Protest: JI marches against inflation, RGST

KARACHI: Thousands of Jamaat-e-Islami, Karachi activists led by party leader Syed Munawar Hassan held a rally on Sunday against bids to repeal the blasphemy law and the proposed Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST).

The protesters marched from Numaish Chowrangi to Tibet Centre. They shouted slogans against the government.

Addressing the rally, Hassan said that the RGST will badly affect poor people. The government should cut down on their luxurious expenses and control corruption in order to save Pakistan’s economy.

He said the rulers had failed to mitigate peoples’ problems and were following the policies of the IMF and the World Bank, worsening inflation.

Hassan warned if the rulers dared repeal the blasphemy laws, “patriotic people” of the country would take to the streets.

He said that the blasphemy law is an integral part of Islamic laws so it could not be amended just because Western countries are asking us to. PPI

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2010.