LAHORE – Pakistani cricketer Khalid Latif has announced a reward of Rs 3million to kill the Dutchman behind a blasphemous cartoon competition thatdepicts Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be upon Him).
In a video shared on Facebook, the 32-year-old batsman announced to put aRs3 million bounty on the head of firebrand Dutch politician Geert Wildersand American cartoonist Bosch Fawstin while expressing his pain and anguishover the sacrilegious artwork in the Netherlands.
On June 12, the Dutch Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders and known forits opposition to Islam and Muslim immigration to the Netherlands andEurope in general, announced that it would hold a contest for caricaturesof the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in its offices in the Dutch parliament.
PVV is the second-largest party in the Dutch House of Representatives.
Wilders tweeted that he had received clearance from the Dutchcounterterrorism agency – National Coordinator of Counterterrorism andSecurity (NCTV) – to hold the competition in his party’s parliamentaryoffices.
Dutch Counter-terrorism Agency NCTV gives green light to Muhammad cartooncontest in secured PVV quarters of Dutch Parliament later this year.
So that’s what we’re going to do and organize! With cartoonist/ex-MuslimBosch Fawstin!
Freedom of speech is most important of all!! pic.twitter.com/hOYdQBRLRllink
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) June 12, 2018link
The contest is to be judged by American cartoonist and former Muslim BoschFawstin, who won a similar contest in the US in 2015.
The initiative quickly provoked furious responses and calls for itscancellation that were shared on social networks, as well as overt threatsfrom Muslims against Wilders and other contest participants.
Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders of the PVV party speaks to hissupporters during a PVV demonstration against the policy of Prime Ministerand his cabinet in Rotterdam.
In 2015, two French terrorists who had sworn allegiance to al-Qaeda killed12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s offices with the terroristsnotably seeking to punish the staunchly atheist magazine for printingcartoons of the Prophet (PBUH).
The attack was the first in a wave of terror attacks in France over thepast three years that have left more than 240 people dead.
Meanwhile, Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a religio-political party, hasdecided to come at roads and “stay on the streets until either thepublication of blasphemous cartoons in the Netherlands end or thegovernment immediately ends diplomatic ties with the Dutch”.
TLP, which emerged as the fifth largest political party in the GeneralElections 2018, urged the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government to notonly “discontinue diplomatic and commercial relations with the Netherlands”but also “demand from other Islamic countries to do the same”.
Moreover, Maulana Khadim Rizvi-led TLP also demands that since the saidcompetition’s judge is an American national, “therefore, strict measuresshould also be taken against the US”. According to the sources, the party“will take to the streets at 2 pm on Wednesday (August 29) and begin fromData Darbar Lahore its march towards the capital.”
Today, in his maiden address to the Senate, Prime Minister Imran Khan saidthat his government will raise the issue of blasphemous caricatures in theUnited Nations General Assembly (UNGA) while putting the blame of suchincidents on lack of unity among the Muslim countries.
PM Imran called it a “collective failure” of Muslim countries for theabsence of an international policy against blasphemous content.
The prime minister said that though the government will raise the issuewith the UN, he didn’t think it would be of much use, adding that hisgovernment will raise the matter in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation(OIC) and formulate a collective policy which could then be presented atinternational forums.
Earlier today, the Senate passed a resolution to bring the UN’s attentionto the matter regarding the controversial announcement by the leader ofDutch Freedom Party.
“This House strongly condemns the venomous, vicious and contemptuousdecision of Geert Wilders, the notorious Islamophobe, belonging to theDutch Party of Freedom, to hold a ‘Draw Muhammad Cartoon Competition’ to beheld later this year in Netherlands,” read the resolution.