On Monday, Christians across Pakistan mourned the Gojra tragedy, which led to the death of seven people over the weekend. Hundreds of Muslims, apparently spurred by a banned militant group, stormed a Christian neighbourhood, burning dozens of houses after reports surfaced that some Christians had desecrated a Quran. In response to the attack, the Christian community held protests and insisted that charges of negligence be registered against the Gojra DCO and DPO.
Does the Gojra incident emphasise the fact that the government is finding it increasingly difficult to protect Pakistani citizens from attacks by organised, well-armed groups? What should the government do if the Gojra incident is proved to have been spurred by a banned militant outfit to spark Muslim-Christian riots? Is Gojra an isolated incident, or yet another indication that Pakistani society is becoming increasingly extremist and intolerant?
Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law has often been criticised for breeding religious intolerance. Under the law, the mere accusation of saying or writing something deemed insulting to Prophet Mohammad or the Holy Quran is enough to be arrested and imprisoned. Religious groups see the law as important for the ‘protection’ of Islam, while minority groups see it as an unfair law that is used to intimidate non-Muslims. Since 1986, at least 892 persons have been accused of blasphemy and in virtually every case the charges were completely fabricated. In your opinion, would repealing the blasphemy law help prevent incidents such as the attacks in Gojra?
The views expressed in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
Nice post & nice blog. I love both.
I dont have any suitable words to condole with the grieved families. The so called Holy Men who did all this in the name of the Most High are already being punished by Him through His own measures in and around the world. We must not forget that this law is not to be practiced in the favour of any Prophet, rather this law existed during the period of Jewish History. One must not forget that Jesus Christ was crucified because he was convicted due to the same law. It is therefore pertinent to note that this law only comes into play when the Holy Name of The Creator Of This World is violated. No one can be considered above His Holy Name. There is also another point to be noted which is very important and that is conversions. One should not forget that in this part of the world there was one religion which is called Hinduism (though in different forms), then came others including Islam. In the end came Christianity. All problems started from here. The Hindus were converted to Christians and so were the Muslims. Now Christians are under the Swords of both these Religions. This will go on unless the Law it self is not repealed and the culprits be punished within 30 days. It must not be bailable offence and in case of deaths then capital punishment must be guaranteed.
Promote equality. We as muslims cry for religous freedom world over and protest againt descriminations but what we are doing in our back yard? Is there any religious freedom for others in Muslim countires? we should go secular and stop swering by the god in all occations. All those who born here has equal right on this land no matter what God he/she believes in. Religion is a drug which we are addicted to. Let Chrstians be Chrsitans and Muslims be Muslims. have these values inbibed in young mind and close down all Maddrassas if these kind of incidents need not be repeated.
End the bigotry over the next 30 years and maybe a new generation of earth friendly and divirsity loving Pakistanis will contribute to making this a better world for all. e.g. Do not insist that the only worthy human beings have to be Muslims. This is forcing billions to think just the opposite.
Will the real Pakistanis please stand up and even be prepared to die for the real cause, the enemy within! Not the non sensical reasons we hear with their origins from 1000 years ago!
How can we prevent a repeat of the Gojra attacks? Gojra attack and other similar attacks conveniently disguised as blasphemy or some other devious not to mention dubious pretexts are symptoms of socio/economic deficiencies. “An idle mind is the devils workshop” and Pakistan it seems is the biggest workshop devil has going for him at the moment.
Economic disenchantment, soaring illiteracy coupled with a peoples who wear their religion on their sleeve is a lethal cocktail ready to go off any time.
What amazes me about our people is the complete lack of ownership for anything in life. Everything is pre-ordained and any effort to do other wise is an exercise in futility. Fate accompli is the fate all have seemingly reconciled with.
God must wonder about the state of mind of the particular species he/it created as Pakistani’s and to a great extent Indians as well. Self pity and misplaced faith are the credo by which most in the sub-continent rule (ruin) their lives.
To me blasphemy is assigning blame to Allah for the failings and misgivings by saying “bus Khuda kee marzee nahee thee”. God must wonder; how did I enter this scenario? You goofed off and failed and I get blamed for it. That doesn’t sound fair to me. Come to think of it I would like to add an addendum to the draconian blasphemy law. From now on anyone who utters the above sentence of (dis)crediting Allah with their failures should be immediately and forthwith punished severely in the public square, heck public circle or any other geometric shape convenient for performing the blessed event.
