Reporter’s Notebook: Pashtuns Protest Against Army | Ashraf Kakkar & Madiha R Tahir

Jan 2013
By M.T.

Photographer: Ashraf Kakkar

Protests against the killing of 21 Pashtuns from Pakistan’s tribal areas by Pakistan’s security forces this week continue to grow. The latest wave of solidarity protests occurred in Islamabad as well as Peshawar.

Frontier Corps (FC) commander Colonel Jawad Zia who heads the para-military force in Bara, the locality where 21 people were killed by the FC, has been removed from his post. Pashtun leaders from the tribal areas have issued a 4-point agenda to the Pakistani government with a Jan 23rd deadline. If demands are not met, they say they will move forward with demonstrations in the country’s capital.

According to the president of Pakistan’s Tribal Union of Journalists, Safdar dawar, The 4 point agenda is as follows:

  1. The Pakistan Army should cease killing innocent people in the tribal areas.
  2. The Pakistan Army should especially cease killing women and children, many of whom are killed near or even in, their own homes.
  3. The Pakistani government should compensate the families of those who have been killed.
  4. The Pakistani government should set-up a judicial inquiry into the killings.

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