PAKISTAN – NO ‘PANDEMIC’
Pakistan’s top court orders businesses to reopenSupreme Court also declares coronavirus outbreak ‘not a pandemic’ in Pakistan.by Asad Hashim     19 May 2020 GMT+3 Islamabad, Pakistan:

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has declared that the coronavirus is “not a pandemic in Pakistan”, ordering the government to reopen businesses seven days a week and forcing a provincial government to reopen shopping malls. Pakistan’s federal government welcomed the court’s orders, made during a hearing into the government’s coronavirus response plan in the capital, Islamabad, on Monday.”

There are other serious ailments prevailing in the country, from which people are dying daily and those ailments are not being catered and the Coronavirus (COVID-19), which apparently is not a pandemic in Pakistan, is swallowing so huge money,” read Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed’s order.

In recent days, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government has loosened many lockdown restrictions, allowing smaller markets to reopen five days a week during daylight hours. This week, shopping malls in three of the country’s four provinces were due to reopen.At Monday’s hearing, Ahmed ordered the government of Sindh province – where Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi is located and which has seen almost 40 percent of all coronavirus cases in the country – to reopen malls, following provinces controlled by Khan’s party.

Mall management companies welcomed the announcement.The federal government, however, welcomed the decision, with Information Minister Shibli Faraz saying it was a vindication of a continuing policy of easing the lockdown to address economic concerns.The Supreme Court’s orders contradicted the government’s earlier decision to limit the opening of shops and other businesses to five days a week, saying they must be allowed to operate on Saturday and Sunday as well.
“We do not find any justifiable rational or reasonable classification on the basis of which these two days are excluded from doing business, for that, all days of the week are the same,” read the order.    SOURCE: Al Jazeera News

1 Shawwaal 1441 – 25 May 2020