Thousands of people blocked the main roads and railway tracks in Pakistan, and also began a collision with the police on the streets because of the cartoons on the Prophet Mohammed in the French media. Reports about it Reuters.
Protesters began to block entrances and departures from all major cities of the country after the arrest of Saad Rizvi, the leader of the extreme right Islamist movement “Tehrik – Labika Pakistan”. They attacked police officers, and also damaged vehicles, said Government official Navid Zaman. At the same time, the mass overlap of roads paralyzed business in large cities of the country.
Zaman indicated that the Islamists refused to disperse until their leader would let go. “We went to the streets, because the state does not comply with the agreement,” said one of Ejaz Ashraphi activists. Police applied tear gas to dispersed the crowd.
Rizvi was arrested for incitement to unrest on April 12. He called on the followers to go to rallies across the country due to the fact that the authorities of Pakistan postpone the decision on the expulsion of the Ambassador of France.
“Tekhrici-I-Labika Pakistan” acquired fame, publicly condemned the disrespectful attitude towards Islam and struggling with blasphemy. In November 2020, the movement organized mass protests in the country due to the publication of caricatures on the Prophet Mohammed in the Satirian newspaper “Charlie Ebdo” (Charlie Hebdo). To stop the shares of the authorities managed after signing the agreement on the boycott of French products. At the same time, the organization demanded breaking economic relations with France.
Publications about the Prophet in the “Charly Ebdo” not for the first time provoke the indignation of the Islamists. On January 7, 2015, the militants committed an armed attack on the editors of the magazine, as a result of which 12 people died. Five years, October 16, 2020, the French secondary school teacher Samuel Pati was cruelly killed by a trick from Chechnya for showing the same cartoons to children during the lesson. For the followers of Islam, any images of the Prophet Mohammed are unacceptable.