Siraj suggests OIC meeting on blasphemous sketches

PESHAWAR: Expressing serious concern over the re-publication of blasphemous sketches by a French weekly, Jamaat-e-Islami chief Sirajul Haq Wednesday asked the Muslim countries to call an emergency meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the issue.
“The re-publication of the blasphemous sketches is highly condemnable. This is being done in the name of the freedom of speech,” Sirajul Haq told a press conference here.He was flanked by the provincial head of his party Prof Mohammad Ibrahim, Israrullah and Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali.
Siraj added that if over a million people led by the heads of 40 states could take to the streets in Paris in favour of the weekly, millions of Muslims can also protest on the roads against the blasphemous sketches.
He said there were rare attacks on other religions or their worship places in any Muslim country where the government immediately condemned it and declared it un-Islamic. “We are against all forms of terrorism. But we believe that insulting religion or a prophet is also equal to terrorism,” said Sirajul Haq. He added that what the weekly had done was never allowed by any international law.
Siraj said the sentiments of Muslims all over the world were hurt when Charlie Hebdo published the blasphemous stuff on Wednesday. “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, heads of the states of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and all the Muslims countries must join hands to stop the insult of Islam and Muslims,” stated an angry Sirajul Haq.
He demanded that the OIC should hold an emergency meeting on the issue and make efforts to stop the French weekly and other papers from publishing such anti-Islam materials. Sirajul Haq asked the Muslim countries to approach the United Nations to stop the publication of anything against any religion in future.
The JI chief asked other countries to condemn the publication of blasphemous sketches by the paper and make sure nothing such happens in any country in future that hurt the over one billion Muslims all over the world. On Tuesday, a group of teachers and students of a local madrassa along with some other followers offered the funeral prayers in absentia in Peshawar for the slain Algerian brothers killed by the Paris Police for alleged involvement in attack on Charlie Hebdo.