Two saviours of Rimsha, the blasphemy accused Christian girl
Saviour 1: Hafiz Khalid Chishti, local Sunni cleric
After Mumtaz Qadri, this man could be next icon for Punjab's educated middle class
Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti, the imam of the mosque who allegedly issued a decree on his mosque’s loudspeaker to burn Christians of Mehrabadi village alive in the aftermath of 11-year-old Rimsha Masih being accused of blasphemy, denied instigating a hate campaign against the community. Chishti was said to have declared that, ‘All you chooras (a derogatory term for South Asian Christians) must leave here immediately or we will pour petrol on you and burn you alive …You sweepers are only deserving of such treatment.’
However, he told The Express Tribune on Friday that he never played a pivotal role in sparking any tensions, after Rimsha, who reportedly suffers from Down Syndrome, allegedly burned pages inscribed with verses from the Holy Quran.
“Neither I, nor any of my followers participated in the protest rallies. Nor did they instigate any hate campaign against the Christian community of Mehrabadi,” Chishti said, adding that “It was a legal issue that involves Rimsha and the eyewitnesses, which will be resolved in the court of law.”
Clarifying his position, the imam told The Express Tribune that he went to Rimsha’s home after people showed him the papers Rimsha had burned.
He found an angry crowd outside and three to four women attacking her. He claimed that the protestors demanded custody of Rimsha to burn her alive, but he rescued her and later handed her over to the police.
Rimsha committed ‘conspiracy’
Despite backtracking from his earlier stance, Hafiz Chishti was still scathing of the alleged blasphemy committed by Rimsha Masih, saying what she did was a “conspiracy” to insult Muslims.
He told AFP that “The girl who burnt the Holy Quran has no mental illness and is a normal girl. She did it knowingly; this is a conspiracy and not a mistake. She confessed what she did.”
Chishti claimed that the local Christian community had previously caused antagonism by playing music in services at their makeshift church during Muslim prayer time and said burning the pages was deliberate.
“They committed this crime to insult us further. This happened because we did not stop their anti-Islam activities before,” he said.
“Last Christmas, they played musical instruments and there was vulgarity in the streets during our prayers time. I warned them but they did not stop.”
During his sermon at Friday prayers, Chishti told worshippers it was “time for Muslims to wake up” and protect the Holy Quran. (Source)
Rehman Malik with this admirers in Pakistan's elitist civil society
Saviour 2: Interior Minister Rehman Malik
The Interior Ministry, led by Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik, has asked the Islamabad police to oppose the bail request of Rimsha Masih, an 11-year-old Christian girl accused of burning pages of the Holy Quran, on the pretext that her release would put the lives of Rimsha and her family in danger, BBC Urdu reported on Saturday.
An Interior Ministry official, asking not to be named, told BBC Urdu that the Intelligence Bureau and the Special Branch of the Islamabad Police had informed the Interior Ministry in writing that there was serious threat to the lives of the Christian family if the girl, reportedly suffering from Down Syndrome, was released on bail.
The official said that Rimsha was more safe in jail and the administration should keep her in custody until the matter was fully resolved and public sentiment ‘cools down’. The report said that the matter could turn more serious if it was tried to resolve in haste.
Investigating officer of the case, Munir Hussain Jaffery told BBC Urdu that the police prosecution branch had not received any notice from the court regarding Rimsha’s bail application, the hearing for which has been scheduled for August 30.
The BBC Urdu report said that the Islamabad Police had sent a preliminary report to the Interior Ministry which said that Rimsha could not read or write but she had admitted to setting the holy pages on fire. The police have also decided to set up a medical board to ascertain the age and mental health of the accused minor girl. Additional Deputy Commissioner Farasat Ali Khan told BBC Urdu that the police had asked the Polyclinic Hospital to form a medical board and Rimsha would be presented for examination before them on August 27 (Monday). The board will present its report within one week, he added. (Source)
Based on the security argument, all PPP ministers, Ahmadis, Shias, Balochs etc should be thrown in jail to save them from never ending murder, harassment and persecution by religious fanatics and trerrorists.
