LONDON: Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the only Asian member of the Prime
Minister David Cameron government, has flayed criticism on the
Pakistani government for not living up to the ideals of its founder
Mohammad Ali Jinnah and for denying women rights that were guaranteed
in the Quran.
Interviewing with The Guardian, Pakistani-origin
Warsi – the co-chairperson of the Conservative party said Pakistan is
failing to live up to one of the tenets of Islam which guarantees
rights to all women. She further stated that she had raised the issue
of women’s rights last July in Rawalpindi, in a speech in Urdu at the
Fatima Jinnah University, named after the younger sister of the founder
of Pakistan.
Warsi said she had also raised concerns about the
treatment of minorities in Pakistan. Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s only
Christian minister was shot dead in March after he called for the
reform of blasphemy laws that impose the death sentence for insulting
Islam. Warsi said: “I said to them let me talk to you about the rights
of minorities, the protection of women and the concept of meritocracy.
I gave real examples of how Islam embodies all of those values, and the
question I put was: my country wasn’t formed in the name of Islam, but
yours was; so why does my country embody the values of the faith that
your country was formed on the basis of?”
She added saying that
it was not the west arriving with an ideological perspective of women’s
rights about to impose them on a nation. She further stated that she
understood the culture and deeply understands the faith and the culture
that is part of this nation. Online
