JI's welfare wing uses image of drowned Syrian toddler to promote collective sacrifice offer

Organisation says picture was used due to a 'miscommunication'; says billboards have been taken down

KARACHI: The race to collect hides is no child’s play. As the stakes become higher and higher, political parties have begun scrambling for new strategies to get the most of the action.

With prices of sacrificial animals going through the roof, more people seem to also be opting for collective sacrifice, instead of buying a sacrificial animal themselves.  And this is where political parties and their welfare wings see opportunity.

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) welfare wing Al-Khidmat Foundation has been one of the oldest players in the game. In fact, a recent report cited that the political party’s welfare wing was one of the first to start hide collections in Pakistan.

However, it seems Al-Khidmat may have erred in its latest effort to capture the hide/sacrifice market. In a bid to promote the foundation’s collective sacrifice offer, the welfare organisation chose the devastating image of a three-year-old Syrian refugee named Aylan Kurdi, whose lifeless body recently washed up on a Turkish beach. The image instantly shocked and arrested the entire world and led to an undeniable shift in the migration debate in Europe.

Read: #AylanKurdi: The three-year-old who broke the world's heart

The billboard which read “A little victim of imperialist' bloody game” soon went viral on social media, creating an uproar among the city's residents over the inappropriate use of the image.

Al-Khidmat shud be ashamed to use Aylan Kurdi's pic on billboards in #Karachi to collect hides on Eid-ul-Adha pic.twitter.com/UETUqKFzV6

— Furqan T. Siddiqui (@furqantsiddiqui) September 21, 2015

https://twitter.com/DJWaseem/status/646169353956646912

While some called the act of using the image of the Syrian toddler "shameful, utterly disgraceful and insensitive", others called for the immediate removal the billboards.

Not surprised at all after seen JI billboard and the photo of Aylan Kurdi. jamati sold million of Sons already before pic.twitter.com/085STjTPvS

— Saim Rizvi (@Saim_Riz) September 21, 2015

When contacted by The Express Tribune, a media coordinator of Al Khidmat, Noman Lodhi, said all the billboards containing the picture of Kurdi have been taken down, claiming the use of the picture was due to “miscommunication” in the social media team.

“There was some miscommunication between us and the printers of the advertisement. We had asked them to use a picture of Syrian refugees and the printer mistakenly used this picture. However, all such billboards have been taken down,” said Lodhi.

@adeel_azhar AlKhidmat was forced to remove this pathetic banner after strong reaction on social media ... pic.twitter.com/xeN9tXI5De

— Saqib Shaheen (@sunayfshaheen) September 22, 2015

Calling people to offer sacrifice with the organisation, a message on the board read, “Take part in the sacrifice for the oppressed Muslims of Syria.” The fees for sacrifice were listed below at Rs8,500 for a share in a cow and Rs17,000 for a goat.

https://twitter.com/ZohaWaseem/status/645668749777854464

When asked about how exactly the organisation would provide assistance to Syrians considering the war-like conditions in the country, Lodhi said, “We usually send meat of the sacrificial animals in tin packaging and money collected for sacrificial animals to the needy. However, with the Syrian borders closed, the higher-ups will decide how to help them.”

Way to go Al-Khidmat & Jammat-e-Islami for turning a toddler's dead body into a marketing campaign. Disgusting. pic.twitter.com/JKKXuSYiQM

— SAZ (@my55cents) September 21, 2015

aftr religion, now Mullah decides todo business with dead babies..wht shamless, inhuman thing by #Alkhidmat
@saim_riz pic.twitter.com/QaGEdapp8Y

— Syed Nasir Mustafa (@_NasirMustafa) September 22, 2015

Eyes on the prize: Race to get most hides starts in Karachi

Nearly 400,000 sacrificial animals have entered the city and many more are arriving each day leading up to Eidul Azha on Friday. More animals mean more hides for the collectors, who are getting on their marks to take home the largest share.

Numerous posters and banners have cropped up across the city, appealing to residents to choose their organisation to donate sacrificial hides. Even organisations such as Jamaatud Dawa, which is on the watch list of the law enforcement agencies, have put up posters.

The race becomes all the more competitive due to the high stakes involved. Last year, the hide of each goat was sold at Rs500 while a cow’s hide fetched Rs4,000, said Feroz Gulzar, a former chairperson of Tanneries Association of Pakistan. Imagine the amount of money earned when the country slaughtered nearly 1.2 million goats and three million cows, and nearly 25% of these took place in Karachi.

However, Gulzar feared that the rates are likely to go down this year. “We have no export orders so we will not buy hides this year,” he explained. “Only the middlemen and the investors will be in the market to purchase hides and stock them.”

Read the fully story here.

Hide collection in Karachi taking place as early as 1949

The billion-rupee business of hide collection in Karachi began as early as 1949 and was initiated by the Edhi Foundation.

The welfare organisation claimed that theirs was the first NGO to start collecting the skins of sacrificial animals, said Edhi Foundation spokesperson Anwar Kazmi.

The foundation may have been laid down by Edhi but they lost their hold over the business over time. Several madrassas entered the market and started collecting hides from the city. They were followed by political parties and their welfare wings.

Read the full story here.