blasphemy law

[Mir khetran]

Blasphemy and Quran


[5:57] O you who believe, do not befriend those among the recipients of previous scripture who mock and ridicule your religion, nor shall you befriend the disbelievers. You shall reverence GOD, if you are really believers.

[6:68] If you see those who mock our revelations, you shall avoid them until they delve into another subject. If the devil causes you to forget, then, as soon as you remember, do not sit with such evil people.

[18:106] Their just requital is Hell, in return for their disbelief, and for mocking My revelations and My messengers.

[39:48] The sinful works they had earned will be shown to them, and the very things they used to mock will come back to haunt them.

[45:33] The evils of their works will become evident to them, and the very things they mocked will come back and haunt them.

Why the Muslim masses ignore the Messenger Muhammad? Who they want to please?
The punishment is delivered by God, not by you or me.
The killing is justified only if people wage war against you. You may kill them, in that case:

[5:33] The just retribution for those who fight GOD and His messenger, and commit horrendous crimes, is to be killed, or crucified, or to have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, or to be banished from the land. This is to humiliate them in this life, then they suffer a far worse retribution in the Hereafter.

The killing is not justified if people evict you. You may only evict them:

[2:191] You may kill those who wage war against you, and you may evict them whence they evicted you. Oppression is worse than murder. Do not fight them at the Sacred Masjid, unless they attack you therein. If they attack you, you may kill them. This is the just retribution for those disbelievers.


The killing is not justified if people insult the Prophet. God will take care of it.

[18:106] Their just requital is Hell, in return for their disbelief, and for mocking My revelations and My messengers

And, these are some of the Quranic wisdoms:

[42:37] They avoid gross sins and vice, and when angered they forgive

[42:40] Although the just requital for an injustice is an equivalent retribution, those who pardon and maintain righteousness are rewarded by GOD. He does not love the unjust.


