ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government on Wednesday said it was struggling to get all Muslim countries on board to ban anti-Islam caricatures even as the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) began its long march to the capital.

At the forefront is the TLP's demand that the government shuts down the Dutch embassy in Islamabad and severs all diplomatic ties with the country, for its failure to stop an anti-Islam cartoon contest slated to be held in the Netherlands later this year.

“On the agenda is a sensitive issue and we want all Muslim countries to speak with one voice on it,” Fawad Chaudhry, federal information minister, told Arab News.

This follows Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s appeal to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), earlier on Wednesday, seeking an audience on the matter. Qureshi said he had written letters of request to six foreign ministers, including the secretary general of the OIC, to take up the issue immediately.

The minister said that his government was contacting all Muslim nations to voice their support on the issue, so that the United Nations could be urged “with one voice” to find a permanent solution.

“The PTI government is a representative of aspirations of the whole nation, therefore it is incumbent upon it to raise the issue of caricatures at all national and international forums,” he said.

Pakistan’s parliament has unanimously condemned plans for the competition which encourages participants to draw cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

The idea for the contest was promulgated by Geert Wilders, a far-right Dutch opposition leader. Muslims see visual depictions of the prophet as blasphemy.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte termed Wilders’ move as “not respectful”, adding that his government had distanced itself from the plan. He, however, refused to ban the competition on the grounds that he would not curtail “freedom of speech.”

Prime Minister Imran Khan, in his maiden address to the senate on Monday, vowed to raise the issue of the caricatures with the United Nations and the OIC. “Very few in the West understand the pain caused to Muslims by such blasphemous activities,” he said.

Privy to the sensitive nature of the issue, Pakistan’s Foreign Office also called upon the Netherlands’ charge d'affaires to lodged a protest against the planned blasphemous caricatures.

The PTI government is also facing pressure from several religious outfits, including the TLP, which began its long march from Lahore to Islamabad on Wednesday. 

The party had secured 2.2m votes in the elections held on July 25, after contesting on a single-point agenda of reverence and respect for Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). It emerged as the fifth largest party in the election in terms of the number of votes obtained across the country.

“We are not satisfied with the government’s measures to stop the planned caricatures contest by a fanatic in Netherlands,” Pir Ejaz Ahmad Ashrafi, leader of the TLP, told Arab News. “We demand the government immediately expel the Dutch ambassador to give a message to the world that desecration of Prophet Muhammad {PBUH] will not be tolerated under the pretext of freedom of expression.”

Ashrafi said that his party would hold a sit-in in Islamabad if the government failed to expel the Dutch ambassador or shut down the country’s embassy in Islamabad. “We will reach Islamabad tomorrow (Thursday) to register our protest,” he said.

Political analysts, however, said that it was not easy for the government to expel the Dutch ambassador as the Netherlands had already distanced itself from competition.

“The PTI government has limited options to deal with the issue at the international level,” Zaigham Khan, a political analyst, told Arab News. “At home, the government is trying to appease the religious-minded people through hard-hitting statements against the Dutch government.”

He said the PTI is a beneficiary of polarization and Islamization of the society as it bagged a large number of votes in the general elections by fanning religious sentiments of the people. “The government is required to deal with the issue sensibly now,” he said.

Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, another political analyst, said that no single Muslim country can handle the recurring issue of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad [PBUH] on its own. “There is a need to develop a consensus among all the Muslim countries on the issue through the platform of the OIC,” he told Arab News.

He said that a unanimous resolution by all Muslim countries should be moved in the United Nations to seek a solution of the issue under international conventions. “The PTI government should try to deal with the issue diplomatically instead of playing to the galleries,” he said.