ARCHIVE | Pakistan

New crisis for US-Pakistan relations

Millions badly affected.

Thousands of police deployed on streets to stop protests

Four-day strike called off. Government accepted all three demands

4,500 sacked workers reinstated

Stand off continues as workers’ siege of company headquarters enters third day

Religion, politics and the working class

20,000 jobs under threat – protesting workers forced the authorities to retreat

Protesting port workers of Port Qasim in Karachi walked out and effectively took over the port on 17th of January.

Religious extremism on the rise

More than one hundred thousand children left homeless by Pakistan’s floods are in danger of dying because they simply do not have enough to eat, according to UNICEF.

Stop terrorising the workers movement

Protesting trainee nurses held an all-night vigil on Saturday 18th September outside the local press club to pressurize the government to act against health and district authorities for victimisation.

Eradication of feudalism and capitalism would free millions

A new report on the TURCP web-site shows the ongoing and tireless flood relief work by trade unionists in Pakistan

Flash floods destroy lives, soaring price inflation means poverty

“Criminal negligence” of government and the super-rich

Solidarity vital

Workers in Europe donate

TWENTY MILLION people affected, over 1,600 dead and thousands face starvation, but the Pakistan government’s lacklustre response and incompetence has made the disaster worse.

Urgent response to solidarity appeal needed!

Eye-witness accounts from flood-devastated areas

Small farmers and peasants to suffer the most

Appeal for workers’ solidarity!

The Progressive Workers’ Federation of Pakistan unites almost 500,000 workers against privatisations and sackings, and to defend workers’ rights.

No end to the violence

No end to the violence as guerrilla war escalates

Government and military fail Pakistani workers and poor

Marches and protests mark international workers’ day

The world economic crisis has hit Pakistan particularly hard and this has intensified the social and political crisis.

The economic tsunami hits the masses hard

Workers to shut down oil, gas fields across the country

Five women shot, wounded and buried alive

Urgent need of a mass working class party

America’s bloody imperialist war in Afghanistan spills into Pakistan

Struggle over pay and conditions in Balochistan province

Will this end the country’s political crisis?

8,000 contract workers’ ‘regularisation’ confirmed

Thousands still sitting inside Telecom headquarters

16 workers injured in clashes with paramilitary forces

16 workers injured in clashes with paramilitary forces

Four day strike forced the government and owners to accept workers demands

TURCP led-rallies often larger than the ‘official’ rallies

Religious parties routed, grand coalition in the making

State and society in crisis

Pakistan People’s Party leadership ’bequeathed’ and no change in policy indicated

Pakistan People’s Party leader killed in suicide attack; political crisis and chaos deepen further

Thousands arrested, tortured, beaten and humiliated on the streets

Political turmoil and chaos continue

Constitution suspended, fundamental rights denied

Massive death toll deepens country’s crisis

All wings of establishment jostle for power

Deaths and injuries, as protests spread

The threat of Emergency or Martial Law is not over yet,

Pakistan celebrates its 60th anniversary on 14 August 2007.

Trade Union Rights Campaign secretary victimised for exposing Telcom redundancy plans

Fifty killed and more than 150 injured

Trade Union Rights Campaign Pakistan (TURCP) organised and participated in activities across Pakistan in more than 40 towns and cities.

Second successful national congress held in Lahore

Court reinstates sacked teachers’ union leaders

TURCP campaigners and social rights activists condemn police inaction

The joint struggle of the Federal Union of Journalists and the Newspaper Hawkers Union forced the newspaper bosses to retreat from reducing the newspapers holidays from 8 to 6 days annually.

There is again heated debate going on around the veil worn by Muslim women.

More than 300 Trade Unionists in attendance

Trade Union Rights Campaign meeting attracts over 100 activists

Protests at the murder of prominent Tamil MP, Nadarajah Raviraj, continue to pour in to embassies around the world and directly to the office of the president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapakse.

Reinstate 144 sacked leaders of teachers organisations

Around 3.5 million still ill-equipped, under- nourished and homeless

Trade Union Rights Campaign Pakistan (TURCP) meeting in Islamabad attracts 150 from different public sector trade unions

Quake survivors caught in limbo

Women and children suffer most

Repeal the anti-women ‘Hudood Ordinance’

13 dead and hundreds arrested…strike and violent protests continue

2,500 teachers demonstrate outside Chief Minister House against union ban

Event attracts new members to CWI Kashmir

Strike closes main highways

Strikes and protests force back corruption and oppression

"In order to understand this struggle it is important to look at the historical background."

Trade Union Rights Campaign (TURCP) condemns police brutality and organises solidarity demonstration

One thousand four hundred workers reinstated as result of struggle

Implement the agreement or face strike action!

