May 15, 2006	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 16, 1427

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LAHORE, May 14: The presence of Pervez Musharraf in the political system has put the very integrity of the country at stake, and he must quit in order to save Pakistan in its present physical shape.

This was stated by Jamaat-i-Islami amir Qazi Husain Ahmad at a press conference held at Mansoora on Sunday.

He said Musharraf had weakened ideological basis of the country by compromising on the role of Islam in political and personal life of Muslims.

The JI chief is said to have received a letter from Mumtaz Bhutto in the morning, wherein the Sindh politician stated that confederation was the only option for the survival of the country.

“Who should be held responsible for this state of political affairs other than the president and the chief of the army staff?” Qazi asked.

Continuing, he said “the president has set the army against his own people. The army is busy fighting the Pakistanis in South Waziristan and Balochistan. The jirga from South Waziristan had asked Musharraf to pull out and let it deal with foreigners, if any, in the area. If the so-called foreigners do not opt out, the fight will be between locals and the alleged foreigners. But the army must stay out. However, obduracy of the president has changed the situation: now it is between the locals and the army. This is dangerous for the country.”

The worsening law and order by the day was another gift of the president to the nation, he said and added: “The army must quit politics as required under its oath. Its presence (at the helm of affairs) will never let the country and countrymen have a normal life.”

He said 100,000 people would converge on the capital in September and force the army out of politics. He claimed this was a final call, and there would be no compromise in this regard. He said the People’s Party and the PML-N were more than welcome to join the ‘picketing’ of the capital, if they desired so.

Answering a question about the Americans and military response to the picketing of the capital, he said the fate of the country would not change unless the nation learnt to take decisions independent of the US and army generals. It was a matter of country’s survival and should not be avoided at any cost. He said the decision to bring 100,000 people to the capital was taken when the MMA and the ARD were together and planning things jointly.

He also condemned the government for ‘succumbing’ to western pressure on the issue of Aamer Cheema. He was brave enough to stick to his stand: he never backed out from the first statement that he went to the newspaper office to kill the editor who had printed blasphemous caricatures. How can such a brave man commit suicide?

Qazi said Cheema had been killed by the German authorities. The government, on its part, had not been able to even protest the death of its citizen. Rather, it cowardly bought a suicide story and sent its officials only to corroborate the German claim and clear it of any guilt.

Qazi said victory of Hamas in the Palestinian state had exposed western claims about democracy. When a party had been duly elected in a due process, it was being forced into jettisoning its ideology: jehad and refusal to recognise the state of Israel. Otherwise, the West was threatening to stop all kind of aid and force it on its knees. But the brave Palestinians had refused to bow to pressure, and the Ummah must come to their support, he said. Around 1.5 billion Muslims of the world should be able to take care of seven million Palestinians, he said. They must be supported in every conceivable way: financially, morally and diplomatically, he said.