Islamabad
President Dr Arif Alvi on Friday urged the West to be mindful about the sentiments of Muslims while pursuing the notion of freedom of expression so as to promote interfaith harmony.
“Creation of hatred in the clothing of freedom of speech is something the West has to look upon to increase cooperation among Islam, Christianity, and all other religions,” he said in his virtual address at a conference titled ‘Promoting Interfaith Understanding ’.
The conference was organized by Ambassador (Retd) Akbar S Ahmed holding the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, in Washington DC to promote an understanding of Islam and the Muslim world in the United States and encourage interfaith dialogue.
President Alvi said as in Europe, it was a crime to talk about certain ethnic atrocities of the past, similarly the love of Muslims for their Prophet was of utmost significance.
He mentioned that the act of making blasphemous caricatures in the name of freedom of expression was painful for Muslims, which the West needed to be careful about.
President Alvi said throughout the history of humankind, a conflict between religions translated into bias, which resulted into policy-making on the basis of prejudices.—APP
