Rimsha update - land issues, Christian politician calls for community to arm itself

Possible picture of victim, as yet unconfirmed

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The case of Rimsha, the 11 year old girl from the Meharabadi. area of Islamabad who was arrested for 'blasphemy' is expected to be heard in court before the end of the month.  Reports that she has downs syndrome are unconfirmed, but she is, apparently, disabled.  

More details of emerged about the events surrounding her arrest.  She was walking along with a learning book about the Quran in her bag.  Some Muslims stopped her, argued that there were torn pages from the Quran in her bag, and that she had burnt other pages from the Quran.  They then attacked and beat her and her family.  600 Christian families fled the area, and rioting Muslims (up to 1000 of them) later looted and damaged many of the empty homes, including setting fire to them.  According to activist Xavier William, the community is a new one where minorities live, but Muslims want to possess the territory, so there is a background of land disputes - a very common feature of false blasphemy accusations against minorities.  

In addition, this vulnerable 11 year old girl has been housed in an adult jail, not a juvenile facility. The day after her arrest, Muslim mobs burned out Christian houses and attacked and tortured Rimsha's sister and mother, and called for the girl to be handed over and burnt alive for blasphemy.  Other portions of the mob called for her to be hanged.  FIR's have been lodged against the Muslim cleric calling for this action, and several hundred others.  BPCA is not exactly sanguine about the likelihood that anything more will be done on these charges.   Like many other groups, BPCA is dismissive of the President of Pakistan's call for a report, believing until evidence proves otherwise, that this is an empty gesture to try and placate western opinion.  

In addition, the head of the Pakistani Christian Congress, Dr Nazir Bhatti called for Christians to sell TV's and household goods to by arms so that they can defend themselves, rather than run away from attacks such as these, another sign of the ever increasingly desperate and critical plight of Christians in the country