Sindh Government Draws Criticism Over Conditions on Karachi Aurat March

KARACHI, Pakistan — Journalists and rights activists have criticized Pakistan’s Sindh government after authorities imposed a series of conditions on Karachi’s Aurat March, including a ban on participation or support from the Baloch Yakjehti Committee and the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz.

A permission letter issued by the office of the deputy commissioner of South Karachi set out 28 conditions for the march. According to The Balochistan Post, the letter prohibited participation or support from what it described as “proscribed” organizations, including the BYC and JSQM.

Journalist Kiyya Baloch called several of the conditions controversial, but said the clause barring BYC and JSQM required particular attention.

“These are the conditions under which Aurat March has been granted permission to protest. Several points are controversial, but point 7 in particular demands attention: participation or support from organizations like BYC and JQSM will be strictly prohibited. If even protesting must remain within the bounds of the state’s will, then is this march one of resistance, or merely a token activity?” Baloch wrote on X.

Journalist Ahmad Noorani also criticized the Sindh government’s decision, questioning whether Baloch people were being treated as equal citizens in Pakistan.

“Are the Baloch not part of Pakistan? Is a Baloch woman not a woman?” Noorani wrote on X, according to The Balochistan Post. He said the state was depriving Baloch people of rights available to people in other provinces.

BYC leader Sabiha Baloch questioned the legal basis for labeling the group “proscribed.” She said the conditions were not merely administrative directives, but reflected the state’s fear of voices speaking against what she described as Baloch genocide, enforced disappearances and state repression.

She called the ban on participation or support from BYC and JSQM undemocratic and legally controversial.

“The question is: Under which law has the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) been ‘proscribed’? When was it declared unlawful? Which court imposed a ban on it? If no such legal basis exists, then who granted the government the authority to impose restrictions on the participation of any political or social group in a public protest? Protest is a fundamental democratic right of the people, not a concession that the state can grant or revoke at will. When governments begin deciding who can participate in a protest and who cannot, it is not democracy but political engineering and a new form of martial law,” Baloch wrote on X.

“Such announcements do not raise questions but reveal the truth: In this country, democracy is merely a ceremonial veil, while real power lies in the hands of a system of repression, censorship, and fear. State institutions will have to answer why they fear the BYC so much. An organization whose central leadership has been imprisoned for a year on false charges, whose activists face Fourth Schedule listings, NACTA scrutiny, fabricated FIRs, and constant harassment, from whom forced confessions are extracted, and whose families are targeted with enforced disappearances. Even after all this, the state’s fear has not subsided. The situation now is such that even a platform like the Aurat March is being granted permission only on the condition that no individual or supporter of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee is present there,” she added.

Baloch said the restriction amounted to an admission that the BYC had built an effective resistance movement against enforced disappearances, state violence and what she described as Baloch genocide.

“Because if our voice were ineffective, the state would not feel fear at the mere mention of the BYC even in the Aurat March. On one hand, the state persists with its plan to silently erase the Baloch, and on the other, the BYC stands as an obstacle in the path of this silent genocide. This is why efforts are being made to isolate the BYC from every forum, every street, every protest, and every voice. But history bears witness that repression always strengthens resistance further—it does not silence it,” she wrote on X.

In a separate statement, the BYC condemned the Sindh government for referring to the organization as banned. The group said naming BYC and JSQM as banned organizations amounted to what it called “state fascism” against the Baloch people.

The BYC described itself as a democratic public movement in Balochistan working against human rights violations, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial actions and what it called the “Baloch genocide.” It called the authorities’ decision to designate the group as banned “shameful and condemnable.” (Source: IANS)