Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq condemned the new batch of cartoons published in Charlie Hebdo depicting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
He called for an emergency Islamic summit to give a clear message to the west that repeated incidents of profanity in the name of freedom of speech were not going to be tolerated.
Addressing a press conference at Al-Markaz Peshawar on Wednesday, Haq said that if the rulers of western countries, including the Israeli premier, could lead a 1.5 million march in support of the Paris weekly that published the blasphemous caricatures, Muslims could also come out in millions to denounce blasphemy.
The JI chief stressed upon Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Saudi King Abdullah, Turkish prime minister and other Muslim rulers to realize their responsibilities in this regard. He told them to convey the sentiments of the Muslim people to the western world and warn them that repeating such acts would be disastrous.
Sirajul Haq said that he too supported freedom of expression and was against terrorism and extremism. However, he believed that the publication of blasphemous cartoons and caricatures itself was tantamount to extremism; rather it was an act of terrorism.
He said that in Muslim countries there is rarely any incident where non-Muslims’ places of worship are attacked. Whenever there has been such an incident Muslim rulers, besides political and religious leaders, condemned it. They also tried to educate their people that such practices were not in line with the teachings of Islam because Islam fully guarantees security to minorities.
On the other hand, he said that certain western papers and weekly papers have been repeatedly publishing cartoons and caricatures of the prophet to hurt the sentiments of one and half billion Muslims all over the world.
The JI chief further stated that Muslims living in non-Muslims countries always respect the laws of those countries.
