Viral video of JUI-F MNAs being arrested from Parliament in March 2022

Rating Justification

The iVerify Pakistan team has reviewed this content and determined that it is misleading.

To reach this conclusion, the iVerify Pakistan team referred to the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007.

Multiple users were sharing a video on social media platform X on September 10, 2024, of a Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) lawmaker being arrested by the police, claiming that the recent arrest of PTI lawmakers from parliament was nothing new and the party had done the same in 2022. However, the JUI lawmakers were arrested not from parliament in March 2022 but from Parliament Lodges, which do not come in the precincts of the National Assembly.

On the night of September 9 — a day after the PTI held its Islamabad power show — law enforcement agencies swooped in on the party’s top leadership, arresting at least three key members from different areas of the federal capital, while forcing others to take shelter in the Parliament House. There were reports of some PTI lawmakers being arrested from the premises of Parliament House as well after the electricity was allegedly cut.

In March 2022, the Islamabad police had carried out a raid inside the Parliament Lodges, resulting in the arrest of 19 individuals, including JUI-Fazl MNAs Salahuddin Ayubi and Maulana Jamal-ud-Din. The police action had followed the entry of a large number of Ansarul Islam members, a uniformed volunteer force of the JUI-F, into the Parliament Lodges.

HOW IT STARTED

Farhan Virk, a former PTI propagandist and social media activist turned critic, posted a 10-second long clip on September 10 on social media platform X showing police officials dragging JUI-F MNA Maulana Jamal-ud-Din.

The caption of the post said: “These scenes from the National Assembly are not from today but from three years ago, during Imran Khan’s government when the turbans of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam scholars were being tossed in the air in the National Assembly. I thought I should remind the nation before PTI members claim this is happening for the first time in history.”

The post gained over 66,000 views.

The clip with the same claim was widely shared by other social media users as can be seen here, here, and here.

METHODOLOGY

A fact check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its virality and significant public interest in and criticism of the manner of the PTI lawmakers’ arrests with some legal experts saying the move was illegal.

As per a Dawn.com news report dated March 10, 2022, the opposition parties at the time were in uproar after Islamabad police conducted an operation inside the Parliament Lodges and made 19 arrests, including those of JUI-F MNAs.

The Islamabad police’s official X account had also addressed the incident in a post on the same date, saying that the arrests were made from the Parliament Lodges.

Rule 106 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007 governs the law barring arrests from the premises of the assembly, stating: “No member shall be arrested within the precincts of the assembly without the permission of the speaker.”

The rules define the “precincts of the assembly” as the chamber, lobbies, the galleries, offices attached to the parliament and parking lots, offices which are in use of the assembly, the places which are part of the Parliament House and such other places as the National Assembly speaker may from time to time specify.

Notably, the rules do not include the Parliament Lodges as falling within the assembly precincts and thus any arrests from the lodges do not amount to a legal contravention as per Rule 106.

FACT-CHECK STATUS: MISLEADING

The claim regarding the viral video of JUI-F MNAs being arrested from the National Assembly in March 2022 and thus the recent PTI arrests not being that unusual is misleading.

The JUI-F MNAs, unlike PTI lawmakers, were not arrested from the National Assembly or from any location that constitutes the assembly precincts but from the Parliament Lodges. While the lodges may include parliament in their name, they do not form part of the assembly precincts and there is no apparent legal contravention in arrests from them.

Evidence and References

March 10, 2022, Dawn.com news report:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1679290

March 10, 2022, X post of Islamabad police:
https://perma.cc/R2QA-PNKM

Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007:
https://na.gov.pk/uploads/publications/rules_procedure.pdf