Pakistan Strikes Deal With Islamist Protesters in Islamabad
Pakistan’s government struck a deal on Monday with leaders of a fundamentalist Islamist protest movement, saying that the country’s law minister would step down in return for an end to demonstrations that had brought violent clashes and paralyzed the Pakistani capital for weeks.
The embattled law minister, Zahid Hamid, whom protesters had accused of blasphemy, was set to resign as part of negotiations overseen by Pakistan’s military, officials said.
That is, of course, the one and only thing the demonstrators have demanded from the start.
So, for "strikes a deal" read "surrenders".
And no one is fooled.
Public anger over the protest’s disruption of Islamabad had been growing by the day, and the agreement was widely seen as another in a string of capitulations by the government to religious extremists who command growing popularity in Pakistan.
Was this secretly part of the deal?
A late add-on demand on which the government was willing to surrender if it was kept dark?
Just a few days before, a judicial panel ordered the release of the Islamist militant leader Hafiz Saeed from house arrest.
Though Mr. Saeed stands accused in the deadly Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 and is wanted internationally as a terrorist leader and financier, he also enjoys huge popularity in Pakistan, and was seen as very likely to publicly take up leadership of a political party started by his inner circle.
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