Pakistani religious group calls off protests after government deal

A Pakistani religious group whose supporters clashed with police over the weekend called off its weeks-long protest after the government agreed to its demands and the law minister resigned, the group’s spokesman said on Monday.

“On the assurance of the Chief of Army Staff, we are calling off the sit-in,” Khadim Hussain Rizvi told a crowd of around 2,500 demonstrators from the Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah Pakistan, who have occupied a main highway leading into the capital since November 6.

At least seven people were killed and 200 wounded in the clashes over the weekend, after a police bid to disperse the protesters failed on Saturday, sparking instead demonstrations in other major cities nationwide.

“Our main demand has been accepted,” Ejaz Ashrafi, spokesman of the Tahreek-e-Labaik group, said.

State-run PTV news on Monday reported that Law Minister Zahid Hamid had resigned.

Shipping containers that police had used to block off the main protest site were being removed, local media said.

The government on Saturday called in Pakistan’s powerful military to tackle the protests after the police operation failed, but there was no sign of troops around the protest camps on Sunday.

For the past two weeks, activists of Tehreek-e-Laibak blocked the main road into the capital, Islamabad, in a protest that blamed the law minister for changing the wording in an electoral oath.

The party says the words "I believe," used to replace the clause "I solemnly swear" in a proclamation of Mohammad as the religion’s last prophet amount to blasphemy.

The government blamed the change on a clerical error and swiftly restored the original format.

TRT World spoke to Kamran Yousaf for the latest from Islamabad.

Second day of protests

The Pakistan Rangers paramilitary force took control of the site of the sit-in in the capital's suburbs on Sunday as clashes between security forces and protesters continued for a second day in many parts of the country, according to the state-run Radio Pakistan website.

Police had earlier said that many protesters had torched vehicles before withdrawing to a camp that they had occupied for almost three weeks.

At least 150 people were wounded in Saturday's clashes, hospitals reported. Police superintendent Amir Niazi said 80 members of the security forces were among those casualties. 

On Sunday morning, smoke billowed from the charred remains of a car and three motorcycles burned that morning near the protest camp, where several thousand members of the Tehreek-e-Laibak had gathered in defiance of the government.

After the early morning clashes, the area settled into an uneasy stand-off. 

The paramilitary Rangers force - which had held back from Saturday's confrontation - was in charge of Sunday's operations, officers said.

Failed crackdown

On Saturday, police launched a crackdown on the protestors that turned violent. The altercations prompted the religious right to target and threaten the country's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family as well as cabinet members.

"We will not leave. We will fight until end," Tehreek-e-Laibak spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi said on Saturday.

Led by cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, Tehreek-e-Laibak is one of two new ultra-religious political movements that have became prominent in recent months. 

Labaik, which campaigns on defending Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws, won 6 percent and 7.6 percent of the vote in two recent by-elections.

Though the party does not publicly talk about its funding, the sect it belongs to has a network of mosques and seminaries that collect donations.

Tehreek-e-Laibak was born out of a protest movement lionising Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab province who gunned down his boss in 2011 over the latter's call to reform strict blasphemy laws. 

The law has its roots in 19th century colonial legislation to protect places of worship, but it was during the military dictatorship of General Mohammad Zia ul Haq in the 1980s that it acquired teeth.

Liberal Pakistanis and rights groups believe the law to be dangerously discriminatory against tiny minority groups.

Under the law, anyone who speaks ill of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad commits a crime and faces the death penalty, but activists say the vague terminology has led to its misuse.

TV channels resume broadcasting

By Sunday afternoon, private TV stations that had been ordered off the air the day before were broadcasting again.

Authorities had said that the live broadcast of the operation was hindering efforts to disperse the protestors.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube remained blocked in many areas.

After Saturday's failed crackdown by police, the government called for military assistance "for law and order duty according to the constitution".

On Saturday before the government order, Pakistan's army chief called on the civilian government to end the protest while "avoiding violence from both sides", the military press wing said.

The ruling party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif - who was disqualified by the Supreme Court in July and is facing a corruption trial - has a fraught history with the military, which in 1999 launched a coup to oust Sharif from an earlier term.

Minister of Interior Ahsan Iqbal on Saturday said the protests were part of a conspiracy to weaken the government, which is now run by Sharif's allies under a new prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

"There are attempts to create a chaos in [the] country," Iqbal said on state-run Pakistan TV.