The Lahore High Court (LHC) dismissed a petition to halt this year’s Aurat March after classifying it as “inadmissible” on Monday.

The 2024 Aurat March event is scheduled for this Friday, March 8, and the court has deferred its decision on the case.

Justice Shahid Karim of the LHC made public the ruling on the petition that Azam Butt, a citizen, had submitted. In his plea, the petitioner named Rafia Hyder, the Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Lahore, among other parties.

According to Azam’s petition, “Aurat March cards and banners are not acceptable in an Islamic society.”

He asked that an order to end this year’s Aurat March be issued by the LHC.

International Women’s Day is observed by women worldwide on March 8th. On this day, they celebrate their accomplishments and have a dialogue about concerns that remain unaddressed.

“Siyasat, Muzahamat aur Azadi” (Politics, resistance, and independence) is this year’s Women’s Day theme. It emphasizes confronting electoral politics head-on and reinventing a kind of political engagement where marginalized communities and oppressed groups take center stage.

Since 2018, women in Pakistan have organized sizable public protests on Women’s Day known as the Aurat [the Urdu word for woman] March. In direct proportion to Aurat March’s influence and popularity, opposition has grown.

Critics of women’s rights movements claim that they are advancing liberal Western principles and disobeying religious and cultural mores in a country where women have been shot, stabbed, stoned, set on fire, and strangled for destroying family “honour”.

Permission to hold a public rally was denied by the Lahore district administration to the march organizers last year.

Nonetheless, following a legal dispute, DC Haider and Aurat March organizers reached a joint decision over the timing and place of the previous year’s demonstration after LHC ordered the two groups to decide on a march site.

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