If protection is a valid reason for Rimsha being jailed, then Rehman Malik too deserves to be in jail because of immense threat to his life by “foreign-sponsored” TTP, LeJ etc. That will be apt as the LeJ chief Malik Ishaq, ASWJ chief Ludhianvi and LeJ-ASWJ regional operatives in Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar are allowed to freely incite violence by federal and provincial governments.
How else can we describe a State which can provide security to an innocent, mentally-handicapped girl in a prison only: a failed state!
Hats off to Rehman Malik and of course Pakistan Peoples Party.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has demanded the immediate release of Rimsha, the 11-year-old Christian girl, who was arrested from Mehraabad on the charge of blasphemy. Calling for immediate protection for Rimsha’s family and to the Christian community that has fled the area, the HRCP urged the government to take measures to ensure that all religious minorities, particularly Christians, feel secure. It urged the government to take stern action against the miscreant who tried to instigate violence against non-Muslim citizens. The HRCP has said Rimsha suffers from Down’s syndrome and the charge of blasphemy against a minor Christian girl who is seriously unwell is beyond comprehension.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-2-127938-HRCP-demands-release-of-blasphemy-accused
Pakistan (Land of the Pure) has no space for the impure (non-Muslims and non-Sunnis).
PPP is further disgracing its already disgraced history on minority rights.
Rimsha Masih’s lawyer, Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, said her family had informed him she was mentally ill.
A Christian activist Xavier William told Reuters news agency in Islamabad on Friday that he had visited Masih at a police station where she was first held, and this week in prison. The girl was too frightened to speak in prison, where she is being held in solitary confinement for her safety.
Under the blasphemy law, it is considered a crime for anyone to speak ill of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad. People accused of committing blasphemy face the potential of the death penalty. Activists say vague terminology has led to misuse of the law.
Convictions are common, although the death sentence has never been carried out. Most convictions are thrown out on
appeal, but mobs of Sunni-extremists (Deobandis, Wahhabis, Barelvis) have killed many people accused of blasphemy.
Masih’s arrest triggered an exodus of several hundred Christians from her poor village after mosques reported over their loudspeakers what the girl was alleged to have done.
Masih’s landlord said the people protected her and the rest of the Christians in the vicinity.
“We called the police. We handed her over to police without making any damage or harm to her,” Malik Amjad told Reuters earlier in the week.
Christians, who make up four per cent of Pakistan’s population of 180 million, have been especially concerned about the blasphemy law, saying it offers them no protection. They say convictions hinge on witness testimony and are often linked to vendettas. In 2009, 40 houses and a church were set ablaze by a mob of 1,000 Muslims, most of them supported by local leaders of PML-N and Sipah-e-Sahaba in the town of Gojra, in Punjab province. At least seven Christians were burned to death. The attacks were triggered by reports of the desecration of the Quran.
Two Christian brothers accused of writing a blasphemous letter against the Prophet Mohammad were gunned down outside a court in the eastern city of Faisalabad in July of 2010.
Masih is due to appear in court within the next 10 days. She could be formally charged with blasphemy. (Source)
Govt wants to keep Christian girl in jail for ‘security reasons’
A minor Christian girl arrested on a blasphemy charge here continues to be held in a high-security jail despite her case being taken up by Pakistan’s ruling PPP.
Hundreds of Christian families fled Mohalla Badyal in the low-income Mehria Jaffar area on the outskirts of Islamabad following Rimsha Masih’s arrest on August 16 after she was accused by Muslims of burning pages of the Quran. A mob beat up Rimsha and other members of her family before she was detained by police.
“Rimsha is still in Adiala Jail and her family is in hiding somewhere in Islamabad,” Xavier P William, President of the NGO Life for All, told a news agency.
