National Assembly (NA) Speaker Asad Qaiser has urged Muslim lawmakers to speak out in their respective parliaments against the tide of Islamophobia, stressing that the parliamentarians can help promote interfaith harmony and solidarity.
The NA speaker on Wednesday announced in a tweet that he has dispatched a letter to over 100 Muslim parliamentarians across the world to urge their parliaments to end the recent surge of Islamophobia seen in the West.
“Attempts to disrespect Islam and Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) under the garb of freedom of expression is an attack on beliefs of Muslims,” tweeted Speaker Qaiser. He warned that attacks of the Muslims’ faith will “not be tolerated”.
“It is hoped that Muslim parliamentarians around the world will step forward and speak out in their respective parliaments against discriminatory practices, such as Islamophobia and religious hatred,” said Qaiser about the letter.
Moreover, the NA speaker stated that after the end of the pandemic, Pakistan would invite Muslim lawmakers to Islamabad and would hold a conference for the development of a joint strategy against the hatred and fear of Islam prevalent in Western countries.
This letter has been dispatched shortly the NA session was prorogued indefinitely without holding a debate on the expulsion of the French ambassador.
The National Assembly had held its session to deliberate the matter of the French ambassador’s expulsion. On April 19, the resolution on the issue of the French envoy’s expulsion from Pakistan was tabled in the assembly in line with the agreement between the government and banned Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).
On Thursday last, NA Speaker Asad Qaiser had sought names from parliamentary leaders of all parties having representation in the NA for inclusion in the proposed special committee of the house to take up the resolution on the issue of French envoy.
However, once the session had begun on Friday, lawmakers from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) had asked that they be allowed to speak on the point of contention. They had gathered near the speaker’s podium and raised slogans after being refused time to speak.
The resolution, presented last week by PTI MNA Amjad Ali Khan, condemned the publication of blasphemous caricatures by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in September last year.
It had further regretted the attitude of the French president encouraging the elements hurting the sentiments of hundreds of millions of Muslims in the name of freedom of expression. The resolution therein had called for apprising all the European countries, especially France, of the gravity of this matter.
In this regard, it had sought detailed discussions with all the Muslim countries to take up issue jointly on international forums, and also called for the state to decide matters of international relations wherein “no person, group or party can exert unnecessary illegal pressure in this regard”.
Moreover, the presented resolution had called for provincial governments to allocate specific sites for protests in all districts so that citizens’ daily life is not disrupted.