Islam and blasphemy
Blasphemy in Islam is any irreverent behavior[1] toward holy personages, religious artifacts, customs, and beliefs that Muslims revere. The Quran and the hadith do not speak about blasphemy.[2] Jurists created the offence, and they made it part of Sharia.[2] Where Sharia pertains, the penalties for blasphemy can include fines, imprisonment, flogging, amputation, hanging, or beheading.[3][4] Muslim clerics may call for the punishment of an alleged blasphemer by issuing a fatwā.[5][6]
Blasphemy versus apostasy
Muslim jurists dispute about what irreverent behavior amounts to blasphemy. They dispute about whether behavior that is deemed blasphemous amounts to a rejection of Islam, that is, apostasy. Some jurists believe that blasphemy automatically removes an individual from the fold of Islam.[2] Jurists may conflate and confuse apostasy, blasphemy, hypocrisy,heresy, and unbelief. An individual may find himself accused of being an atheist, a heretic, a hypocrite, a blasphemer, and an apostate on the basis of one action or utterance.[7][8]
Blasphemers
Islamic legal authorities agree that a blasphemer can be Muslim or non-Muslim. To be convicted of blasphemy, an individual must be an adult, of sound mind, and not under duress. Some jurisdictions do not punish individuals who commit blasphemy accidentally. The Maliki school of jurisprudence permits the exoneration of accused individuals who are converts to Islam.[8]
Blasphemy against holy personages
Individuals have been accused of blasphemy or of insulting Islam for:
 speaking ill of Allah.[9]
 finding fault with Muhammad.[10][11][12][13][14]
 slighting a prophet who is mentioned in the Qur'an,[15] or slighting a member of Muhammad's family.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]
 claiming to be a prophet or a messenger.[26][27]
 speculating about how Muhammad would behave if he were alive (Nigeria).[28][29]
 drawing a picture to represent Muhammad[12][30][31][32][33] or any other prophet,[12] or making a film which features a prophet (Egypt).[34][35]
 writing Muhammad's name on the walls of a toilet (Pakistan).[36]
 naming a teddy bear Muhammad (Sudan). See Sudanese teddy bear blasphemy case.[37][38][39]
 invoking God while committing a forbidden act.[8]
Blasphemy against beliefs and customs
Individuals have been accused of blasphemy or of insulting Islam for:
 finding fault with Islam.[40][41][42][43]
 saying Islam is an Arab religion; prayers five times a day are unnecessary; and the Qur'an is full of lies (Indonesia).[44]
 believing in transmigration of the soul or reincarnation or disbelieving in the afterlife (Indonesia).[45][46]
 finding fault with a belief or a practice which the Muslim community (Ummah) has adopted.[45]
 finding fault with or cursing apostles (Rasul or Messenger), prophets, or angels.[45]
 expressing an atheist or a secular point of view[6][20][47][48][49][50] or publishing or distributing such a point of view.[5][20][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]
 using words that Muslims use because the individuals were not Muslims (Malaysia).[25][61][62]
 praying that Muslims become something else (Indonesia).[63]
 whistling during prayers (Indonesia).[64]
 flouting the rules prescribed for Ramadan.[64]
 reciting Muslim prayers in a language other than Arabic (Indonesia).[64]
 consuming alcohol.[64][65]
 gambling.[64]
 being alone with persons of the opposite sex who are not blood relatives.[64]
 finding amusement in Islamic customs (Bangladesh).[66][67][68][69]
 publishing an unofficial translation of the Qur'an (Afghanistan).[70]
 practicing yoga (Malaysia).[71]
 watching a film or listening to music (Somalia).[72]
 wearing make-up on television (Iran).[73]
 insulting religious scholarship.[8]
 wearing the clothing of Jews or of Zoroastrians.[8]
 claiming that forbidden acts are not forbidden.[8]
 uttering "words of infidelity" (sayings that are forbidden).[8]
 participating in non-Islamic religious festivals.[8]
 converting from Islam to Christianity or publishing or distributing such a point of view. (entire Muslim part of Middle East, Asia, and Far East).
 talking about or trying to convert others from Islam to Christianity or publishing or distributing such a point of view (entire Muslim part of Middle East, Asia and Far East).
Blasphemy against artifacts
Individuals have been accused of blasphemy or of insulting Islam for:
 touching a Qur'an or touching something that has touched a Qur'an because the individuals were not Muslim (Nigeria).[74][75][76][77]
 damaging a Qur'an[78][79][80][81] or other books of importance to Islam, for example, hadith (Pakistan).[45]
 spitting at the wall of a mosque (Pakistan).[82][83]
Punishment
The punishments for different instances of blasphemy in Islam vary by jurisdiction,[2][84][85] but may be very severe. A convicted blasphemer may, among other penalties, lose all legal rights. The loss of rights may cause a blasphemer's marriage to be dissolved, religious acts to be rendered worthless, and claims to property—including any inheritance—to be rendered void. Repentance may restore lost rights except for marital rights; lost marital rights are regained only by remarriage. Women have blasphemed and repented to end a marriage. Women may be permitted to repent, and may receive a lesser punishment than would befall a man who committed the same offense.[8] In some jurisdictions blasphemy may be subject to the death penalty[86]. Many severe punishments are imposed in various Islamic societies.
Blasphemy against God
Islamic law makes a distinction between a blasphemer who insults God and a blasphemer who finds fault with Muhammad. The distinction is based on the notions of the "right of God" and the "right of Man." Reviling God violates the "right of God," who has the power to avenge the insult. Reviling Muhammad violates the "right of Man," who, in the case of Muhammad, does not have the power to avenge the insult. A blasphemer who violates the "right of God" can seek forgiveness through repentance.[2]
The Qur'an speaks of punishment in relation to those who make mischief in opposition to God and Muhammad:
The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter, Except for those who return repenting before you apprehend them. And know that Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.” (5:33-34)
—Qur'an, sura 5 (Al-Ma'ida), ayah 33-34[87]
Blasphemy against Muhammad
A blasphemer who violates the "right of Man" must seek forgiveness from the person insulted. In the case of an insult to Muhammad, the Muslim community is considered to be under an obligation to avenge the insult because the possibility of forgiveness expired upon the death of Muhammad.[2]
Blasphemy against beliefs and customs
The punishment for non-conformity with prevailing beliefs and customs varies by jurisdiction.[84] In September 2009, Abdul Kahar Ahmad pleaded guilty in a Malaysian Sharia court to charges of spreading false doctrines, blasphemy, and violating religious precepts. The court sentenced Ahmad to ten years in prison and six lashes from a rattan cane.[88] In October 2009, Somalia's hardline Islamist group al-Shabaabwhipped women who were wearing a bra, and whipped men for being beardless. The group said violation of Islamic custom deserved whipping.[89]





