Media overkill: Seminary balks at excess publicity of polio decree

Seminary calls on United Nations and WHO to explicitly condemn health programmes being used for espionage.

NOWSHERA:

An influential seminary in Akora Khattak rebuked media outlets for the repeated publication and airing of a decree in favour of polio vaccination, calling the move a plot to sabotage peace talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

The Darul Uloom Haqqania, which runs under the patronage of Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam-Sami (JUI-S) chief Maulana Samiul Haq, who has been named by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as a key interlocutor and facilitator of talks with the Taliban.



The seminary also called on the United Nations and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to explicitly condemn health programmes being used for espionage, an implicit reference to the Shakeel Afridi case, distancing itself from the controversy surrounding the campaign.

A statement issued by the seminary’s spokesperson Rashidul Haq said that the decrees of other seminaries and ulema from across the country were present but they were not discussed or publicised.

“The frequent coverage to Jamia Darul Uloom Haqqania’s decree is a conspiracy because the constant advertisements about the decree are aimed at sabotaging the peace talks and efforts with the Taliban again,” he added.

Reservations

The JUI-S spokesman said that his party has expressed its reservation time and again on the issue that polio vaccination was used by western forces for achieving their vested interests like Abbottabad operation.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2014.