Aurat March Islamabad

STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY

WE STAND WITH AURAT MARCH KARACHI: ARREST CRIMINALS, NOT ACTIVISTS

On 5 May 2026, our organisers, and allies of Aurat March Karachi were arrested outside the Karachi Press Club for the crime of wanting to speak. We, Aurat March Islamabad, stand in full and unconditional solidarity with our Karachi chapter.

We know this feeling. On 8 March 2026 International Women's Day, the Islamabad Police did the same to us. Our organisers were violently arrested. Our participants were dragged away. Those who came to the police station in solidarity were detained too. The state has shown us, again and again, that it views feminist organizing not as a democratic right but as a threat to be suppressed.

We are tired of being treated as the enemy while the actual enemies of women walk free.

Every day in this country, women are killed in the name of honour. Every day, survivors of gender-based violence are turned away, disbelieved, silenced. Every day, trans women, religious minority women, women with disabilities, refugee women, young girls in all their diversities face violence with no recourse. And yet the state finds the resources, the personnel, the political will to deploy dozens of officers outside a press club to stop women from speaking into a microphone.
This is a political choice. And we reject it.
The Sindh government, which presents itself as progressive, must answer for what happened on 5 May. The federal government must answer for what happened to us on 8 March. You cannot invoke the language of women's empowerment while your police physically remove women's rights defenders from the streets.

The state must decide: is it with the people, or against them?
Because right now, its actions have given us only one answer.

We demand that the Sindh government immediately issue the NOC for Aurat March Karachi's 10 May march at Sea View. We demand that state machinery from Islamabad to Karachi and beyond be redirected toward protecting women, not silencing them.

To our Karachi chapter: we see you. We stand with you. Your march is our march!

Glimpses from outside NPC where members of Aurat March Islamat, along with civil society groups and human right activists, gathered in solidarity demanding the release of Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali, who have endured 100 days of imprisonment for standing with the voiceless.

Aurat March Islamabad joined Labour Day mobilisations at the National Press Club, standing in solidarity with workers resisting privatisation, forced evictions, layoffs, and the ongoing assault on livelihoods. Alongside trade unions, journalist bodies, and political organisations, we echoed the urgent demands for a living wage, the protection of jobs, the right to unionise, and an end to policies that continue to push millions into poverty.

From the eviction of communities in katchi abadis to the sell-off of public institutions, from rising inflation and unemployment to the silencing of journalists and activists - this system continues to protect elite interests while dispossessing the working class. As highlighted in the joint declaration, over 40% of the population is now living below the poverty line, millions remain out of school, and the majority of workers are pushed into insecure, unprotected conditions.

But even within these spaces of resistance, critical questions remain unaddressed. Why are women’s politics and concerns still treated as secondary? Why is there no recognition of women’s labour in the informal economy, or the unpaid domestic work that sustains households, communities, and entire economic systems?

A labour movement that does not centre these realities risks reproducing the same exclusions it seeks to challenge. There can be no meaningful struggle for workers’ rights without acknowledging the full spectrum of labour and the structural inequalities that shape it.

In times when speaking up comes with real consequences, choosing silence is no longer neutral. This conversation brings together voices from law, policy, and activism to reflect on what it truly means to uphold justice, speak truth to power, and bear the cost of conscience in increasingly constrained civic spaces.

The discussion will explore the case of Imaan Mazari Hazir and Hadi Ali Chatha, who have been incarcerated for over 100 days without being granted their basic legal rights. Their continued incarcenation raises urgent questions about due process, access to justice, and the erosion of fundamental rights.

Join us. Raise your voice. Stand in solidarity.

📍 Press Conference
🗓 Monday, 4 May 2026
⏳ Marking 100 days of illegal incarceration

Human rights defenders and lawyers Imaan Hazir Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha remain behind bars after being handed 17-year sentences under PECA for a single tweet. This is not justice, it is punishment for dissent and a warning meant to spread fear.

Aurat March Islamabad, Defence of Human Rights, Progressive Students Federation, Women Democratic Front, Women Action Forum Islamabad and allied civil society groups demand JUSTICE NOW!