Blasphemy law in Pakistan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Pakistan Penal Code prohibits blasphemy against any recognised religion, providing penalties ranging from a fine to death. An accusation of blasphemy commonly subjects the accused, police, lawyers, and judges to harassment, threats, and attacks. An accusation is sometimes the prelude to vigilantism and rioting.
Calls for change in the blasphemy laws have been strongly resisted by Islamic parties.
Prominent figures like Salman Taseer (the former governor of Punjab) and Shahbaz Bhatti (the Federal Minister for Minorities) have been assassinated for their opposition to the blasphemy laws.
The constitution
By its constitution, the official name of Pakistan is the "Islamic Republic of Pakistan." More than 96% of Pakistan's 167 million citizens (2008) are Muslims.[1] Among countries with a Muslim majority, Pakistan has the strictest anti-blasphemy laws. The first purpose of those laws is to protect Islamic authority. By the constitution (Article 2), Islam is the state religion. By the constitution's Article 31, it is the country's duty to foster the Islamic way of life. By Article 33, it is the country's duty to discourage parochial, racial, tribal, sectarian, and provincial prejudices among the citizens.[2]
The blasphemy laws
Several sections of Pakistan's Criminal Code comprise its blasphemy laws.[3] § 295 forbids damaging or defiling a place of worship or a sacred object. § 295-A forbids outraging religious feelings. § 295-B forbids defiling the Quran. § 295-C forbids defaming the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Except for § 295-C, the provisions of § 295 require that an offence be a consequence of the accused's intent. Defiling the Quran merits imprisonment for life. Defaming Muhammad merits death with or without a fine. (See below Sharia.) If a charge is laid under § 295-C, the trial must take place in a Court of Session with a Muslim judge presiding.[4]
§ 298 states:
Whoever, with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of any person, utters any word or makes any sound in the hearing of that person or makes any gesture in the sight of that person or places any object in the sight of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.
§ 298-A prohibits the use of any derogatory remark or representation in respect of Muslim holy personages. § 298-B and § 298-C prohibit the Ahmadiyya from behaving as Muslims behave, calling themselves Muslims, proselytising, or "in any manner whatsoever" outraging the religious feelings of Muslims. Violation of any part of § 298 makes the violator liable to imprisonment for up to three years and liable also to a fine.
Between 1986 and 2007, Pakistani authorities charged 647 people with blasphemy offences.[5] Fifty percent of these were non-Muslims, who represent only 3% of the national population.[5] No judicial execution for blasphemy has ever occurred in Pakistan,[6][7] but 20 of those charged were murdered.[5]
The only law that may be useful in countering misuse of the Blasphemy law is PPC 153 A (a), whoever “by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations or otherwise, promotes or incites, or attempts to promote or incite, on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities” shall be fined and punished with imprisonment for a term that may extend to five years.
On 12 January 2011, Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousuf Raza Gilani once again said that there would be no amendments to the blasphemy law.[8]

