THIS refers to the news ‘EU Parliament adopts resolution calling for review of Pakistan’s GSP+ status over blasphemy law abuse’ (April 30). The European Parliament has passed a resolution for revoking Pakistan’s GSP plus status unless Pakistan changes its own laws on blasphemy.

First, the GSP plus status during Covid lockdown is useless, for EU markets are mainly getting their supplies from China against whom Pakistan cannot compete owing to seriously lower prices that are offered by Chinese exporters.

Second, Pakistan should ask the European Parliament to first tell us what action they have taken against their own parliamentarians, EU companies, citizens and European Parliament publications which were exposed by EU DisinfoLab for working for India on a propaganda mission against Pakistan and other nations.

The European Parliament, besides the United Nations, had allowed these fake organisations and personalities, some of them were EU citizens and even European parliamentarians, to present fake reports against Pakistan in the European Parliament, media and in the United Nations for over 15 years. Without taking action against these culprits, the credibility of European Parliament has been seriously damaged because its parliamentarians remained seriously biased against Pakistan as they had been bombarded by India-paid propaganda against Pakistan for more than 15 years.

I think the Pakistani media and foreign ministry should aggressively present these facts and raise their strong collective voice on these issues.

Shahryar Khan Baseer
Peshawar

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THE European Parliament recently adopted a resolution calling for a review of a certain favourable trade policy with Pakistan. The reason given was the alleged misuse by Pakistan of its blasphemy laws.

Besides being a blatant act of meddling into Pakistan’s internal matters, this resolution has some other major issues. The foremost among them is the abysmal, inhumane and unjust treatment of Muslims living in Europe. For example, recently, France in January this year formulated a declaration of loyalty to the state, which is to be signed by every Muslim living there. The declaration vilifies Muslims, denigrates Islamic beliefs, and calls for the abandonment of Islamic values.

The wearing of burqa has also been banned in France as well as some other European countries. There has been a sharp increase in attacks on Muslims and mosques owing to the dangerous rhetoric by French leaders. Critics of this state tyranny are arrested and silenced. Activists have described the actions as a witch-hunt against Islam and Muslims, yet the EU resolution complains about anti-French sentiment in Pakistan.

European governments are also guilty of numerous international crimes in Africa; only a few months ago, France carried out airstrikes on a wedding ceremony in Mali, killing about 20 civilians, including children. All of these facts could not attract the attention of the European Parliament, and yet it chose to find faults with Pakistan.

The foreign ministry must give an appropriate response to this irrational rant by the EU, meant to bully us into aligning our laws with the Western ideology. A defensive and submissive approach will be very ill-advised; it will further embolden the European governments to make more and bigger demands.

A firm stance must be taken against this attack on the sovereignty of our country. This includes highlighting the abominable and horrendous actions of various European governments, which have not yet received proportionate media coverage in the world.

Osaid Abdullah
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2021