Source: Aljazeera
Thousands of protesters have clashed with police near parliament in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, against the execution of a man charged with murdering a governor for his criticism of blasphemy laws.
Police fired tear gas to stop an estimated 25,000 protesters, some of whom tried to forcibly enter the security zone of the capital, dubbed the red zone.
Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said that military was called in to take over security in the red zone.
“Their main task will be to secure the zone that includes parliament, Pakistan Television, the foreign office, the Supreme Court and diplomatic enclave,” he said.
Protesters marched from the garrison town of Rawalpindi to Islamabad in solidarity with Mumtaz Qadri, who was charged and executed for the murder of Punjab province governor Salman Taseer.
“The crowd is massive and the police used blockades and tear gas on protesters as they were getting out of control,” Sami Yousafzai, who was present at the protest site told Al Jazeera.
“They want the blasphemy law to be active and anyone who says anything blasphemous about Prophet Muhammad should be executed.”
Peace and tolerance
Taseer was shot 28 times by Qadri, his bodyguard, in January 2011 for defending a Christian woman jailed on blasphemy charges.
The protest leaders said they would hold a sit-in until their demands were met, but did not specify what their demands were.
| If our people don’t understand the Sharia properly, our community will never be educated. They will always go for violence instead of peace and tolerance. |
According to Dr Mufti Akeel Ur Rehman Pirzada, Chairman of the Pakistan’s Ulama Aman committee (a committee of Islamic scholars to promote peace), the protest is aimed to pressurise the government for certain demands and “cause unrest”.
Categories: Asia, Blasphemy, Pakistan, The Muslim Times
Prime example of the religion of peace. Wanting death to everyone who does not believe their idea of blasphemy is. Islam is some serious sick garbage, that only kills and kills and kills. Only good it really does, is keep its own population down. 25,000 of the most ignorant savages. Govt would of done better to shoot them all down, cause they will push others to join the mob.
So his own body guard killed him for protecting a Christian. Islam and it’s pedophile Mohammad is sick
I have to agree in part – with usakindatheart. Overwhelmingly we see not just a few losers in the believer crowd – protest, kill, destroy – the blasphemy law has been a sham forever. The mere suggestion, accusation or implication – of a non-muslim neighbour – has been enough to force jail time, force conversion, or even kill. The Maronite population in Egypt has been decimated by such b.s. Muslim laws. Tolerant – sanctity of life – protecting minority or non – muslim rights- those are just words. concepts. but NOT a reality anywhere in the middle east.