The unholy law

It is widely believed that the draconian Blasphemy Law is used for the miscarriage of justice; it is exploited ruthlessly by fanatics to settle scores with rivals and by religio-political parties to gain political leverage over administrative apparatuses.

In Jawaid Ghamdi’s book, The Penal Shariah of Islam, Ghamdi maintains that capital punishment can only be given to a person who has killed someone, or to someone who is guilty of spreading disorder in society. With reasonable certainty, during a seminar organised by People’s Resistance (PR), Islamic scholar Dr. Khalid Zaheer confirmed the notion that there is no blasphemy law in Islam.

Despite the fact that the law has no Islamic underpinnings, successive democratically elected governments in Pakistan have proved reluctant to remove this controversial law from the books. The fact is, the law has little to do with religion, and everything to do with the changing socio-political climate in Pakistan. It is important to remember that the Blasphemy Law emerged – and endures – in a particular social context, and is thus beholden to the history of Pakistan. Here, Dawn.com contextualises the law and maps the reasons for its resilience.

A numbers game

The Pakistani Blasphemy Law originated from the 1860 British Penal Code, which contained a few clauses that protected the interests of diverse religious groups in undivided India. From 1984 to 2004, 5,000 cases of blasphemy were registered in Pakistan and 964 people were charged and accused of blasphemy; 479 Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus and 10 others. Thirty-two people charged with blasphemy had been killed extra-judicially. Eighty-six percent of all the cases were reported in Punjab.

Pakistan’s minorities

The religious minority demographic of Pakistan’s population is 3.7 per cent (an estimated six million). There are approximately 30,000 Sikhs, 20,000 Buddhists, 1,822 Parsis, and 600,000 Ahmadis (an exact estimate is difficult to obtain because of their reluctance to register as non-Muslims in the census). Other religious groups are Bhais, Kalasha, Kihals and Jains.

Hindus and Christians are the two biggest minorities. They comprise 83 per cent of the non-Muslim population in Pakistan. Ninety-three per cent (2.4 million) of all Hindus live in Sindh and 81 per cent (2 million) of Christians live in the Punjab. Those accused of blasphemy over the years primarily hail from the following divisions of the Punjab: Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Toba Tek Singh, Jhang Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot and Sargodha.

Urbanisation is providing opportunities to minorities for upward social mobility, which in turn is perpetuating awareness about individual rights and their assertion in the public spheres. For the feudal mindset, this empowerment has become a challenge and the blasphemy law is providing a way for landowners – as well as those dependent on the landowners’ good favour – to keep minority subjects in fear, and thus under control. Increasingly radicalised mullahs in rural areas are helping landowners maintain their stranglehold over minority workers.

Divide and school

The radicalisation of Pakistani society, which manifests as a heightened intolerance for religious minorities, has been traced back to various social developments. One of them is the mushrooming growth of madrassahs in Pakistan, a phenomenon perpetuated by the Afghan war. Historically, madrassahs were considered a particular type of educational institution and never confronted the state as an institution, though they are responsible for creating a stringently static mindset.

Madrassahs have become important and influential; Pakistan has 16,059 high schools and 15,725 madrasahs: the total high school population stands at 1.6 million while there are an estimated 1.5 million madrassah students (though a group of researchers has claimed that madrassahs accounts for less than one per cent of enrollment). Madrassahs are in the forefront of producing a particular world view based on Alam-e-Islam (World of Islam) and Alam-e-Kufr (World of Infidels).

The Maududi mindset

Meanwhile, the new influence of religion in the political sphere has contributed to the persistence of the Blasphemy Law. In the twentieth century, the politicalisation of religion was mainly a reaction to the colonisation of Muslim lands by western powers. Religion played an effective motivating role for political parties seeking independence of their homeland. As politics and religion collided, Islam seeped out of the madrassahs and into modern educational institutions.

The Maududi mindset is a product of the above-mentioned paradigm shift, and served to facilitate the entrenchment of Political Islam. It was no accident that Syed Maududi of the Jamaat-e-Islami, in a quest for a holy community and with aspirations of dominating the state apparatus, demanded an Islamic system of governance for this nascent state.

This and other pressures exerted by Maududi and his accomplices later translated into The Objectives Resolution, the anti-Ahmadi movement of 1953, and the declaration that no non-Muslim could be the head of the state in the Constitution of Pakistan. Maududi’s legacy eventually prompted General Ziaul Haq to revive the British-era Blasphemy Law, but in a skewed fashion.

Reality reassembled

Pakistani society was also polarised by Gen Zia’s introduction of a separate electorate in 1985. It was another major step to reduce the status of minorities. Earlier, in the joint electorate system, the minorities still had some clout as a representative could not ignore the votes of non-Muslim constituencies. But by introducing a separate electorate, the military dictator isolated Christian voters.

A majority of Christians, who had earlier supported mainstream parties and were aware of the larger issues facing the country, lost sight of this wider view – the Christian vote became mired in personal and religious issues. The divide was particularly evident with regards to sensitive issues like imposition of Shariah, Hudood Ordinance and the efforts for the repeal of the Blasphemy Law. Although the separate electorate law was done away with in 2002, the damage over 17 years had taken a toll and Pakistan’s Christians found themselves politically marginalised.

Mission of hate

The culture of Political Islam and ‘jihad’ in the 1980s also led to the widespread dissemination of anti-minority propaganda. Hate literature was constantly churned out by various religio-political groups that spat venom not only on non-Muslims, but also against other Muslim sects.

Under the Pakistan Penal Code in 2006, the government banned 16 books, 12 weekly magazines, 9 monthlies and one daily newspaper to discourage the circulation of hate material. In 2005, the government had already banned about 133 publications. The amount of money spent by extremist organisations to produce offensive literature still runs into millions of rupees every month. Inevitably, the literature targets Shias, Ahmadis and Christians, and is freely available in the areas of operation of sectarian and ‘jihadi’ organisations.

The defunct Sipahe-e-Sahaba Pakistan (now operating under the name of Ahle Sunnat wal-Jammat Pakistan) used to distribute more than a dozen pamphlets and booklets in which so-called ‘objectionable material’ from Shia history books was reproduced, and readers were urged to get rid of these ‘blasphemers.’ It is disappointing to note that this hate literature is popular amongst various government offices and as recently as 2005 was openly found on the tables of government officials. In the face of such official apathy, and in some cases, complicity, it is no wonder that accusations of blasphemy were frequent in the Punjab, which is home to most sectarian outfits.

Revisiting the law in Pakistan

The extremist organisations’ incitements to hate and violence have sadly turned into actions and reality have a direct bearing on the public’s conduct towards minorities, particularly those accused of blasphemy. A review of major blasphemy cases over the last 26 years and interviews with the accused revealed that the law is used by zealots to suppress liberals and others who think differently. Over the years, it has become evident that the Blasphemy Law singles out non-Muslims for persecution.

Non-Muslims who offer a rebuttal to the abuse of radicalised clerics and youngsters are branded as criminals guilty of blasphemy. The judiciary, meanwhile, faces perpetual pressure from the fanatics, a pressure that jeopardises the delivery of justice.

