Birmingham: Hundreds of Muslims gathered in Birmingham, UK, on Sunday to protest outside the International Conference Centre, where Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari came to address an expensive rally of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) where he originally planned to promote his son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as his dynastic successor.
An unidentified elderly man also hurled both his shoes on Zardari as the visiting Pakistani premier was addressing the gathering in the British town. The shoes missed him by a close range.
The protestors chanted for over three hours shouting “Down Down Zardari, Shame shame Ghaddari” and “Pakistan ka hull kya hai? Khilafat Hai, Khilafat Hai”, said a release by Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain, which organized the agitation.
Standing under a banner saying ‘Oust Zadari, Establish Khilafat”, the protesters held placards saying "Pakistan needs a Just Accountable Ruler - Pakistan needs Khilafat" ; "Zardari: King of Corruption - Friend of the West"; “While Pakistan Floods, Zardari Enjoys" ; and “Pakistan needs Khilafat".
The rally was addressed by Dr Imran Waheed, Taji Mustafa and Rizwan Hussain from Hizb ut-Tahrir, as well as Mushtaq Raja, a Muslim community leader, and Imam Qaisar Raheem.
The speakers roundly condemned Zardari and his regime for "their slavish support of the US-UK war on terror; as well as his visit at a time of crisis and hardship in Pakistan, and against the backdrop of the slander of Pakistan by British Prime Minister David Cameron".
They said Zardari’s coming to the UK showed his contempt for the people of Pakistan and showed just how detached the political elite are from the people. They rubbished his argument that the government was handling the crisis, saying that part of the problem was that no government - democratic or dictator - over sixty years had adequate flood management or prevention plans for Pakistan.
They also asked whether there was any country which had a head of state who would abandon solidarity with their people at this time. At least six million are affected in flood in Pakistan in one of its worst natural disaster.
They rubbished the argument that there needed to be a healing of the diplomatic rift with the UK saying that it was Cameron who should have humbled himself, since he slandered Pakistan.
"Instead, Zardari went to Cameron like a slave; a modern day ‘Mir Jaffer’. A real leader, they said, would have told Cameron that there was no terror in Pakistan before UK, US and NATO invaded, hence destabilising the region," said the Hizb ut-Tahrir.
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They condemned "Zardari’s serfdom", as "he allowed Cameron to shamelessly declare that the ‘unbreakable relationship’ with Pakistan was solely for the sake of British troops and security in Britain - when more soldiers from Pakistan’s armed forces than NATO troops and more citizens in Pakistan than British citizens have been killed for UK-US interests.