Rise of Pakistan

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Students Protest Against Emergency (cont'd)...

Update by one Alumni of FAST-NU, Lahore, Pakistan :

A few students/profession als (alumni of FAST / LUMS / UET working at places around Davis road) gathered at Lahore Press Club. Before the crowd started to grow, police was already there. When we, the protesters were just 5-10, they were already 15-20 in number, some in police uniform and some in plain clothes. As the number of protesters grew to around 20 or a bit more when the people passing by also joined us (or just stayed there to watch the 'drama') the police started getting a bit violent. They started to push every individual to move and started asking them where are you from and noting down the details? Obviously none told them the correct information. The crowd was thus easily dispersed by the police.
An alumni who is a UETian, Software Engineer at Techlogix (a highly renowned Software House of Pakistan), son of an ex-PLMN MNA, managed to enter into the Press Club where various channels recorded his interview. Later when he came out , the police surrounded him (thinking of him as the one organizing this activity) and asked him details about this 'protest'. It was quite obvious to see the stress on the faces of policemen who were afraid to see this small crowd. They were continuously calling someone and letting them know of whats happening. They carried on updating someone on the phone that now this and this number of guys from FAST/LUMS/UET are here.

Later, I was interviewed by GEO/ARY/AAJ when they recorded videos at the gate of press club. I was happy to hear their first question asked by the media guys , "You are from LUMS or FAST?" , expecting us to be representing student body.
Originally posted at: Metroblogging Lahore at 6:27 PM on November 08, 2007

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Black Band Campaign

I suggest we shld b wearing black armbands all the time while on campus in protest to this martial law. we can paste flyers at different places n motivate others to do so... if successful on campus we can (caefully) paste the flyers in busy markets of lhr and instigate ppl to b a part of a silent protest n wear black bands.

I m already wearin black band n request all others to do so. If not outside, we can wear it on campus for the time being.

Thought Stream: Imran Khan @ LUMS - 03 Nov 2007

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Stage I

We need a body in every college/university/organization. The body will look something like as follows:
Departments
Executive Council (3 to 5 persons)
This council will give final decision of managing and announcing gathering on campus, proceedings of the gatherings and coordination with main coordinating body.
Media Committee (2 to 10 persons)
These will be given the material to make banners, posters, placards etc. They have to come up with very good slogan. Please note that in this stage, we won’t write names, we will be making decent yet powerful slogans, not like political party illogical and meaningless slogans
Editorial Board (2 to 4 persons)
They will be responsible for gathering the important news of the day and sharing those news with the supporters at the gatherings with the permission of the executive council. They will also maintain blogs and share news across campuses.
Finance Committee (2 to 3 persons)
This committee is responsible for asking for funds from the students or people personally known by students out side the campuses (do not disclose the plan to those) for the advertising material needed for in campus gatherings. They will save something from this fund for later as well. They can get volunteers as well to gather funds within campuses.

Structure
Structure of the body shall be hierarchical so that the leader at the top can know things immediately. i.e.
- Every 10 people will nominate one of them as leader.
- Every leader will nominate the next after him/her and the next will again nominate after him/her. This nomination is not recursive, just two levels under the leader.
- These leaders will be called 'Level 1 Leaders'
- Every 10 'Level 1 Leaders' will choose 'Level 2 Leader' and this leader will nominate the next after him/her as above.
- The top leader will ask its group members what are their levels so as to count the people in this fashion.
- Every group of 10 will have emergency contact information of all the people in that group and two people from every 10 people will be made responsible to communicate to immediate leader as well as emergency contact person if some one from the group is missing.
- Every group of Level 1 will nominate two people to carry any materials advised by the executive council while in rallies. Please make sure, we have to be peaceful at any level of protest. Make sure that no one carries anything agitating.
- Every one in the gathering shall be recognizable. No one from outside shall be able to get into this gathering.
- Parallel to this organization structure, there will be a group in proportion to the total number of people in all groups which will be given responsibility of securing the gathering. These shall be healthy, vigilant people and well known people. Their responsibility is to keep the gathering on the route (if you are marching or standing).

There will be 3 stages of the protest as I see it now, but it could be more. The first stage is the one that I have outlined.

Please make the structure as outlined above and send me email addresses of the coordinating people so that I can invite them to write on blog to keep track of numbers.

General Guidelines:
- Please do not involve any political parties
- Please do not go outside your campuses
- Please try to keep your campus management with you. Do not, in any case, go against the management of your campus/organization

I would like to hear from you in next two days.