It has been reported that for the safety of the accused, cases have been transferred from the courts to other ‘safer’ locations. These measures have caused hardships to the accused and his/her family. Still, in many cases, the accused in a blasphemy case was killed extra-judicially because imams incite people and issue fatwas urging the public to kill the alleged blasphemer. In some cases it was also observed that the religious affiliation of the law-enforcers eclipsed their professional mandate as they became party to attacks against blasphemy accused.

In other Muslim countries, blasphemy is dealt with under state law instead of Sharia law. For example, in Indonesia, the maximum penalty for a convict under is five years imprisonment. In 1994, Maulana Kausar Niazi, former Chairman of Islamic Ideology Council, remarked that Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law needed modification, while noted intellectual Akbar S. Ahmed stated that the law was mostly invoked to put an end to political vendettas, land disputes and political rivalry.

At the recent PR seminar, Dr. Zaheer mentioned that even though there are several mentions of blasphemy committed by the polytheists of Makkah and hypocrites of Madinah against Islam and its Prophet (PBUH), no worldly punishment has even been hinted at in the Qur'an.

Instead, the Qur'an urges Muslims to ignore what the blasphemers were doing, to not participate when they blaspheme, and create circumstances that do not allow blasphemy to take place. Dr. Zaheer pointed out that Muslims must apologise to non-Muslims for the unwarranted crimes in the past committed against them in the name of religion to ease tensions. He stated that Muslims should condemn, or at least not hold those individuals as their heroes, who murdered non-Muslims accused of blasphemy because they become inspirational to the youth of the community.

If a Blasphemy Law must exist, from an Islamic point of view, Dr. Zaheer believes it must satisfy the following conditions:

a) Capital punishment cannot be given to a person who is found guilty of committing blasphemy. According to the Qur'an, capital punishment can only be given to murderers and those who take the law into their hands. (Qur'an; 5:32)

b) The punishment should be applicable to those found guilty of blasphemy against revered personalities, deities of all faiths and it should be equally applicable to both Muslims and non-Muslims. The Qur'an says: "Don't use abusive language against their false gods lest they should use the same language against yours in retaliation." (Qur'an; 6:108)

Ultimately, though, most civil society participants in the debate on the blasphemy law believe that to ensure the fundamental human rights of all citizens, irrespective of class, caste and creed, as envisaged by Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the current government needs to repeal the law without further delay.


Mansoor Raza is a Karachi-based researcher affiliated with an international NGO, and can be reached at mansooraza@gmail.com.

Pakistan: Faisalabad, young Christian sentenced to life imprisonment for blasphemy

Imran Masih, a 26 year-old businessman, indicted for burning pages of the Koran. Before his arrest he had been tortured by a gang of Muslims. Catholic activists: artfully fabricated accusations, we will seek to "save his life". Calls for reforms and constitutional bans on religious parties, the ...

Faisalabad - A court in Faisalabad sentenced to life imprisonment Imran Masih, a young Christian, for having insulted and desecrated the Koran. Additional session judge, Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan, handed down the sentence under Article 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code - better known as the blasphemy law - because the 26 year old apparently burnt verses from the Koran and a book in Arabic "on purpose", to "stir up religious hatred and offend the feelings of Muslims." Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) of the Catholic Church, promises to “battle to save his life. "

On July 1, 2009 Masih, a shopkeeper by profession, was brutally tortured by a group of Muslims, then arrested by police on charges – perfectly fabricated- that he had burned pages of the Koran. On 11 January, the judge sentenced him to prison for life, which he will serve in the federal prison in Faisalabad where he is currently confined. The court also imposed an additional penalty of 10 years' imprisonment and payment of 100 thousand rupees (just over 800 euro), under section 295-A of the Penal Code.

Peter Jacob, executive secretary of NCJP, while not openly criticizing the ruling, speaks of " not a good verdict " and "lack of freedom" of the judiciary. The Catholic activist announces appeal to the High Court and promises that "we will do our best to save his life", because all these cases of blasphemy "are perfectly fabricated."

The Catholic Commission also calls for "serious constitutional and legal reforms" to root out extremism and the abuse of religion in the politics of Pakistan. "Religion - reads a NCJP document - is the main pretext in the hands of Religio-political parties, who played a major role in bringing the country to this edge."

Archbishop Lawrence John Saldanha and Peter Jacob, President and Executive Secretary of NCJP, stress that " Pakistan should draw a lesson from Bangladesh”, referring to the recent verdict of Bangladesh court that barred religion in politics "The affairs of state and the politics - highlight the Catholic leaders - should be treated independently, not covered by the cloak of religion" because they end up isolating the minority and denied their rights.

The blasphemy law was introduced in 1986 by Pakistani dictator Zia-ul-Haq and has become an instrument of discrimination and violence. The norm is contained in Section 295, paragraph B and C of Pakistan Penal Code and punishes with life imprisonment those who offendsthe Koran and with the sentencing to death those who insult the Prophet Muhammad. Based on NCJP data there are nearly 1000 indictees. It also provides a pretext for attacks, personal vendettas or extra-judicial killings: 33 in all, made by individuals or angry crowds.

(Spero)

The 2,700 year old Pashtun link to Israel

A genetic study to investigate a connection between the lost tribes of Israel and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan will be funded by Israel, according to a report in The Observer.

Israeli anthropologists have claimed that the Pashtuns may be one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel in light of longstanding historical and anecdotal evidence. No scientific proof has ever been able to demonstrate a conclusive link.

However, an Indian researcher based at the National Institute of Immuno-haemotology in Mumbai will now spend time at a leading Israeli institute, Technion to study the findings of her research. Shahnaz Ali collected the blood-samples from members of the Pashtun Afridi tribe living near Lucknow, India. Previous research in a similar area failed to determine a link either way.

According to the report, 10 of the original 12 tribes of Israel were pushed into exile 2,730 years ago when the Assyrians conquered the kingdom of Israel. Modern-day Jews belong to the two remaining tribes of Benjamin and Judah, according to Jewish history. Ever since, speculation has centered on the exact whereabouts of the lost tribes. Claims of their traces in China, Burma, Nigeria and Central Asia have been offered in the past. It is believed that the tribes settled in areas around latter-day Northern Iraq and Afghanistan therefore making the Pashtun link the most compelling.

Navraas Aafreedi, an academic at Lucknow University said, “Pathans, or Pashtuns, are the only people in the world whose probable descent from the lost tribes of Israel finds mention in a number of texts from the 10th century to the present day, written by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as secularists.”

However, Ali still remainsl cautious. "The theory has been a matter of curiosity since long ago, and now I hope a scientific analysis will provide us with some answers about the Israelite origin of Afridi Pathans. We still don't know what the truth is, but efforts will certainly give us a direction," she told the Times of India last year.

(Dawn)

Building barriers instead of bridges

By Irfan Husain

Wednesday, 13 Jan, 2010 | 12:22 PM PST |

News from Cairo and Kuala Lumpur over the last week is a clear sign of the intolerant times we live in. In Egypt, drive-by killers have murdered several Coptic Christians as they were leaving church, sparking riots that left more people dead. And in Malaysia, half a dozen churches have been torched or attacked.

