Pakistan condemns burning of Holy Quran

Zardari calls upon parliament to pass a resolution against act.

ISLAMABAD:

Warning of a strong backlash, Pakistan on Tuesday condemned the reported burning of a copy of the Holy Quran in Florida, USA, and asked the United Nations to take cognisance of the gruesome act.

President Asif Ali Zardari started his annual address to the joint sitting of parliament with a note of condemnation against the desecration of the Holy Book.  “I call upon this august House to adopt a resolution urging the UN to address this issue for the sake of harmony and peace in the world,” Zardari said. He said the barbaric act was a serious setback to the efforts for promoting harmony amongst civilised communities.

Separately, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar said that Pakistan expects the US administration and the American people as well as all civilised societies to take due cognisance of, and express their revulsion to, this sacrilegious act.

“Such sacrilegious acts go against the very concept of inter-faith harmony. There could be no justification for such acts. This has deeply hurt the feelings of the people of Pakistan and Muslims all over the world,” said Khar.

Meanwhile in New York, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon wrote a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and conveyed his country’s condemnation of the despicable act.

He expressed Pakistan’s profound regret and deep concern at the increasing acts of Islamophobia and growing trend of intolerance and hatred towards Muslims as well as insults to their religious symbols and personalities. The recent infamy, he added, is yet another manifestation of this trend, which has deeply hurt the religious feelings of Muslims in Pakistan and around the world.

“While this reprehensible act is the work of extremists and is evidently designed to provoke dissent and discord among communities across the world, such sacrilegious acts also go against the very concept of inter-faith harmony and threaten the multicultural fabric of the societies and the brotherhood of the UN,” he said.

In Islamabad, the US embassy issued a statement condemning the act and said that the act was done by a small group of people in Florida and does not reflect the general sentiment of respect toward Islam by the American people.

“The deliberate destruction of any holy book is an abhorrent act and US commitment to freedom of religion and freedom of expression goes back to the founding of our nation and is enshrined in the constitution,” said US Ambassador Cameron Munter. “We absolutely reject religious intolerance in any form,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 23^rd, 2011.