Activities go ahead despite intimidation of authorities

Public meeting discusses how to combat capitalist crisis

Hundreds hear the socialist case at CWI meetings

Support given to 2,300 sacked Habib Bank workers

No way forward on a capitalist basis

Trade union activists victimized

Trade Union Rights Campaign Pakistan (TURCP) organised a protest demonstration in Multan, Pakistan against police brutality.

“If the world economy and world relations are dominated by the dramatic economic and social developments in China, then for Asia the pace and scale of these developments is even more significant”.

Socialist Movement members achieve impressive votes

Lessons of the Pakistan Telecoms Company Ltd (PTCL) Union Action Committee betrayal of strike

Every day 8 rape cases are reported but for every case reported there are two that go unreported in Pakistan

Trade Union Rights Campaign statement

Nothing has changed under Musharraf

125 trade unionists and political activists pay rich tribute to the historic struggle of PTCL Workers.

More than 120 trade union activists and leaders of different trade unions attended a meeting organised by Trade Union Rights Campaign in the Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited Colony in Islamabad on 13 July.

A reply to the distortions of ‘Class Struggle’

Employees’ Union leaders sign deal but workers still oppose privatisation

Berlin, Ireland, London and Stokholm. See report.

Regime uses ‘sticks and carrots’ to try to force through privatisation

Report from Daily Times Pakistan. Appeal letter. Press release.

Government starts military crackdown as it announces unilateral date for privatisation of Pakistan Telecommunications

The stakes have been raised sharply in the battle between Pakistan’s telecommunications workers and the Musharraf government over the question of the privatisation of the industry.

In an indication of huge anger at the government serious escalation, 4000 workers have re-occupied the PTCL headquarters.

Formal negotiations between the Privatisation Commission, management of PTCL and the Action Committee broke down yesterday, 6 June.

Workers need to remain vigilant over further privatisation attempts

Ten day strike forced the Government to retreat – Pakistan Telecommunications privatisation postponed for an indefinite period

Pakistan telecoms workers fight privatisation

The Pakistani Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) Trade Union Action Committee has decided to boycott negotiations with management in a meeting which finished late during the night of 29 May.

Ten unions announce support for Telecommunications strike

The TURC-P, formed in April this year, is a fighting campaigning organisation in Pakistan.

The strike of Pakistan Telecommunications Company Ltd (PTCL) workers has entered its fifth day as negotiations failed once again.

Protest messages needed urgently

Sixty thousand telecom workers of Pakistani Telecommunications Ltd (PTCL) have started an indefinite strike today. This decision was taken in a meeting of union’s actions committee in Islamabad yesterday, after negotiations with management failed to […]

The rallies and daily two hour strikes by Pakistan Telecom workers against privatisation continues across the country.

“Government threats will not be able break our strike”

Leaflet from the Pakistani Trade Union Rights Campaign

Negotiations fail, while the movement picks up momentum

The Anti Privatization Campaign launched by an alliance of nine unions in the telecom sector has received a tremendous response from workers throughout the country.

Members of the Socialist Movement Pakistan (SMP) and the Pakistan Trade Union rights Campaign (PTURC) organised demonstrations and seminars in eighteen cities, while we participated in other Mayday activities in over twenty-one cities and towns.

Despite all the claims of the present regime, women are still facing a horrific situation in Pakistan.

Telecommunication workers in the state-owned Telecom Company PakTel Communications Limited (PTCL) started a protest campaign after the death of one telecom worker in Rawalpindi region.

A very successful First Congress of the Socialist Movement Pakistan (SMP) – affiliated to the cwi – took place over the weekend of the 19/20 March 2005 in Lahore.

eyewitness report from the Pakisani province of Baluchistan

Lahore. More than 50 people came to the solidarity demonstration organised by the SMP, the CWI section in Pakistan. All the main trade unions had representatives at the demonstration.

Opposition parties divided but regime relies on US imperialism

More than 3000 workers of Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation [KESC] organised a protest rally against the proposed privatisation of this state owned corporation which supplies power to 1.3 million people in Karachi.

A recent armed clash between armed nationalist activists and the Pakistani security forces in the city of Sui once again proves that the situation in Baluchistan is far more fragile and volatile than the Pakistani […]

National Assembly in Pakistan passes a Bill on ’honour killings’.

Pakistani has its third Prime Minister in two months.

The newly formed Socialist Movement distributed a four page leaflet and attended Mayday activities in nine different cities right across Pakistan, including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Hyderabad, Quetta, and Karachi.

Compared to five years ago, the railway colony of Lahore where all railway workers live and work has an air of demoralisation and fear. The military regime installed military officers in all workshops to spy […]

The rapidly executed military coup of Tuesday 12 October 1999 marks a new, and even more unstable and tension-ridden period in Pakistan and the wider Asian sub-continent. The coup represents the possibility of further erosion […]