Sharia
The Federal Shariat Court (FSC) is a religious body which rules on whether any particular law is repugnant to the injunctions of Islam. If a law is repugnant to Islam, "the President in the case of a law with respect to a matter in the Federal Legislative List or the Concurrent Legislative List, or the Governor in the case of a law with respect to a matter not enumerated in either of those Lists, shall take steps to amend the law so as to bring such law or provision into conformity with the Injunctions of Islam" (Constitution, Article 203D). In October 1990, the FSC ruled that § 295-C was repugnant to Islam by permitting life imprisonment as an alternative to a death sentence. The Court said "the penalty for contempt of the Holy Prophet ... is death."[9][10] The FSC ruled that, if the President did not take action to amend the law before 30 April 1991, then § 295-C would stand amended by its ruling.
Promptly after the FSC's ruling in 1990, Bishop Dani L. Tasleem filed an appeal in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which has the power to overrule the FSC. In April 2009, the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court considered the appeal. Deputy Attorney-General Agha Tariq Mehmood, who represented the federal government, said that the Shariat Appellate Bench dismissed the appeal because the appellant did not pursue it. The appellant did not present any argument on the appeal because the appellant, according to reports, was no longer alive. Consequently, it appears to be the law in Pakistan that persons convicted under § 295-C must be sentenced to death with or without a fine.[11]
Vigilantism
Those who are accused of blasphemy may be subject to harassment, threats, and attacks. Police, lawyers, and judges may also be subject to harassment, threats, and attacks when blasphemy is an issue.[12][13] Those accused of blasphemy are subject to immediate incarceration, and most accused are denied bail to forestall mob violence.[10][12] It is common for those accused of blasphemy to be put in solitary confinement for their protection from other inmates and guards. Like those who have served a sentence for blasphemy, those who are acquitted of blasphemy usually go into hiding or leave Pakistan.[7][12][14]
United Nations
Pakistan's opposition to blasphemy has caused Pakistan to be active in the international arena in promoting global limitations on freedom of religion or belief and limitations on freedom of expression. In March 2009, Pakistan presented a resolution to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva which calls upon the world to formulate laws against the defamation of religion.[12] See blasphemy.
Internet censorship
Main article: Internet censorship in Pakistan
In May 2010, Pakistan blocked access to Facebook because the website hosted a page called Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. Pakistan lifted the block after Facebook prevented access to the page. In June 2010, Pakistan blocked seventeen websites for hosting content that the authorities considered offensive to Muslims. At the same time, Pakistan began to monitor the content of Google, Yahoo, YouTube,Amazon, MSN, Hotmail, and Bing.[15]

