sanddy
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2012
- Messages
- 494
- Reaction score
- -1
Pakistan needs to change blasphemy law
In Pakistan, the Muslim cleric who
denounced a mentally challenged
Christian girl of 14 for blasphemy has now been arrested for allegedly
framing her. It is the latest bizarre twist in a case that sparked a worldwide outcry. In Pakistan, blasphemy can bring a death sentence or life in prison, though no one has yet been executed.
The authorities deserve credit for
detaining Khalid Chisti, after a member of his own mosque said that he deliberately placed pages of the Qurran among non-sacred texts the destitute girl burnt as part of her scavenging job a charge the imam denies. Whatever the truth, it is the law itself that should be on trial.
Since it was passed in 1987 by military dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, the blasphemy law has ravaged Pakistan like a virus, infecting and gravely
weakening society. It has set Muslims and minority groups against each other, even victimizing moderate Muslims who seek reforms. Pakistans Human Rights Commission calls it a reign of terror against minorities.
Advocates say it is used to settle
scores, attack the mentally ill and drive out those who do not subscribe to the most conservative, even extreme, forms of Sunni Islam.
The hatred the law has fuelled has
been blamed for the mob killings of
seven Christians, among others. Two Muslim politicians were assassinated for opposing the law. A mentally ill man accused of burning the Quran was seized and beaten to death. Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five, was sentenced to hang.
The need for change is urgent. Fears were raised that releasing the Christian girl from her grim jail cell, where she didnt belong in the first place, might expose her to a worse fate. Christians in her poor neighbourhood have fled their homes, terrified of vigilante
justice.
Christians and moderates are soft
targets because they are seen as
surrogates for the Western countries that extremists revile. Attacking them lends the militants street credibility.
That the accused killer of moderate
Punjab governor Salman Taseer was lionized as a hero shows the scope of the challenge that Pakistans government and reform-minded Muslim scholars face. They need to change not only the law, but the national conversation. Those who invoke the blasphemy law purporting to defend Islam only set Pakistanis against each other, weakening the nation.
In Pakistan, the Muslim cleric who
denounced a mentally challenged
Christian girl of 14 for blasphemy has now been arrested for allegedly
framing her. It is the latest bizarre twist in a case that sparked a worldwide outcry. In Pakistan, blasphemy can bring a death sentence or life in prison, though no one has yet been executed.
The authorities deserve credit for
detaining Khalid Chisti, after a member of his own mosque said that he deliberately placed pages of the Qurran among non-sacred texts the destitute girl burnt as part of her scavenging job a charge the imam denies. Whatever the truth, it is the law itself that should be on trial.
Since it was passed in 1987 by military dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, the blasphemy law has ravaged Pakistan like a virus, infecting and gravely
weakening society. It has set Muslims and minority groups against each other, even victimizing moderate Muslims who seek reforms. Pakistans Human Rights Commission calls it a reign of terror against minorities.
Advocates say it is used to settle
scores, attack the mentally ill and drive out those who do not subscribe to the most conservative, even extreme, forms of Sunni Islam.
The hatred the law has fuelled has
been blamed for the mob killings of
seven Christians, among others. Two Muslim politicians were assassinated for opposing the law. A mentally ill man accused of burning the Quran was seized and beaten to death. Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five, was sentenced to hang.
The need for change is urgent. Fears were raised that releasing the Christian girl from her grim jail cell, where she didnt belong in the first place, might expose her to a worse fate. Christians in her poor neighbourhood have fled their homes, terrified of vigilante
justice.
Christians and moderates are soft
targets because they are seen as
surrogates for the Western countries that extremists revile. Attacking them lends the militants street credibility.
That the accused killer of moderate
Punjab governor Salman Taseer was lionized as a hero shows the scope of the challenge that Pakistans government and reform-minded Muslim scholars face. They need to change not only the law, but the national conversation. Those who invoke the blasphemy law purporting to defend Islam only set Pakistanis against each other, weakening the nation.
