ISLAMABAD: A prominent member of the European Parliament Sajjad Karim has strongly defended Pakistan during a debate on “Pakistan-notably the situation of human rights defenders and the death penalty” in the house highlighting the impact of international policies on the situation in Pakistan.
In his brief speech in the parliament, Thursday, he said, “Our non-legislative and non-binding resolutions quite often lead to complaints from third countries of factual inaccuracies.
“Any consideration by an independent and informed eye of this resolution actually betrays an acceptance that external and externally sponsored internal actors in Pakistan are facilitating the terrorist targeting of innocent civilians.
“And the people of Pakistan have carried a very heavy burden on behalf of the international community for a very long time – sometimes on very weak shoulders.
“But it remains the case that our EU policy to support Pakistan in facing the challenges of terrorism and the people of Pakistan remains the right approach.”
When asked if there should still be the death penalty in Pakistan, Sajjad Karim said, “When a certain mindset of individual attacks, maims and kills European citizens in Paris, we all say that is wrong. But I say to you colleagues this: that mindset of individuals – when they attack us – they attack us for our values and it is that same mindset that then attacks innocent children in Peshawar. If we have the right to stand by our values, we must stand by those innocent children when they are attacked as well.”
He actually highlighted the discrepancies in the approach and mindset of the people who make policies and decisions without knowing the ground realities and gravity of the situation in the victim countries.
Referring to the human rights situation and revival of the death penalty to punish the terrorists, he emphasised that the rampant terrorists’ attacks in Pakistan necessitated taking some serious steps to use as an effective deterrence.