Islamabad [Pakistan], April 30: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Monday backed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) democratic and constitutional rights to hold protests and rallies, leading Pakistani daily Dawn reported. The JUI-F and the PTI had reached a consensus after the elections on February 8 that the polls were rigged. The two parties have since touched base on holding protests against the government. However, the JUI-F has not been included in a six-party opposition alliance against the incumbent government. The JUI-F was a major part of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)-government that came to power after ousting the Imran Khan-led government through a no-confidence vote, according to Dawn report.
Supporters of the PTI held rallies in Karachi on Friday to protest the incarceration of party founder Imran Khan and called on the judiciary to take notice of the "highhandedness" of the authorities for denying the party its constitutional right to protest whenever it announced to take to the streets. In the National Assembly session on Monday, PTI leader Asad Qaiser urged Parliament Speaker Ayaz Sadiq to ensure the party's constitutional right to protest. "I want to know why the PTI is not being given its due rights," Qaiser said, adding, "We want civilian supremacy and free courts", Dawn repprted. "Asad Qaiser's request is fair.
Protesting is his [party's] right and I endorse his request," Rehman said, adding that the problem "goes beyond the right to protest" and is about the "state of the country". "The democratic way in which we founded this country ... with people's sacrifices ... there was no role of the establishment or bureaucracy," asking whether Parliament was "a house of the people ... or the establishment," the JUI-F chief stated. "There are people who talk about democracy, but where is it?" he asked, adding, "We can't make the laws we want.
Who will call these houses the people's Parliament?" He demanded Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif and President Shehbaz Sharif and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari step down and sit in the opposition benches. "Leave this power. Come and sit here [in the opposition benches] and if the PTI is indeed the larger group [with seats] then give them the government," Dawn quoted Rehman as saying. JUI-F chief further accused the governing parties of pursuing their mandates and interests while putting those of the country on the back burner. Frowning upon the establishment's 'meddling' in politics, he said politicians were left to shoulder the blame.
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