ganeshran Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 After Salman Taseer, another Pakistani politician is killed for opposing their ridiculous blasphemy law. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Pakistan-minorities-minister-shot-dead-in-Islamabad/articleshow/7609431.cms ISLAMABAD: Pakistani minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, who had called for changes in the country's controversial blasphemy law, was killed in a gun attack in Islamabad on Wednesday, officials said. Police said the shooting took place near an Islamabad market. Bhatti was the only Christian in the Pakistani cabinet. "The initial reports are that there were three men who attacked him. He was probably shot using a Kalashnikov, but we are trying to ascertain what exactly happened," said Islamabad police chief Wajid Durrani. A hospital spokesman said Bhatti had several bullet wounds. The anti-blasphemy law has been in the spotlight since last November, when a court sentenced a Christian mother of four to death. On Jan 4 the governor of the most populous province of Punjab, Salman Taseer, who had strongly opposed the law and sought presidential pardon for the 45-year-old Christian farmhand, was gunned down by one of his bodyguards. The anti-blasphemy law has its roots in 19th-century colonial legislation to protect places of worship, but it was during the military dictatorship of General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s that it acquired teeth as part of a drive to Islamise the state. Liberal Pakistanis and rights groups believe the law to be dangerously discriminatory against the country's tiny minority groups. Under the law, anyone who speaks ill of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad commits a crime and faces the death penalty, but activists say the vague terminology has led to its misuse. Christians who make up about two percent of Pakistan's population have been especially concerned about the law saying it offers them no protection. Convictions hinge on witness testimony and often these are linked to personal vendettas, critics say. Blasphemy convictions are common, although the death sentence has never been carried out. Most convictions are thrown out on appeal, but angry mobs have killed many people accused of blasphemy.
King Tendulkar Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 The mentality of paks and their religious people is a disgrcae on humainty!
moumotta Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 The real disgrace is there will be no shortage of people justifying the act and glorifying the criminals.
ganeshran Posted March 2, 2011 Author Posted March 2, 2011 The real disgrace is there will be no shortage of people justifying the act and glorifying the criminals. :dito: Exactly. there is no condemnation across the board for such vile acts.
ravishingravi Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 I am sorry but the truth is this country is going down.
achilles Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 Just how twisted is this country? They call themselves a democracy? They have ZERO tolerance to anyone who opposes their "laws" and people are killed and made a statement out of! Jesus Christ, its a man you are killing. Do only terrorists have human rights?
Clarke Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 There will always be a bunch of extremists, in certain cases being ready to die for their cause. The trouble comes in when the majority doesn't care too much about what happens around them. If they cannot give a damn, the extremists will continue to have their way in society. This is assuming the majority do not support these acts.
ravishingravi Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 Another death, another day The Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti was killed today in an attack on his vehicle in Islamabad. Two gunmen fired on Bhatti’s vehicle in I-8/3 area of the capital. He was taken to the hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. No surprises here. Another voice bold enough to speak out against the madness that has gripped the country has been silenced. Bhatti, a Pakistani Christian, had been an outspoken critic of the misuse of the controversial Blasphemy Law and according to his colleagues he was facing death threats from those who just wanted him to shut up. After former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer’s assassination at the hands of a uniformed extremist more than a month ago, Bhatti has become the second high profile victim of the violent fanaticism being demonstrated by those who want the Blasphemy Law to stay put, without any amendments whatsoever. Why shouldn’t these madmen continue the way they have been so far – slaughtering innocent men in the name of faith, taking out highly-charged rallies condoning the murders and using mosques to announce their list of those who (according to them) are wajibul qatal. Why shouldn’t they, indeed. Because who are they afraid of? Not the state, not the government, not the law. All three have simply capitulated in front of the psychosis that is ever so often being presented to us through TV talk shows, mosques and cyber space as the ‘true faith.’ Forget the state, the government and the law. One never knows where they stand on anything anyway. The government is weak and is more interested in its own Machiavellian survival, blackmailed into further submission and paranoia by an anarchic, double-talking group of allies and an opposition still stuck in limbo between Riyadh and Raiwind! And the state? Well, what can be expected from a state that has a history of both creating and hosting exactly the kind of faith-driven lunacy each and every Pakistani is now engulfed in? For years a convoluted narrative has been circulated by the state, the clergy, schools and now the electronic media: i.e. Pakistan was created in the name of Islam (read, a theocratic state). Thus, only Muslims (mainly orthodox Sunnis) have the right to rule, run and benefit from this country. ‘Minority’ religions and ‘heretical Islamic sects’, who are citizens of Pakistan are not to be trusted. They need to be isolated constitutionally, socially and culturally. What else? Yes, parliamentary democracy too cannot be trusted. It unleashes ethnic forces, ‘corruption’ and undermines the role of the military and that of Islam in the state’s make-up. It threatens the ‘unity’ of the country; a unity based on a homogeneous understanding of Islam (mainly concocted by the state and its right-wing allies). Most of our political, economic and social ills are due to the diabolical conspiracies hatched by our many enemies. Now the same state is struggling to control the glorified monsters that it created. These monsters have no fear of their creator. The state is hapless and stunned; only good to play silly games with its subjects. The Pakistani state is not grounded in reality. In fact it is not grounded at all. It is a fantasy that has now started to rot and look redundant. It is a 63-year-old daydream about being pious, just and strong. And yet it has been anything but. No one trusts the Pakistani state anymore – ironically not even those who want to make Pakistan look and sound macho, ghiaratmand and devout. Going fascist So now I wonder, who applauded the killing of a ‘blasphemer’ this time. Bhatti was shot not only because he was vocal about the controversies that surround and emerge from a man-made law that is considered divine, he was also shot because he was from a minority religion in this country. By the way, men like Taseer too are a minority: an orthodox Sunni Muslim but secular and liberal. Think about it. The state and its religious allies have for long collaborated to continue sidelining and alienating the non-Muslim and non-Sunni minorities, so much so that there are actually state-approved history text books out there which to allude them as enemies. It seems as though Pakistan’s survival can only be justified by the number of enemies we can concoct. As if there is no honour in being a country that does not have or cannot make any enemies. The whole ‘jihad’ industry that we have constructed, the fatwah factories and an army of twisted apologists, their performance and credibility is measured by the number of ‘enemies’ they can either kill or pinpoint. The bad news is that such beliefs are symptomatic of a society that has started to respond enthusiastically to the major symptoms of fascist thought. Symptoms such as a xenophobic exhibition of nationalism, a disdain for the recognition of human rights, identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause, supremacy of the military, obsession with national security, the intertwining of religion and government, disdain for intellectuals and the arts, and an obsession with crime and punishment. We do not debate. We only react and then huddle up behind our flimsy and lopsided historical and national narratives about ‘Pakistaniat’. We manifest our destiny as conquering Muslims, cursing the world for our ills, looking out for ‘infidels’ and ‘heretics’ among us, or for scapegoats in the shape of media-constructed punching bags. We are going nowhere. We are only busy constructing walls around ourselves. Societies that do this have lost their will to keep up with and positively compete with the world at large. It begins to isolate itself, cut-off from the outside world and only allowing itself to be compared to its own mediocrities. So then, the whole world is against us, right? But I am convinced once we have shut ourselves up from this cruel, scheming world, we will then turn on each another (actually, we already have). The goras have to go, then the religious minorities, the Shias, the liberals, the Sindhis and the Baloch and the Pukhtuns, the Deobandies and the Wahabis, the Barelvies will then begin cleansing ‘bad Muslims’ from among themselves. Qadris vs. the Chishtis vs. the Naqshbandis, and so on and so forth. Such madness can only vanish when it eats itself. Unfortunately, by then very few will be left to celebrate its end. http://blog.dawn.com/2011/03/02/another-death-another-day/
Karan114 Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 Genuinely scary stuff - seems like anyone holding a contrary opinion in that country will be hunted down and killed like Taseer and Bhatti.
bihutoli Posted March 3, 2011 Posted March 3, 2011 If they can't provide security to cabinet ministers who have a contrary view to islamists, how can the common ppl even voice any secular opinion. Expect widespread maulvi butt kissing in pakiland from now on.
ganeshran Posted March 3, 2011 Author Posted March 3, 2011 I fear Sherry Rehman is next on their list...
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