Participation: Overseas Pakistanis should be given right to vote, says Siraj

JI chief urges Muslim states to unite against the ‘enemy’

LAHORE: Denying overseas Pakistanis the right to vote is sheer injustice, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq said on Saturday.

“Millions of Pakistanis living abroad should be given an opportunity to play their role in national politics,” Haq told a gathering of overseas Pakistanis at Mansoora.

He said Pakistanis working abroad were remitting huge amounts in foreign exchange. “On the other hand, many politicians have deposited their wealth in banks abroad.”

He announced that when it came to power, the JI would retrieve the public wealth from abroad. He urged the government to set up educational institutions for Pakistanis in other countries. He said he was hopeful that the party would do well in the 2018 general elections.

Haq said that some international powers wanted to perpetuate their influence in Karachi, a major political and economic hub. The JI chief said that numerous challenges faced by the Muslim world called for unity among Muslim states. “The enemy is pitting Muslim states against one another,” he said. Haq said Turkey and Pakistan could play an effective role in bringing Saudi Arabia and Iran together by removing misunderstandings between them.

The JI chief said anti-Islam forces were behind extremist organisations in the Muslim world. “They are using extremists to advance their agenda. The West has always strived to divide Muslims along racial and sectarian lines,” he said. “Our enemies have thrust wars on Syria, Yemen and Libya,” he said.

Haq said the Muslim world should have a common economic market and a defence strategy. He said Pakistan was the only country after the state of Madinah that had come into being on the basis of an Islamic ideology.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2015.