Islamabad, July 25: Islamic leaders vowed today to resist new laws aimed at extending government control over Pakistan's thousands of religious schools and curbing the teaching of Islamic extremism.
Addressing a crowd of hundreds of students at an Islamic school in Islamabad, the clerics said the government had no right to regulate the schools, or madrassas.
They also called on Pakistanis to vote for religious parties in October parliamentary elections, saying they would repeal the new laws. Religious parties traditionally fare poorly at the ballot box.
"We will force the government to withdraw these ordinances," said one of the clerics, Qazi Hussain Ahmad. He heads one of Pakistan's largest fundamentalist Islamic groups, Jamaat-e-Islami.
After speaking, Ahmad and the others lined up on the podium and raised their joined hands over their heads in a show of unity.
Pakistan's government announced new laws ordering Islamic schools to register with the government, teach modern subjects like math and science, get government permission to admit foreign students and disclose their funding sources.

Pakistan's 8,000 madrassas had operated without state supervision, and many emphasise rote memorisation of Arabic religious texts.
Clerics who defy the new ordinance face penalties of up to two years in prison, and their schools won't be eligible for newly announced government funding.

Bureau Report