LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Authorities in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province shut all schools and universities for two days on Friday in an attempt to contain the spread of protests by students over an alleged on-campus rape.
The closures in Pakistan's most populous province affect an estimated 18 million students.
Tensions have been high on college campuses since reports of the alleged rape in the eastern city of Lahore spread on social media, and protests have broken out in four cities. In Gujrat in Punjab province, a security guard died in clashes between student protesters and police on Wednesday.
Police arrested a person in connection with the death.
The government and police have denied that any rape occurred on a campus of the private Punjab Group of Colleges in Lahore, the capital of Punjab. They are seeking the arrest of nearly three dozen people, including several journalists, saying they spread misinformation on social media that led to the protests.
Students, however, announced they would hold a rally later Friday to demand justice for the alleged victim in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.
The decision to shut all schools in Punjab came a day after hundreds of students ransacked a college building in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Police fired tear gas and charged at the students, arresting more than 250 people.
The protests appear to have begun spontaneously, as student unions have been banned in Pakistan since 1984. There are no organizations representing students, although political parties' youth wings exist.
Separately, the political party of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan announced it will hold protests across the country on Friday to oppose any amendments to the country's Constitution.
Khan’s supporters say Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who replaced Khan after his ouster in 2022 in a no-confidence vote in parliament, wants to appoint judges of his own choosing and set up a new constitutional court in parallel with the Supreme Court. The government denies the allegations.
Sexual violence against women is common in Pakistan but is underreported because of stigma in the conservative country. Protests about the issue have been rare.
Associated Press writers Asim Tanveer in Multan, Pakistan, and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this story.
Police fire tear gas to disperse students protesting over an alleged on-campus rape in Punjab, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/W.K. Yousafzai)
Police officers detain students following a students protest over an alleged on-campus rape in Punjab, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/W.K. Yousafzai)
Students throw stones toward police during clashes as they protest over an alleged on-campus rape in Punjab, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/W.K. Yousafzai)
Police fire tear gas to disperse students protesting over an alleged on-campus rape in Punjab, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/W.K. Yousafzai)
BANGKOK (AP) — A group of nearly three dozen rights groups called on Thailand's prime minister Friday to release a Vietnamese activist who has been ordered extradited home to face imprisonment on terrorism charges, saying he faces the possibility of torture if returned.
Y Quynh Bdap, who has United Nations refugee status in Thailand, was picked up by Thai authorities on a Vietnamese warrant in June as he was seeking to be granted asylum in Canada and is being held in Bangkok pending extradition.
In the letter sent to Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra well as other Thai officials and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Amnesty International and 32 other rights groups suggested Bdap “faces a real risk of torture, prolonged arbitrary detention or other grave human rights violations” if he is returned to Vietnam.
Paetongtarn’s spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said the prime minister's office had not yet received the letter and that he had no immediate comment.
Bdap is the co-founder of the Montagnards Stand for Justice group. He fled to Thailand in 2018 to escape persecution in Vietnam, which has been long criticized for its treatment of the country’s predominantly Christian Montagnard minority.
His group advocated for Montagnards’ religious and other rights, training them in international and Vietnamese law and how to document abuses, which the NGOs said made him a target of the Vietnamese government.
The 32-year-old was convicted in absentia in Vietnam in January of terrorism and sentenced to 10 years in prison on allegations that he was involved in organizing anti-government riots in Vietnam’s central highland province of Dak Lak last year.
A Bangkok court in September ordered his extradition, and his appeal of that ruling is still pending.
Bdap went into hiding in Thailand after he was alerted that Vietnamese authorities were making inquires about him earlier this year, and released a video shortly before he was apprehended saying he had “absolutely nothing to do with that violent incident.”
“I am a human rights activist fighting for religious freedom and advocating for people’s rights,” he said. “My activities are peaceful, consisting only of collecting and writing reports on human rights violations in Vietnam.”
In the January court case in Vietnam, about 100 others were also tried for alleged involvement in riots at two district government offices in which nine people were killed, including four police officers and two government officials. Fifty-three were convicted on charges of “terrorism against the people’s government,” state-run Vietnam News reported.
Days after the verdicts, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang rejected criticism that Vietnam had used the trial as an opportunity to crack down on ethnic minorities, saying the government needed to “strictly deal with terrorism according to international law.”
“All ethnicities living in a territory of Vietnam are equal,” she said.
In the joint letter, the NGOs underscored that U.N. rights experts have expressed concerns that the trial may have been politically motivated — pointing out Bdap was in Thailand when the alleged crimes in Vietnam were committed — and did not meet fair trial guarantees.
They also noted that Thailand has just been voted into a three-year term on the U.N. Human Rights Council for a three-year term starting Jan. 1.
“Being elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council comes with serious responsibilities to implement policies and actions to respect human rights,” said Prakaidao Phurksakasemsuk of the Cross Cultural Foundation, which was one of the groups that sent the letter.
"What happens to Y Quynh Bdap is a test case of that Thai commitment, and the prime minister should do the right thing and order that he be allowed to safely resettle with his family to a third country where he can receive protection.”
Phil Robertson, director of the Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates group, which also signed the letter, said Bdap should be freed on bail while his appeal is pending to be reunited with his wife and three young children.
“There is absolutely no sufficient reason to hold a refugee father in detention, away from his children, and subject him to continued suffering based on bogus accusations and politically motivated claims being pressed by Vietnam’s authoritarian government,” Robertson said.
Jintamas Saksornchai contributed to this story.
FILE - Peoples leave the Bangkok Criminal Court in Bangkok, Thailand, on Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)
