Blasphemy Appeal for Younis Masih adjourned till February!

Younis Masih’s appeal against his  death sentence and fine of Rs.100,000 under a blasphemy sentence dating back 7 years was adjourned till February.  

Legal Evangelical Association Development (LEAD) tells us:

The trial was conducted by "Legal Aid for Destitute and Settlement" (LADS) lawyers and an appeal was also filed by LADS's lawyers in June,2007 bearing Murder Ref.263 of 2007 and appeal No.711 of 2007, in Lahore High Court.  The death sentence of Younis Masih which was reopened in September 2012  following these applications.

The court hearing of the blasphemy case was fixed for 23rd January 2013 and Mr Sardar Mushtaq Gill advocate with LADS's team was present during the court hearing.  When the call for arguments was made, there were about 40 Muslims ,who were present wearing black turbans, they were makings gestures and comments with intent to cause fear and apprehension.

Feeling the pressure, Naeem Shakar Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan requested a non-public trial in the Court Chamber.  The presiding judge however encouraged the defence and prosecution by saying;

 "There is no need to be scared, we will discuss this case in an open court",

The state lawyer then requested an adjournments as he alleged that he had not yet received the case file.  Justice Najam-Ul-Hasan ordered for the a date for another hearing to be fixed by early February. 

Mushtaq Gill from Lead informed us of another blasphemy case: 

"The blasphemy allegation on Younis Masih mirrors one given to Martha Bibi also accused under blasphemy law.  She is also currently undergoing a trial and we are shocked that the wording of both allegation is virtually the same on both?  Martha Bibi is on bail which was allowed in 2007, her trial is being conducted and is under the final cross examination."

Please pray for a just court decision in both these trials.

Read more on the story of Younis Masih here:

(Click here for more details)


Show support for Younis by joining our London protest and Trafalgar Square Peace Concert 2nd March 2012:

(Click Here for more details)

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Muslim cleric claims minorities provoke persecution!

We have posted this video.  Although it is about the persecution of Ahmahdi's, it gives a vivid description of what it is like to be persecuted as a religious minority in Pakistan, and the tactics used by extremists.  It also shows clearly the pervasiveness of religious intolerance and bigotry across Pakistani society that we have just posted about here.  Reports come from many areas of Pakistan.  Many of the victims interviews concern the realm of education, an area where anti-minority persecution and slander is rife both among students and staff, as well as in text books and teaching, as major reports have demonstrated.  In addition, because of Pakistan's notorious Section 298 laws against Ahmadhi religious freedom, several of the interviews have had to be censored.

Some horrific highlights (or rather low-lights) include the arrest of a 5 year old on charges of blasphemy, the murder of a teacher convert to the Ahmahdi faith in front of his primary school students, after Islamic clerics came to the village with gunman and publicly announced that it was OK in Islam to rape Ahmahdi women and steal Ahmahdi property (around the 14 minutes mark), and Ahmahdi students receiving death threats for not converting, a case where , on finding out that a girl is Ahmahdi, a 'friend' tells other students that they can be killed as an infidel (around the 22 minute mark)

It shows the systematic way Islamic extremists target minorities -  sending out leaflets with the names of Ahmahdi business and shops so that they can be boycotted and attacked.  In addition, Ahmahdi's in prison on false blasphemy charges are discriminated against by staff not taking away their dishes to wash them on the grounds that the dishes are impure and defiled because they have been touched by 'infidels', a motif also featured in persecution of Christians, including, of course, the persecution of Asia Bibi.  Towards the end of the video (around the 20 minute mark) we see the sensitivites - where the editor of an Ahmadhi newspaper explains why they never sell to people outside the Ahmahdi community, to avoid being accused of 'proselytising Muslims'.  Even without doing this, they are the target of extremists.

At the very end, the fear and helplessness of minorities is clearly shown, and the pervasiveness of intolerance, when an Ahmahdi female victim says she works to help her students protect themselves because no matter how good or close their apparent friends may be, they will do nothing to help if a blasphemy charge is brought.

Perhaps most outrageous in a way is the comments of a Mullah at around the 12 minute mark, where he claims - despite so many victims of blasphemy laws being Muslim, women, the elderly, that Christian and Ahmahdi young men deliberately commit blasphemous acts to gain access to the West - he claims it is a tactic so that when the Mullah's and authorities file an FIR against them, the victims then go to Western embassies with the FIR and claim persecution to gain asylum.  TYPICAL!.  We have seen this pattern over and over from extremist clerics and rabble rousers - provoke attacks and then blame the victim.

Blasphemy mobs, mad behaviour

Over the last month there has been a number of cases illustrating the double or triple jeopardy faced by those accused of blasphemy.  None of them are Christians as far as we know, but their cases show the ease in which inappropriate charges are made, and the dangers of mob rule, vigilantism and of innocents being killed.
These incidents are getting so common, with so many common features, it is sometimes hard to tell whether we are dealing with an incident we've already reported on, perhaps with corrected details, or an entirely new incident.

