Pakistan’s parliament is expected to vote on Tuesday on expelling the French ambassador, a move widely seen as a government capitulation to a militant Islamist party that has led large protests and clashed with police.
The vote illustrates how deeply troubled Prime Minister Imran Khan’s administration is on the back of a spinning economy, a new wave of coronavirus infections and the spread of social unrest. It also suggests that the party, Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, which has unleashed public outrage over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in France, could pose a major threat to Pakistan’s stability.
Just a week ago, the government declared Tehreek-e-Labaik a terrorist group and banned it. At least four police officers were killed in clashes with the group, and at least 11 officers were taken hostage at one point. Police officials have acknowledged the deaths of three protesters, but the party says more supporters have been killed.
Intermittent protests last winter were sparked by French President Emmanuel Macron, who last year uttered a defiant praise for a French teacher who was killed after showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a classroom. Mr Macron said the professor, Samuel Paty, had been killed “because the Islamists want our future and I know that with quiet heroes like him, they will never have it”.
This provoked the members of Tehreek-e-Labaik, who consider themselves a protector of the honor of Islam in the country and abroad. The party has built a broad base of support in recent years, focusing around cases of perceived blasphemy, which is punishable by death in Pakistan.
Protests intensified after the government arrested Saad Hussain Rizvi, the 26-year-old party leader, last week in a precautionary move to avoid calling for large rallies.
In an agreement reached in November to cancel similar protests, Mr Khan’s government agreed to hold a parliamentary vote on the expulsion of the French ambassador. In an effort to keep the government in agreement, the group returned to the streets last week. Shortly after the government declared the group a terrorist organization, it found itself in an awkward position to negotiate with it.
Pakistan has long fought militant groups on the sidelines. The Pakistani Taliban, for example, have long staged an insurgency in the vast tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Tehreek-e-Labaik poses a more thorny challenge. He draws his support from the Barelvi Islamic School, to which most Pakistanis belong. He showed that he can mobilize large crowds in large urban centers, targeting emotional issues, such as protecting the honor of the Prophet Muhammad.
The group first came to prominence as an organized force when it protested the release of Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard who in 2011 shot his own boss, Salman Taseer, the governor of the Punjab province. At the time, Mr. Taseer sought justice for a Christian woman who had been imprisoned on dubious charges of blasphemy.
Mr Qadri was eventually convicted and hanged in 2016, but the group tried to release him justifying the killing of Mr Taseer. Since then, it has become a political party that contests elections and continues to instigate governments.
On Tuesday, it was clear that Mr Khan’s government had made some concessions to the group while trying to provide political coverage by expelling the ambassador to a vote in parliament.
Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, Pakistan’s interior minister, said the 11 police officers who were taken hostage during the week of the protests had been released. He also said that Tehreek-e-Labaik has pledged to cancel a nationwide protest while the government seeks dialogue with France.
“After lengthy negotiations between the government of Pakistan and Tehreek-e-Labaik, it has been agreed that the government will present a resolution on the expulsion of the French ambassador to the National Assembly today,” Ahmad said in a video message on Tuesday.
Mr Ahmad said that as part of the agreement, any legal proceedings against the group members would also be annulled. The National Assembly, the Pakistani legislature, which was not scheduled to meet on Tuesday, announced a special session for the afternoon to take the expulsion resolution.