MULTAN, April 4: A “million march” organized here on Friday by Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal demanded that US President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair be tried before the international court of justice for inflicting war on a sovereign country and committing “genocide” in Iraq.

Speakers at the mammoth rally at Kutchery Chowk said the Anglo-American attack on Iraq had no moral or legal justification. It condemned the killing of Iraqi civilians, including women and children.

Several speakers said Mr Bush had embarked on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as “crusade”. Therefore, it was religious obligation of the Muslims of the world to answer it with “jihad”. The Anglo-American media also came under severe criticism for what the speakers termed for its biased reporting of the war in Iraq.

The rally was one of the largest in the recent history of Multan city. The march before the rally was led by Maulana Fazalur Rehman and Maulana Samiul Haq. The procession started from Aam-Khas Bagh at about 3pm and reached Kutchery Chowk at 4pm.

Initially, attendance was thin, but as the march proceeded through various areas, small and big processions joined it from the mosques after Friday prayers.

ARD chief Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan said the series of MMA’s million-man marches in various cities of the country had showed that the people had rejected Islamabad’s policy on vital issues, including the war on Iraq.

Commenting on recent “threats” by India, Nawabzada Nasrullah said the country needed a full-time commander-in-chief at this difficult juncture. He urged General Musharraf not to insist on the LFO and instead sacrifice his personal agenda in the interests of the nation.

MMA chief Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani described the situation in Iraq as a “rewriting of the history of Karbala”. He said the Iraqi people were dying of thirst and hunger because of the siege by the US-UK forces. “We salute the Iraqi people for not bowing before the aggressors,” he added.

Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad regretted that the Muslim nation had been on a decline since the retreat of the Turkish army at the siege of Vienna some 250 years ago. He said the decay of the Ummat was due to internal conspirators.

Referring to domestic issues, the JI leader accused PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain of wrongly claiming that the MMA came to an agreement with the government on the LFO issue. “The MMA cannot accept the LFO as part of the constitution at all,” he said.

Chief of his own faction of the JUI, Maulana Samiul Haq said America and its allies wanted to bring back the colonial system in the world. He said America would have not dared to invade Iraq if Gen Musharraf had not supported it in its designs on Afghanistan.

JUI-F chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman termed the Anglo-US attack on Iraq as a war against humanity. He said no international law justified the attack. He criticized the resolution adopted by the Senate, saying “we do not only deplore attack on Iraq but we also condemn it.”

JUF-F’s central secretary-general Maulana Abdul Ghafur Haidri received thunderous applause from the rally when he demanded trial of the US president and British prime minister at ICJ for human rights violations.

Prominent among other speakers were Liaquat Baloch, PML-N acting chief Javed Hashmi, JUI-F leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed and Tehrik-i-Islami leader Allama Taqqi Naqvi.

The MMA leaders announced that the alliance supported the April 10 shutter-down strike call by the Pakistan Traders Alliance. PTA’s central chairman Khwaja Muhammad Shafiq was also on the stage during the rally.