LAHORE - Speakers at a conference while warning that no point scoring should be done on the sensitive issue of threats to Harmain Sharifain claimed that war in Yemen is not a local rebellion but a larger conspiracy to push war inside Saudi Arabian territories.
The speakers were addressing a public meeting titled ‘Protection of Harmain Sharifain Conference’ at Chauburji Chowk held under aegis of Jamaat ud Dawah (JD) on Thursday.
The conference was chaired by JuD chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed while other noted speakers included Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, Jamiat Ahle Hadith president Ibtesam Elahi Zaheer, Allama Zubair Ahmad Zaheer, Hafiz Abdul Ghaffar Rupari, Jamaat-i-Isalmi leader Dr Farid Paracha, JUI-F leader Maulana Saifuddin Saif and Maulana Saifullah Khalid.
They claimed the western media was misleading the Ummah by portraying the war as a sectarian conflict between Shias and Sunnis to divert the attention from the actual conspiracy.
Hafiz Saeed, in his key address, announced that the campaign of holding public meetings across big cities would continue and Friday (today) would be observed as solidarity day with Riyadh, by holding rallies and demonstrations to create public awareness regarding the threats to Harmain Sharifain.
“It is to be decided by the Saudis, not by anybody else, whether the security of Saudi Arab is under threat or not,” the JuD chief said. The issue directly concerned the state of faith of Muslims and they must not show any hesitation otherwise the enemies of Islam would succeed in their conspiracy, he added.
However, Hafiz Saeed appreciated Prime Minister for making it clear that resolution of Pakistani parliament was not understood in right perspective and that Islamabad would employ all resources to protect the kingdom’s territorial integrity.
He also demanded that Houthi rebels in Yemen should vacate the capital and the legitimate government should be restored.
Other speakers while supporting Hafiz Saeed in his campaign to mobilise public opinion about the protection of holy lands said that if the rebellion in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan were illegal then why rebellion in Yemen could be called a just struggle for power.
They claimed that protecting Saudi Arabia from outside threats was not a matter of Shia-Sunni strife or Iran-Saudi frictions but was purely a matter of rebellion against a legal government, which was a crime against the state.
Seminar on Yemen crisis
Punjab University Centre for South Asian Studies (CSAS) in collaboration with Department of Political Science organized a seminar on “The Complexity of Yemen Crisis” at seminar hall of CSAS. Former Ambassador Mazhar Qayyum, Director CSAS Prof Dr Umbreen Javaid, faculty members and MPhil/PhD scholars of both the departments were present on the occasion. Mr Mazhar Qayyum, while analyzing the complexity of Yemen crisis described the past history of the crisis that initiated in early 1960’s. He said that since then regional factors, foreign elements and United States’ ambitions had participated to give this crisis such a magnitude. He said that there were no real threat to Saudi territory, however, Pakistani forces those were already there and providing all kinds of training to the Saudi Forces would extend every kind of help to them if there arisen a threat to Saudi territory. He said Pakistani Forces will not boot in Yemen to launch an attack.
He stressed that we must have to keep Iranian apprehensions in our mind because she was our close neighbor and this position cannot be changed.