Not on the same savage scale, but nevertheless an indicator of the rising resentment of the ‘Other’ was the Swiss referendum that banned the building of minarets. Around the world, friction between faiths is increasing, and is being fuelled by fanatics and the reactionary media that has become a global phenomenon.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The Age of Reason that illuminated the human mind in the late 18th century held out the promise of putting logic and rationality at centre stage. But conflicting ideologies overwhelmed this appeal to reason: the 20th century was marked by bloody slaughter as Communism, National Socialism and Capitalism fought to establish their dominance.

If these manmade ideologies can excite such a killing frenzy, how much more potent is religious faith? As previous centuries have shown, no major religion is exempt from the perceived need to foist it over non-believers. This is truer of the monotheistic belief systems than of others. Christianity produced the Crusades and the Hundred Year War. Its missionaries travelled to the far corners of the globe in the wake of colonial armies to convert the ‘heathen’.

In the 8th century, the armies of Islam swept across much of the known world in a bid to spread the faith. The Muslim Ottomans of Turkey continued this westward push, and for centuries, Christian Europe was locked in battle with the Turks. The tide turned outside the gates of Vienna in the 17th century, and ever since, Muslims have seen themselves at the receiving end of Christian domination and oppression.

This titanic, existential struggle continues to sear the worldview of millions of Muslims around the world. Their perception of the Christian West as an arrogant, rapacious power was reinforced by the colonial experience. Now, they see themselves as victims of a rampaging American war machine that is pursuing a millennium-old anti-Muslim agenda.

Against this backdrop of ancient enmity and unceasing rancour, millions of Muslims view any attack against the hated West as something to cheer. Even if these terrorist atrocities are mere pinpricks, they draw applause from many Muslims blinded by hate. United in their anti-West sentiments and by the concept of the ummah, millions of Muslims overlook their national self-interest as they applaud and support the nihilistic forces unleashed in the name of jihad. They also forget that far more Muslims have died at the hands of their fellow Muslims than have fallen in battle against Western powers.

Returning to the current manifestation of this conflict, Christians living in many Muslim countries are often viewed as Western agents, even though they are ethnically of the same stock as the majority population. For instance, the Coptic presence in Egypt predates the Muslims by over six hundred years.

In Pakistan, this anti-Christian sentiment has been growing ever since Zia’s self-serving policies that gave rise to the extremism that is devouring Pakistan today. Churches and poor Christian communities have been repeatedly attacked. Together with Hindus, most Pakistani Christians remain amongst the lowest of the low.

In Malaysia, the trigger for this recent bout of anti-Christian frenzy was a High Court decision that allowed non-Muslims to use ‘Allah’ to denote their deity. It struck me as odd that this matter was the subject of judicial review at all. After all, every religion claims that its god is the creator of the whole world. Islam is no exception. That being so, why should anybody object if their term for the Maker is used by others?

More and more, people are becoming exclusivist in their approach to religion. A Muslim website advises believers not to socialise with non-Muslims unless it’s strictly necessary. Rehman Malik, our Interior Minister, said in the wake of the deadly Ashura bombing in Karachi that the perpetrators were ‘worse than the non-believers’. The obvious implication here is that non-Muslims are terrible people, but those responsible for the recent atrocity are even worse. Actually, all the indices and surveys show that non-Muslim societies are generally freer of corruption and crime than Muslim countries.

Ever since 9/11, the ongoing conflict is being defined on both sides as a war between Christianity and Islam. Opinion polls across much of the Muslim world indicate that the United States is viewed as the villain. Even when it has rallied to a Muslim cause, as it did in Bosnia and Kosovo, its motives are suspect in the eyes of many Muslims.

Much of this irrational attitude is due to impotent rage; but it has been fuelled by American policies as well. Chief among these is the blank cheque handed over to Israel. In a sense, the plight of the Palestinians has come to symbolise the weakness of the Muslim world. On the other side of the coin, Israel is viewed as Washington’s agent in humiliating both the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours. In this black-and-white take on the conflict, the Jewish narrative of persecution and genocide is forgotten, as is the criminal Arab culpability in losing war after war to the tiny Zionist state.

Mankind’s slow rise has been marked by suspicion and warfare between tribes and nations. After the great bloodletting of the first and second World Wars, there was some hope that humanity would learn some lessons and avoid warfare as a means of settling our differences. The League of Nations and the United Nations were the concrete expressions of these idealistic aspirations.

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, there was renewed hope that the end of the Cold War would finally usher in the dawn of a peaceful era. Alas, the last two decades have been bloodier than the previous twenty years.

As the United States emerged as the only superpower after the end of the Soviet Union, extremists saw suicide attacks as their only means of resisting American firepower. And although terrorism is a weapon of the weak, it remains a deadly one.

Today, instead of building bridges, we are all busy erecting barriers. Unless we can tear them down, the world will become an even messier place.

(Dawn)

Christian man 'murdered' in Pakistan prison for not paying bribe

Islamabad, Jan 8 : An Asian rights group has accused Pakistani police of extra judicial killing of a 31-year-old man of a minority community who had refused to pay Eid "bribe" to cops.

The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) Friday wrote to the UN special rapporteur on torture, extra-judicial killings calling for its intervention into the murder of Abid Javed Francis, 31, who was arrested "without charge" and later tortured to death in a police station.

IANS has a copy of the letter and case details.

Francis was "beaten and abused in a number of police stations and Karachi central prison for not paying bribes in the lead up to Eid, and was thrashed in front of his mother Venice alias Zeenat", the AHRC alleges.

According to the rights group, the medico-legal department of a Karachi hospital has confirmed that the man's death was caused by the "injuries he received during the custodial period".

"No action has yet been taken by the Sindh provincial government," the AHRC letter says demanding prosecution of 11 accused police officers, including the superintendent of Karachi central prison.

Francis, an electrician by profession, was a Christian and was arrested Nov 22 last year.

The police first demanded "Rs.10,000 (USD 125) and later Rs.50,000 (USD 625) in bribe from his family that resides in a slum settlement".

Police blackmailed the victim by filing a false case of possessing illegal arms and the charge was logged through FIR two days after his arrest.

Ten minutes after the first FIR was filed, Francis was charged with stealing a motorbike.

On Dec 7, his mother was informed that her son was ill and when she went to see him she found him "stripped to his underwear, on a stretcher in an open area, exposed to chill".

"He was on a glucose drip, unable to open his eyes. Due to her protests he was moved to a civil hospital in Karachi. Doctors took a CT scan of the victim's head and moved him to the neurology ward, where he was pronounced dead Dec 10," according to the AHRC letter.

