Threats to Justice Isa
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan Wednesday indicted prayer leader Maulvi Iftikhar-ud-Din Mirza in contempt of court charges for using derogatory, contemptuous and scandalous language against the judiciary in a video that went viral last month, giving him a week to respond to the charges.
A hearing was held by a bench at the Supreme Court presided over by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed during which Mirza unconditionally apologised to the court, saying that he was ashamed of his remarks. “I ask forgiveness from you as a Muslim,” he said. “I apologise for my statements in the video.”
Mirza said that he had no knowledge of the editing and uploading of the video. The chief justice, in return, expressed anger at the derogatory language used in the video.
“This is not a case of forgiveness. You cannot mock the judiciary, in this way, Pakistan’s entire system will fail,” he remarked. “You were using such [derogatory] language from the Minbar of a mosque, the kind that even an illiterate person wouldn’t use,” he added.
The bench said that it was not satisfied with the written responses submitted by Mirza in previous hearings of the case either.
