Around the globe, feminist activists and scholars are under severe attack. Their liberty, scholarship and very life is under threat.
In recent weeks, a vicious disinformation campaign has been launched in online spaces against the Organisers of the Aurat March in Pakistan, after they organized peaceful rallies and events in different parts of the country on the occasion of 8 March, International Women’s Day this year.
The campaign deliberately insinuates that organisers and participants of the Aurat March raised slogans and displayed banners with blasphemous content. The clearly baseless allegations of anti-Islamic banners and slogans are still being circulated to sustain legal petitions calling for police cases against Aurat March organisers.
The lingering threat posed by continuing circulation of these false accusations cannot be understated. If a formal police case were to be registered despite all that has been established, the prospect of unruly elements taking the law into their own hands, as has happened in Pakistan repeatedly, will be greatly enhanced.
We are extremely concerned, and we call on feminist scholars, activists and allies to raise their voices in solidarity with Aurat March in Pakistan.
Download a letter requesting the Government of Pakistan to take immediate action to protect the lives and freedoms of Pakistani feminist activists, and take action.
#WeStandWithAuratMarchPakistan