Selected cases

 Rimsha Masih (some reports use the name "Rifta" or "Riftah") is a Pakistani child who was arrested in Islamabad by Pakistani police in August 2012 and who could face the death penalty for blasphemy[16][17] for allegedly desecrating pages of the Quran (or a book containing verses from the Quran) by burning.[18][19] She is a member of Pakistan's Christian minority.[16]
 On 12 December 2011, a teacher Shahid Nadeem in the missionary school of Faisalabad accused by Qari Muhammad Afzal (who is a member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which is a banned organisation) registered FIR on 28 December 2011 in the local police station and said that culprit had deliberately torn the pages of Quran and later burn these pages.
 On 2 March 2011 Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs (a Roman Catholic member of the National Assembly), was killed by gunmen in Islamabad as he was travelling to work, a few weeks after he had vowed to defy death threats over his efforts to reform Pakistan's blasphemy laws.[20]
 In November 2010, Asia Bibi was sentenced to death by hanging on a charge of blasphemy; the case that has yet to be upheld by the Lahore High Court has sparked international reactions. Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was shot dead by his security guard for supporting Asia Bibi. Salman Taseer had visited Asia Bibi in Jail and had held a press conference with her. [21] He had told media that Asia Bibi will be released soon and the President of Pakistan will soon annul her death sentence. This triggered mass protests in Pakistan with many imams of local mosques claiming that Salman Taseer had defied Mohammed and should be sentenced to death for it. Taseer was later assassinated in early 2011.
 In July 2010, a trader in Faisalabad complained that one of his employees had been handed a pamphlet which contained disrespectful remarks about Muhammad. According to the police, the pamphlet appeared to have the signatures and addresses of Pastor Rashid Emmanuel and his brother Sajid, who were Christians. The brothers were shot and killed while being escorted by the police from a district court. Both had denied the charge of blasphemy.[22] Allama Ahmed Mian Hammadi, a Pakistani Muslim cleric, claimed that Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Minorities, had himself committed blasphemy by branding the murdered Christian brothers as victims of Pakistan's blasphemy laws.
 On 9 July 2009, a FIR was registered against two teenager brothers, complainant falsely accusing them that they had spoke against Prophet Mohammad and this family had to left the country for their safety. On 30 July 2009, hundreds of members of Sipah-e-Sahaba and International Khatm-e-Nabuwat 'IKNM' the banned Muslim organisations, torched the Christian homes and killed Christians in the Punjabi city of Gojra Faisalabad and in the nearby village of Korian, District Faisalabad. The professed reason for the violence was that a Christian had defiled and spoke against Prophet Mohammad.Quran.[23][24][25]
 On 22 January 2009, Hector Aleem a Christian Human Rights Activist in Pakistan was arrested on a blasphemy charge. According to the FIR, someone sent a blasphemous text message to the leader of Sunni Tehreek. Hector Aleem was arrested because the sender had once contacted him. Hector Aleem, the Chairman of Peace Worldwide, had been working for a church in Islamabad which was demolished by the CDA (Capital Development Authority) for having been built illegally. When Hector Aleem objected to the destruction of the church he was faced with several threats and lawsuits ranging from fraud to criminal charges. He fought all of them in the courts and proved his innocence. He also faced several assassination attempts. Hector Aleem was eventually arrested on the charge of blasphemy.
 In February 2008, Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council reminded Pakistan's representative of the matter regarding Raja Fiaz, Muhammad Bilal, Nazar Zakir Hussain, Qazi Farooq, Muhammad Rafique, Muhammad Saddique and Ghulam Hussain. According to the allegations received, the men were members of the Mehdi Foundation International (MFI), a multi-faith institution utilising the name of Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi. They were arrested on 23 December 2005 in Wapda Town. The police confiscated posters on which Gohar Shahi was shown as "Imam Mehdi." On 13 July 2006, the Anti-Terrorism Court No. 1 in Lahore sentenced each accused to five years of imprisonment, inter alia, under § 295-A for having outraged others' religious feelings. Since 27 August 2006, the seven men have been detained in Sahiwal Jail, Punjab, where they were forced to parade naked, and were suspended from the ceiling and beaten. For this reason, they were constantly threatened and intimidated by prison staff as well as by other detainees.
 Christians and Muslims in Pakistan condemned Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code as blasphemous. On 3 June 2006, Pakistan banned the film. Culture Minister Ghulam Jamal said: "Islam teaches us to respect all the prophets of God Almighty and degradation of any prophet is tantamount to defamation of the rest."[26]
 On 11 August 2005, Judge Arshad Noor Khan of the Anti-Terrorist Court found Younus Shaikh guilty of defiling a copy of the Quran, outraging religious feelings, and propagating religious hatred among society.[27] Shaikh's conviction occurred because he wrote a book: Shaitan Maulvi (Satanic Cleric). The book said stoning to death (Rajam) as a punishment for adultery was not mentioned in the Quran. The book said also that four historical imams (religious leaders) were Jews.[28] The judge imposed upon Shaikh a fine of 100,000 rupees, and sentenced him to spend his life in jail.[29]
 In October 2000, Pakistani authorities charged Dr. M. Younus Shaikh M.D., a physician, with blasphemy on account of remarks that students claimed he made during a lecture. The students alleged that,inter alia, Shaikh had said Muhammad's parents were non-Muslims because they died before Islam existed. A judge ordered that Shaikh pay a fine of 100,000 rupees, and that he be hanged.[30] On 20 November 2003, a court retried the matter and acquitted Shaikh, who fled Pakistan for Switzerland soon thereafter.[31]
 The police arrested Ayub Masih, a Pakistani Christian bricklayer for blasphemy on 14 October 1996 and jailed him for violation of § 295-C. Muhammad Akram, a Muslim neighbour to Masih, complained to the police that Masih had said Christianity was right, and Masih had recommended that Akram read Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.[9][32] The same day that Masih was arrested, Muslim villagers forced the entire Christian population of Masih's village (fourteen families) to leave the village. Masih's family had applied under a government program that gave housing plots to landless people. Local landlords resented Masih's application because the landlords had been able to oblige landless Christians to work in the fields in exchange for a place to live. Masih's application gave him a way out of his subservience to the landlords.[10] Upon Masih's arrest, the authorities gave Masih's plot to Akram.[9] Akram shot and injured Masih in the halls of the Session Court at Sahiwal on 6 November 1997. Four assailants attacked Masih in jail. The authorities took no action against Akram or against the other assailants.[9] On 20 April 1998, Judge Abdul Khan sentenced Masih to death and levied a fine of 100,000 rupees. Two judges of the Lahore High Court heard Masih's appeal on 24 July 2001. Shortly thereafter, the judges affirmed the judgment of the trial court.[9] On 16 August 2002, the Supreme Court of Pakistan set aside the judgment of the lower courts. The Supreme Court noted Akram's acquisition of Masih's property and concluded the case had been fabricated for personal gain. The court also noted other breaches in the law of due process.[33][34]

