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65% Pakistanis support Osama, says report

I'm not sure if the poll mentioned in this article from mid-day.com means much. But it is sort of interesting.

65% Pakistanis support Osama, says report
By: Khalid A-H Ansari
March 27, 2004

Lahore: Nearly two thirds of people in Pakistan hold favourable views of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 86 per cent approve of President Pervez Musharraf, according to a survey by a major American organisation.

Nearly half of those interviewed said suicide bombings against Israelis and, in Iraq, against Americans and other Westerners are justified.

The report by the Washington-based Pew Global Attitudes Project survey found that 65 per cent favoured Osama and that pluralities of 47 per cent believed Palestinian suicide attacks on Israelis were justified. Forty-six per cent thought attacks on Westerners in Iraq were justified.

The Pew Research Centre is a non-profit and non-governmental organisation, which specialises in opinion surveys. Its reports are widely respected in Washington’s academic circles.

Pakistan was one of four Muslim-majority countries in the survey, which also included Turkey, Jordan and Morocco, the governments of all of which have strong ties with the US.

The article goes on to say:

Asked for views of Pakistan’s President Musharraf, 86 per cent were favourable in his own country, with 60 per cent viewing him ‘‘very favourably”.

According to the survey organisation, this is ‘‘by far the highest rating of any leader in the survey” in nine countries, in which a randomly selected sample was asked questions on various subjects, ranging from the war in Iraq to their opinion about their own leaders, and about other major US allies in the war on terror.

The survey found that most Europeans had no views about the Pakistan president and a third or more in each of the nine countries except Pakistan gave no opinion.

Views about Musharraf were more positive than negative in Turkey and were even about evenly divided in Britain, the United States, Russia and Jordan.

Negative opinion of the President was strong in France Germany and Morocco.

Majorities in every country survey except the United States had an unfavourable opinion of President George W Bush, with negative ratings ranging from 57 per cent in Britain to 87 per cent in both France and Germany. Outside the United States, support for Bush is the highest in Britain at 39 per cent.

Six out of ten have an unfavourable opinion of Bush in Russia and two-thirds — 67 per cent — in Turkey.

Posted by John at March 28, 2004 09:57 PM | TrackBack