LHC moved to punish Altaf Hussain for ‘anti-state speech’

‘Altaf doesn’t qualify for parliament so can’t be MQM chief’.

LAHORE:

A petition has been filed before the Lahore High Court asking that Altaf Hussain be removed from his position as head of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and be punished for making remarks “against the ideology of Pakistan”.

The petitioner, Advocate Fayyaz Ahmed Mehr, submitted that Hussain had made a speech on May 12 in which he had threatened the Election Commission, the establishment, the media, political workers and politicians and called for Karachi’s separation from the rest of Pakistan.

The speech violated the Constitution and the ideology of Pakistan, and was part of a conspiracy aimed at destabilising the country, the petitioner said. Article 5 of the Constitution stated that loyalty to the state was the basic duty of every citizen. Hussain’s “anti-state” speech amounted to treason, he said. The MQM chief should be brought back to Pakistan and punished in accordance with the law, he said. Those working for him should also be punished, he added.



The petitioner said that according the Political Parties Order of 2002, a person who did not qualify to be a member of parliament could not hold an office in a Pakistani political party. Altaf Hussain had British nationality and thus did not qualify to serve as a member of parliament or party office-holder, he said.

The petitioner asked the court to stop Hussain from claiming he was chief of the MQM and to direct the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority to bar all media coverage of his speeches.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 22^nd, 2013.