This photo is from today’s Dawn. It shows protesting lawyers damaging public property in Multan.
The ability to protest against that which they consider unjust is everybody’s right. But there is a fine line between peaceful protest and anarchy. Damaging property is definitely wrong and serves no one’s interest. It certainly does not serve the interest of the lawyers movement for democracy.
Violence is clearly wrong. It becomes no less or no more wrong when it is committed by protesting lawyers than when it is done by government against the same protesting lawyers. Just as we have called out against violence committed against protesters by government agencies, we must also call out aginst violence committed by them.
Anger is neither a strategy nor an excuse. The principle is a clear one: Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it and no matter why.
Mughal sb.!What else do u expect in a state where supreme court is under detention and where everyone protesting peacefully is beaten like anything.When you close all the doors to justice, violence is the inevitable result.Perhaps u should watch Maula jat to realise this fact.
@Beena
There is no “Personal Vendetta” as you have put it, I have put my case strongly here and many of the commentators have supported it. It is upto the administrators of this blog to decide if they want to correct it or not. However I feel that this single post has caused a lot of damage to the peaceful struggle of lawyers , the obvious impression given in this post is that the lawyers movement is violent and mad dictator is using this as an excuse to keep martial law imposed as well as keep the people under house arrest.
I can assure you that mad dictator and his cronies are going to use this as a reference to make the west believe that the fundamental rights will remain suspended as well as the brave lawyers and honourable judges will remain under arrest because there will be voilence if he releases them.
Peja sahib, how is this ‘maligning’ anyone. The caption says clearly that it supports protests but not this form of violence. It is nowhere saying that the lawyers movement is violence, in fact clearly makes the case that it has not been. The only reason this picture is special is that unlike govt which has been regularly violent, this is unusual for lawyers and therefore IS noteworthy. There are multiple links to the other pictures (many from you) also posted in the comments and many more links to violence by the government in the post itself. So unless this is some sort of a personal vendetta against a competing blog it is not clear what the fuss is about.
(Frankly, as someone who is clearly against Musharraf and for the lawyers movement from the beginning I am getting embarrassed by the bullying of the supporters of the lawyers on this board! More than this picture it is these comments which call for more violence that will hurt the image of the lawyers movement as a peaceful movement for democracy.)
@Raza Rumi
I don’t understand what sort of defiance is this. This is not about debating this picture , this is about maligning the peaceful struggle that is running for over 9 months with this one picture and posting it on the most widely read blog which can be used as a reference. Why not just put the other pictures so that the reference is complete.
Halwai, Kalay coat mein,
@ Ye jis kay Naam pay ho raha hay ye balwa
Woh Nazaria ik Halwai ka tha bangaya pera
Ye tor-phor kiu’n ho rehi hay magar
Rafay Badmazah hogaya hay yu’n Halwa
there is something terribly warped about the logic of those who are writing against lawyers use of violence. it reflects the primitive notions of violence and one cannot differentiate between the violence of the oppressor and the oppressed.
so, what do you do when you are not allowed to protest? your media is in gags? and if you do protest, the police will beat you, abduct you and your family without any charges. listen philistines: freedoms are not granted, they are fought and won. this is what a struggle entails. if a struggle only meant ‘peaceful’ chanting slogans outside the government.
and legally speaking, if there is not constitution, what law are you propagating? i presume the one that musharraf and his cronies have in mind: everything that suits the general is the law, rest may go to the dustbin.
get a political education before teaching us about law and protests.
more power to the lawyers and those who stand up and
What is the fuss all about - ATP posts a lot of stuff that is about resisting and what can be done - and a barrage of comments follows congratulating the blog for saying the “right” thing -
And it posts a picture taken from a national newspaper - to show the other side and there is a hangama here..
This reminds me of the famous sentence uttered by a lawyer activist during the post March campaign: if the decision (on CJ case) will not be favourable, we will set the Supreme Court on fire..
This just shows that we the Pakistanis, whether at home or abroad, are not comfortable with the idea of a civilized discourse. There are some here who have shown the other side of the story and not attacked the ATP the way some have done and dareIsay in a distasteful manner..
what a pity …
Perhaps ATP could create a Brutality Index, which accounts for contextual factors in a protest/conflict.