Pakistani Muslim leaders support Christian girl accused of blasphemy

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Islamic leaders in Pakistan on Monday came out in support of a Christian girl with learning difficulties who is being held in prison, in an unprecedented public denunciation of the blasphemy law by hard-line mullahs.

The All Pakistan Ulema Council, an umbrella group of Muslim clerics and scholars, which includes representatives from fundamentalist groups, joined hands with the Pakistan Interfaith League, which includes Christians, Sikhs and other religions, to call for justice for the girl, Rimsha, who is accused of blasphemy. They also demanded that those making false allegations be punished.

Tahir Ashrafi, the chairman of the council, warned that the "law of the jungle" was gripping Pakistan, with police routinely pressured by baying mobs to register blasphemy charges, as happened in the case of Rimsha, which has made headlines around the world.

Rimsha, 11, was charged earlier this month with desecrating the Qur'an. The issue has shocked the country's Christian population. Rimsha's own community, who were living in a mixed poor Christian-Muslim enclave in Islamabad, were driven out of their homes by a rampaging crowd.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/27/pakistani-muslim-christian-girl-blasphemy

[whathehell]

1. Wonderful news....n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Good news. Would like fewer "baying mobs" wishing to impose similar fundamentalism in the US. nt

[whathehell]

5. Oh please...Show me the "mobs" trying to arrest learning disabled 11 year olds for "blasphemy"

or stop with the false equivalence, already.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. You misread and read too much into it.

The mobs in the US are not after disabled 11 year olds for blasphemy. Please read the word "fundamentalism".

This mob would like to have the US ruled by one faith, probably not Mormonism, and all kinds of behaviour proscribed and forbidden and persecuted and prosecuted. New Gingrich addresses Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition in Tampa Sunday:

The Faith & Freedom Celebration was an event produced by Ralph Reed's Faith & Freedom Coalition that in addition to Reed, featured Newt Gingrich; Phyllis Schlafly, the 88-year-old conservative political commentator gamely addressed the audience; Mike Huckabee; and Texas U.S. Senate GOP nominee, Ted Cruz.

Cruz, a 41-year-old Cuban-American conservative, was by far the most effective speaker on stage. He's young, but it's easy to see why he turns on the conservative base — he's energetically conservative.

He invoked Tropical Storm/Hurricane Isaac saying he was blessed — this was a heavily religious affair — and that "We can be thankful for Hurricane Isaac. If nothing else, it kept Joe Biden away." These comments elicited huge cheers from the audience. {...}

Cruz called ObamaCare an "abomination," blasted President Obama for being against traditional marriage, and said that under the current administration, freedom was under assault.

[whathehell]

15. No I didn't and I'm well aware of what the word "fundamentalism" means

What you don't seem aware of, is how relatively SMALL, and power-challenged

these people, as a group, really are...Small, yes, in relation to a nation of over 310 MILLION.

These "fundamentalists" live primarily in the relatively LESS powerful geographic regions

of the rural south and midwest.

They can pray all they want...They cannot "pray" away the United States Constitution or a mu tl-ethnic, multi-religious country

whose major centers of POWER lie in the North and Northeast. I mean, seriously, do you

imagine the power centers of Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City falling under the "spell" of this group of

ill-educated goofballs?...If you do, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. These people wanted to block a mosque in Tennessee that was later burned and rebuilt

I think half of the crowd may be supporting the mosque, but not the ones draping their protest in American and Israeli flags.

[whathehell]

14. I got it, but A. it doesn't look like a very big crowd. B. If half are supporting the mosque, it's

even smaller.

C. Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that, while burning down a building IS shitty, it's a property crime and no one was,

as I understand it, hurt or killed or "charged with blasphemy", that last being VERY important, because beyond the fact that

we're disinclined to arrest learning disabled children, we're not ABLE (and that's a good thing) to

arrest ANYONE for "blasphemy" as it is NOT a crime and never WILL be a crime

in a mult-ethnic, multi-religious, church and state separated country.

[sulphurdunn]

3. I wonder

if there is a particular socioeconomic demographic for most of the crazies?

[Igel]

4. Mostly poor.

Even if educated, their parents weren't.

As for their statement, you should read what previous statements with the same language meant. "Justice" doesn't mean that they assume the girl's telling the truth. Punishing false witnesses doesn't mean that they want to punish her accusers.

It's difficult to read something without your own cultural filters pre-determining what the content must be.

[whathehell]

6. Sorry, but

in this case, I'm afraid it's more geographic than demographic.

[happyslug]

10. People who have lost income over the previous 20-40 years

In such situations, people look to answers to why their income has dropped, many turn to religion, including not only Christianity and Islam, but Communism, Anarchism and Fascism (Among other "World Views). Most turn to those religions that give them a simple answer to why they are poorer then their parent's were.

Some times people switch from one to another. China, for example, went for a radical Christian sect in the 1860s (The Taiping Rebellion), then to a Radical traditional anti Christian sect (The Boxers) about 1900, then to Fascism in the 1920s and then Rural Communism in the 1940s. Germany did the same, Communism in 1919, then Nazism in 1933. Most only last a few years, then are either suppressed (as in the Case of the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions) or take over (As did the Chinese Nationalists in the 1920s under Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Zedong in 1949).

Just pointing out, it is people whose income has gone down drastically over a long time period that embrace solutions to those problems based on dogma of one group or another.

[Odin2005]

9. Thank goodness there are some sane people there...

...protecting that poor girl from superstitious idiots.

[DJFrey]

11. Well...

something positive from Pakistan - unusual.

[AnneD]

12. The poor girl has Down's syndrome ....

Once the rumor went around that she had burned portions on the Koran....people came out to stone her. Stoning an 11 yo mentally disabled child. That is just barbaric.

Any faith that can be so lacking in compassion is a faith not worth following. The leaders need to do some serious teaching about the principles of the Muslim faith. Perhaps this can be a first step.

[oldsarge54]

13. Believe it or Not

There are compassionate mullahs who understand the difference between the letter of the law and the intent of the law, be it religious or secular law. Technically, in strict law, the girl was guilty. Compassion shows when to ignore the letter of the law. However, this is an unknown concept to those that have fallen under the anti-muslim propaganda perpetuated by the right.