On February 5, 2011, several religious parties and jihadist organizations in Pakistan organized public rallies, seminars, and conferences in various cities of Pakistan to mark the Kashmir Solidarity Day, an official public holiday in Pakistan. A large public rally was also organized in Lahore by Jamaatud Dawa, the charity arm of Pakistani jihadist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba. Both the Jamaatud Dawa and Lashkar-e-Taiba, along with a number of charities associated with them, were banned by the UN Security Council for their involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
The Lahore rally was attended by over 20,000 supporters of Jamaatud Dawa and was addressed by its leaders, among them Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Professor Abdur Rehman Makki, a founding leader of Jamaatud Daw. Saeed is currently the Emir of Jamaatud Dawa. Leaders of other religious parties also attended rally. Based on their speeches at the rally, a report was published by the Pakistani magazine "Politics & Development" on its website www.pol-dev.com.
All speakers at the rally also mentioned Raymond Davis, a CIA official detained in Pakistan over the killing of two Pakistani nationals in a shootout in Lahore. Addressing the protesters, Prof. Makki (pictured above) called for jihad against India in Kashmir, and also noted: "The U.S. is nobody's friend. The friends of the U.S. are losing the war. The friends of Muhammad are winning."
