Transgender people should be given full rights: Ashrafi

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistance to the PM on Religious Harmony and Middle East Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi said that the transgender people are Allah’s creation and they should get their full rights, and religious or political parties are not against their due rights but are against the men and women, who deliberately changing their gender to convert into transgender.

“We welcome the bill and amendments prepared on the part of Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam with reference to the Transgender Act,” chairman Pakistan Ulema Council said, while talking to a delegation of Ulema-Mashaykh and religious scholars on Monday. He said the bill was passed four years ago and the government’s proposal to form a joint committee for the amendments in the bill is a step in the right direction.

Tahir Ashrafi said the Constitution did not allow any law contrary to the Islamic Shari’ah, adding that the Transgender Act was passed four years ago, which included the shortcomings. He said the minister of law has proposed to form a joint committee to redress the amendments in the Transgender Act, which were against the Constitution and Islamic Shari’ah, and implementation on this proposal would be made.

He said Maulana Fazlur Rahman, Chief of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, has a lot of responsibility in this regard as his party is the largest religious and political party in the parliament. “We should all admit that everyone remained ignorant about the approval of the bill four years back,” he added. He expressed his condolences on the death of religious scholar Al-Sheikh Yousuf Qardawi and said that his services could not be forgotten. Ashrafi on this occasion was flanked by Maulana Tahir Aqeel Awan, Allama Tahir Al Hasan, Maulana Muhammad Ashfaq Patafi, and others.