Why is Pakistan planning to ban rallies and public gatherings in Islamabad?

Islamabad, Pakistan – Legislators belonging to Pakistan’s ruling party have introduced a bill seeking to empower officials in the capital, Islamabad, to regulate and even ban public rallies and gatherings.

The introduction of the Pea­ceful Assembly and Public Order Bill 2024 in the Senate, the upper house of Pakistan’s parliament, on Monday came a week before the main opposition group, led by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan‘s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, had planned a rally in the city.

If Khan’s party is denied permission to hold its demonstration, Pakistan could see another showdown between the political rivals, months after national elections that the PTI alleged were rigged.

PTI founder Khan has been in prison for a year after his conviction in several cases ahead of the February vote. He is on trial from jail in other cases.

What does the bill propose?

The bill, proposed by Irfan-ul-Haque Siddiqui of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), would give Islamabad city officials the authority to assess the prevailing law and order situation before granting permission for public gatherings.

The bill also would allow the government to designate areas within Islamabad as “red zones” or “high-security zones”, which would ban all assemblies in those regions.

Additionally, the eight-page bill would mandate that public gatherings occur only in designated areas and adhere to specified times and routes.

It emphasises that the right to peaceful assembly, while fundamental, is subject to “reasonable restrictions” in the interests of “public order, morality and state security”.

The proposed legislation argues that regulating assemblies is necessary to protect the rights of all citizens, including their safety, security and free movement, and says similar regulations exist in other countries.

The bill has triggered strong opposition from the PTI, which alleged it specifically targets the party.

The protest by the opposition forced Senate Chairman Yousuf Raza Gilani to refer the bill to a parliamentary committee. The committee, however, approved the bill late on Tuesday, setting teh stage for it to be voted on.

Is the bill targeted at the PTI?

The PTI was scheduled to hold a mass rally in Islamabad on August 22, but it cancelled the event, citing safety concerns.

The rally was mainly called to protest the Supreme Court’s delay in issuing its detailed judgement in a case related to reserved seats in parliament.

Pakistan’s 336-member lower house of parliament, called the National Assembly, has 70 reserved seats – 60 for women and 10 for members from minority communities. These seats are distributed to parties based on their performance in national elections. A total of 169 seats is required for a party or coalition to form the government.

In the elections this year, candidates backed by the PTI won the most seats, but no party was able to secure a majority. Khan’s rivals – the PML-N and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) –  joined hands and formed a coalition government.

But the PTI insisted the polls were rigged and the results tampered with, saying it won more than 93 seats officially allocated to it. The government has insisted that the election wasn’t manipulated.

The tussle between the PTI and the government worsened after the main opposition party was denied its share of reserved seats, prompting it to move the court. Last month, in a major victory for the PTI, the top court said the Khan-led party was eligible for its share of reserved seats in national and provincial assemblies.

But the court is yet to pronounce its detailed judgement in the case, which, along with Khan’s release from jail, is the main agenda of the PTI’s planned rally in Islamabad on Sunday.

The government denied the proposed bill targets the PTI.

Saleem Mandviwalla of the PPP, one of the legislators behind the bill, told Al Jazeera the PTI will “complain about anything the government brings to parliament regardless of its merits”.

Mandviwalla said some recent protests in Islamabad, including the ones organised by a far-right religious party and traders protesting inflation, were proof that the city’s public gatherings have “become a nuisance”.

“The White House [in the United States] has a designated place for protests. The Norwegian assembly has a designated spot for holding rallies. But here in Islamabad, everybody wants to protest in the red zone and blocks main avenues, making it difficult for everybody,” he said.

The red zone in Islamabad refers to the area around the city’s Constitution Avenue, on which the parliament, offices of the president and the prime minister, and other key government buildings are located. The diplomatic enclave, which houses most embassies, is also a part of the red zone.

Pakistan is also scheduled to host the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s summit next month in Islamabad, its most high-profile gathering of global leaders since 2012 when it hosted leaders of several developing nations.

But PTI Senator Ali Zafar, who was in parliament on Monday when the bill was introduced, said it specifically targets the party. He said even if an approval for a rally is granted, it could be revoked at any time and the organiser would be subject to three years in prison.

He said the PTI was given a no-objection certificate (NOC) by the authorities several times in the past to conduct a rally, but the notification was withdrawn just before the event.

“While we have received the NOC for the September 8 demonstration, it appears they want to repeat the same trick by withdrawing it, and through this bill, they can give it a legal cover,” he told Al Jazeera.

Rising safety and security concerns

In recent months, Pakistan has seen escalating violence by armed groups, particularly in its northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in the southwest, both bordering Afghanistan.

According to a report by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, 59 such incidents occurred nationwide in August with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan being the most affected, including attacks on August 26 that killed more than 70 people.

Mandviwalla said diplomats from several countries living in Islamabad have expressed concerns about frequent road closures due to protests, questioning the government’s ability to secure its capital.

“Many of these diplomats have approached me and asked me that if the government cannot control the 10-mile [16km] radius here, how is it expected to control Balochistan. It shows there is no writ and no system in place,” he said.

However, political analyst Benazir Shah said Islamabad officials were already under scrutiny for allegedly being used by the government against the opposition parties, mainly the PTI.

“With this bill, it appears that the government is seeking to further expand the powers of the city officials by allowing them to place a ban on gatherings and punish the violators with up to three years of imprisonment,” she told Al Jazeera.

The Lahore-based analyst said the regulation of public gatherings comes at a time when the government has been facing protests not just from political opponents, but civil society groups as well.

“There have been multiple protests by even government servants, trade unions and religious groups. This move may potentially be an effort to curb all such gatherings,” Shah said.