Pakistan’s blasphemy law ‘vaguely formulated and arbitrarily enforced’


Faraz Aamer Khan
GENEVA: With Muslim leaders in many countries calling for a global law barring what they call insults to Islam, the main non-Catholic world Christian grouping on Monday said just such a law in Pakistan is used to persecute other religions.
Pakistan’s “Blasphemy Law” has driven the country’s religious minorities – Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis, a dissenting Islamic group – into “a state of fear and terror”, said the World Council of Churches (WCC), organisers of a 3-day conference on the law.
“The Blasphemy Law, while purporting to protect Islam and religious sensitivities of the Muslim majority, is vaguely formulated and arbitrarily enforced by the police and judiciary in a way which amounts to harassment and persecution,” the WCC said in a position paper.
Pakistani religious figures from those minorities told the conference in Geneva that the law had led to false imprisonment, mob killings and compulsory conversion to Islam.
A Christian girl believed to be no older than 14, Rimsha Masih, was granted bail in Pakistan earlier this month and her lawyers are applying to have charges that she burned pages from the Koran dismissed after a local cleric was detained on suspicion of planting false evidence to stir resentment against Christians.
Masih’s case has provoked international concern as she could face execution under the blasphemy law despite her young age and reported mental problems.
The Geneva conference, set up several weeks ago, comes amid protests by Muslims across the globe over a film posted on the Internet some two months ago which imams have told their followers insults both the Prophet Mohammad and Islam.
Several protesters have died, and four U.S. diplomats, including the ambassador to Libya, were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in an echo of earlier violent protests over books and cartoons published in the West.
Amid the violence, Muslim religious leaders, and one prime minister, have called for an international legal agreement to criminalise any insult to Islam and other religions, their holy books and their prophets.
A global law along these lines with the imprimatur of the United Nations was sought for many years by the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the U.N. Human Rights Council, now meeting in Geneva.
Every year for more than a decade until 2010 the council, where Pakistan is OIC spokesman, or its predecessor committee, as well as the UN General Assembly, passed majority resolutions on resolutions proposed by the Islamic grouping.
But these were not converted into international agreement because of fierce opposition from the United States, European and some Latin American countries, who argued it would violate free speech and the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Following diplomatic negotiations spearheaded by the United States when the administration of President Barack Obama brought it into the council and support for the project waned, the OIC dropped its campaign two years ago.

“It certainly looks as though they (the OIC) might aim to use this furore over a video everyone recognises is stupid and pathetic to try to re-launch the ‘defamation’ campaign,” said one Western diplomat who asked not to be named.
Opponents of any such law say that even without it, Muslim communities in many non-Islamic countries manage to convince authorities to bend to their demands for banning or shelving literary or other works dealing with Islam.
Last week it was reported in Britain that a television programme by British prize-winning historian Tom Holland based on his recent book on the early centuries of Islam had been withdrawn following threats and protests by Muslims.
In a related development, another book was published in Britain on Monday by author Salman Rushdie on his experiences after Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 put a price on his head over “blasphemy” against Islam in a novel.
At the weekend, an Iranian religious foundation announced it was increasing the reward for killing the Indian-born Rushdie to $3.3 million, the Iranian Students News Agency ISNA said.

