Imran Khan condemns attack on Salman Rushdie in New York, describing it as ‘terrible’ & ‘sad’
ISLAMABAD, August 19 (SABAH): Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan has condemned the attack on Salman Rushdie in New York, describing it as “terrible” and “sad”, and saying that while the anger of the Islamic world at Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses was understandable, it could not justify the assault.
This was stated by Imran Khan in an interview with UK based newspaper “The Guardian”.
Imran Khan also said he expected Afghan women to “assert their rights” in the face of Taliban restrictions in a Guardian interview in which he sought to moderate his reputation as a firebrand.
Asked for his response to the knife attack in New York state that left Rushdie badly wounded, Imran Khan said: “I think it’s terrible, sad.
“Rushdie understood, because he came from a Muslim family. He knows the love, respect, reverence of a prophet that lives in our hearts. He knew that,” Khan said. “So the anger I understood, but you can’t justify what happened.”
A year ago, Khan caused consternation in the west and among many Afghans when he welcomed the Taliban’s seizure of power, saying it was “breaking the chains of slavery”. He defended the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls, describing it as a local “cultural norm” and noting: “Every society’s idea of human rights and women rights are different.”
One year on, women remain excluded from the Afghan workforce and girls over 14 are still banned from attending school. Khan however insisted that change had to come from within Afghanistan.
“Eventually Afghan women, the Afghan people, will assert their rights. They are strong people,” he said. “But if you push the Taliban from the outside, knowing their mindset, they will just put up defences. They just hate outside interference.”
Since losing a vote of no confidence in April, Khan said his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), had been the target of efforts by the new government and the security forces aimed at pushing it off the political stage.
A top aide, Shahbaz Gill, was arrested on Tuesday and was hospitalised while in custody. Khan said he was beaten and “psychologically broken”.
The Islamabad police said that Gill was arrested for inciting the public against state institutions, and “inciting the people to rebellion”. Khan said Gill was targeted because he had said army officers should not obey unlawful commands.
“They are forcing him to say that I was the one who told him to say that,” the former prime minister said.
A medical report on Gill said that he had arrived at the hospital with rapid breathing, noting that he was asthmatic. It also referred to “body aches” and “soft tissue tenderness” on his arm, lower back and buttock. He was reported late on Thursday to have been discharged from hospital and to be back in custody.
The television channel that interviewed Gill prior to his arrest, ARY, has been shut down in some parts of the country.
Khan said Gill’s arrest and the closure of ARY was part of a pattern under the current government of Shehbaz Sharif, who replaced Khan as prime minister.
“What they’re doing to Gill is sending a message to everyone,” he said. “And they have scared our workers. Social media activists have been picked up and we have a very vibrant social media. They’re trying to sort of intimidate the people.”
Imran Khan blamed Washington for engineering the vote of no confidence that brought down his government, suggesting the US had helped persuade members of his party to defect. He was more circumspect in accusing the security forces in his interview with “The Guardian”, but said: “If they were not behind the conspiracy, they certainly could have stopped it because the intelligence agencies, the ISI and MI, are international-quality intelligence agencies, and they certainly would have known what was going on.”