ISLAMABAD: Several thousand Pakistani Muslims protested across the country after Friday prayers against Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza in retaliation to Hamas attacks.
Political and religious parties staged dozens of small demonstrations across the cities of Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, and the capital Islamabad, where US and Israeli flags were burned.
“There is so much tyranny meted out to Palestinians, nobody can tolerate it. It is a waste of life if we don’t stand by the righteous,” said Tahira Khan, a 50-year-old designer who joined one of several protests in Karachi attended by around 2,000 people.
Protester Shahid Husain, 47, said the leaders of Muslim nations were failing to stand up for Palestinians.
“We came to the streets to make our rulers realize that they don’t need to be scared of the US and that the public wants them to be on the side of Palestine — not Israel and America,” he said from Peshawar, where police said around 20 protests were held attended by more than 5,000 people.
A few hundred people also gathered in the Afghan cities of Kabul and Jalalabad for pro-Palestinian rallies organized by Taliban authorities.
“Palestine you are not alone, we are with you,” one speaker told the crowd. “We are poor, but we will do whatever we can. We can’t do much today but use our feet and stand in your support.”
At the weekend, Hamas gunmen killed more than 1,300 people in Israel in the deadliest attack since the country’s creation in 1948.
They seized around 150 hostages — including dozens of Israelis, dual and foreign nationals — whom Hamas is threatening to kill.
Israel has retaliated by raining air and artillery strikes in Gaza for six days, claiming more than 1,500 lives and displacing over 400,000 people in the crowded enclave.
The Pakistan government has condemned the “indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force by Israeli authorities” and “the inhumane blockade and collective punishment by Israeli forces.”
The United Nations has called on the Israeli army to rescind its order for the immediate relocation of 1.1 million people from north to south Gaza, as it relentlessly pounds the enclave.
The cramped and impoverished territory, where 2.3 million residents live on top of each other, has been under a land, air and sea blockade since 2006. Israel has now cut off water, electricity and food supplies, leaving the enclave in a state of siege.
Protests across Pakistan, Afghanistan in support of Palestinians
https://arab.news/p4sv9
Protests across Pakistan, Afghanistan in support of Palestinians
- Political and religious parties staged dozens of small demonstrations across the cities of Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, and the capital Islamabad
- A few hundred people also gathered in the Afghan cities of Kabul and Jalalabad for pro-Palestinian rallies organized by Taliban authorities
Australian far-right senator censured over ‘inflammatory’ Muslim comments
- The motion called on the Senate to censure Hanson for her “inflammatory and divisive comments seeking to vilify Muslim Australians, which do not reflect the opinions of the Australian Senate or the Australian people”
SYDNEY: Australia’s Senate on Monday censured far-right lawmaker Pauline Hanson over “inflammatory and divisive” comments she made about Muslim people during a discussion about the possible return of Australian relatives of Daesh militants from Syria.
“They hate Westerners, and that’s what it’s all about. You say there’s great Muslims out there, well I’m sorry, how can you tell me there are good Muslims?” Hanson said in an interview with Sky News in February.
Penny Wong, leader of Australia’s center-left Labor government in the Senate, moved the censure motion against Hanson, who leads the anti-immigration One Nation party.
The motion called on the Senate to censure Hanson for her “inflammatory and divisive comments seeking to vilify Muslim Australians, which do not reflect the opinions of the Australian Senate or the Australian people.”
It passed with the support of the minor Greens party and two senators from the conservative Liberal party who crossed the floor. “This censure motion is about drawing a line and sending a message to the people of faith in this country and sending a message to children in this country that your leaders believe that condemning an entire religion is not acceptable,” Wong said. Hanson called the motion a “stunt” before storming out of the chamber.
A senator for Queensland, Hanson first rose to prominence in the 1990s because of her strident opposition to immigration from Asia and to
asylum seekers.
Recent opinion polling shows Hanson’s One Nation has overtaken the country’s conservative opposition coalition, with 28 percent of the primary vote amid rising support for anti-immigration policies.