Get people busy with work and a sense of direction and you would soon enough find the local mullah in queue applying for unemployment benefits.
My Dear Muslims Brothers.. Have tolerance for other civilizations and religions! Try to co-exist with other Cultures and Philosophies! Everybody thinks his religion is greatest… We should think that “My religion is great, other religions are also great”. You might have a list of faults of other religions… similarly others have a list of faults of Islam. Just think why so many people now think of Muslims as terrorists and Islam as violent culture… why Muslims are not being tolerated in the whole world… why why why… think my brothers … think
Hi friends, I am an indian. I dont want to comment in your internal matters. But want to share some word. All human living in this world are same. All have same 4 types of blood groups, same appearance. All are creation of god (allah) or what name you give. If god differentiates muslims with non muslims then certainly he had created non muslim with total diffrent appearance.
Certainly we dont have any right to kill any person in the name of religion.
surely religion must be diffrentiated with all types of politics, education, sports etc.
The real problem of pakistan is to joining religion with every part of life there. if pak i secular contitutionally then respect all regious books in the schools. Remember God creates all his/her child equal, only we in thi earth divided ourself between diffrent faiths and religion.
I think Gojra was a way that the world devised to beg for a post-hydrocarbon Balfour Declaration. In this respect, it was not less than the attack on the World Trade Center.
The Gojra and other incidence burning of Christian houses and lives shows a total lack of understanding of the Holy Quran.
All over Pakistan the Holy Quran is desecrated by thousands of Muslims every days in civil and criminal cases. People bear false witness putting innocent live to rot in jail. This is all done on the belief that anyone who bear false witness or a false statement under oath of the Holy Quran will be cursed by God’s word which is a double edge sword. Now when it come to allegation of desecration of the Holy Quran by Christian, Hindus or others, the Muslims take it upon themselves to annihilated the alleged culprits resulting in the loss of innocent lives and properties.
Such activities are carried-out under the order of some spiritual leadership, A Mullah, An Immam, someone who is considered to have a through understanding of the Holy Quran. Such ill-informed Mullah’s – without the knowledge of there followers are not only portraying a bad image of Islam but making whole Muslim communities commit the biggest sin and that is the sin of Shirk.
In fact not only communities but the governments under the ill-advice of the Islamic clergy have committed this sin. The Government of Pakistan committed the sin of Shirk by the enactment of Blasphemy law.
I categorically state: Blasphemy Law is an act of Shirk and should be repealed immediately.
The following is full text of the criminal code of Pakistan on Blasphemy Laws appearing at the following Web Site of United Nations. Please visit this site for full details:
It is hoped that the present government of Pakistan will repeal these laws in the interest of peace and co-existence within all Pakistanis as well as peace and co-existence with international community.
http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0/9da54d3f22f184f1802567390039e0d6?Opendocument
Shabbir saab,
You have said that there is no country in the world that does not have blasphemy laws. Well first of all India does not have blasphemy laws. Indonesia which has the largest number of Muslims does not have a blasphemy law. Bangladesh, which was a part of Pakistan does not have blasphemy laws. In other words, out of the 4 countries that have the highest Muslim population, only one has a blasphemy law i.e. Pakistan while Indonesia, Bangladesh and India do not.
China and US do not have blasphemy laws either.
But yes Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia do have blasphemy laws.
Hi my name is ali, and i am from toba take singh. i live ten miles away where all this happened. toba take sing have long history attacking on Christians, but they were not published on newspaper, neither were air on the tv. i have seen one attack in front of my eye’s when a christian person used the bad words about our prophet, and holy book. people got together and they reported to police but no action was taken. same people got together again and beat the person badly and forced him to leave that place. after reading this you people can decide who’s fault is this, people or police.
The unfortunate murder of 9 Pakistani Christians happened during riots in a Pakistani village. It was the only such incident since Pakistan’s independence 62 years ago where Pakistani Christians and Muslims were involved in a sectarian confrontation of this nature. And now the investigators confirm it wasn’t even a religious issue as a local Muslim politician has been found involved in engineering riots in order to grab land owned by minority Pakistanis. The influential land grabber from the dominant party in the province used religion to incite violence against the innocent minority Pakistanis. This is part of the rot within the Pakistani political class.
