Defiance of law: Tahaffuz rally speakers threaten courts

PAKISTAN PUNJAB

Defiance of law: Tahaffuz rally speakers threaten courts

Rana Tanveer
January 18, 2010

In yet another rally TNRM leaders said they will respect no law if blasphemy laws are touched. PHOTOS: EXPRESS/ABID NAWAZ

LAHORE: The Mall saw yet another rally on Monday organised by Tahaffuz Namoos-i-Risalat Mahaz (TNRM). Several speakers at the rally lauded Mumtaz Qadri, the confessed killer of Governor Salmaan Taseer, and warned the courts of stiff reprimand if any order was passed against him.

Most shops and offices on The Mall were closed during the four hours the rally took to make its way from Data Darbar to the Governor’s House.

TNRM, a coalition of eight Sunni parties, organised the rally to pay tributes to the police guard who shot Taseer dead on January 4.

Speakers said there could be no punishment for Qadri and demanded his early release. TNRM vice president Dr Ashraf Jalali, who led the rally, told the participants that if Qadri was punished they would hold a long march to Islamabad and snatch all those responsible for it out of their offices. Jalali also issued a warning to the media not to extend invitations to those who criticised Qadri or spoke in favour of amending the blasphemy laws. “Mumtaz Hussain Qadri is a hero of the Muslim ummah. Whoever criticises him or Section 295-C will have their tongues pulled out.”

Jalali praised the police deployed in front of the Governor’s House saying that Qadri’s act had lifted the status of the entire police force.

The rally goers and their leaders chanted slogans against Taseer. The participants burnt pictures of President Asif Ali Zardari and other Pakistan Peoples Party leaders.

The 3,000 or so participants brought traffic and businesses on the The Mall to a stop. Roads leading to The Mall were choked with traffic and it seemed as if city life had come to a standstill for the hours the rally was in progress. Shops and offices on The Mall were closed for fear of a flare up but no untoward incident was reported.

Punjab Assembly members got their share of the firebrands’ wrath as they passed the Assembly building. “We curse every member of the Punjab Assembly for carrying a resolution in favour of Salmaan Taseer,” said a rally leader.

Some lawyers were also spotted in the rally. Advocate Chaudhry Mushtaq Ahmed ‘congratulated’ the participants on Taseer’s death and said if Section 295-C was removed they would obey no laws. But, he also said no law was actually needed to deal with blasphemers as a few “true Muslims” were all it required to deal with them. He said no lawyer would appear before the court to prosecute Taseer’s murder.

Maulana Tasadduq Hussain, a Jaamiat Ulema Pakistan leader, said the media only invited a certain kind of religious scholar to debate blasphemy issues. He said those favouring Taseer or criticising Qadri were enemies of Islam.

TNRM secretary general Muhammad Ali Naqashbandi said the media should invite TNRM scholars for debate on blasphemy issues. He condemned the media for inviting ‘improper’ scholars to their talk shows.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18th, 2011.

URL: http://tribune.com.pk/story/104903/jamaat-ud...violence/

Jamaat-ud-Dawa rally: Banned outfit incites violence

PAKISTAN

Jamaat-ud-Dawa rally: Banned outfit incites violence

Rana Tanveer
January 17, 2011

Clerics warned the media against criticising religious decrees.

LAHORE: Shockingly, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an organisation proscribed since the Mumbai terrorist attacks, not only managed to organise a sizeable rally, but clerics invited to speak during the demonstration spewed hate speech upon hate speech, targeted minorities, incited people to violence with impunity and roused people to adopt the ‘way of jihad’.

Despite the presence of clear cut laws, speakers “praised” the actions of the self-confessed killer of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer and warned media commentators against what they termed being critical of fatwas (religious decrees)” while discussing blasphemy matters.

Head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s political affairs wing Prof Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki said that anyone “supporting a blasphemer is also a blasphemer and both must meet the same fate”.

Hundreds of Jamaat-ud-Dawa activists and their sympathisers initially assembled near Nasir Bagh and started marching towards the Punjab Assembly building on The Mall.

Hafiz Makki said that Taseer had been assassinated because the government had not “educated him” about being careful on sensitive issues before appointing him as the provincial governor.

He said matters concerning blasphemy “are like (a live) high-tension wire with more than 11,000 volts … whoever touches (it) would be reduced to nought”.

Highly charged marchers, carrying placards declaring a ‘holy war against elements conspiring against Islam’, ripped away signboards and streamers in favour of the slain governor and surprisingly also in favour of his successor, Latif Khosa.

Endorsing Mumtaz Hussain Qadri’s actions, Hafiz Makki said the man had played “his due role and police department should be proud of … such a (true) lover of Holy Prophet (Pbuh)”.

