IHC throws out petition seeking to stop Aurat March.

Byline: Tahir Naseer and Malik Asad

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday dismissed a petition seeking to restrict the Aurat March as non-maintainable and not justiciable.

IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah dismissed the petition saying the right of assembly is a fundamental right but he stated that the court expects that the participants of the march will exercise their rights in accordance with the law.

While dismissing the petition, the top judge highlighted the following points:

Courts across the country are inundated with litigation brought by women against the denial of their inheritance rights. "Mothers, sisters and daughters are denied their rights which have been expressly given to them by Almighty Allah in unambiguous terms."

In this context, and in view of widespread violence prevalent against women in the country, the International Women's Day should be observed as "a day of introspection".

"The petitioners and citizens are expected to take [the march] as an opportunity to introspect and demonstrably show outrage against the practices, which are flagrantly offensive to the injunctions of Islam e.g. mindsets that do not welcome the birth of a female child, honour killings, rape, practices such as wani, swara, karo-kari, etc. If this happens, then many innocent 'Zainabs' will be saved from being treated savagely."

The words used in Aurat March slogans "should not be given meanings according to the mindset of a certain section of society and that too, contrary to the explanation given by the proponents of the march".

"Tribal patriarchal traditions and societal norms, based on egos and obscure insecurities have to be defeated through collective struggle so that no mother, sister or daughter suffers the agony of litigation to assert rights of inheritance nor innocent 'Zainabs' have to endure unthinkable pain and agony."

The court had earlier in the day reserved its verdict on the maintainability of the petition, while questioning the petitioners' interpretation of slogans they had objected to.

During today's proceedings, the petitioners' lawyers told the court that they sought restrictions on the Aurat March - scheduled to take place across the country on March 8 as the world marks Women's Day - and shared some slogans that women would chant at such an event, including "mera jism, meri marzi" (my body, my choice), "divorced and happy" and "no bacha dani (uterus), no opinion".

The eight petitioners had earlier appealed to the court...