Gojra report proposes amending blasphemy laws

* Tribunal calls for immediate action against those responsible

* Calls for capacity building of law-enforcement agencies *

Identifies factors that led to riots

FAISALABAD: An inquiry report on riots in Gojra in August – which killed several people – proposes amendments to the blasphemy laws. An inquiry tribunal – headed by Lahore High Court Judge Iqbal Hameedur Rehman and tasked with looking into the tragedy that killed seven people – also warned the government on Sunday that “the Gojra tragedy must be taken seriously and the needful [should] be done on war-footing without further loss of time”. The violent protests in Gojra triggered ethnic tensions and resulted in the displacement of 96 Christian families. The inquiry tribunal notes in the report that the country is already facing grave challenges in the form of terrorism and militancy – which, in addition to destroying the economy, have “disfigured our national image all over the world ... we cannot afford any other menace, [such as] sectarian disputes”. It says efforts to control such unrest must begin immediately. The 258-page report recommends action “without any discrimination against those responsible for commission and omission”. The report also proposes amendments to Pakistan Penal Code sections 295, 295-A, 295-B, 295-C, 296, 297, 298, 298-A, 298-B, 298-C, anti-blasphemy laws, relevant provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code and the Police Order 2002. It recommends that federal intelligence agencies be mandated to provide “first-hand information at the divisional level”. It also calls for the capacity building of the Special Branch, the establishment of a special force for the protection and protocol of VIPs and other vulnerable persons, the exclusion of district nazims in issues related to law and order, the establishment of intelligence and crime prevention branches, rules for effective utilisation of police in terms of Article 112 of Police Order 2002, the constitution of a district religious dispute resolution board, and categorisation of districts on the basis of sensitivity. The tribunal reached the conclusion that the riots were a result of the “inability of law-enforcement agencies to assess the gravity of the situation, inadequate precautionary and preventive measures taken by law-enforcement agencies, a lukewarm stance by the Toba Tek Singh DPO, the failure of intelligence agencies in providing prompt and correct information, a defective security plan, the irresponsible behaviour of the administration, the complete failure of police while discharging their duties, the non-enforcement of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, omissions to take steps under sections 107 and 151 of the CrPC, the lack of a decision to invoke the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) 1960 – which amounts to letting the miscreants loose to wreak havoc during the course of the riots – and several other factors”. app

Questions of identity and loyalty

By Irfan Husain Wednesday, 18 Nov, 2009

IMAGINE if a Hindu or Christian officer in the Pakistan army had shot dead 13 soldiers and wounded 40 in a lethal rampage. Think of the backlash in a country where our minorities are so badly treated at the best of times.

Fortunately, beyond heated speculation about his motive, and the odd threat, there has been no violence following Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s unprovoked attack on his fellow soldiers at the US army base in Fort Hood in Texas.

One line of investigation is the extent to which he acted out of an impulse to kill American soldiers. Among the many articles about this outrage posted on the internet was a presentation he gave to fellow doctors at an army facility a few months before the attack. While he was supposed to speak about a medical topic, he suddenly veered off into a long and detailed exposition about the duties of Muslim soldiers fighting for the American government.
Many of the audience were horrified at the extreme views Major Hasan expressed.
Investigators have also found an exchange of emails between the psychiatrist and an extremist preacher in Yemen. In addition, there have been some money transfers to Pakistan that have excited interest. Now, questions are being asked about why all these facts and views had not alerted the authorities to Hasan’s Islamist ideology.

Clearly, here is a case of divided loyalties. While many of us feel the tug of competing philosophies, we generally compromise and muddle along without resorting to such violent actions to resolve the contradictions of modern life.

Although being a doctor, he was not required to fight other Muslims, Hasan still felt uneasy at the prospect of serving in Afghanistan or Iraq. The fact is that he had other options to pulling the trigger: he could have resigned his commission, or refused to serve as a conscientious objector, and accepted the consequences. The fact that he decided to turn his gun on his fellow soldiers speaks of an extremist mindset, rather than a troubled mind.

In the 21st century, as unprecedented numbers move from their homeland to distant lands to seek a better life, questions of identity and loyalty are assuming greater urgency.
In Major Hasan’s case, he was clearly torn between his religious belief and his professional loyalty to the US army. The conflict arose when he was told he would soon be sent to serve in a country where the US was at war against Muslims.

Normally, people are not asked to make such stark choices when they migrate. A shopkeeper or a farm worker just gets on with his life, trying to save money for his family. But if they are Muslims, their loyalty to their host country is increasingly suspect in a post-9/11 world.
However, this inner conflict over loyalty and identity is not limited to Muslims: many American Jews have dual nationality, and soldiers from among them have received leave of absence to serve in the Israeli armed forces at times of need.

In the Yom Kippur war of 1973, many Jewish American pilots flew missions with the Israeli air force. Thus far, their loyalty has not been tested as there is no possibility of a war between Israel and America. However, there have been cases of American Jews spying for Israel.
The arrest and successful prosecution of a number of young Britons of Pakistani origin for terrorist plots and attacks has also raised questions about loyalty. Many in the UK, even very liberal and tolerant people, are appalled that these young men have turned against the country in which they were born, raised and educated. This is an extreme case of confusion over identity, and an angry rejection of the values of the host community.

In India, there was the recent furore over the fatwa issued by an Islamic group at Deoband forbidding Muslims from singing the national song, Vande Mataram. Usually sung at schools, the official song has been shorn of any Hindu content, and is a hymn in praise of Mother India. By issuing this fatwa, the Indian ulema have put their community in the difficult position of choosing to further isolate themselves from the mainstream, or risk being ostracised.

Indian Muslims in the previous generation were often viewed as a fifth column whose true loyalties lay with Pakistan. Most younger Muslims have put this sentiment behind them, and see themselves as Indians. And apart from occasional outbursts of communal violence, they are well integrated into the fabric of Indian society.

Generally speaking, dual nationality does not really pit one identity against another. At heart, the first generation of migrants retain strong links with their home country. These feelings of patriotism are diluted over the next generation, until total cultural assimilation takes place.
However, the real crisis arises when an individual’s loyalty to his adopted country is pitted against his most deeply held religious beliefs. Thus, when Muslims in the West are convinced by radicals that their adopted countries are acting to dominate and defeat fellow Muslims in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, they are torn between these conflicting pulls.

This is not to excuse people like Major Hasan, but to try and explain why they act as they occasionally do. No religion, including Islam, teaches its followers to take up arms against innocent civilians to kill innocent civilians. And certainly, suicide is a sin in every religion.
In any case, there are several aspects to our identity, and religion is only one of them. But for some, it assumes overwhelming proportions, dominating and subsuming all others.
This is when such individuals can turn against their fellow beings in a nihilistic outburst of violence.

To rationalise this act, they cite their religious belief, as if their faith is superior to all others and somehow justifies killing innocent people.

Major Hasan’s rampage has raised deeply troubling questions, and no doubt his trial will ensure that this debate over identity and loyalty will resonate for a long time. No doubt, too, that many Muslims around the world condone and even admire his murderous attack.

But they need to consider how this single act has placed a cloud of suspicion over other Muslims serving in the American armed forces. They should also ponder over the ultimate futility of terrorism as a means of gaining political ends.

