ISLAMABAD, Aug 27 (APP):Prime Minister Imran Khan Monday told Senate that the government would raise the issue of blasphemous caricatures contest at the United Nations in the upcoming UN General Assembly session besides pushing the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to evolve consensus to raise a collective voice against such acts.
In his maiden address in the Upper House of the Parliament, the prime minister said the recurrence of such blasphemous activities to desecrate the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) was the collective failure of the OIC.
The prime minister spoke soon after the House unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the “venomous, vicious and contemptuous decision of Mr. Geert Wilders, the notorious Islamophobe, belonging to the Dutch Party of Freedom to hold a ‘Draw Muhammad Cartoon Competition’ to be held later this year in the Netherlands.”
He said as he knew the western mindset, they would not backtrack from such activity in name of the freedom of expression as majority in the west did not know as how the Holy Prophet was revered among the Muslims.
He said the west needed to be realized as how hurting it was for the Muslims and recalled that after the Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, such incidents had happened repeatedly.
He said the anti-Muslim elements in the west had found it an easier way to malign and hurt the Muslims by carrying out such acts.
The prime minister said his government would make efforts to evolve consensus at the level of OIC.
he said four European countries had introduced jail sentence for even interpreting the Holocaust neglecting the freedom of expression.
However, the prime minister reiterated that the Muslim world would first have to unite before making the west realize that Muslims felt more hurt on such actions as the killing of around six million people in Holocaust was to them.