Rights groups have expressed concern at the girl being detained at the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
Terrorists like Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, charged with involvement in the Mumbai attacks, are being held at the same prison.
“A medical test was conducted on Rimsha to ascertain her mental status and a report is expected” soon, said William, who has met Rimsha in prison.
He said she had been assaulted by local residents before she was arrested.
An estimated 600 families moved out of Mehria Jaffar area due to tensions following Rimsha’s arrest, civil society groups said.
“If you go to the area, things appear normal now. But there is still some aggression among the residents, who say that they won’t allow Rimsha’s family to return,” William said.
Christian groups have called for an FIR to be registered against the local cleric who had demanded that police should hand over Rimsha to local residents so that she could be burnt.
However, the cleric Hafiz Khalid Chishti has claimed he handed over the girl to police to protect her from mob violence.
Chishti further claimed the girl was fully aware of what she was doing and described her actions as a “conspiracy and not a mistake”.
Meanwhile, Malik Ammad, the man who filed a complaint against Rimsha to the police, has gone into hiding and cannot be traced.
A large number of residents of Mohalla Badyal, mainly belonging to the Malik clan, are opposing the local clergy in support of Christians, the Dawn newspaper reported.
http://zeenews.india.com/news/south-asia/christian-girl-still-in-jail-despite-furore-in-pak_795748.html
I think I’m going out and kick a muslims ass just for fun.
Mindlessness on the march
Ayaz Amir
Friday, August 31, 2012
From Print Edition
197 82 109 2
Islamabad diary
If there was an international shoot-in-the-foot prize Pakistan would win it hands down, our genius for self-inflicted injuries surpassing that of all competitors. We don’t need RAW, Mossad or the CIA to conspire against us. We are self-sufficient in this department, no conspiracy from those quarters coming close to what we can do to ourselves.
As if the blasphemy discourse had not been worked to death already, we have another blasphemy case on our hands, the news of which has spread at the speed of light across the globe, contributing immeasurably once more to the fair name of the Islamic Republic.
Pity the concerned outsider trying hard to understand the Pakistani malaise, that peculiar gift for going over the edge in both thought and action at the slightest provocation. With the Rimsha Masih blasphemy case, however, involving a 13-14 year old Christian girl, chances are he would just give up in despair and pronounce this malady as beyond cure or comprehension.
What is this case about? Groping for an answer I went into the maze of rundown streets which is the old locality of Mehra Jaffer just outside Islamabad where this supposed blasphemy occurred, and there met Amad the complainant in this case. In my mind I had imagined the glittering eye of the fanatic. What I found was a friendly guy slightly confused at the sudden attention he was getting. I asked him his education and he said he had studied up to class five, could read a bit but knew not how to write.
Amad runs a CNG car-fitting shop in the G-11 Market. In a room upstairs I sat with him and a few other car mechanics and put a few questions. Amad said he had spotted Rimsha carrying a few burnt pages in a plastic shopping bag which on closer inspection turned out to be pages from the Nurani Qaida, a helpful primer for mastering the Arabic alphabet, preparatory to reading the Quran…pages not from the Quran then, and spotted by a person who could not read.
Forget for a moment the technicalities of what was burnt, I said. Did he think the girl Rimsha had any quarrel with Islam? No, he said, the others too nodding their heads in agreement. So what was all the fuss about and how was the glory of Islam affected? They all looked pretty blank. Had Rimsha meant to hurt anyone’s sentiments? Again silence. Amad looked a well-meaning person but clearly out of his depth.
Rimsha’s small house, now closed, is on one side, Amad’s house next to it; an open sewer dark with dirty water, on the other side of the lane; across the lane a rising bit of open ground covered with overgrown grass and littered with dirt and refuse and plastic shopping bags. The lights of Islamabad could be a world away.
