Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice-President Maryam Nawaz on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has no right to comment on Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
Speaking to the media officials in Islamabad today, Maryam Nawaz referred to PM Imran Khan’s interview on Axios on HBO, said, “I don’t know how to construe this statement,” said Maryam, when asked to share her views on the statement.
She added: “He [the prime minister] is not [an elected] representative of the people of Pakistan. He has been selected and has no right to comment on Pakistan’s nuclear status.”
Maryam went on to say that the premier was not the custodian of the country’s nuclear programme, rather Pakistan’s population of 22 billion was its custodian, for which the people and the leaders had made sacrifices.
“You [the prime minister] should not even talk about Kashmir, on which you have made a deal,” she said.
“You, a selected prime minister, have no right to make such a statement [about the nuclear programme],” she said.
Asked about her opinion on the Prime Minister’s comments on rape in the same interview, Maryam said his views reflected a “criminal mindset”.
Maryam said the premier’s remarks had exposed his mindset.
“[He is] a person who validates rape and holds the victim responsible. Pakistan needs to be rid of this mindset of rape apologists,” she said.
The PML-N leader went on to question whether Zainab’s rape and the motorway incident were a consequence of what the victims were wearing.
“He [the prime minister] should be ashamed,” she said, condemning his remarks.
Maryam added that through his remarks in the interview, the premiere has “insulted rape victims”.
“Men Are Not Robots, If Women Wear Fewer Clothes, It Will Have Impact”: PM
Note that during the interview, the prime minister was asked to respond to his earlier comments linking the incidence of rape to obscenity. In response, he had had said, “It is such nonsense. I never said that […] I said the concept of purdah which is to avoid temptation in society.” He had gone on to say “If you raise temptation within society and all these young guys have nowhere to go, it has consequences.”
The interviewer, journalist Jonathan Swan, had then asked him whether he thought “that what women wear has any effect, that it is part of this temptation?”
“If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on men unless they are robots. I mean it’s common sense,” the prime minister had replied — a remark that has sparked extreme outrage both on national and international levels.
