NPR’s Bryant Park Project has a fascinating audio slideshow about an ingenious protesting strategy being employed in Pakistan. Pakistani dentist and blogger Dr. Awab Alvi has taken our friend Howard Rheingold’s concept of ’flash mobs’ and applied it to rallying against the state of emergency in Pakistan.

’If you announce a date a day in advance, the army and police show up’ and they ’beat the hell out of you,’ Dr. Alvi told the show. So he concluded it made more sense to organize very brief protests through telephone calls and other communication channels. At an appointed time, the protesters show up, pull out signs and shout slogans demanding an end to the state of emergency. After 10 minutes, they put away their signs and leave before the authorities can interfere with them.

’These flash protests are basically citizens protesting in a very smart way,’ Alvi said. So far the largest protest attracted around 50 protesters, who were quickly joined by random passers-by on the street. Pedestrians, though, have been somewhat puzzled by the brevity of each event.

’It’s almost called a guerilla protest,’ he added.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 6:59 pm and is filed under VideoVoice News, Videos.