JI chief announces he will celebrate ‘Gaza Week’ from October 1 – Pakistan

KARACHI: Jamaat-e-Islami leader Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Monday announced that he will observe ‘Gaza Week’ starting October 1 with a one-day nationwide protest against the Palestinian genocide.

That week, on October 6, a city-wide march of millions will also take place to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, Hafiz Naeem told a press conference in Idara Noor-e-Haq.

He said the party would also hold a nationwide protest on October 7 to show solidarity with Palestinians who are victims of a historic genocide in which more than 41,000 people were killed in Gaza by Israeli occupation forces.

“The government should consider October 7 at the national level as an expression of solidarity with the people of Palestine and their freedom fighters,” demanded Hafiz Naeem, who appealed to the nation to join the protest.

On local issues, he said his party is working out a future plan to respond to the government’s inaction to scrap the IPP contracts after the deadline for enforcing the conditions it had agreed with the JI expires. “The JI will announce its future course of action through media on Tuesday at its headquarters in Mansoora, Lahore,” he said, criticizing the government for not taking “substantial” measures to help the people in the 45-day period.

Outlining the likely response of the JI after the government withdrew from the conditions, he said his party has a number of options, including a three-day nationwide strike, a protest march to Islamabad and a boycott of electricity bills.

Hafiz Naeem asked the ruling elite to stop the excessive spending at the expense of the basic needs of the taxpayers. According to him, the government should transfer the tax burden of the poor and the paid class to the feudal lords.

The government should also put an end to the “dirty” game of capacity payments in favour of the IPPs and stop the extensive “blessing” of K-Electric. He called K-Electric “mafia” which enjoys protection from public demand for a government-led forensic audit.

Hafiz Naeem stressed that only four percent of landowners control 40 percent of the country’s agricultural land. He urged the country to turn its fortunes around by ousting the “corrupt and rotten elite” from power.

He also demanded that the government reduce the prices of heating oil, especially petrol, to Rs 150 per litre, in response to the drop in global rates, which have now fallen to $70 per barrel.