The Awami Workers Party (AWP) expresses solidarity with the protest call given by All Pakistan Employees, Pensioners and Labour Movement against anti-workers policies on October 14 in Islamabad. The party endorses and extends full support to their charter of demands.

The AWP which is the party of the workers, labourers, farmers, small traders, doctors, engineers, teachers, health workers, religious minorities, marginalized people, oppressed nations, women, youth and students has been fighting for their rights since its inception. It reiterates its commitment to stand by them in their struggle.

In a statement, the AWP leadership said: “the party believes that Pakistan is facing the worst kind of socio-economic and governance crises due to the anti-people policies of the current hybrid incompetent government which is a puppet of the Establishment and the global imperialist institutions. As a result, half of the country’s population, i.e. 110 million, has fallen below the poverty line and 15 million people have been rendered jobless; the economy is in a shambles; inflation is skyrocketing; the poor and working-class have been deprived of their fundamental rights to access to education, health, shelter and employment; incidents of violence against women and children, including murder, is on the rise; restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of the media are increasing; human rights violations have increased exponentially; the incidents of enforced disappearances are on the rise in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir, and state repression has risen alarmingly in these regions.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has simply exacerbated existing economic, political, cultural and ecological crises, within Pakistan, and around the globe. Almost a year since the novel coronavirus was detected, it is clear that the exploitative and unsustainable foundations of the global political economy remain unaltered.

The Tehreek Insaf government made tall claims about supporting the ‘daily wage working majority’ of the population at the height of the pandemic, but the neoliberal policy that it has imposed on Pakistan at the behest of the IMF and other global financial institutions has remained intact both before and after the onset of COVID19.

In such a situation, progressive, democratic forces, workers and oppressed nationalities need to get united to wage a concerted struggle against the imperialist puppet government, the establishment and the exploitative forces in order to change this outdated system and put in place a system of redistribution of wealth and resources, establish a society where 99% people could live with dignity and have equal access to education, health, employment and end religious hatred, extremism, bigotry and persecution of religious minorities and to gain freedom from the clutches of imperialist institutions.

  The AWP directs all its national units and district units to fully participate in the October 14 workers’ mass protest in Islamabad.

Issued by:

Secretary Information

Awami Workers Party