Clerics to launch campaign if blasphemy laws amended

Monday, December 13, 2010

Clerics to launch campaign if blasphemy laws amended

*	Six-member action committee formed to evolve future strategy

Staff Report

RAWALPINDI: All the religious parties of the country have announced to launch a movement, Tehreek Namoos-e-Risalat (TNR), against proposed amendments in the blasphemy laws, Markazi Jamaat Ahle Sunnat Ameer Pir Atiqur Rehman said on Sunday.

Talking to reporters after attending All Parties Namoos-e-Risalat conference, Pir Atiqur Rehman said that Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) President Dr Abul Khair Muhammad Zubair had been nominated as the convener of the newly formed group.

The conference was attended by Syed Munawar Hassan, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Professor Sajid Mir, Allama Sajid Naqvi, Mufti Muneebur Rehman, Dr Abul Khair Zubair, Pir Atiqur Rehman, Hamidul Haq Haqqani, Liaqat Baloch, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, Abdul Rauf Farooqi, Sikandar Abbas Gillani and Maulana Muhammad Abbas.

He said a six-member action committee, comprising Liaqat Baloch, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, Abdul Rauf Farooqi, Sikandar Abbas Gillani and Maulana Muhammad Abbas, had been formed to evolve future strategy of the TNR.

“The purpose of the meeting was to convey a message to the government that the nation would not tolerate any type of amendment in the blasphemy law, especially in the article 295-C of the constitution,” Dr Zubair said.

“The future strategy will be evolved in a meeting to be held in Islamabad on December 15,” he said.

Dr Zubair further said that the heads of all the five Wafaqul Madaris (religious educational boards) had also ratified the outcome of the conference.

He warned the rulers that if they dared to touch the blasphemy law, their government would not continue further as an organised protest campaign would be initiated throughout the country.

URL: www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\12\13\story_13-12-2010_pg7_13

Govt slammed for ‘failure’ to protect religious minorities

Monday, December 13, 2010

Govt slammed for ‘failure’ to protect religious minorities

By Afnan Khan

LAHORE: Noted human rights activists and members of persecuted communities in Pakistan censured the government for its rights record and failure to stop violence against minorities.

They said government’s failure to amend the blasphemy law exposed the fact that extremists were still very strong in the country and that the government was failing to protect the persecuted communities. Political parties only used the issue to take political mileage, they complained.

A senior official of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) Baseer Naweed told Daily Times that the commission has expressed deep concerns over the state of human rights in Pakistan in its annual report for 2010.

He said the report observed that the condition of human rights in Pakistan in 2010 remained grave. The AHRC has encountered cases and situations which indicated continued systematic abuse of human rights as well as areas critically affected by conflict and the absence of the rule of law, he added.

State actors, including police and judiciary, commonly perpetrate, permit and fail to punish egregious violations of human rights, especially against women and religious minorities. These violations include forced disappearances, torture, extra-judicial killings, disfiguring attacks on women, forced marriage and religious conversion, rape, domestic abuse, and other crimes.

However, the commission appreciated the government’s steps towards ending executions as not a single person was executed since November 2008 out of the approximately 7,500 prisoners on death row.

Minorities remain insecure and unprotected because of the misuse of blasphemy law and ineptness of the government and its authorities with regard to the actions of extremist groups. These groups enjoy impunity because of the government’s interest in political expediency and having supporters in powerful institutions like army and intelligence agencies, the report says.

It urged the government to withdraw all the reservations on the ICCPR and CAT and ratify it in its true spirit so that the law enforcement agencies are made accountable before the law. It also urged the government to stop the menace of torture in custody by any authority, whether it be police or army, and make torture a crime by law.

There is an urgent need of stopping the corruption at all levels while all forms of violence against women should carry proper punishments. It also demanded that journalists must be provided protection and those who attack, torture and kill them must be prosecuted.

Meanwhile, Jamaat Ahmadiyya spokesperson Saleemud Din told Daily Times that Ahmedi citizens were becoming worst victims of blasphemy law, and more than 3,500 criminal cases have been registered against Ahmedis throughout the country under various laws.

He said last year, 74 Ahmedis faced fresh charges while those who were charged under section 295-A have also been prosecuted in anti-terrorism courts. A total 98 Ahmedis were killed this year, while the number of total killings was 110 till 2009.

He said it was an alarming situation as a hate campaign against the community was in full swing right under the nose of government across the country while the extremists were building up their pressure and activities in Chenab Nagar and it could prove to be disastrous if no step was taken.

One of the victims of Gojra riots, Samson Suhail, and a rights activist, Nadeem Anthony, told Daily Times that minorities were feeling very disappointed as the government had failed to amend blasphemy law.

They said they were still determined to continue the struggle for their rights, as it was a matter of their survival. Grant of bail to those five people who were arrested after being shown in footage torching innocent Christians in Gojra has also discouraged the victims a lot, yet they were still determined to fight the case against extremists.

At least seven people, including women and children, were burnt alive by the extremist mobs in Gojra over the claims that some Christians in a nearby town of Korian had desecrated the holy Quran.

They said Almas Masih, who had lost his wife, brother and children, had to flee the country due to continuous death threats by the extremists for pursuing the case against them.

However, Pakistan People’s Party Minority Wing President Napoleon Qayoom told Daily Times that the government was keen to protect the rights of minorities.

He said President Asif Zardari himself ordered him to ensure justice to a Christian nurse who was allegedly raped by a doctor. The president also asked him to monitor distribution of relief goods among minorities after receiving news of discrimination by some local officials in Sukkur and nearby areas.

Napoleon admitted that government’s failure to amend the blasphemy law was a discouraging factor for minorities, yet he appreciated the fact that things were allowed to be openly discussed under the umbrella of the PPP government.

