24 May 2004	Monday	04 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

PESHAWAR, May 23: Chief of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Maulana Fazlur Rehman has said that the restoration of Pakistan's membership to the Commonwealth would not change the internal situation of the country.

Speaking at the joint session of his party's central and provincial executive councils in the mountain resort in Nathiagali on Sunday, the MMA leader said that Pakistan's readmission to the Commonwealth had no relation with the internal policies of the country because many articles of the constitution had not been fully restored.

According to a press release, he said that the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal would not abandon its just and democratic struggle till the restoration of the 1973 Constitution.

He was confident that President Gen Pervez Musharraf would honour the agreement and take off his uniform by December. If Gen Musharraf continued to be the army chief, the alliance would launch a protest movement, he said.

Maulana Fazl said that the religious parties would not allow the government to amend the Blasphemy law and the Hudood ordinance. The religious parties would not allow anybody to repeal the Islamic laws, he added.

The MMA, he said, had rejected the results of the by-elections in Karachi, because an ethnic group had rigged the polls and killed the MMA workers.