LAHORE, July 29: MMA President Qazi Husain Ahmad has appealed for observing Friday as a protest day against the killing of two Pakistanis in Iraq.
He urged religious scholars and people to hold demonstrations outside mosques to condemn the incident and force the government not to support the US blindly against national interests.
He alleged that the Foreign Office did not make efforts to contact the kidnappers and hold talks with them for the release of Raja Azad and Sajid Naeem. Holding the foreign policy responsible for the killings, he demanded that the government should immediately announce that it would not send troops to Iraq under any condition.
The MMA leader said the frequency of signals Gen Musharraf had given at his meeting with US President Bush in Camp David about sending troops to Baghdad was increasing day by day.
He said the appointment of Jehangir Ashraf Qazi as UN special envoy in Iraq and the government's efforts to mould public opinion for sending troops to Iraq in the name of volunteers was a bid to rub salt into wounds of the oppressed Iraqis.
He demanded that the Muslims all over the world backed Iraqi brothers and the US-led forces must be withdrawn from Iraq to improve peace in the war-torn country. "Only this strategy can materialize the dream of world peace," he asserted. The Qazi also appealed to the Iraqi freedom-fighters not to target innocent citizens in their war against foreign occupants.
HRCP: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has termed shocking the news of the execution of two Pakistanis by a militant group in Iraq. In a statement on Thursday, HRCP Chairperson Tahir Mohammad Khan and secretary-general Hina Jilani extended condolences to the families of Raja Azad and Sajid Naeem.
Reiterating HRCP's stance against terrorist violence of all kinds, they offered commiserations to the AJK government. "This gory incident should persuade all those who have sought to further their own ends through violence, and by recruiting young men with raw minds to kill and be killed, to rethink their agenda.
"The government must take responsibility for protecting its citizens. This includes greater foresight when putting in place policies that can endanger lives," the statement said.
It urged the government to issue the most urgent warnings to Pakistani nationals about the dangerous situation in Iraq, especially given the large number of citizens working in the Middle East.
"The increasing brutality in Iraq speaks of the need for action by the global community to bring the suffering of all those caught up in the aftermath of the conflict there to an end.
"The continued denial to the Iraqi people of their right to self-rule has also aggravated their anger in the country on the occupation of their country after an unjust war. The same anger extends across the region.
"Unless these issues are addressed, wisely and justly, there will be still greater violence, endangering more innocent people of all nationalities," the statement said.