Thousands Hold Demonstrations Against US Assassination Drones Strikes: Pakistan

Local Editor

Thousands of Pakistanis have held demonstrations across the country against relentless US assassination drone strikes, Press TV reports.
Friday's protests, held in several cities, were organized by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), an Islamic charity organization, which has about half a million activists in the South Asian country.

"We will launch a nationwide protest against the US aggression. We will not let Americans violate our sovereignty," said one of the protesters.
Islamabad considers drone strikes as violation of its territorial integrity and sovereignty. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has recently raised the issue of drone attacks with US President Barrack Obama.

"On the issue of drone strikes, I think, our position is very clear. The government has already evolved a national consensus on this matter and is pursuing the strategy of taking up this matter directly with the United States as well as resuming it at the international fora," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry.

The US says the CIA-run drone strikes primarily kill Taliban militants who threaten the US-led international forces in neighboring Afghanistan, although casualty figures show that Pakistani civilians are often the victims of the non-UN-sanctioned attacks.

The slaughter of Pakistani civilians, including women and children, in US drone strikes has strained relations between Islamabad and Washington, and Pakistani officials have complained to the US administration on numerous occasions.
On October 23, the Pakistani prime minister said that US drone strikes are unacceptable and asked Obama to end the attacks.

"I also brought up the issue of drones in our meeting, emphasizing the need to end ... such strikes," Sharif said at a news conference in Washington after meeting with the US president in the White House.

A day earlier, Sharif said that drone strikes had "deeply disturbed and agitated" the people of Pakistan and that his government is determined to end these attacks.

"The use of drones is not only a violation of our territorial integrity but they are also detrimental to our efforts to eliminate terrorism from our country," Sharif stated.

He said that the drone issue had become "a major irritant" in relations between Islamabad and Washington.

In September 2012, a report by the Stanford Law School and the New York University School of Law gave an alarming account of the effect that assassination drone strikes have on ordinary people in Pakistan's tribal areas.

"The number of ‘high-level' targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low -- estimated at just 2%," the report noted.

Source: Press TV