(Dawn)

In Major Hasan’s case, he was clearly torn between his religious belief and his professional loyalty to the US army. The conflict arose when he was told he would soon be sent to serve in a country where the US was at war against Muslims. —Reuters/File Photo

Christian janitor died saving Muslim students

By Ivan Watson, CNN
Islamabad, Paksitan (CNN) -- Life is slowly getting back to normal at the women's campus of Islamabad's International Islamic University.
The young women who study here chatter on the school's well-manicured lawns, their brightly-colored scarves and Pakistani dresses blowing in the wind on a sunny autumn day.
Barely three weeks ago, this quiet place of learning was the scene of a nightmare. On October 20, two suicide bombers launched near simultaneous attacks on both the men's and women's side of the campus.
Afsheen Zafar, 20, is in mourning. Three of her classmates, girls she describes as "shining stars," were killed on that terrible day.
Still, she says the carnage could have been much worse if not for the actions of a lowly janitor, who was also killed.
"If he didn't stop the suicide attacker, there could have been great, great destruction," Zafar says.
"He's now a legend to us," says another 20-year-old student named Sumaya Ahsan. "Because he saved our lives, our friends' lives."
The janitor's name was Pervaiz Masih. According to eyewitness accounts, the attacker approached disguised in women's clothing. He shot the guard on duty, and then approached the cafeteria, which was packed with hundreds of female students.
Masih intercepted the bomber in the doorway, however, and the bomber self-detonated right outside the crowded hall, spraying many of his explosive vest's arsenal of ball bearings out into the parking lot instead of into the cafeteria.
"The sweeper who was cleaning up here saw someone outside and went towards him," said Nasreen Siddique, a cafeteria worker who was wounded in the head, leg and arm by the blast. "[Masih] told him that he could not come inside because there were girls inside. And then they started arguing. And then we heard a loud blast and all the glass broke."
"Between 300 to 400 girls were sitting in there," said Professor Fateh Muhammad Malik, the rector of the university. "[Pervez Masih] rose above the barriers of caste, creed and sectarian terrorism. Despite being a Christian, he sacrificed his life to save the Muslim girls."
Masih was a member of Pakistan's Christian minority, traditionally one of the poorest communities in the country.
When the attacker struck, Masih had been on the job for less than a week, earning barely $60 a month.
Masih lived with seven other family members, in a single room in a crowded apartment house in the city of Rawalpindi. Until the attack his mother, 70-year old Kurshaid Siddique, worked as a cleaning lady at a nearby house to help make ends meet. Now, she makes a daily pilgrimage to the cemetery where Masih is buried.
Siddique is inconsolable. Asked if she was proud that some people were calling her son a hero, Siddique waved a hand in the air dismissively, answering, "My hero is dead now."
She pulls out a framed photo of her son, pictured wearing a button down white shirt and a thick mustache. When Masih's three-year-old daughter Diya sees his photo, she reaches for it, saying, "Mama, I want that picture."
From time to time, Diya turns to her mother and repeats one word, "Papa."
The Islamic University offered to give Diya a free education and employ Masih's widow, Shaheen Pervaiz.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani government has promised to award Masih's family 1 million rupees (about $12,000) for his bravery.
"He is a national hero because he saved the life of many girls," said Shahbaz Bhatti, minister of minorities in the Pakistani government. "As a Christian, a person of minority, he stood in front of the Taliban to protect the university."
But the grave of this national hero is a sorry sight. It is located in the poorer, garbage-strewn Christian half of a neighborhood cemetery, less then three feet from a muddy road.
Masih's mother and widow visit every day. One of his sisters crosses herself, then stoops down to pick up an empty pack of cigarettes someone threw onto the little mound of earth.
The family had to borrow money to pay for Masih's funeral and they are now behind on paying the rent. If the government money comes through, Masih's mother would like to decorate her son's grave.
"I would like him to have his name in cement with a nice poetry verse," she says. "And there should be a fence surrounding his grave."

(CNN)

President pardons 59 Christian prisoners on appeal of “Life for All”

Islamabad: November 12, 2009. (PCP) President of Pakistan Mr. Asif Ali Zardari approved pardon for 59 Christian prisoners here today who were falsely accused of minor crimes and were in jail without any bail or no one provided them support of legal aid or they were so poor to hire any attorney for them. These 59 Christian inmates were in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar ans Sialkot Jails. Rizwan Paul, President of “Life for All” a civil society organization based in Lahore have petitioned government of Pakistan to pardon these Christian prisoners and sought mercy for them.From Adyala Jail, Rawalpindi: 1. Shamsher Mashi, 2. John Gill, 3. Samuel Pervaiz, 4. Rana Riaz, 5. Shahid Gill, 6. Jamshed John, 7. Pastor Samuel John, 8. Jalal Mashi, 9. Peter Riaz, 10. Rizwana Kohkar,11. Saqib Adeel, 12. David Simon, 13. Robert Mashi, 14. Asher Bhatti, 15. Nadeem Bhatti, 16. Rehmat Bhatti, 17. Paster Asher MehangaFrom Kot Lakhpat jail Lahore: 1. Sohail John, 2. Rana Maqsood, 3. Mary Aqsa, 4. John Sadiq, 5. Gorge Mashi, 6. Samuel Victor, 7. Shahid Anwer, 8. David Javed, 9. Saleem John, 10. Asif John, 11. Noman Mashi, 12. Joshua Mall, 13. Asher John, 14. Sadia Yousaf, 15. Yousaf MashiFrom Sialkot Jail, Sialkot :1. John Peter, 2. Shahid John, 3. John Asif, 4. Asher Anwer, 5. Suleman Gill,6. Shahid Gill, 7. Sunil Sabistian, 8. Sajid Riaz, 9. John MallFrom Peshawar Jail:1. Justin Javed. 2. Rana Nawaz, 3. Adrish Nawaz Khan, 4. Raymond Khan, 5. Victor Mall, 6. John Rehmat, 7. Khalid George, 8. Daud GeorgeFrom Karachi Jail: 1. Riaz Javed, 2. Reynolds Dean, 3. John Mall, 4. Sam Mall, 5. Shama Gill, 6. Daniel Mall, 7. Peter Christie, 8. David Christie, 9. John lala, 10. Solomon GillThere are hundreds of Church based and Christian/Muslim civil society organizations who claim to provide legal aid assistance to Christians and other poor people but its truth that poor in Pakistan are implicated in false cases and go behind bars for years.The organizations getting huge sums of funds from foreign donor agencies only follow cases which can give them publicity and poor are left without any legal aid.There are hundreds of Christians and thousands of poor Muslims in jails from years without any assistance of lawyer who may fight their cases.The implication of Christians in false fabricated cases in different minor charges is routine of police and they stay in prisons for years when their families can not afford any attorney.

Taliban Blame ‘Blackwater’ for Pakistan Bombings

By ROBERT MACKEY
On Monday, Al Jazeera reported that a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said the group accepted responsibility for only some of the recent suicide bombings in Pakistan, laying the blame for others, including a deadly attack on a market last month that killed more than 100 civilians, on the American security firm formerly known as Blackwater. The spokesman claimed that the firm, now called Xe, was involved in an attempt to discredit the militants by staging deadly attacks.
This video report from Al Jazeera includes shots of of Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the broad alliance of Pakistani militant groups known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban, saying, “I want to tell the people in Pakistan and the Muslim nation that the Tehrik-i-Taliban are not responsible for the bombings, but Blackwater and Pakistan’s spy agency are behind them.”



