As religio-political elements and right-wing political parties in the country condemned the first ever Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Celebration by the US embassy in Islamabad, the government kept mum at what was described as a deliberate US attempt to offend the people of Pakistan.
“I am totally unaware of the issue … first brief my personal assistant on it and then I can comment,” Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan told Pakistan Today when she was contacted to ask if the government formally reacted or took up the issue with the US. Decried as “cultural terrorism” by hard-liners and firebrand clerics, the function drew condemnation from across the country, but the government failed to react at any forum. Jamaat-e-Islami vice chief Senator Khurshid Ahmad told Pakistan Today the government’s silence on what he called “an attack on the culture, traditions and civilization of Pakistan” by the US was shameful.
He said he had written a letter to the prime minister and foreign minister to call their attention to the issue. He said the US wanted to impose American values on Pakistan in the name of human rights. National and international media had reported that there was widespread resentment in reaction to the function, the only one of its kind in Pakistani history, as such a ceremony had never publicly taken place in the country before.
