Aurat March releases statement against false allegations
A number of doctored videos and images have been doing the rounds on social media framing the Aurat Marchers as blasphemers, the organisers of the march have said in a statement.
This doctored material, aimed at propagating violence and hatred towards women organisers, has been shared by mainstream journalists such as Ansar Abbasi and Orya Maqbool Jan, as well several politicians without verification, it added.
The statement said that women were accused of holding a French flag at the Aurat March in Islamabad. Organisers have clarified that the flag was of Women’s Democratic Front, a women’s organisation in Pakistan. The French flag has blue, white and red stripes, while the WDF’s flag has red, white and purple ones, and that too in a different order.
Related: Fact-check: Ansar Abbasi and the Aurat March disinformation campaign
The WDF flag was adopted at the organisation’s founding conference in 2018 in Islamabad. WDF stands against all forms of imperialism, the organisers said, and would never raise the flag of a former colonial power like France.
There was no blasphemous content on banners
There was a banner at the Lahore Aurat March which some religious parties said was blasphemous. The banner was written with the testimony of female victim who was molested by a 50-year-old Qari when she was nine years old. The banner had nothing to do with any religious figure and did not contain blasphemous content.
Women did not chant blasphemous slogans
The third allegation is that the words ‘Allah’ and ‘Rasool’ were used in slogans in Aurat March, Karachi. Organisers said the words in the slogans were ‘Mullah’, ‘Fazloo’ (Fazlur Rehman), ‘Ansar’ (Abbasi) and Orya (Maqbool Jan). Fake subtitles were added to the video of the slogans to make them sound blasphemous. Aurat March Karachi has shared the full list of slogans in the video being circulated as blasphemous.
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