| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| Perv Again Challenges Islamist Radicals |
| 2007-04-03 |
| The stand off between two powerful clerics and their followers at Islamabad's Lal Masjid mosque and the Pakistani government is entering a new phase after last week's showdown over a local brothel and the clerics' anti-vice campaign. President Pervez Musharraf is seeking to isolate the brothers politically with a view to then ordering their arrest. Many religious scholars came forward to Musharraf's call Sunday and condemned the radical brothers, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Azi. But the men are adamant their students' action against an alleged brothel owner was legitimate and supported by the masses. The woman was held captive for three days and several policemen were also seized. Students from the two madrassas or Islamic seminaries associated with Lal Masjid - one male and one female - were closely involved in the clashes with the security forces. In January hundreds of burqa clad women from the female seminary occupied a children's library in Islamabad, to protest against the demolition of unauthorised mosques in the capital. The action against the brothel was part of the mosque's recent "anti vice campaign" which critics say is a clear sign that lal Majid has become the heart of the pro-Taliban movement in Islamabad. Lal Masjid on Monday was once again surrounded by para-military troops and female police, an indication that a major operation is imminent. However the two brothers - both wanted by Pakistan's interior ministry - are still defiant. Maulana Abdul Aziz gave the federal government a week within which to "enforce Sharia", saying that if it failed "clerics will Islamise society themselves." "Today 26 people in the neighborhood where the prostitution den was situated, wrote a letter to the ministry of interior and asking them to prevent the return of the women" Ghazi Abdul Rasheed told Adnkronos International (AKI) by telephone on Monday evening after a press conference in Islamabad inside the four walls of Lal Masjid. "What the students of our seminary did was basically a popular demand and the neighborhood also applauded that. Now the issue is over. We have released the woman [alleged brothel owner] after her confessions. We have moved on and the government should also move on" Ghazi Abdul Rasheed asserted. Nevertheless, interior minister Aftab Sherpao said the government would maintain the rule of law at all cost. "We have a deep regard that it is a womens seminary so we would not go blindly inside the premises but there are cases registered against the management of the seminary for abduction of a women so we would obviously pursue those cases at all cost," Sherpao briefed AKI from Islamabad by phone. In a speech to mark Sunday's celebrations of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, President Musharraf called on religious scholars in Pakistan to come forward and decide whether what Lal Masjid people had done was right or wrong, and if they find it wrong to then take up action against them. "I disagree with the actions conducted by the female students of Jamia Hafsa [the women's seminary managed by Lal Masjid]. Nobody has the right to take the law into their hands. Even if they found anything wrong they should have apprised the state machinery," Mufti Naeem of Jamia Binoria Karachi, told AdnKronos International. But Ghazi Abdul Rasheed was adamant that, according to the Prophet MohammedÂ’s traditions, any vice should be stopped by force or, if there is not enough strength, Muslims should speak out against sin. "The government is considering isolating Jamia Hafsa through political manipulations and is intending to use force but we rest assured that if anybody tried to use any force against Jamia Hafsa we would resist," a top leader of Jamaat-i-Islami, Dr Merajul Huda, told AKI. Another dangerous gambit against his political enemies. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #1 Alas, my twitching TLAM trigger finger is aching. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2007-04-03 12:25 |