Pakistan is being swept toward violent chaos by a growing wave of Islamist extremism, newspapers said yesterday, one day after Taliban militants killed the country’s only Christian government minister.
The assassination of minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti in broad daylight in Islamabad threatens to further destabilize a nation where secular-minded politicians are imperiled by a rising strain of violent religious conservatism in the society.
“Mr Bhatti’s brutal assassination has once again highlighted the fact that we are fast turning into a violent society,” the liberal Daily Times said in its editorial. “This is not the time to be frightened into silence. It is time to implement the law and not surrender in front of extremists.”
Bhatti is the second senior official to be assassinated this year for challenging the country’s controversial blasphemy law, which sanctions the death penalty for insulting Islam or its Prophet Mohammed.
Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer was shot dead by his own bodyguard in January for calling for curbing abuses in the law.
“Terrorists silence another voice of interfaith harmony,” the daily Dawn ran a banner headline on its front page.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told a party meeting on Wednesday he would resist the slide towards extremism.
“We have to fight this mindset and defeat them. We will not be intimidated nor will we retreat the official APP news agency quoted him as saying.
Mehbood Ahmed, a senior police official, said about 20 people had been detained for questioning, but police did not yet know who was responsible.
“But we are confident we will get hold of culprits,” he said.
The government has repeatedly said it would not change the blasphemy law, and officials have distanced themselves from anyone calling for amendments for fear of a backlash from extremists, a move that dismayed moderates and liberals.
“Of course the silent majority, which keeps silent over these things, also must bear responsibility,” I.A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told the Express 24/7 television channel on Wednesday night. “There’s blood on their hands also.”
Meanwhile, a highway ambush and a car bomb attack targeting security forces in the northwest killed 13 people yesterday, officials said, in a sign of Islamist militants’ resilience despite army operations against them.
The bombing hit the Hangu area, just outside the tribal regions along the Afghan border, senior police official Rasheed Khan said.
A bomb hidden in a vehicle in a residential area where a small police station was located went off as a police vehicle carrying officers drove by, Khan said. Three police and four civilians died.
The blast also wounded 30 people and damaged around a dozen houses, he said.
Gunmen in the nearby Khyber tribal region ambushed another group of police, shooting and killing six, local government official Farooq Khan said.
The police had been driving to a security checkpoint in the area when they were attacked.
‘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