Pakistani’s are always a step ahead. They want every American to be tested for aids!lol!
Fingerprint Americans: Pakistani radicals
Religious right calls for AIDS testing Indonesian Muslims boycott meeting
KATHY GANNON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ISLAMABAD—Pakistan’s religious right, in a reflection of growing outrage against the United States, has called for the fingerprinting of Americans, a boycott of U.S. products and compulsory AIDS testing of U.S. visitors.
A coalition of Islamic parties, which gained considerable political clout in October general elections, presented its demands yesterday in a list to the government, and threatened nationwide demonstrations to push for them.
While a boycott would be up to consumers, the government said fingerprinting or mandatory HIV tests — which the government would control — were out of the question.
“Such demands cannot be accepted,” Interior Ministry spokesperson Iftikar Ahmad said. “Religious leaders keep making such absurd demands. Such statements serve no cause except to create problems for the government,” he said.
The demand for fingerprinting reflects Pakistani anger over new U.S. requirements that citizens of Pakistan and other countries living in the United States be fingerprinted and photographed by immigration agents.
In Jakarta, two of Indonesia’s leading Islamic leaders have declined an invitation to Washington, saying they were offended by the White House’s policy toward Iraq.
One of the leaders, Hasyim Muzadi, who heads Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim group in the country, also cited new immigration restrictions on Indonesian males in the United States as a reason for refusing to attend the annual congressional inter-religious prayer breakfast next month.
The announcement by Muzadi and Ahmad Sjaffii Maarif, the head of the second-largest Muslim group in Indonesia, is considered significant because they are often invited by the U.S. embassy to meet visiting American officials. They are introduced on such occasions as the embodiment of Indonesia’s mainstream Islamic thinking.
Last year Muzadi, whose organization claims 40 million members, was among a small group of Islamic thinkers invited to meet U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell during his visit here. Ten days ago he met in Jakarta with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly.
Explaining his decision not to attend the prayer breakfast, the usually politic Maarif said on Indonesian television yesterday that “only idiotic people” would attend such a prayer session, scheduled for next Tuesday.
The timing meant “that people could be praying for world peace at the same time as there was an attack on Iraq,” he said.
Associated Press, New York Times