Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Friday moved Senate against the blasphemous movie released in the United State, which hurt the sentiments of Muslims across the globe besides sparking violent protests in some Muslim countries. Opposition Leader in the Senate Ishaq Dar submitted a resolution to the Upper House to be tabled in the house on Monday for passage.
The resolution says, "The Senate of Pakistan condemns in strongest terms, the airing of blasphemous movie, which seems to be a vilification campaign being maliciously touted by some western elements, lobbies and countries to malign Islam, the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him) and the Holy Quran, all on the pretext- and behind the smoke screen - of freedom of speech and expression."
It states that the House conveys its deep concern over a systematic, conscious and well-orchestrated connivance to consistently splash out and propagate hate literature, sacrilegious caricatures and incendiary statements to aggravate religious sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims across the globe.
"The Senate of Pakistan calls upon the United Nations and other International fora to promote peace and harmony, mutual human respect, tolerance, and, above all, safeguard all human beings from abuse and torture of all kinds, irrespective of the colour, creed, race, religion, national identity and political strength," it added. It added that the right of freedom of speech and expression should not be allowed to be abused to avoid creating inter-faith fissures and hurting sentiments of followers of a certain faith, which in this case are Muslims, who happen to be the largest religious denomination of the world after Christians.
"This House is of the considered opinion that such incidents provide extremists and terrorists organisations a good justification and a supposedly higher moral ground in recruiting, promoting and exporting extremism and terrorism, and take advantage of this to create more cleavages between followers of different religions and stoke up hatred and mistrust," the resolution added.
It stated that the Senate of Pakistan strongly believes that a few irresponsible individuals or small organisations, no matter, which ethnic group, religion, or country they belong to, must not be allowed to damage and spoil international peace, understanding, goodwill and coexistence among peoples of various faiths. The resolution also urged upon the United Nations that an international law/framework is devised making incumbent upon all member states to jointly work towards interfaith harmony by introducing laws entailing deterrent punishments in order to discourage and prevent the production and outflow of blasphemous material aiming at insulting or ridiculing all religions, holy personalities and other sacred scriptures.
"The Senate urges upon the Government of Pakistan to take appropriate and effective steps to mobilise the governments and people of all Muslim and peace-loving countries of the world to resort to all necessary {diplomatic and other} measures to condemn and counter these efforts, which threaten peace and harmony between different religions and cultures," it added.