Why Is Pakistan’s Military Repressing a Huge, Nonviolent Pashtun Protest Movement?

On January 27, a man named Manzoor Pashteen was arrested in the middle of the night in Peshawar. He faced five charges, including sedition, criminal conspiracy, attacking Pakistan’s sovereignty, and promoting ethnic hatred. Pashteen is the young leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz (Protection) Movement, or the PTM: a non-violent protest movement demanding rights for Pashtuns in Pakistan’s former Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Days after Pashteen’s arrest, PTM activists—elderly women among them—protesting for his release in front of the press club in Islamabad were arrested and also charged with sedition. Those activists were released on bail after a few days, but Pashteen remains under arrest.

Coverage of his two-year-old movement is censored in Pakistan. Newspapers and TV outlets are not allowed to report on the huge rallies the movement holds—with attendees numbering in the tens of thousands—or to air the movement’s demands. In a state that has routinely negotiated with right-wing Islamists who take to the streets, why have the PTM’s members been repeatedly arrested, and why does this movement of dissenters present such a challenge to its military?