Retired Captain Muhammad Safdar, the spouse of Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, has faced criticism over remarks he made earlier in the week at a Khatm-i-Nabuwwat rally in Chiniot. The remarks concerned women advocating bodily autonomy and the slogan “mera jism, meri marzi”, and they have drawn reactions from political and legal circles, including condemnation from two bar bodies and a response from the chief minister herself.
Safdar was criticised for his remarks at the rally, which took place earlier in the week. The criticism focused on the tone and content of what he said about women who advocate bodily autonomy, and about the slogan associated with that advocacy. The rally setting, a Khatm-i-Nabuwwat gathering in Chiniot, provided the context for the remarks, but the reaction has extended well beyond the event itself, into public debate on social media and in statements from professional bodies.
On Friday, Maryam Nawaz responded on X to a post that noted Safdar had lost his mother-in-law to cancer yet mocked women battling cancer. Her response on the social media platform marked a public intervention by the chief minister in a controversy involving her spouse. The post she responded to drew a contrast between personal loss from cancer in the family and the mocking of women facing the disease, and her decision to respond publicly indicates the sensitivity of the issue and the level of attention it had attracted.
On Saturday, the Pakistan Bar Council and the Supreme Court Bar Association condemned his remarks about Asma Jahangir. Asma Jahangir was a senior lawyer and human rights activist who died in 2018, and she remains a prominent figure in Pakistan’s legal and human rights history. The condemnation from the two bar bodies therefore carries particular weight, because it comes from organisations representing the legal profession, and because it concerns remarks about a respected former colleague and activist.
The Pakistan Bar Council is a statutory body representing lawyers across the country, while the Supreme Court Bar Association represents lawyers practising before the Supreme Court. When both bodies condemn remarks in similar terms, their statements are generally understood as a collective professional response, rather than the view of individual lawyers alone. Their intervention in this case focused on the remarks about Asma Jahangir, separating that aspect of the controversy from the wider debate about the rally remarks.
The sequence of reactions, from criticism of the rally remarks, to the chief minister’s response on Friday, to the bar bodies’ condemnation on Saturday, shows how the controversy developed over several days. It began with remarks at a public rally, moved into online discussion, and then drew formal statements from professional organisations. Each stage added a new layer to the public record, and each was reported as a reaction to the original remarks rather than as a new claim about them.
At the same time, the involvement of the chief minister adds a political dimension that goes beyond the rally itself. Maryam Nawaz is both the spouse of the person criticised and the chief minister of Punjab, and her public response on X was therefore watched closely. Her response did not, as reported, amount to a detailed statement on the substance of the debate, but it did place her on the public record in relation to the criticism that had been directed at her spouse.
The bar bodies’ condemnation, meanwhile, focused on a specific aspect of the remarks, namely those concerning Asma Jahangir. By condemning those remarks, the two bodies signalled that, in their view, comments about a deceased senior lawyer and activist crossed a line that warranted a formal professional response. That focus helps to distinguish the legal profession’s reaction from the wider political and social media debate about the rally as a whole.
As the controversy continues, the reported reactions provide the clearest picture of its public impact so far: criticism of the rally remarks, a response from the chief minister on Friday, and condemnation from the Pakistan Bar Council and the Supreme Court Bar Association on Saturday. Those reactions, attributed to the individuals and bodies concerned, form the basis of the public record, and any further developments will be measured against them.
Source: Dawn.