On two sides of this patch of ground are small one-room houses; beyond it the mosque of Mohallah Bhudial, the name of this locality. I knocked at one or two doors to find out who lived there: migrant day labourers from Toba Tek Singh, Faisalabad and Sargodha. I felt my heart sinking as all around lay filth and squalor and it was against this sickening backdrop – God show me no mercy if I exaggerate – that the drama of such mighty issues as blasphemy was being enacted.
Young Mehreen Noor said it was she who took the burnt pages to the imam of the mosque. As she saw the quizzical expression on my face she said that when she saw the burnt pages she felt as if her liver (kaleja) was being torn apart. I was stunned. This from a 10-11 year old…and this is the atmosphere in which our young, especially those on the other side of the tracks, are being brought up. And it is for national greatness and redemption that we pray.
The imam held a council of war and Rimsha’s family was told to leave the locality within an hour. The police were also informed. Mercifully, no announcement was made on the mosque loudspeaker but matters took an ugly turn when news of the supposed outrage spread to the nearby bazaar. From most accounts it was Muhammad Amir Kazmi, an Urdu-speaking migrant from Karachi who runs his small Mashallah General Store, who was in the forefront of the agitation. After repeated announcements from the local mosque, a crowd gathered and the road was blocked. The crowd then marched to the Ramna police station where, discretion triumphing over valour, a blasphemy case on Amad’s complaint was registered against Rimsha and she was arrested.
Whether blasphemy of any sort had indeed been committed, whether the girl Rimsha was capable of such a thing as blasphemy, this implying understanding and comprehension, no police officer bothered to find out. No attempt was made to cool hotheads like Qadri. The police took the easy way out by registering the case and caring not a whit for the consequences.
Rimsha’s age, whether she is under-age or not, is being cited as grounds for taking a lenient view of the charge against her. But this is to beat about the bush. At issue should be neither her age nor her being afflicted with Down’s syndrome. The thing to determine is whether the inadvertent burning of a text such as the Nurani primer, whether by a mature person or an immature girl, constitutes by any stretch of the imagination an act of blasphemy.
Aasia Bib in Sheikhupura, the case which led to the murder of Governor Salmaan Taseer, was accused of blasphemy in much the same circumstances as are to be found in this case. She is still languishing in prison and brave will be the high court judge who will bring himself to give her any relief. The half-crazed fakir or malang sprung from police lockup in Bahawalpur by an enraged mob and then set on fire was also accused of burning some pages of holy scripture. Where are we heading, and what is this madness we are reaping? All in the name of religion.
And the sorry part is that incidents such as these usually happen in the poorest of localities. Then they are hijacked by muftis and divines sitting in state on television, and what may have begun from small causes is blown out of all proportions and Pakistan becomes a laughingstock once more around the world.
In front of Kazmi’s store I told a group of people that I received six or seven newspapers every day and that often enough in the Urdu papers there were religious supplements with photos of the Kaaba and the Holy Mosque at Medina. When all that newsprint was thrown away did it mean that my household was showing disrespect to the symbols of the faith? This was not blasphemy, they agreed. So how did Rimsha commit blasphemy? No answer.
If the Islamabad Police abdicated its responsibility and showed no spine on the first day, even now it is shirking its responsibility by passing the buck to the judiciary when it should have the guts to complete its investigation and say clearly whether the act of blasphemy on the part of an under-age girl had occurred or not.
But if the police are behaving in a spineless manner, what about their puissant lordships? At the drop of a hat a nation in thrall to exciting things has seen the generous exercise of suo motu jurisdiction? On a memorable occasion even two wine bottles allegedly discovered from the luggage of the engaging Ms Atiqa Odho were the subject of a suo motu notice. Does Rimsha’s case not merit the same attention? Or does the blackening of Pakistan’s face round the world for something which should not have arisen in the first place count for nothing?
Email: winlust@yahoo.com
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-129254-Mindlessness-on-the-march