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| February 18, 2006 | Saturday | Muharram 19, 1427 |
Cartoons issue eroding West’s goodwill, says Musharraf
WASHINGTON, Feb 17: President Pervez Musharraf has said publication of sacrilegious cartoons and the uproar they caused were affecting goodwill the West earned in Pakistan by its response to the October 8 earthquake.
The president was asked by the NBC that it appeared the publication of derogatory images was cancelling out whatever goodwill the US and the Western nations were earning in the earthquake zone.
“To a degree yes... There is a terrible amount of anger. They have forgotten about all the good.
They are just talking about this (blasphemous act),” the president told Tom Brokaw of the NBC in an interview.
Responding to another question, the president said there could be no comparison of a blasphemous act with a terrorist attack on a mosque.
The correspondent had a pointed out that it was puzzling for people in the West that when there was a terrorist attack on a mosque which caused killings, there was no outrage in the rest of the Islamic world.
President Musharraf said that while an attack on a mosque was a condemnable act, it could not be compared with publication of blasphemous sketches.
“This (publication of caricatures) we call blasphemy and this is against the Prophet of Islam (pbuh); there is no comparison at all,” he said.
The president said that the Muslims had protested against a movie — Last Temptation of Christ — in the United States and France as they considered to be blasphemous.
Asked what the West could do, the president said the people in the West should raise their voice against the blasphemous sketches and stand with the Muslims in condemning the outrageous act.
He said all Muslims, whether they were extremist, moderate or ultra moderate, were one on this issue and were protesting against the outrageous caricatures.—APP
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