According to The Associated Press, the spokesman tried to pass off blame for two recent attacks that were particularly deadly, saying:
The dirty Pakistani intelligence agencies, for the sake of creating mistrust and hatred among people against the Taliban, are carrying out blasts at places like the Islamic university, Islamabad, and the Khyber bazaar, Peshawar.
The A.P. also reported that the video, posted on YouTube on Sunday, bore the logo of Al Qaeda’s media wing, As-Sahab. The A.P. noted that this was “the first time the Taliban spokesman has appeared in an As-Sahab video,” suggesting that there are “growing links between the two groups.”
An earlier report on the Web site of The Daily Times, a publication based in Lahore, said that the spokesman had also suggested that the ruling Pakistan People’s Party was involved in the attacks, adding, “All these killings by the infamous Blackwater are aimed at maligning the Taliban.”
On Monday, Issam Ahmed of The Christian Science Monitor reported from Peshawar that some Pakistanis were ready to believe that the American private security firm is the enemy, rather than the Taliban. Mr. Ahmed reported:
The company’s operatives are often viewed by Pakistanis as akin to C.I.A. agents, and local conspiracy theories sometimes assert that the U.S. with the help of Blackwater, rather than the Taliban, are responsible for the suicide attacks. [...]
According to Faizullah Jan, a lecturer at the department of journalism and mass communication at the University of Peshawar, such conspiracy theories are fed by Pakistan’s mainstream media and the proliferation of underground jihadist media outlets. “In such an environment anything which is seemingly obvious is not real, and anything which is hidden is deemed to be real,” he says.
Indeed, it is not hard to find reports in Pakistan’s media that blame American private contractors and the intelligence agencies of other countries for terrorist attacks in the country. Last month the Web site Pakistan Daily reported that a former chief of staff of Pakistan’s army had claimed in a television interview that Blackwater was involved in the assassination of Pakistan’s former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. The same Web site published an editorial days later claiming that the attacks killing Pakistani civilians were carried out by “Blackwater Talibans” working on behalf of “the underground drug mafia controlled by the Zionists.” Pointing to an even broader conspiracy the same writer suggested,
Pakistan is under the attack of various Talibans which include Indian Talibans, Israeli Talibans, Karzai Talibans… British Talibans and American Talibans which of course include Blackwater.
The fact that the United States government has employed the private security firm to work in secret inside Pakistan makes it hard to knock down the wilder conspiracy theories. My colleagues James Risen and Mark Mazzetti reported in August:
From a secret division at its North Carolina headquarters, the company formerly known as Blackwater has assumed a role in Washington’s most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill Al Qaeda’s leaders, according to government officials and current and former employees.
The division’s operations are carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company’s contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. They also provide security at the covert bases, the officials said.
Weeks after that news broke, it became fodder for the Pakistani journalist and blogger Ahmed Quraishi, who dug into the Web site of the United States Training Center, which calls itself “a Xe company,” and noticed that job applicants were directed to a form — posted on the Web site Blackwaterusa.com — that includes Urdu and Punjabi in a list of languages that prospective contractors might speak.
Mr. Quraishi took one look at that form and jumped to publish his conclusion that “hiring continues as we speak for agents and for people with military training who can speak Urdu, Pakistan’s national language, and Punjabi, spoken by the natives of Pakistan’s largest populated province.” Mr. Quraishi took no note of the fact that the list of languages applicants might be proficient in also includes German, Italian, Thai and sign language.
One imagines it won’t take long for conspiracy-minded Pakistanis reading Sunday’s report in The Los Angeles Times that the C.I.A. has been bringing “ISI operatives to a secret training facility in North Carolina” to notice that the Web site of United States Training includes a photograph of its center in Moycock, N.C. above a statement that the company “is currently training select military and other government groups from U.S.-friendly nations.”
Perhaps picking up on the popular mood, Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, reportedly blamed foreign militants for the violence during a meeting with leaders of the Mehsud tribes from Waziristan on Tuesday. According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Mr. Gilani “said foreign militants of Arab, Uzbek, Afghan and Chechen origin were operating in the country and were involved in terrorist activities.” Dawn also reported that the prime minister said that the tribesmen, despite their links to the former Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, were blameless:
Gilani categorically stated that the Mehsud tribes were patriotic Pakistanis and had nothing to do with the handful of terrorists who had taken refuge in their area. He lauded the role of the tribal people in the creation of Pakistan and said the nation can never forget it.

(New York Times)

Religious parties reject plans to amend blasphemy law

LAHORE: Rejecting any changes to the Namoos-e-Risalat Act – or the blasphemy law – religious parties have warned the government that they will not accept any move to repeal or amend the law.

The Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadith Pakistan and the Tehreek Tahafuz-e-Haqooq Ahl-e-Sunnat – which hold more sway in Lahore, Multan and southern Punjab compared to other areas of the province – organised religious conventions on Saturday to “condemn” suggestions by the government to amend the act.

Addressing one of the conventions, Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadith Pakistan chief Hafiz Abdul Guffar Ropari and leaders Hafiz Abdul Wahab Ropari and Maulana Muhammad Abdullah refused to accept any changes to the law. They said the government must not amend the law “if it wants to remain in power”. They said those who believed in Islam would come out onto the streets if a single change was made. The Tehreek Tahafuz-e-Haqooq Ahl-e-Sunnat also organised a conference, and central party leaders – including Haji Abdul Majeed Saifi, Mufti Muhammad Asif Naumani, Mufti Muhammad Afzal Chishti and Mian Ghulam Shabbir Qadri – censured the government the government for sending the Blasphemy Act to a National Assembly standing committee for revision. hussain kashif

(Daily Times)

Sunni Ittehad Council supports South Waziristan operation

KARACHI: The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), an alliance of the Sunni Barelvi parties, announced their support to the ongoing army operation against terrorists in South Waziristan Agency.

At a press conference on Sunday, they urged the government to continue the operation until all terrorists there were killed. SIC also announced a countrywide protest on November 6 against the amendment or repealing of the blasphemy law.

“The government must inform the nation about the details of arms and ammunition recovered from the terrorists and about those who were supporting these barbaric terrorists,” demanded member of National Assembly, SIC Chairman and Markazi Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan Sahibzada Haji Muhammad Fazal Karim and lashed out at Taliban, Al-Qaeda and their supporters.

Sunni Tehreek (ST) chief Sarwat Ejaz Qadri, Nizam-e-Mustafa Party chief Haji Muhammad Hanif Tayyab, Sahibzada Pir Amin-ul-Hasanat and others were also present at ST’s Markaz-e-Ahle Sunnat where Karim addressed the gathering. He criticised the statement of President Asif Ali Zardari about amending the blasphemy law and said, “We shall hold protest demonstrations.”

