women’s Day in the country, accusing them of blasphemy and promoting obscenity.

Read more – ‘Ek hee dafaa sari aurton ko ban ker do’: Meesha Shafi defends Aurat March

The proscribed Afghanistan-based militant group’s statement followed a flurry of falsified images and doctored video clips on social media that suggested participants in the March 8 protests had insulted Islam, which they denied.

“We want to send a message to those organisations who are actively spreading obscenity and vulgarity,” the statement said, addressing the marchers. “Fix your ways, there are still many young Muslims here who know how to protect Islam and the boundaries set by Allah.”

Conservative groups held demonstrations on Friday in several cities to demand that the government prosecute the march organisers for blasphemy, and they threatened vigilante action.

Messages spread on social media, in some cases shared by journalists and politicians with millions of followers, included false allegations that the French flag was waved at the Women’s Day march, while doctored video and audio showed participants chanting slogans viewed as blasphemous against sacred religious figures.

‘MALICIOUS CAMPAIGN’

“Each and every one of these allegations are completely false and part of a malicious campaign to silence women from speaking out about their rights,” the march organisers said in a statement.

The Women’s Democratic Front, a leftist group founded in 2018 and one of the organisers of the march, said their flag — with red, white and purple stripes — had been misrepresented as the French flag, which has blue, white and red stripes.

Please watch this WDF explainer video dispelling the accusations that the French flag was being waved at Aurat March when the flag in question was the WDF flag. Watch and share! #apologizetoauratmarch pic.twitter.com/csvx4xsGgS

— Women Democratic Front ناری جمھوری محاذ (@wdf_pk) March 11, 2021

Pakistan has seen violent nationwide protests against France over issues such as the blasphemous Charlie Hebdo cartoons and restrictions on the veil there for Muslim women.

Hassan Abbas, a security expert at the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, told Reuters that the Taliban statement should be a “wake-up call” for authorities.

“[It is aimed at] creating fear, gaining the sympathy of religious radicals and recruiting extremists in urban centres of Pakistan,” he said.