Jamaat-e-Islami announces nationwide highway blockade for August 7
Addressing reporters at the party's Mansoorah headquarters, Rehman said JI would blockade key roads in all four provinces along with district headquarters on the chosen date, while ensuring ambulances and emergency vehicles are allowed through.
He said the demonstration would remain peaceful but warned that any government attempt to suppress it could push the movement toward broader anti-government agitation.
In the lead-up to the blockade, the party plans to hold corner meetings, sit-ins and a wider mobilisation drive, with Rehman saying the campaign would draw support from traders, industrialists, lawyers, students and religious scholars.
Rehman aimed the government's petroleum levy, arguing that fuel prices would fall well below current levels if the levy and related taxes were scrapped. He alleged that authorities were using the ongoing Middle East conflict as cover to justify price hikes unrelated to the war itself.
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His remarks come as Pakistan shifts to a daily fuel-price review system, adopted amid volatile global oil markets tied to renewed hostilities in the region. Under the new mechanism, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority will publish updated petroleum prices daily, based on a seven-day rolling average of international rates, a move officials say is meant to improve transparency.
The August 7 action follows a series of JI-led protests earlier this year against successive fuel price increases and broader economic hardship, with the party previously threatening wheel-jam strikes and marches on government buildings if its demands went unmet.
