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Pakistani students hold protest rally in Boston & Toronto
WASHINGTON, Nov 12, 2007: About 200 Pakistani students from local universities
and colleges and members of the community held a rally at the Boston Common on
Saturday to protest against the state of emergency in Pakistan. Students at
Harvard, MIT and Bunker Hill Community College were among the key organisers of
the rally at which speeches were deploring the attack on the judiciary, curbs on
the media and violdece against lawyers, human right activists and students
exercising their right of peaceful protest.
Students from the Berklee College of
Music came with percussion drums and synchronised the chants of 'Azadi' in a
show of solidarity with Pakistani students, the judiciary, journalists and human
rights activists. Emerson college students had come with video footage and
interviewed people from the crowd to document the event. Wellesley College girls
were in the forefront holding banners and leading what they called the "march of
the chain" in a symbolic message for the people of Pakistan who have been
arrested and brutalised for speaking out.
Brandies University students were
accompanied by their professor and programme director, who spoke in support of
the students who were at the rally and encouraged them to exercise their right
of free speech and thought. Also in attendance was a group of students from the
University of Massachusetts and Hampshire College at Amherst. The rally urged
the US government to support the people of Pakistan and not President General
Pervez Musharraf. Daily Times
Students hold protest in Toronto
TORONTO: About 70 people, mostly university students, protested
here on Sunday against the imposition of state of emergency in
Pakistan.
The protesters gathered in the Queen's Park to call for an end
to the state of emergency and restoration of Constitution in the
country.
Organiser Somia Sadiq,
24, said the crowd was expressing
support for the large number of students protesting in Pakistan.
The York
University student said she hoped the protests sent a message to the Canadian
government.
"It puts pressure on the Canadian government to suspend aid
to Pakistan," she said.
Protesters waved placards and shouted slogans,
calling for Gen Pervez Musharraf to quit his post as army chief and the
withdrawal of emergency.
Qasim Saddique, 24, a PhD student, said: the
emergency in Pakistan was about crushing people who wanted freedom of expression
and democracy, not fighting terrorism. "This emergency is only about staying in
power," he said. PPI
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