August 22, 2006, Karachi: Nearabout 2500 teachers from all over Sindh staged a gigantic protest rally starting from Karachi Press Club to Bagh-e-Jinnah near Governor House condemning ban on teachers and staff organizations in educational institutions of Sindh Province . They were severely beaten and tear-gassed resulting in injury to 3 and arrests of 27 members of the alliance near Bagh-e-Jinnah. Around 500 policemen deployed in the area tried to stop the rally at Karaachi Press Club PC, Arts Council Roundabout and finally charged the old and young workers near the Artilery Maidan Police Station. Teachers were attacked within yards from the Governor House by a riot-gear weilding police, which used tear gas at an indiscriminate pace. Called by the recently formed Sindh Education Alliance a large number of teachers and non-teaching staff from Sindh started assembling at KPC from early in the morning. Around 11am teachers started raising slogans. They were chanting ’Down with ban on education organisations’, ’Down with Hamida Khoro (Education Minister who banned all education workers associations in the province), ’Down with anti-education policies’.

Teachers and staff satarted their movement the next day after on July 24 Sindh Education Minister banned teachers and staff associations in schools and colleges of the province. Rights of over 50,000 workers thereby stand infringed by her order. Till today the protests have been confined to other parts of province with huge rallies in Hyderabad, Sukkar, Shikarpur and Mirpurkhas. From August 16^th schools reopened and the Sindh Education Alliance announced a protest drive that included todays’ big rally in front of Chief Minister’s House in Karachi. After the arrests and attack today teachers and staff have announced complete shut down of all educational institutions in Sindh from August 24 till their demands of repeal of ban on associations is not met.
An agitating teacher told Socialist correspondent that ’buses carrying education workers from Dadu, Sukkar, Shikarpur and other places have been stopped by the police before they could enter Karachi and as a result over 2000 participants could not attend the protest’. Another informed that a large number of education workers leaders were arrested in the vicinity of Karachi Press Club.

By 12:30pm the rally started to move but was stopped by over a dozen police mobiles parked on the Saddar entrance of KPC. A leader of secondary teachers Taj Joyo climbed on top of a mobile with a megaphone in one hand and started urging others to break the police cordon. Mr Joyo who is over 55 years of age was suddenly attacked by police all around him with sticks and batons but he kept resiliant. As a result of his heroic efforts the rally broke the police cordon. A large number of teachers from upper Sindh were on their first visit to Karachi and confusion marked the entire course of the protests but a salient feature was their resiliance in bouncing back after every police attack.

It was a huge rally which spread from KPC to Arts Council and beyond. At the Arts Council roundabout the police again stopped the participants from marching towards Shaheen Complex and the rally turned into a narrow lane leading to Artillery Maidan police stattion. No sooner that frontal half of over 1000 workers filled the lane a police section standing on the roadside suddenly attacked them from behind with batons and tear gas. The protesters retreated towards Karachi Press Club but soon were urged by those in front to stay on course and suddenly the police was now on the run. However when the protesters reached Bagh-e-Jinnah/Dr Ziauddin cross-section they were attacked by over 100 riot-police with a massive row of tear-gas. A large number of elderly protestors climbed into the Bagh and 27 were arrested by the police. The rest of over 2500 protestors retreated into the narrow lane once again but only to be urged back on the wide road in front of Governor House. There in the middle of the road the police fired tear gas directly on the crowd resulting in injury to one. Later it was reported that two other people were injured in the shelling in front of Bagh-e-Jinnah.

The police and protestors show-down continued for another hour before the police reassembled and forced the protestors to retreat back to Karachi Press Club. It was an amazing sight at KPC, over 2000 protestors once again filled the road in front of KPC and began chanting slogans and this time it included ’Down with Karachi Police’, ’Down with Chief Minister Arbab Rahim’ , ’Down with Black Crow (Arbab Rahim)’ added to their slogans. A protesting college teachers told Socialist that ’we have won the Karachi battle against the Chief Minister and the Education Minister as they have shown their inhuman color in tacking respected teachers’. Another said that ’we have come all the way to demand our fundamental right of association banned by those who are playing in the hands of World Bank and using the methods like today’s police attack which remind us of Lebanon’. A large number of teachers staged a sit-in in front of KPC demanding release of their arrested colleagues. An array of TV channel and press photographers had assembled by then and the police attack and arrests started to appear on the channels. Protesters continued their protests and they were shown solidarity by visiting leaders of various political parties. Around 6pm a press conference by the teachers leaders announced that they are calling the day’s protest and from tomorrow all educational institutions will observe strike against the attack and arrests of teachers.

Further detail on:
http://dawn.com/2006/08/23/local1.htm