Shahid Malik was MP for Dewsbury between 2005 and 2010.
A UK™s former minister and Labour Party politician has deplored western hegemony™s response to events in Egypt and its selective stance towards democracy in the country.
Britain™s first Muslim MP Shahid Malik said “either we believe in democracy or we don’t…We have to ally our vested interests with our values.”
He was giving a speech during the closing session of the “International Conference on Islamophobia: Law and Media” in Istanbul, Turkey.
The former minister seriously questioned west™s so-called commitment to democracy, saying that it behaved selectively towards the outcomes of elections, such as the one in Egypt.
After the fall of former dictator Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians went to polls and elected their first president democratically.
But, after nearly one year, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was again toppled through a military coup and a military government was installed to run the country temporarily.
Malik stressed the double standards adopted by certain western countries as far as Egypt is concerned.
He noted that the international community œhad not been disturbed when Iraqis and Palestinians held elections, but when the Egyptian elections yielded unexpected results, certain international actors changed their stances”.
“Either we believe in democracy or we don’t… Are we value-driven or western-interest led?”, he said.
“Our objective should be being driven by values,” Malik asserted.
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Copyright: Press TV