He expressed his deep concern over foreign interference in Pakistan’s affairs and asked the government to summon an all-parties conference to decide the national strategy to solve the issues of Balochistan and Waziristan.

He demanded the government to immediately withdraw the name of Sunni Tehreek from its watch list. SIC also demanded the government to decrease Rs 10 per litre on petroleum products, urging it to disband OGRA and transfer its powers to the parliament. staff report

‘Political allegiance saved Gojra culprits’

Tuesday, October 27, 2009
By Our Correspondent

LAHORE

Archbishop Lawrence John Saldanha has asked if blasphemy law is so important for Muslims, then why it is not in any other country except Pakistan.

Addressing a press conference held by the Pakistan Christian Action Forum (PCAF) at the Lahore Press Club, Lawrence John said that the true culprits of the Gojra incident had not been apprehended due to political allegiances, despite the face that they were specifically named by the victims. He said that the government had not even bothered to share the report of the investigation committee with the Christian community representatives.

He said the Christian community had the utmost regard and respect for the religious values of the Muslims. He said that the reason for which the minorities felt insecure due to the blasphemy law was that it did not define the offence in particular and its vague definitions had led to the brutal assassination of the innocent.

The National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) executive secretary, Peter Jacob, said the government should make all necessary arrangements to repeal all laws encouraging crime and discrimination, especially the blasphemy laws. He said that the cold blooded murder of minorities under the umbrella of such discriminatory laws was against the principles of a democratic state which vows freedom and rights of all religions at equality.

The PCAF demanded the government make serious and credible efforts to protect the life and property of religious minorities in Pakistan. Demanding all sectarian, religious specific discriminatory material from the educational syllabi, the PCAF called for educational reforms in this regard.

It also demanded that the media should provide space to the minorities to form a truly pluralistic society with democratic values so that distributive social and judicial inequalities could be eliminated and the minorities could enjoy jobs in the public sector. Moderator Church of Pakistan bishop Samuel Robert, Firdaus Margaret Chaudhry, Father Emmanuel Yousaf and Advocate Naeem Shakir Chaudhry were also present.

(The News International)

The Catholic Church in Pakistan (An overview)

Catholics are less than 1% of a total of over 160 million inhabitants. There are two archdiocese in the country, four dioceses and an apostolic prefecture. A small minority but active and appreciated for efforts in education, helping the poor, health care and emergency interventions.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) - Pakistan has just over 160 million inhabitants and is the second largest Muslim country in the world, after Indonesia. About 95% of the population professes Islam, with 75% Sunni, and 20% Shiite, Christians are approximately 2% of the total (less than 1% Catholic), 1.8% are Hindus, the remaining 1.2% profess other religions, including Sikhs, Parsis, Ahmadis, Buddhists, Jews, bah'ai and animists.

The largest Catholic presence is in the diocese of Lahore, in Punjab, with 390 thousand faithful out of a total of 26 million people; 26 parishes. Following this, the diocese of Faisalabad, with 189 thousand faithful out of about 33 million people, distributed in 28 parishes. Third in the diocese of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, with 174 thousand faithful out of 32 million inhabitants for a total of 19 parishes. Then Karachi, with 145 thousand faithful and 15 parishes out of a total population of 15 million people. Pakistan has two archdiocese, four dioceses and one apostolic prefecture, all of the Latin rite.

In this country there are many Christian schools, institutes and hospitals, that are considered prestigious and are appreciated by local authorities for the quality of the work they carry out in favour of the local populations, regardless of their faith. However, religious freedom, as in other Muslim-majority nations, is not guaranteed and cases of harassment, death threats and assassinations are a constant companion.

The activities of the Church of Pakistan cover various sectors including: education and formation, aid to the poor (one third of the population is at risk from hunger), projects to support agriculture, health care and interventions in cases of emergency or natural disaster. Among the numerous works carried out by Caritas Pakistan, along with Christian-based NGOs of mention is their assistance to victims of the earthquake that struck the country in 2005, killing 75 thousand people and making at least 3.5 million homeless. The organization relies on the collaboration of 500 people and voluntary work of about a thousand volunteers, to assist approximately 500 thousand people across the nation.

(Asian News)

Pakistan Police Torture Christians Arrested in Islamic Attack

Two brothers jailed after protecting 300 people from Islamist fire assault in Gojra.

LAHORE, Pakistan, October 23 (CDN) — Two Christians in Gojra, Pakistan who allegedly fired warning shots as an Islamist mob approached that burned seven Christians to death on Aug. 1 told Compass they were tortured after police arrested them.

Only one of hundreds of Muslim assailants in the fire assault on Gojra’s Christian Town is in jail, but sources said Islamists have provided police a pretense for arresting the two Christian brothers who gave shelter to 300 people. Naveed Masih, 32, alias Fauji (“the Soldier”) and his 25-year-old brother Nauman Masih were arrested on Sept. 2 and Sept. 7 respectively for “rioting with deadly weapons and spreading terror with firing.”

Naveed Masih is said to have fired warning shots from a rooftop into the air and at the feet of the mob of approaching Muslim assailants to try to disperse them, but both brothers deny using any weapons.

From his jail cell, Naveed Masih told Compass that he and his brother were taken to the Police Training Centre in Choong, where they were kept in illegal detention for 18 days and were tortured “in so many ways ruthlessly and in inhumane ways.”

“Sometimes we were not given anything to eat or drink except one time, and sometimes we were hung in a dark well while our faces were covered with a cloth,” Naveed Masih said. “They beat me with cane sticks on the back of my hands and sometimes hung me upside down and then brutally beat me.”

Police kept them hungry for days, he said; when they asked for food, officers told them to confess that they had fired, he added. Naveed Masih said police tortured them to try to force them to say they had links with terrorist organizations that provided arms and ammunition to them.

Naveed Maish said they were forbidden to sleep; they were awoken whenever they dozed off. Throughout the 18 days of torture, he said, the two brothers were kept separate but saw each other when they were taken to court.

“We hugged each other and wept, seeing each other’s wounds,” he said.

Naveed Masih said police tortured them because they had given shelter to more than 300 women, children and elderly people on the day of attack, in which the assailants – acting on an unsubstantiated rumor of “blasphemy” of the Quran and whipped into a frenzy by local imams and banned terrorist groups – also looted more than 100 houses and set fire to 50 of them. At least 19 people were injured in the melee.

In spite of the targeting of the Christian area in Gojra by hundreds of Islamic extremists, police have registered complaints filed by the Muslim assailants against 129 Christians; sources said these various charges were filed only to pressure the Christian community. Thus far police have arrested only Naveed Masih and Nauman Masih – whose cases were submitted in an Anti-Terrorism Court to make it difficult for them to obtain bail, according to their lawyer – but the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement was able to obtain release on bail for Nauman Masih.

Nauman Masih told Compass that of the 17 Muslims named in the First Information Report on the Aug. 1 attack, only one, Abdul Khalid Kashmiri, was in jail. Kashmiri has offered 1 million rupees (US$12,500) if the Christian complainants would withdraw the case, Nauman Masih added.

