June 23, 2007	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 07, 1428

LAHORE, June 22: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal president Qazi Husain Ahmad has asked Pakistan to pull itself out of the western nations ‘war on terror’ as a protest against the British government’s decision of conferring knighthood on Salman Rushdie who had injured the feelings of the Muslim world by his blasphemous writings.

Addressing a gathering outside Mansoora on Friday, he said the title was given to Rushdie at a time when the world was facing a deep religious and ethnic divide and badly needed love, peace and tolerance in a quest to build a new relationship among different religions on the basis of mutual respect and understanding.

Urging the British government to withdraw the title, Qazi said such an attitude only gave an impression that the west held the Muslim world in ridicule and humiliated the faithful.

The MMA leader said the attitude of the west was provocative and had already led to destabilising peace by paving the way for extremism and causing a deep polarisation in the world.

But, he said, the Muslim world should no longer remain indifferent to such an outrage and must react with all the force at its command.

Qazi Husain Ahmad regretted that Gen Pervez Musharraf was yet to condemn the UK decision which had sent a wave of shock across the Muslim world. He was also critical of the political parties which supported secularism and Gen Musharraf’s agenda for Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the MMA said in a press release that the faithful observed the day of protest across the country with a deep anguish. Rallies were organised at Karachi, Quetta, Rawalpindi, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad, Sukkur, Hyderabad, Shikarpur and Islamabad after the Friday prayers.

KHOSA: PML-N Punjab president Sirdar Zulfiquar Ali Khosa also demanded that Islamabad should withdraw its high commissioner from London to demonstrate that the people of Pakistan had been hurt by the UK government decision of honouring a person who had assaulted the basic faith of the Muslims the world over.

Baloch: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal deputy secretary-general Liaquat Baloch on Friday protested against the National Assembly speaker who had sent a reference against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to the assembly secretariat for a report.

He said, in a press statement, the speaker had demonstrated a partial and discriminatory attitude because he had sent a similar reference against Imran Khan to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

Such an attitude would further deepen the crisis and the regime alone was responsible for this, he said.

He said all references had to be sent to the Election Commission and the speaker or his secretariat had no powers to inquire into allegations contained in a reference.