An Islamist party in Pakistan called for the expulsion of the Dutch ambassador on Wednesday as it launched a protest against a far-right Dutch politician’s plan for a cartoon competition featuring caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.

Several thousand activists gathered in the eastern city of Lahore for the demonstration organised by Tehreek-e-Labbaik, a party that amassed the fifth largest number of votes in a general election last month having campaigned as a defender of the laws and punishments for crimes of blasphemy.

Party leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi set out from Lahore’s historic centre at the head of a protest he aims to take through the towns of Punjab province to the capital Islamabad, where protesters will stage a sit-in to pressure Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Imran Khan to cut diplomatic ties with the Netherlands.

“The Dutch ambassador should be immediately deported,” Labbaik spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi told Reuters. “We will only stop when the government meets this demand.”

Pakistan has already complained to the Dutch government about far-right parliamentarian Geert Wilders’ plans for a cartoon contest that will upset and provoke Muslims.

Wilders intends to display the cartoons on the walls of his political party’s room in parliament. He says he’s had “hundreds” of entries.

“The Foreign Office called the chargé d’affaires of the Netherlands and issued him a Demarche’ to record a protest,” the Pakistani prime minister’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte said last week that the cartoon competition “was not something I would do” and his government was not associated with it.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said he planned to take up the issue with the United Nations and several world leaders.

“They don’t understand how much they hurt us when they do such acts,” Khan, a cricketer-turned-politician, said on Tuesday, a day after the upper house of parliament condemned the proposed cartoon competition.

Officials from the Punjab provincial government met with Labbaik leaders in Lahore in a vain attempt to persuade them to call off their protest.

“We told them to stop the protests because the Pakistan government is taking up the issue effectively,” an official involved on the talks told Reuters, adding that Labbaik representatives insisted the protest would only end once the Dutch envoy was expelled.

Last year, in a stand-off with the previous government, Labbaik shut down a main highway leading into Islamabad for nearly three weeks over a small change in wording to an electoral law changing a religious oath to a simple declaration. Labbaik said the change amounted to blasphemy.

The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was forced to accept the resignation of law minister Zahid Hamid, who Labbaik held responsible for the change, after seven people were killed and nearly 200 wounded in a failed attempt by police to disperse protesters.

You can imagine our shock when we realised this evening that an Islamist extremist who lauded the brutal murder of Glasgow shopkeeper, Asad Shah, was on Twitter. Worse still, he had a ‘verified’ blue tick next to him, giving him some legitimacy in the eyes of member of the public.

The individual, Khalid Hussain Rizvi has been highlighted by us in Faith Matters many times. If you want to know what Rizvi is about, just take a look at this video which we compiled on just a few of his sayings to large congregations in Pakistan. In a bizarre twist, we even commented on Rizvi in 2016, and his comments were made to fawning congregations where he describes a telephone conversation with Tanveer Ahmed, the brutal murderer of Asad Shah. Rizvi has called Ahmed a ‘hero’ on many occasions and a ‘lion’ for the brutal stabbing to death of Asad Shah, a much loved shopkeeper in Glasgow.

In September 2017, Rizvi’s political party, Tehreek-e-Labaik, polled 7,000 votes in local municipal elections in a by-election in Lahore. The only campaigning point was the lionising of bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri, who murdered Punjab Governor, Salman Taseer. The murder was based on Taseer’s defence of imprisoned Christian female, Asia Bibi. Tehreek-e-Labaik have also latched onto Tanveer Ahmed as another person whom they have lionised, thereby pushing the view that ‘blasphemers’ and those who protect minorities, are fair game for murder. Twitter are therefore providing a ‘verified’ Twitter platform to the spiritual leader of Tehreek-e-Labaik, Khalid Hussain Rizvi.

Rizvi, is in effect, an Islamist sympathiser who agrees with the violent extremism, particularly if it is against those protecting and advocating for minorities and Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan.

Given the facts, there is no justification that Twitter can provide for keeping Rizvi’s Twitter account open.