Dawn Images

What’s Women’s Day without an act of violence and/or suppression against women? This year, participants and organisers of the Aurat March in Islamabad were arrested for attempting to march in the city.

According to police sources, 44 participants were detained — 25 men and 19 women, including activist Dr Farzana Bari, two of her daughters, and human rights defender Tahira Abdullah.

Police sources told Dawn that the activists were picked up as Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) remained imposed in the federal capital, which empowers district administrations to prohibit an assembly of four or more people in an area for a limited period.

Last year, the Islamabad police registered a case against the Aurat March organisers for staging a protest on March 8 in violation of Section 144.

Islamabad authorities had reportedly refused to grant an NOC for the march from the National Press Club to D-Chowk. The marchers then went ahead with a gathering outside the press club after police stopped them from proceeding towards D-Chowk.

When news broke of the arrests, some wondered why women marching in Islamabad was such a big threat, given the state of the world.

Some had replies to the inevitable — and at this point lame — arguments of ‘foreign funding’.

The hypocrisy of the situation was not lost on people.

Especially given that the prime minister shared a lengthy message paying tribute to women in Pakistan, all while women were being arrested in the capital.

Some people online took issue with their arrests under Section 144. Journalist Hamid Mir called the law a “legacy of colonialism”.

Lawyer Jibran Nasir said it was a bailable offence, theorising that the reason they were detained for hours or non-bailable offences were added to the FIR was “to cause humiliation and intimidation”.

Happy Women’s Day, we guess.

Cover: Muhammad Asim/ White Star