Protesters come hard on US for hosting gay rights party

By Ikram Junaidi

ISLAMABAD: As many as nine persons including four police officials were injured and 25 were arrested on Friday in a protest against United States (US) Embassy for hosting gay and transgender’s rights party.

Protest was conducted on call of Islami Jamiat-e-Talba (IJT) against the party held on June 26 in US Embassy Islamabad.

After Juma Prayer, over 200 members of IJT gathered at Aabpara Chowk and started enchanting slogans against the US Embassy and particularly Government of Pakistan, who have not taken any action against the administration of that gathering.

“Pakistan is an Islamic country and they will not tolerate anything against the Islamic Laws and Sharia,” they reiterated. They said although in Christianity there was no room for such kind of practices but unlike, US embassy had been doing that to destroy the character of the new generation. “But new generation of Pakistan knew, how to manage it”. They said if government of Pakistan would not summon the US ambassador and protest against the party, IJT and other religious groups would use their iron hands. USA has been trying to interfere in ‘Hudood Allah’ and Sharia but the consequences will not be good for USA, they said.

Later protesters announced that they would march to US embassy located in Diplomatic Enclave but as soon as protesters started their march, police officials, already deployed there, stopped them by usage of force.

As protesters braved the forcefulness of police so police started baton charge. On the other hand protesters also showing retaliation to this ‘brutal act’ and started beating the police officials. This brawl led to injuries of nine protestors including four police officials. Later on police arrested more or less 25 protesters.

Aabpara Police Station Duty Officer ASI Iftikhar said they tried to stop the protesters in a peaceful manner but the protestors started throwing stones on them that resulted in injuries of Additional SHO Inspector Ashraf Kahut and reserve in charge Riaz. Riaz has been admitted in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) as he was hit was by a stone by one of the throwers in the protest, he said.

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