Chagrined at Pope Benedict XVI’s statement in which he had urged the Pakistani government to “repeal” blasphemy laws, the speakers went ballistic and warned Christians and Jews “everywhere” that Muslims were “ready to take extreme action”. At one point, Hafiz Makki even urged all Christians to “convert to Islam”.

Warning people who had presented a “gift of tears for Taseer”, Hafiz Makki said that there would be more weeping in the days ahead, adding: “What is the death of one man (Taseer) when so many (people) are (being) killed on the streets daily?”

Earlier, Convener of Tehreek Hurmat-e-Rasool (Pbuh) Maulana Ameer Hamza said that whoever “commits blasphemy revokes his right to life”.

Addressing President Asif Ali Zardari, Maulana Hamza said: “You should know that we will not allow you to free Aasia (Bibi),” adding in an offensive manner to take “this opportunity to convey the same message” to President Barack Obama.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2011.

URL: http://tribune.com.pk/story/104903/jamaat...violence/

Pakistan’s Punjab region on knife-edge as extremists take hold, says governor

---Guardian, UK

News > World > Pakistan

Pakistan’s Punjab region on knife-edge as extremists take hold, says governor
Politicians accused of backing banned groups as minorities suffer violence and intimidation
Saeed Shah Faisalabad
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 April 2010 19.31 BST

Pakistan’s heartland Punjab province is an extremist “bomb” ready to explode, the region’s highest official has warned, with the recent targeting of minority groups seen by some as evidence of jihadists’ grip on the area.

The provincial governor accused the regional government, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s party, of tolerating or even supporting extremists, who are said to operate openly in Punjab free from the military operations waged against Taliban guerrillas in the area bordering Afghanistan.

“The Sharifs are creating a potential bomb here in Punjab,” said Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, who was appointed by the national government. “These [militant] groups are armed and dangerous. There is no way you can accommodate these people. There has to be zero tolerance.”

In recent weeks, a spate of armed robberies and kidnappings of the Ahmedi sect in the city of Faisalabad was traced to members of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the group previously known as Lashkar-e-Taiba that was blamed for the devastating 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai. Three Ahmedis were also shot dead, thought to be the work of the same group.

Sharif’s opponents accuse his party, the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N – whose support comes partly from the religious right – of accommodating extremists such as Sipah-e-Sahaba, a banned sectarian group blamed for the deaths of hundreds of Shias.

In Jhang town, a byelection last month saw Sharif’s party openly court Sipah-e-Sahaba supporters. Punjab’s law minister, Rana Sanaullah, was pictured on the campaign trail with the alleged head of the group, Ahmed Ludhianvi.

Experts believe that the Pakistani Taliban is deeply influenced by Sipah-e-Sahaba, with the Taliban’s leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, a former member.

Sheikh Waqas Akram, an opposition member of parliament from Jhang, which is the headquarters of Sipah-e-Sahaba, likened the situation in Punjab to the Swat valley, where official inaction allowed the Taliban to take over in 2008. “There can be 10 Swats in Punjab, if you don’t check them [extremists],“ said Akram.

But Sanaullah denied the claims, saying that while banned groups operated in the province there was no “Talibanisation” in Punjab. “Not a single street where you can say there is a no-go area,” he said.

Sanaullah said that groups based in the north-west were behind the terrorist attacks in Punjab, not local organisations, adding that “95% of the people of Sipah-e-Sahaba are not terrorists”. He said: “We must persuade these persons to put aside their guns, to participate in elections. They have the right to vote, so why can’t I ask them [Sipah-e-Sahaba] for votes?“

Over the last year the affluent Ahmedi community in Faisalabad has been rocked by a campaign of violence and intimidation, which intensified in recent weeks. Ahmedi are classified as non-Muslims under Pakistani law, for believing that Muhammad was not the final prophet.

Police arrested four suspects last month. Three days later, on 1 April, three members of an Ahmedi family were shot dead as they returned from work. Their car was sprayed with bullets, in what police believe was a “very professional” hit and possible revenge for the arrests.

“The four people in jail are in Jamaat-ud-Dawa,” said senior Faisalabad police officer Abid Hussain. “They told us that they got a decree from a maulvi (priest) in their group that says that robbing, kidnapping and killing Ahmedis is allowed and would be rewarded in heaven.”

The city’s Ahmedi community have restricted their movements and some have hired bodyguards.

“We are now scared to leave the house, when the door bell rings, we are frightened about who might be there. Outside, we feel always like someone is following us,” said Mohammad Iqbal Ahmed, whose son and nephew were kidnapped in March and returned after the payment of a £20,000 ransom.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
URL : www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/29/pakistan-punjab-taliban