He said President Asif Zardari won the hearts of the people by his recent statement in which he called on the influential people to stand up for the rights of women and minorities. He said that PPP leadership was aware of the fact that the miscreants misused blasphemy law to settle scores with their rivals and a great struggle was required to end these laws.

URL: www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\12\13\story_13-12-2010_pg13_6

In the name of religion: 32 blasphemy cases in Sindh

PAKISTAN SINDH

In the name of religion: 32 blasphemy cases in Sindh

June 07, 2010

Not only the accused, but the legal community also faces the ire of vigilantes.

KARACHI: According to the Sindh police, 32 blasphemy cases have been registered in the province this year, which include five in Karachi, six in the Hyderabad region and 21 in the Sukkur region.

While the Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) has a record of 11 blasphemy cases registered in Karachi from January to December 7, 2010, the Karachi police say they have not registered any case this year.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) knows of one incident in Karachi this year – a conviction in a 2006 blasphemy case. HRCP says a total of 24 cases and convictions have been recorded in Pakistan in 2010. Blasphemy cases in Sindh are believed to be less in number than in Punjab. HRCP director and activist IA Rehman told The Express Tribune that this is because, “Anti-Ahmadi sentiment is more prevalent in Punjab, where politics is also mixed with religion. The issue of Ahmadis in Punjab is where the blasphemy laws arose from.”

However, like Punjab, blasphemy cases in Sindh have had violent outcomes. Since 1986, at least three people have been murdered after being charged under the blasphemy laws, according to data compiled by the HRCP and the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP). Jagdesh Kumar was killed in 2008 by colleagues at his workplace in Korangi, while Zafar Ahmad, from the Ahmadi community, was killed in Dadu in 2000. Anees Mallah, who was serving a jail term, was attacked by a mob of 200 people in the Sanghar prison on April 3, 2009. He was reportedly tortured before being shot dead. HRCP’s 2009 annual report quoted his brother as saying that he had been wrongly implicated. In March 2008, Mallah had crashed into a gate erected for a Milad event which angered the organisers, who implicated him in a blasphemy case.

According to the NCJP, three women have been accused in Sindh under the blasphemy laws. In 2009, Tabassum Malkana in Sanghar was accused of desecrating the Quran. In Karachi, Akhtari Begum was booked under Pakistan Penal Code Section 295-B in 2001 for claiming to be a prophet and Bushra Taseer was charged under Section 295-C in 1996 after a tailor alleged that she had given him cloth to stitch, which had a religious inscription on it.

A key issue in such cases is the lack of legal support and security for defendants and their legal counsel. Extra-judicial killings of those accused of blasphemy have taken place since 1990, but the legal community has also faced the ire. In 1997, Lahore High Court judge Arif Iqbal Bhatti, who had acquitted two Christians in a blasphemy case in 1995, was shot dead as he left the court.

Human rights lawyer Zia Awan says defending such cases “is a difficult job”. “We are living in a mad country. Even Islam allows people to defend themselves and so does our law. But the government should arrange for lawyers to defend those accused of blasphemy and provide protection to lawyers in such cases,” he told The Express Tribune. “Prosecutors of anti-terrorism courts recently went on strike for the same reason – to demand that they be provided security to do their job.”

I A Rehman says, “There are also professional complainants who accuse people of having committed blasphemy. Such people are present in Sindh too but in a smaller number.”

In May 2010, two Christian couples residing in Karachi were reportedly accused of blasphemy and went into hiding. According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, seven Hindus from the Bheemo Mal Megwar Para area in Mirpurkhas were reportedly arrested on blasphemy charges in August 2010 after an attack on August 23 by the area’s Muslim residents on a Hindu settlement.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13th, 2010.

URL: http://tribune.com.pk/story/89374/in-the-name-of-religion-32-blasphemy-cases-in-sindh/

Blasphemy killings: 15 of 34 murdered were Muslims

Pakistan

Blasphemy killings: 15 of 34 murdered were Muslims

December 07, 2010

Human rights organisations urge immediate repeal of blasphemy laws.

LAHORE: A total of 34 people were killed extra judicially in Pakistan during 1990-2010 following charges of blasphemy, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The information obtained by the Tribune revealed that 15 of those killed were Muslims and 31 were killed in the Punjab.

16 of the murdered people were Christians, 15 Muslims, two Ahmadis and one a Hindu. All these people accused, of crimes under the blasphemy laws, were either killed extra judicially or found dead in prison under dubious circumstances.

Eight of these people died in the police custody. Five were killed by the police. One of them committed suicide and two were found dead in prison with the cause of their death unknown. Dr Mehdi Hasan, Human Right Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) chairperson, said that he believed that the extrajudicial killings raised questions in relations to the failure of the police security. “The HRCP has always been condemning such tragic incidents. We have long been campaigning for repeal of these laws,” he added.

Ali Dayan Hasan, the senior South Asia researcher at the Human Rights Watch, said that Pakistan would remain a laboratory for rights abuse in the name of religion if blasphemy laws were not repealed.

National Commission for Peace and Justice (NCPJ) is among the organisations calling for blasphemy laws repeal. NCPJ Executive Secretary Peter Jacob said, “In a society like Pakistan where people can be easily instigated into taking law in their hands, such laws should be immediately abolished.”

Religious scholar Javed Ahmad Ghamidi said that the Quran does not lay down a punishment for blasphemy. “In talking about these laws, one should understand the circumstances in which Ziaul Haq introduced them,” he said. He also said that the current laws were not Islamic.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7th, 2010.

URL: http://tribune.com.pk/story/86694/blasphemy-killings-15-of-34-murdered-were-muslims/