Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in Pakistan’s largest city on Sunday to oppose any change to national blasphemy laws and to praise a man charged with murdering a provincial governor who had campaigned against the divisive legislation.
The rally of up to 50,000 people in downtown Karachi was one of the largest demonstrations of support for the laws, which make insulting Islam a capital offense. It was organized before the governor of Punjab Province, Salman Taseer, was shot dead on Tuesday last week in Islamabad by a bodyguard who told a court he considered Taseer a blasphemer.
Muslim groups have praised the bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, and have used Taseer’s death to warn others not to speak out against the much-derided laws.
PHOTO: AFP
The size of the Karachi rally, which was large even by the standards of the city of 16 million, showed how bitter the argument is over the decades-old laws.
Although courts typically overturn blasphemy convictions and no executions have been carried out, rights activists say the laws are used to settle rivalries and persecute religious minorities.
Amid the threats from groups defending the law, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani ruled out any changes to the legislation on Sunday, even as one of his key Cabinet ministers promised reforms were still on the agenda.
“This huge rally today has categorically signaled that nobody could dare to amend the blasphemy law,” said Fazlur Rehman, the key speaker at Sunday’s demonstration and head of the Taliban-linked conservative religious party Jamiat Ulema Islam.
“If the rulers are out to defend Taseer, so we also have the right to legally defend Mumtaz Qadri,” he told the crowd.
He said Taseer “was responsible for his own murder” because he had criticized the law.
The laws came under renewed international scrutiny late last year when a 45-year-old Christian woman, Asia Bibi, was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Islam’s prophet.
People accused of blasphemy are often killed by extremists or spend significant amounts of time behind bars. In some cases, the charges border on the ridiculous: A man was recently held because he threw away a business card of someone whose first name was Mohammed.
The Karachi rally represented all major Muslim groups and sects in Pakistan’s biggest city and was one of the few to bring together -moderate and -conservative Muslims.
Many marchers waved the flags of conservative and radical Islamist parties and chanted: “Courage and bravery, Qadri, Qadri.”
Many wore head and arm bands inscribed: “We are ready to sacrifice our lives for the sanctity of the prophet.”
Pakistani Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti said such demonstrations would not deter the government from amending the laws, which he said were being abused by Muslim extremists to victimize minorities. He warned that religious leaders who preach violence could be charged with inciting murder if the debate claims another life.
“We will not be intimidated,” Bhatti said. “We cannot remain silent on the victimization and growing extremism.”
Bhatti, a member of Pakistan’s Christian minority, did not give any timeframe for changing the laws and said details on how they might be amended had yet to be discussed with interest groups.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese