Musharraf’s second public rally cancelled within a week

By Murtaza Ali Shah & Wadood Mushtaq
August 28, 2017

LONDON: Pervez Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) cancelled a public meeting here after the party got itself into a bitter dispute with the organiser of the rally and also over fears that the public event will be disrupted by pro-democracy activists.

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The meeting was scheduled for Sunday in Slough, and public invitations were issued and on the same day the Pakistan Solidarity Campaign held a protest against the APML leader outside the 10 Downing Street and handed over a letter to PM Theresa May’s office.

Musharraf’s speech, organised by APML in association with Zam Zam Education Centre in Slough, was cancelled just a week after Musharraf’s event at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) was cancelled after Pakistani activists started a campaign against Musharraf’s appearance, forcing the university to announce that it had been misled and wasn’t informed about the nature of the event.

In a public fallout, Pir Ali Pasha of Zam Zam Education Centre, said that Gen Musharraf will come to hall and chair the public meeting and will answer questions of participants. He announced that Musharraf was his friend and had asked him to organise the event. After Musharraf’s SOAS appearance was cancelled, the APML said that Pervez Musharraf will only make “telephonic address” at Pir Pasha’s centre and that he was using the occasion to drum up his own publicity.

The APML chief Tebraiz Aurah said Musharraf’s Sunday event was “postponed due to extraordinary public interest in Syed Pervez Musharraf’s Jalsa”. He said a new date & time will be announced.

A source in the APML said that less than 20 APML activists from across the UK internal agreed to attend the meeting, but it turned out that dozens of activists opposed to Musharraf were set to attend the meeting to disrupt the speech by Musharraf. Pir Pasha told this paper that the number of participants was increased to “an unbearable level”. He claimed that thousands of people had registered to attend the event, but he confirmed he didn’t have proof to back up his claim.

“Under such circumstance, we cannot take any risk of any mischief or security risk. The chances of distress and disruption were increased that’s why we had left no option but to cancel the public meeting,” Mr Pasha added. Tebraiz Aurah said Pasha had “committed clear violence by using old pictures with Musharraf” and “will face legal consequences.”

Meanwhile, activists gathered outside 10 Downing Street and raised slogans against Musharraf and called on both Pakistani and British governments to take action against him. A letter delivered to PM Theresa May said that Musharraf had “long history of well documented crimes against law and people of Pakistan, it is unfathomable how Musharaf is roaming freely in UK”.

They said that Britain was inadvertently endorsing the “wrong values which are inconsistent with British values of free-speech, democracy, rule of law and respect of human life”. They called on the govt to ban his entry in UK “till he returns Pakistan and faces the trials”.

Seperately, it has emerged that some officials of the University of London’s PakSoc were fully involved in organising the event at SOAS last week. PakSoc official Mahek Tariq promoted the event and invited people to attend the event. Other office bearers of the society have distanced themselves from APML.

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