After Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a press conference last month that insulting Prophet Muhammad is a “violation of religious freedom”, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan in a call to the Russian president said Muslims supported his stand.
“Imran Khan emphasised that the Russian president’s statements made during the annual press conference relating to the inadmissibility of any action under the cover of freedom of expression that degraded the dignity of particular religious, national or social groups, received wide support from Pakistani society and the overall Islamic world,” TASS news agency quoted Kremlin’s statement.
Putin during the annual press conference had said insulting Prophet Muhammad is a “violation of the sacred feelings of people who profess Islam.” The Russian president had said artistic freedom should not infringe on the freedom of others as he emphasised that Russia has evolved as a “multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state”.
The Russian leader said such behaviour “could trigger others, even more, acute extremist manifestations” while recalling the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s office after cartoons of Prophet Muhammad were published by the magazine which later led to a terror attack on its office in Paris.
TASS news agency said both leaders pledged to resume contacts and boost trade relations as Kremlin said people of various faiths in Russia coexist and interact.
In a tweet, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had said he had spoken to the Russian president “primarily to express my appreciation for his emphatic statement that freedom of speech could not be a pretext to abuse our Prophet.”
“He is the first Western leader to show empathy and sensitivity to Muslim sentiment for their beloved Prophet PBUH,” the Pakistan prime minister added in his tweet.