Pakistani mob (photo AP)

DRUG ADDLED MAN LIVES IN FEAR IN PRISON AFTER QURAN DESECRATION
A Muslim man who had indulged in drugs in the past in the face of difficult circumstances now lives in fear in prison.  Every time someone comes in to his cell, he cries out 'Don't kill me', fearing it is one of the Muslim extremists who are his fellow prisoners in Karachi central jail has come to kill him, after he obeyed voices in his head telling him to 'do things'.   He was brought to the police station by concerned neighbours, and the police were dubious about his mental state.  However, mobs, stirred up by hate-spewing mullah's and religious extremists, advanced on the police station one night to try and lynch him.   They demanded the police hand him over so he could be killed.  The police have put him in a separate cell with officers standing guard to protect him from fellow inmates.  Psychiatrists say he should be examined for psychotic illness before any possible trial, with human rights activists saying the blasphemy laws don't apply to those who are mentally ill.


Source

MOB BEATS UP BLASPHEMY ACCUSED, EXTREMISTS REGISTER ACCUSATION
In another case, this time in Faisalabad, the police had to rescue a man accused of blasphemy who was being beaten and tortured by a mob.  The mob then staged a demonstration and blocked roads, demanding the man be handed over to them.  An FIR was registered by a member of Tehreek Dawat-e-Islami, an extremist organisation whose workers have been involved in several acts of terrorism over the years.  Police say the man later confessed to blasphemy.

Source

2 CHILDREN KILLED AS MOB ATTACKS POLICE STATION TO GET BLASPHEMY ACCUSED
Finally, there was a case last month in Quetta, when a mob stormed a police station to try and lynch a man - whom the police said appeared mentally retarded -  accused of blasphemy.  The man was mentally retarded, and is supposed to have burnt pages of the Koran.  The protesters were mostly Afghan refugees, who threw stones, torched vehicles and blocked the highway with burning tyres.  They chanted that the man should be stoned for blasphemy, stormed the police station and started firing.  19 were wounded by gunshots, 8 of them police officers, including the bodyguard of a senior police officer as he was hustled to safety.  The police had to resort to volleys of tear gas and gunfire to restore order, and in the melee 2 children were killed.

Source

The BPCA notes these cases and deplores them, in particular the fact that the hate-filled Mullah's and the extremist allies deem it fit to send lynch mobs after mentally ill people.  Better on judgement day to be mentally ill than morally wicked and sick.....

Killings and kidnappings near and far

Sindh Christian MPA Saleem Khokhar - 

received death threats for standing up for Hindu women

As we come up next month to the anniversary of the start of Asia Bibi's incarceration on false charges of blasphemy, we start by focusing on the place where it all started, her home village of Ittan Wali.  This article from nearly 18 months ago tells of the attitude among Bibi's fellow villagers, and provides a stark reminder of the environment in which her ordeal was born, and from which her family sought escape.  


Under the heading 'Villagers issue their own verdict' the article conveys the fury the villagers feel.  One old man says 'If she returned I would beat her to death with anything I could get my hands on', with a crowd of onlookers, young and old, agreeing she should die.  After her arrest, local clerics began announcing that 'Christians are dogs', and the village of Ittan Wali's' cleric Maqsood Ahmed Masoomi suggested that if anyone in the village commits blasphemy, they may not make it to the courtroom.


"They should be killed on the spot," he said. 


The BPCA has always acknowledged that other minorities and groups also suffer in Pakistan.  One Pakistani newspaper article asks the question 'How much killing is too much?'  We will refrain from the rather obvious answer, because the sentiment of the article is ours.  The article notes a number of killings of various sects over the last month or two, and continues 'The treatment of Pakistan’s minorities has never been good, but, in the last few years, things have gone from hostile to absolutely intolerant.'   It even goes so far as to say that the level of persecution against minorities in Pakistan is edging closer to the definition of genocide.  It notes that in one Pakistani province alone, an estimated 3000 Hindu girls have been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam.  


It also cites an old but very pertinent case - that of Nazir Bhatti, editor of the Paksitani Christian Post, who after a 1997 peaceful protest that ended in murder and bloodshed perpetrated by the police, was targeted as an alleged ringleader, and in two hours had 21 serious charges falsely brought against him, including murder and blasphemy.  He had to flee the country.  


The same newspaper also carried an article concerning death threats against a Christian MPA (Member of a Pakistani Provincial Assembly).  Saleem Khursheed Khokhar, from the Sindh assembly, has been vocal in opposing the abduction and forced conversion of Hindu women and girls to Islam, in particular in the light of a recent case where Hindu women were kidnapped and forced to marry and convert according to their families.


The MPA Khokhar is concerned that the security guards he has been given are too few and haven't been vetted, considering they are Muslim - a pertinent point, given governer Taseers murder by one of his bodyguards over similar controversial areas.  He has been receiving death threats by text such as 'Only Muslims will be allowed to live peacefully in this country. No one else will be allowed to live here with dignity' and 'You should learn from the remarks of Chief Justice, and High Court, only Muslims are allowed to live here. You should leave the country or you would be responsible for what happens.'


Finally, like many of you, we have followed the case concerning the murder of British-Pakistani teenager 8 years ago.  Her parents have been put on trial for what prosecutors maintain is a case of honour (or better a shameful dishonour) killing - after her father drugged her to take her to Pakistan, which she drank bleach after fearing she was facing a forced marriage.  According to her sister, she was killed by suffocation for failing to follow her parents wishes over various matters, including boyfriends.  All we can say is, if a culture produces such fruit where they are in a minority, how much worse must it be (and as we know, is in fact) when they are in a majority in their home country against minority citizens.