France Summons Pak Envoy Over President Alvi's Remarks on Bill Against Radical Islamism

The French foreign ministry has summoned Pakistan’s envoy to protest claims by President Arif Alvi that a French bill cracking down on radical Islam stigmatises Muslims. “I urge the political leadership of France not to entrench these attitudes into laws… You have to bring people together — not to stamp a religion in a certain manner and create disharmony among the people or create bias.” Pakistan was one of several Muslim countries that saw angry anti-French protests in October over President Emmanuel Macron’s defence of the right to show cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. The French foreign ministry said late Monday it had called in Pakistan’s charge d’affaires to mark “our surprise and our disapproval, given that the bill contains no discriminatory element.” “It is guided by the basic principles of freedom of religion and conscience, makes no distinction between the different religions and applies therefore equally to all faiths,” the ministry said. The legislation significantly expands the state’s powers to close religious organisations and places of worship if they are found to air “theories or ideas” that “provoke hate or violence towards a person or people.” It also creates a new crime of “separatism” — described as threatening a public servant in order to gain “a total or partial exemption or a different application of the rules” — that is punishable by up to five years in prison.