ISLAMABAD – Western governments should treat people who insult Prophet Muhammad the same as those who deny the Holocaust, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said today.
Speaking after a week of violent protests in the country by a radical Islamist party outraged by French government support for magazines publishing cartoons of Muhammad, Khan said insulting the prophet hurts Muslims around the world.
“We Muslims have the greatest love and respect for our prophet,” he tweeted.
“We cannot tolerate any such abuse and disrespect.”
The group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) was banned on Thursday after days of violent protests, during which four policemen were killed.
The radical party has orchestrated a months-long campaign for the expulsion of the French ambassador to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s defence of the cartoons’ publication.
The French embassy here on Thursday recommended its nationals leave Pakistan, a call that appears to have gone largely unheeded.
“I... call on Western governments who have outlawed any negative comment on the Holocaust to use the same standards to penalise those deliberately spreading their message of hate against Muslims by abusing our prophet,” Khan tweeted.
Denying the Holocaust is illegal in several European countries, including France and Germany and France, and offenders can be jailed.
Khan suggested that the government banned TLP not because it disagrees with TLP’s motivation, but rather its methods.
“Let me make clear to people here and abroad: our government took action against TLP under our anti-terrorist law only when they challenged the writ of the state and used street violence and attacking the public and law enforcers.” – AFP, April 17, 2021
