The Difa-e-Pakistan Council (, lit. ''Defence of Pakistan Council'', abbreviated as DPC) is an umbrella coalition of more than 40 Pakistani Political and Religious parties that advocated conservative policies such as closing

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

supply routes to

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

and rejects granting

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

most-favored nation In international economic relations and international politics, most favoured nation (MFN) is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade. The term means the country which is the recipient of this treatme ...

status (previously agreed by the government of Pakistan but not implemented).

Organization

Chief of Council

In 2012, the Chief of The Defence of Pakistan Council was

Sami-ul-Haq Sami ul Haq (, ''Samī'u’l-Ḥaq''; 18 December 1937 – 2 November 2018) was a Pakistani religious scholar and senator. He was known as the ''Father of Taliban'' for the role his seminary Darul Uloom Haqqania played in the graduation of mo ...

. The council is an alliance of right-wing groups, some of which are banned terrorist outfits. It is chaired by

and includes leaders of Jamatud Dawa (JuD) and the banned

Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan The Sipah-e-Sahaba (SS), also known as the Millat-e-Islamiyya (MI), was a banned Sunni Islamist Deobandi organisation in Pakistan. Founded by Pakistani cleric Haq Nawaz Jhangvi in 1989 after breaking away from Sunni Deobandi party Jamiat Ule ...

(SSP), operating under the name of Ahl-e-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat (ASWJ).

Fazlur Rehman Khalil Fazal ur Rehman Khalil ( ) is a founder of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and current leader of Ansar-ul-Umma, which is accused of being a front organization of the banned HuM. He also runs the Jamia Khalid Bin Walid, a madrasa or Islamic seminary loca ...

, a founder of

Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (; HUM) is a Pakistan-based Islamist jihadist group operating primarily in Kashmir.

and currently head of the Ansar-ul Umma, is another leading cleric in the council. According to the council's website, 36 organizations or people are part of the DPC (although only 33 are listed due to misnumbering):

#
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (S) Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan (S) () commonly known as Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (S) is a political party in Pakistan. It was established in 1980, as a breakaway faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) founded by Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani in 1945. ...
(
Sami-ul-Haq Sami ul Haq (, ''Samī'u’l-Ḥaq''; 18 December 1937 – 2 November 2018) was a Pakistani religious scholar and senator. He was known as the ''Father of Taliban'' for the role his seminary Darul Uloom Haqqania played in the graduation of mo ...
) (President) # Jamatud Dawa (
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (born 5 June 1950) is a Pakistani militant and religious preacher convicted of terrorism. He co-founded Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based Islamist militant organization that is List of designated terrorist groups, de ...
) (Vice President) #
Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan (JIP), is a Pakistani Islamism, Islamist political party. It is the Pakistani successor to Jamaat-e-Islami, which was founded in colonial India in 1941. JIP is a "vanguard party", whose members are intended to be leade ...
(
Siraj-ul-Haq Siraj-ul-Haq (Pashto: سراج الحق; born 5 September 1962) is a Pakistani politician who was elected as the chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, a religious political party in Pakistan which seeks to establish an Islamic legal system. He also served ...
) (Secretary General) # Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat ( Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi) (Joint Secretary) #
Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) () is an Islamist political party in Pakistan. It was founded in 1948 by leaders of All India Sunni Conference. The JUP exercised considerable political influence in Pakistani politics during the 1970s to 2003. Its st ...
(Dr. Sahibzada Abdul Khayr Zubair, Shah Ovais Noorani) #
Sunni Ittehad Council The Sunni Ittehad Council (''Ittehad'' in Urdu for "unity", from ''al-Ittihad'' in Arabic meaning "united" or "jointly") is a political alliance of Islamic political and Barelvi religious parties in Pakistan which represents followers of the sch ...
( Sahibzada Hamid Raza) #
Jamiat Ahle Hadith Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith (MJAH) is a religious organization and political party in Pakistan, founded in 1947 by Dawood Ghaznavi and Muhammad Ibrahim Mir Sialkoti. History Formation Jamiat Ahle Hadith was launched as a political party in 198 ...
(
Sajid Mir Sajid Mir (born 1976 or 1978) is a Pakistani national and a member of the militant organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba. Mir was the chief planner of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and has also managed the tasks of the 'foreign affairs' of Lashkar-e-Taiba's ...
) # JUI-N (Asmatullah, A. Qadir) # Muslim Conference AJK (Sardar Atiq Ahmed) # Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam (Abdul Latif Khalid Cheema) # Mohsinan-e-Pakistan (Abdullah Gul, representative of
A. Q. Khan Abdul Qadeer Khan (1 April 1936 – 10 October 2021) was a Pakistani nuclear physicist and metallurgical engineer. He is colloquially known as the "father of Pakistan's atomic weapons program". A Muhajir emigrant from India who migrated t ...
) # Pakistan Water Movement (Nasr) # Tehreek-e-Ittehad (former Gen.
Hamid Gul Hamid Gul (20 November 1936 – 15 August 2015) was a Pakistani military officer and defence analyst. A three-star general, Gul was notable for serving as the Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's premier inte ...
) # Pakistan Muslim League - Zia ( Ijaaz ul Haq) # Awami Muslim League ( Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed) # Tehreek-e-Hurmat Rasool (Amir Hamza) # Secretary Gen DPC (Muhammad Yaqoob Sheikh) # Ansar ul Ummah (Fazal-ur-Rehman Khalil) # AMTKN (Ismail Shujabadi) # Pakistan Ulema Council ( Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi) # Tehreek-e-Azaadi Kashmir (Saifullah Mansoor) # Muslim League-Sher-e-Bangal (Dr. Sualeh Zahoor) # AMTKN-International (M. Ilyas Chinoti) # Sunni Ulema Council (M. Ashraf Tahir) # Christian Community (Yusuf) # Sikh Community (Sardar Shaam) # Hindu Community Lahore (Manohar Chand) # Hindu Community Khi (Ramesh Laal) # Jamiat Ittehad ul Ulema – Pakistan # Jamat Ahle-Hadith Pakistan ( Hafiz Abdul Ghaffar Ropri) # Jamiat Ahle-Hadith (former Gen. Ibtisam Elahi Zaheer) # Mutahida Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith (Naeem Badshah) # Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam (Syed Muhammad Kafeel Bukhari) # Jamiat Ashat Tauheed sunnah (Tayyab Tahiri)

Activities

The umbrella organization was formed in November 2011 in response to the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers who were killed by American gunships and warplanes along the Afghan border. Pakistan closed NATO supply routes to Afghanistan after the strikes but reopened the routes in July 2012 when

U.S. Secretary of State The United States secretary of state (SecState) is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The secretary of state serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

apologized. Thousands of supporters rallied in

Islamabad Islamabad (; , ; ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's tenth-most populous city with a population of over 1.1 million and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Bu ...

on 9 July 2012 in protest of the government's decision to reopen the lines. Several other organizations such as Tanzeem e Islami send delegates for debate or speech to the Difa e Pakistan Council Forums upon request as non-member guest speakers or participants in debate, or in some cases as observers.

References

External links

The Express Tribune – Difa-e-Pakistan Council: Ahead of 40-party rally, JuD chief parries questions on electoral ambitionsThe Express Tribune – Peshawar civil society demands ban on Difa-e-Pakistan
– 6 March 2012

{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220706194049/http://www.awamiweb.com/jamiat-ulema-e-pakistan-leaves-difa-e-pakistan-council-42392.html , date=6 July 2022 – 22 May 2012 * Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (religious organization) Political party alliances in Pakistan Far-right politics in Pakistan Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Islamist front organizations Hafiz Muhammad Saeed