Government ministers, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari endorse demands of student protesters

The Pakistan People's Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari voiced his support of the Student Solidarity March on Friday on the social networking app, Twitter.

"The PPP has always supported Student unions. The restoration of student unions by SMBB was purposely undone to depoliticize society. Today students are marching in the #StudentSolidarityMarch for the restoration of unions, implementation of right to education," he tweeted.

According to news reports, the People's Party-led Sindh government is the only provincial government in the country that is trying to table a bill in the provincial assembly that would legitimize student unions, a key demand of the student protesters' across Pakistan.

"End to privatization of public universities, implementation of sexual harassment legislation, right to student housing & the demilitarization of campuses. The spirit of activism and yearning for peaceful democratic process from a new generation of students is truly inspiring," he added.

Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari is the only major leader to have given his expressed support to student unions.

From the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government, Minister Shireen Mazari shared her own opinion on how the student union ban adversely affected universities within Pakistan: "In my 16 plus years teaching in a public sector Uni in Pak, I have seen the damage ban on student unions did to our students. Instead of students from diff backgrounds coming together in a Student Union, we had students collecting together under ethnic & sectarian groups."

"Weapons came on campuses despite ban on unions bec Uni authorities were unable to enforce rules. We now have all manner of ethnic & sectarian groupings in our Unis incl in hostels. Weapons and violence continue to evade campuses. Student Unions were never the issue to begin with," she tweeted.

She also condemned Punjab University's decision to expel student Hasnain Jameel, who has been closely involved with organizing the Student Solidarity March in Lahore.

Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain also tweeted in favor of restoring student unions: "I fully support Restoration of students unions, ban on students unions is anti democratic,we can always ensure that students politics must remain violence free and regulations may be introduced for smooth functioning but ban on students politics amounts to limit future politics."

Thousands of Pakistani students, activists, and civil society members took to the streets across the country in one of the largest outpourings of student political activity within Pakistan in the last few decades. It remains to be seen whether the government ministers or the opposition leader will take their endorsement to the forum of parliamentary debate.