Dawn: ONCE again Pakistan finds itself highlighted in the international press for the most unsavoury of reasons. The issue, the infamous ‘blasphemy law’ or Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, and the misuse to which it lends itself quite regularly now, is far from new. Public discourse was stirred even before the case of Aasia Bibi who was convicted of
blasphemy in 2010, and there was some hope that a reconsideration of the law would become possible. Unfortunately, the matter has been allowed to die down, not least because of the fear of a hostile reaction from extremists and other quarters, and especially after the killing of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer in 2011. Now, yet another person has been accused of committing ‘blasphemy’. The 11-year-old girl, a member of the impoverished Christian community that lives in the rural areas around Islamabad, is said to be mentally challenged. Following allegations that the child desecrated religious texts, human rights activists have said that a number of Christian families from her area have fled, no doubt in fear of bloody reprisals.
Categories: Asia, Awareness, Constitution, Human Rights, Pakistan
Dear Editor,
As long as “religion” is instrumental in evolving this creature – homo sapien – into a a moral and spiritual being, that religion will “suffice to uplift a tottering society”. But when the distortion of any religion – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Budhism and the rest – turns this creature into a cannibal and laws are made to legalise cannibalism, then such religion and all those who follow such a distorted belief system need to be isolated from the civilized sections of mankind and left to themselves to sink deeper into the morass. That is exactly what is happening in Pakistan.
The rulers and the common citizen in Pakistan and the international community, are committing “crime against not only humanity, but against all religions, decency and morality, by remaining “silent spectators” while this “black law” remains in force in any part of the world, especially Pakistan.
Religiously speaking Pakistanis and many of the Muslim World countries tried to abuse and persecute the Reformer of the Age and his followers – members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. That was the cause of all this. What the mankind is witnessing is the “effect” of that heineous crime.
MAV