 Pakistan has told Britain that Salman Rushdie's knighthood breaches a United Nations resolution aimed at calming tensions between different religions, The Observer has learnt. | And damn it, given the admirable restraint that the Muslims have shown towards the calumny offered them daily by the infidels, it is certainly time that the dhimmi do their part and submit! |
The highly unusual warning was made during a meeting with the British High Commissioner in Pakistan and reveals the extent to which senior Pakistani politicians fear the award will damage relations between the countries. | Does this mean you won't be sending any more extremists to the UK? |
Although both nations have pledged to work together to fight al-Qaeda, the Rushdie affair has exposed a deep schism. On Friday, protests against the award broke out at mosques in Britain. Former members of the now disbanded extremist group al-Muhajiroun - which helped co-ordinate the protests over the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad - led protests outside the Regent's Park Mosque in London, prompting calls from Islamic clerics for restraint.
The level of unrest which has arisen in the Islamic world over the award was predicted by the Pakistan authorities. Last Tuesday, Tariq Osman Hyder, a senior Pakistani diplomat, told the British High Commissioner in Pakistan, Robert Brinkley, that giving a knighthood to the author of The Satanic Verses, a novel which prompted anger among some Muslims for its references to Muhammad and his wives, would inflame tensions. A well-placed source told The Observer that Brinkley was informed that Britain had acted against the spirit of UN resolution 1624. The resolution calls on all member states to 'enhance dialogue and broaden understanding' as a means to preventing 'the indiscriminate targeting of religions and cultures'. | Well, it certainly cannot be said that al Muhajiroun and their ilk are indiscriminate in their hatred for the West, so I guess they're in the clear. |
Sources say that Hyder told Brinkley the award was 'not expected from Britain, a country that has a large Muslim population'. But the British government has been quick to defend the author's right to freedom of expression. Last week, the Home Secretary, John Reid, defended the award and said Britain had no intention of apologising for it.
Tensions were further inflamed after Pakistan's Minister for Religious Affairs, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, was reported as saying of Rushdie that 'if someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the "sir" title'.
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Privately, Foreign Office officials describe the fallout from the Rushdie affair as 'regrettable'. Tensions were further inflamed after Pakistan's Minister for Religious Affairs, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, was reported as saying of Rushdie that 'if someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the "sir" title'.
He said later he did not mean attacks would be justified but merely that militants could use the knighthood as a justification. We got your meaning the first time, minister.
Perv's tenuous hold on power is threatened by each opportunity the extremists can grab to stir up mindless anger. |
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