Amnesty urges Pakistan to reform blasphemy laws
ISLAMABAD: Amnesty International has urged Pakistan to reform its blasphemy laws and protect a young Christian girl arrested for allegedly burning pages inscribed with verses from the holy Quran.
Rimsha (previously also reported as Rifta), who is between 10 and 13 years old and is reported to have Down’s Syndrome, was taken into custody in a low-income area of Islamabad on Thursday after Muslim protestors demanded she be punished.
Polly Truscott, Amnesty International’s South Asia director, said the case showed the “erosion of the rule of law” in Pakistan and the dangers faced by those accused of blasphemy.
“Amnesty International is extremely concerned for Rimsha’s safety. In the recent past individuals accused of blasphemy have been killed by members of the public,” Truscott said in a statement issued late Tuesday.
President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday ordered officials to explain the arrest, while it was reported that Christians fled the neighbourhood of Mehrabad in fear.
Truscott welcomed Zardari’s response but warned it would count for little unless there were “greater efforts to reform the blasphemy laws to ensure they cannot be used maliciously to settle disputes or enable private citizens to take matters into their own hands.”
There has been growing concern in the West over religious intolerance in Pakistan following the assassinations last year of leading politician, Salman Taseer, and Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian cabinet minister who spoke out against the blasphemy law.
“The continued failure to reform these laws has effectively sent the message that anyone can commit outrageous abuses and attempt to excuse them as defence of religious sentiments,” Truscott said.
Neighbours said Rimsha had burned papers collected from a garbage pile for cooking in her family home and someone alerted the local cleric after spotting the remains being thrown out as rubbish.
Pakistan’s strict anti-blasphemy laws make defaming Islam or desecrating the holy book illegal and potentially punishable by death.
A Christian mother, Aasia Bibi, sentenced to death for blasphemy in late 2010 remains in prison, while last month, a mob snatched a mentally unstable man from a village police station and beat him to death in central Punjab province after he allegedly burned pages from the Quran.



Islamic states to reopen quest for global blasphemy law
By ROBERT EVANS

A leading Islamic organization signaled on Wednesday that it will revive long-standing attempts to make insults against religions an international criminal offence.

The bid follows uproar across the Muslim world over a crude Internet video clip filmed in the United States and cartoons in a French satirical magazine that lampoon the Prophet Mohammed.

But it appears unlikely to win acceptance from Western countries determined to resist restrictions on freedom of speech and already concerned about the repressive effect of blasphemy laws in Muslim countries such as Pakistan.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), said the international community should “come out of hiding from behind the excuse of freedom of expression”, a reference to Western arguments against a universal blasphemy law that the OIC has sought for over a decade.

He said the “deliberate, motivated and systematic abuse of this freedom” were a danger to global security and stability.

Separately, the Human Rights Commission of the OIC, which has 57 members and is based in Saudi Arabia, said “growing intolerance towards Muslims”, had to be checked and called for “an international code of conduct for media and social media to disallow the dissemination of incitement material”.

Western countries have long argued that such measures would run counter to the U.N.’s core human rights declaration on freedom of expression and could even open the door to curbs on academic research.

As if to underline the point, a conference in Geneva of the World Council of Churches (WCC), which groups the world’s major Protestant, Orthodox and Evangelical churches, urged Pakistan to abolish its blasphemy law, which carries a possible death penalty.

Critics say the law is widely misused to persecute non-Muslims, and cite this month’s case of a Muslim cleric detained on suspicion of planting evidence suggesting that a 14-year-old girl had burned Islamic religious texts.

Pakistani Christians and Hindus at the WCC gathering said a global law against blasphemy, or “defamation of religion”, would only endorse on an international scale the religious intolerance seen in Pakistan and in other Islamic countries.