The rest of the Muslim assailants are still at large, and sources said police have no intention of arresting them. In addition, three checks of 100,000 rupees (US$1,200) each issued by Punjab Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah for compensation to victims have been cancelled, Nauman Masih said, probably because the recipients are among the 129 Christians implicated in the false charges.

Nauman Masih said that when his mother arrived at the Christian Town Police Station the night his brother was arrested, officials told her that she could see him the next morning. But when she and other women arrived the next morning, he said, police told them that they had not arrested him.

The Community Development Initiative (CDI), an advocacy group working with the help of American Center for Law and Justice, has taken up the case of both brothers. CDI lawyer Haroon Suleman Khokhar said that they have been falsely implicated in a serious crime for protecting themselves and many other innocent Christians.

He said that police had no justification for submitting the cases of the two brothers in the Anti-Terrorism Court of Faisalabad. Khokhar said Naveed Masih was a key eyewitness in the report filed with police on the Aug. 1 attack, and that the two brothers were implicated in the cases only to try coercing Naveed Masih to withdraw from testifying against the Muslim attackers.

To protest police registration of the complaints against the 129 Christians, which include Bishop of Gojra John Samuel, Naveed Masih and Nauman Masih, on Oct. 5 the Christians of Gojra rejected goods sent by the U.S. Embassy to Pakistan in Islamabad. Demanding justice rather than aid, the Christians threw away the boxes of aid.

(Compass Direct)

5pc job quota for minorities, says minister

Monday, October 26, 2009
By Our Correspondent

LAHORE

THE Punjab government has issued a notification to reserve five percent quota for minorities in the total jobs in the government departments in the province.

Addressing a press conference on Sunday, Punjab Minister for Minorities Affairs and Human Rights Kamran Michael said the quota would be reserved for minorities (non-Muslims) as defined in the Article-260 (3)(b) of the Constitution of Pakistan. He said the quota would not apply to vacancies reserved for recruitment on the basis of competitive examination conducted by the Punjab Public Service Commission, recruitment made by promotion or transfer in accordance with relevant rules, short-term vacancies likely to last for less than six months, isolated posts in which vacancies occurred only occasionally and vacancies reserved for minorities for which qualified candidates were not available. He said the vacancies would be treated as unreserved and filled on merit.

Kamran Michael said that due to equal rights to the minorities could result in establishment of a democratic society. He said that the minorities had not only played their role in creation of Pakistan but were also performing an important role in strengthening the country. He said the Christian educational institutions were nationalised in the past which affected their performance. He said that went to Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif who fulfilled his promise regarding equal rights to minorities and allocated five percent quota in the government jobs for minorities in the province.

The minister said the PML-N leadership was supporting minorities as per the sayings of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

He said the Punjab government had given scholarship of Rs.1.5 crore to the students of minorities, adding that for the first time in the history with the cooperation of Tevta, five percent quota had been allocated in technical institutions for minorities and initially, Punjab government had allocated budget of Rs.1.25 crore which would further be increased.

Provincial Parliamentary Secretary for Human Rights Khalil Tahir Sindhu said the five percent quota would be in addition to those applicants who would be selected on open merit on any government vacancy. He said according to the quota, the number of Christian teachers in 34,000 educators to be recruited would be 1,750.

He said that Christian community has always played positive role in promotion of education in Pakistan and appointment of Christian youth in such a large number would help in improving the standard of education in Punjab.

Smokers’ Corner: It’s a shame

Nadeem F. PARACHA
Sunday, 16 Aug, 2009

Hardly a week had passed after the shameful attacks on the lives and livelihood of the besieged Christian community of Gojra, that a well-known Islamic televangelist appeared on his show on a local TV channel and freely exhibited the audacity to explain this attack by vicious Islamic sectarian organisations as a conspiracy by the West to make Pakistanis question the contentious Blasphemy Laws.

First of all, as usual, before spouting this claptrap, such TV hosts have absolutely no substantive proofs ever to back their demagogic finger-pointing rituals.

But utmost is the fact that the tongue-wagging gentleman had himself been embroiled last year in a stunning controversy where he was directly accused by his former party, the MQM, and some bold journalists, for initiating and encouraging attacks against Punjab’s Ahmadiyya community through his show.

Thus, what moral right does this highly animated fellow has to even address the issue of the attacks in Gojra, let alone offer bizarre and thoroughly unreasonable theories, pointing fingers at the usually elusive and unsubstantiated conglomerate of conspirators?

His self-righteous and delusional take on the said issue must have come as a hurtful bolt of insensitivity to those who lost their loved ones in the insane fires of fanaticism that almost completely burned down the Christian community in Gojra.

I would also like to question the mainstream TV channel he is a part of; a channel that usually loves to harp about its love for democracy, tolerance and justice, but continues to give wide open spaces to so-called ‘experts’ and ‘Islamic scholars’ who have actually turned religion into a licence to rationalise hate and half-truths.

It was a disgrace watching the same gentleman gleaming and rubbing his hands last year as one of his ‘scholar’ guests lashed out at the Ahmadiyya community, creating a tragic commotion against the community in Lahore.

The host showed not even the slightest indication of expressing any kind of remorse, and neither did the channel even when certain leading newspapers ran stories, editorials and articles on the event.

Next up was his even more bizarre reaction to the Swat girl’s flogging episode. He first condemned the event, mainly because his channel was one of the first ones to break the horrifying news.

However soon, the host suddenly took a sharp turn and started hurling abuse at the supposed ‘agents’ of the West and India, who he claimed were behind the flogging ‘drama,’ and also mocked liberal Pakistanis for exaggerating the issue.

He called such Pakistanis ‘enlightened’ with such venom and sarcasm that it seemed he was rooting for obscurantist darkness over spiritual and secular enlightenment.

After all, the whole notion of obscurantism is tailor-made for exactly such characters who hide behind their televised celebratory status, constructed from unsubstantiated accusations, a warped understanding of religion and politics, and more so, a smug and arrogant insensitivity towards the emotionally venerable sides of human nature.

The truth is, such men, who are these days a dime a dozen on the mainstream electronic media for entirely cynical economic reasons on the part of the channels who hire them in their mad race for ratings, have been of no service at all to the religion and the country that they claim they are there to save from supposed ‘anti-Islam/Pakistan forces.’

Not even once have these elusive forces convincingly been exposed — at least never through any academically and journalistically sound proofs and sources, but instead rhetorical hate speeches or a messy jumbling up of bits and pieces taken from populist conspiracy theories found in anarchic pulp literature, unsubstantiated cyber rants, and low-budget B-movie ‘documentaries’ are used to build fiery narratives that claim to offer ‘facts’ and ‘expose’ the workings of the forces that are creating sectarian, religious and political turmoil in Pakistan.

The fact that the channel actually decided to give its host the space and freedom to comment the way he did on the Gojra incident when the scars of the event were still fresh and bleeding, shows just how obsessive we become to at once promote and propagate half-truths just to defend and obscure the hollowness of that pretence of tolerance and equality we all love to portray.

A shame indeed.

(Dawn)