Pakistan's Jamaat-i-Islami to launch movement against interest-based economy

Jul 03, 2022

Peshawar [Pakistan], July 3 : Pakistan's Islamist political party Jamaat-i-Islami chairman Sirajul Haq on Saturday announced that his party would launch a movement against the interest-based economy after Eidul Azha with the consultation of other stakeholders.
"An interest-based economy and the state cannot function together," he said adding that the sitting rulers were patronising the interest-based economy in the country, the Dawn reported.
Jamaat-i-Islami would hold consultations with other like-minded political parties and groups and would launch a countrywide movement against the interest-based economic system. Haq said while addressing the Peshawar High Court Bar Association on Saturday and urged people to support the party to get rid of the corrupt system.
Haq further said that some banks had moved the Supreme Court against the Federal Shariat Court's decision to shift to the interest-free economic system, the Dawn reported.
He claimed that the coalition government was opposing the decision of the Federal Shariat Court, therefore JI would never support the present set-up.
"Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and former president Asif Ali Zardari had sought the JI's support for the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan," Haq said, affirming that he had categorically declined for the same.
"I told them that we want to change the system, not the faces," he added.
He claimed that the political parties, except JI, did not have perfect plans for the improvement of the economy.
"Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif had the same narratives. When Nawaz Sharif was dismissed he cried about his dismissal, and now Imran had adopted the same narrative," he said, adding the country is at the crossroads because of the policies of the previous and present governments. The per capita income in Pakistan stood at USD 1150."
He also said that the military dictators had ruled the country for more than three decades and held them equally responsible for the current state of affairs, the Dawn reported.
Highlighting PTI chief Imran Khan's statement about the US-backed government of Shehbaz Sharif government, Haq said that America pampered a particular class in Muslim countries and then brought them into power.
"Conspiracies are being hatched against Pakistan. Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan were destroyed through civil wars, and now the enemies had focused on Pakistan," Haq said.
He also criticised the existing judicial system of the country saying that more than two million cases were pending in the Supreme Court, while the then chief justice was running donation campaigns for the construction of a dam, the Dawn reported.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is reeling under a deep economic crisis. The PTI government has always been blamed for not being able to control inflation by the incumbent rulers when they were in the opposition.
Imran Khan was ousted from power after losing a no-confidence vote, which he alleged was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of "independent" foreign policy. Even after his ouster, the former PM has continued with foreign conspiracy tirades at every rally.