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| February 16, 2006 | Thursday | Muharram 17, 1427 |
‘MMA’s protest plan intact’
LAHORE, Feb 15: MMA president Qazi Husain Ahmad has criticized the government for banning protest rallies against the blasphemy issue and vowed to defy it.
“We should be given our democratic right to protest. The masses are out on roads on our call and they won’t accept this ban in the name of curbing violence,” he told a press conference here on Wednesday.
The MMA’s protest programme was intact and all bans in this regard would be defied because it amounted to usurping the fundamental rights of the people, he declared.
The alliance has announced “Shan-i-Mustafa rallies” for Feb 19 in Islamabad, Feb 26 in Lahore, March 5 in Karachi and March 7 in Quetta, while a worldwide call for shutterdown strike on March 3 has also been given.
Denying the government’s claims that the activists of religious parties were involved in the Tuesday’s outrage, the Qazi, who is also the Jamaat-i-Islami amir, said the authorities were making the propaganda without establishing identity through video footage of various TV channels of those who had resorted to violence.
“The rioters neither belonged to political nor religious parties and were ‘strangers’ planted by the government to fail the movement by giving a violent colour to the peaceful protests.”
He said the same elements resorted to violence in Peshawar on Wednesday because no religious-party worker would like to damage its own provincial government.
Alleging that the government had failed to maintain law and order, he demanded that it should compensate the victims.
Condemning the police firing at peaceful protesters at the Punjab University as an uncivilized act, he warned of a civil war if the practice continued.
The MMA leader also asked the armed forces not to forcibly rule the masses. He was particularly critical of Gen Pervez Musharraf who, he said, was occupying the army chief’s office for the last over eight years.
“Musharraf’s policies have badly damaged the institution of army so much so that the people are now raising slogans against it,” said Qazi, who demanded immediate handing over of the national affairs to political parties to avoid further damage.
He said the public anger and frustration over price hike, US ‘slavery’ and the government’s inadequate response to the blasphemous caricatures was finding its way out in protests.
Answering a question, he said the Jamaat had always maintained peace in its rallies comprising even tens of thousands of people and would do the same in the protest rallies and strikes to be observed over the blasphemy issue.
The alliance leader alleged that the rulers were secularizing society by organizing mixed marathons, observing the Valentine’s Day and promoting obscenity for the sake of a small segment of society.
They were being aided by those who had moved the bills in parliament to repeal hudood and amend blasphemy laws, he concluded.
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