KARACHI, May 10: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal has announced to observe protest day on May 13 against the desecration of the Holy Quran, inhuman treatment with prisoners in Guantánamo Bay prison, and the publication of a derogatory cartoon in the Washington Times about Pakistan.

The MMA central leader and Secretary General of Jamaat-i-Islami, Syed Munawwar Hasan, announcing this at a press conference at the Idara Noor-i-Haq on Tuesday, and said the cartoon was part of rulers’ policy.

He said the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had started its preparations for the local bodies’ elections by resorting to killing, plundering and extortions.

Seeking the intervention of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, he pointed out that the chief minister was a hostage of the MQM.

Mr Hasan, who was flanked by Muzaffar Ahmad Hashmi and Sarfraz Ahmad, said the Washington Times cartoon had insulted not just 150 million Pakistanis, but even rulers, who were loyal to the US.

He warned the rulers that if the same foreign policy was pursued, they would see a day worse than the present.

Holding governor’s rule responsible for the sliding and worsening situation in Sindh, he called upon Shujaat Hussain to take immediate notice of it.

Referring to the murder of an IJT worker, Farhan Asif, whose FIR was yet to be registered, he said the MMA was capable of facing every situation and could respond in a befitting manner, but it was not doing so only to avoid creating any bad situation.

He said that Shaukat Aziz had so far presented five budgets, and at the time he presented the first budget, poverty was 29 per cent, which had now increased to 42 per cent.

“If the coming budget is framed on the basis of propaganda, it will be an anti-people budget,” he said, and advised the government to get it prepared by local economists instead of getting it prepared by the IMF and the World Bank.

In reply to a question, he said that Asif Zardari was neither representing the PPP nor the ARD.