-Banned TLP ends sit-in after successful talks with govt
-Interior Minister orders release of Razvi Jr. from prison
-Says all cases registered against TLP workers will be withdrawn
From Abid Usman
LAHORE: Hours after the now-proscribed Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) called off a series of nationwide violent protests on Tuesday, the authorities released its leader Saad Rizvi from Kot Lakhpat prison in Lahore.
In a video statement issued in the wee hours of the day, Minister for Interior Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed announced that the radical group has agreed to end protests. But parleys with the group will continue, he added.
Shortly after his release, Rizvi reached Chowk Yateem Khana neighbourhood where he is expected to address his workers and supporters gathered there for more than a week now.
In his message, Rasheed said that cases registered against TLP workers under the Fourth Schedule of the Anti-terrorism Act (ATA), 1997, will also be withdrawn.
The TLP responded by releasing an audio statement of its spokesman Shafiq Amini saying: “It is requested to end protests wherever they are happening across the country.”
However, there was no immediate sign that crowds were dispersing at the biggest protest, in Lahore, where thousands of followers were gathered outside the group’s headquarters.
Rizvi, the son of late firebrand cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, was detained on April 12 ahead of a planned nationwide campaign to pressure the government into expelling the French ambassador in response to the publication of blasphemous cartoons in France last year.
In a series of talks between the group and the Punjab government, the TLP had presented four demands: the expulsion of Marc Baréty, release of Rizvi and his about 1,400 arrested supporters and workers, lifting the ban on the group and Rasheed’s dismissal.
The group has waged an anti-France campaign for months since President Emmanuel Macron defended the “right” of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical weekly best known for vulgar irreverence, to republish blasphemous caricatures. That campaign erupted into bloody violence last week following Rizvi’s arrest.
Lahore police said at least six officers had been killed, while 11 others were held hostage for several hours at a mosque where hundreds of party supporters were holed out. The TLP said several of its supporters died in clashes.
In a televised address to the nation on Monday, Prime Minister Imran Khan warned that Pakistan risked paying a price if it expelled the French envoy, as half the country’s exports are sold to the European Union (EU).
“When we send the French ambassador back and break relations with them, it means we break relations with the European Union,” he said in a televised address. “Half our textile exports go to the EU, so half our textile exports would be gone.”
He had further said expelling the ambassador would only cause damage to Pakistan, and diplomatic engagement between the Muslim world and the West was the only way to resolve disputes.
Relations between Paris and Islamabad have worsened since the end of last year after President Macron paid tribute to a French history teacher, Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by an 18-year-old man of Chechen origin for showing the caricatures in a class on freedom of speech.
Protests erupted in several Muslim countries over France’s response to the killing. The cartoons were reprinted elsewhere as well. At the time, the government purportedly signed a deal promising to present a resolution in parliament by April 20 (today) to seek approval for the expulsion of the French envoy and to endorse a boycott of French products.