The best part is that all Pakistanis, including the Islamic religious parties, came to Pakistani Christians’ defense. The Pakistani prime minister flew in to the village to be with Pakistani Christians, an act endorsed by all Pakistanis.
Not only justice, but extension of the best treatment to non-Muslims has been ordained. It has been explicitly explained in Surah (60)
I genuinely want to know the answer to the question, as I am not a Muslim. My understanding is that the greatness of Islam lies in recognising the fact that Man reports directly to God, without the benefit of middlemen. Islam-submission- is submission to God by Man. How can this simple and powerful concept be blashphemed? The people who accuse others of blashphemy are the blashphemers, which cannot be as Islam cannot be blashphemed.
I think most problems arise in our part of the world because people confuse tribal practices with Islam.
It is not enough to condemn. What we have do is wipe out poverty and disparity of wealth and income between the rich and poor. Economic disparity creates hatred and this kind of incidents.
We cannot prevent it. As long as political-criminal nexus exists, incidents like this will happen again and again. That is the sad truth. I am not a pessimist , I am a realist.
You can not prevent this in a state where there is no writ of the government. When will we learn that religion and politics should not mix?
It is fundamentally immoral to take a human life because of desecration of a book. Besides its literal enforcement, this law empowers all manner of extreme coercion, particularly against minorities. Repealing the blasphemy laws will dis-empower the radicals and free the police to enforce peace without qualification. Doing so is the basis for Pakistan to move forward into mutual respect for all its citizens, with resulting domestic tranquility, with all people working together for mutual prosperity. Please, take this most basic step toward human rights and decency. Do it for God’s sake.
These problems will haunt us until we do not abolish the death penalty altogether.
There is no country in the world where a blasphemy law does not exist.
Repealing blasphemy law in Pakistan will create civil unrest.
The authorities should investigate the matter as why Gojra incident occurred?
People responsible murdering Christians and burning their houses should be severely punished.
The law of the land and law of Islam both guarantee protection to the minority communities.
Ali from Lahore said “To avoid such incidents from happening again Christians in Pakistan need to learn to respect the Islamic Holy Book. If not then do not cry foul”
I believe you are belonging to those people who had done this with the innocent Christians in Gojra or you are backing such people who did this crime? There is not a single evidence in the whole history of Pakistan where Pakistani Christians disrespectful to Quran or any Holy Books. From the beginning of Pakistan their role is to build Pakistan and they always believe in “live and let live”. How could you blame? Don’t you watch the news? It is on the record that Ex Federal Minister for Minorities Ejaz-ul-Haq has categorically stated in Talat Hussain’s programme “Live with Talat” telecasted on 3rd August, 2009 that there was not a single evidence found against any Christians, and all blasphemy cases against them were false to settle the personal disputes. Here’s the Dawn link for your ready reference where provisional minister Rana Sanaullah states there was no evidence of any blasphemy, and as a result FIR is registered against the people who deliberately kill the Christians.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/13+negligence+of+officials+blamed+for+gojra+riots-za-14
Keep it in mind Pakistani Christians are Pakistani and you can not kill them in false blasphemy cases. Their security, properties and lives is the responsibility of Govt of Pakistan.
I would like to request the authorities and our Muslim brothers to please take strict actions against black sheep like Ali and other like minded people, who motivate people by showing the world scenario.
After Gojra today its Sheikhupura with the same context of ‘Tearing and Burning Quran’. The factory owner Nadeem Zafar has been killed along with a worker ,the leather factory has been set on fire.
I think its the so-called terrorists, the descendants of ‘Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’ from South Of Punjab who are behind the terrorism and the religious riots from Karachi till FATA, Swat and across Afghanistan.
They are trying to make Pakistan like ‘Yugoslavia’. This is time the sane elements must get together to foresee what is cooking up. I am sure that at the end of the day Nadeem Zafar will turn out to be Ahmadi.
I hope my ‘book’ is covered too and I am protected. I genuinely believe in the secular and human values set forth in the European Constitution. It truly tells us how to live peacefully in the 21st Century and beyond.
How long will the innocent Christians Pakistanis suffer and die on the pretense of desecration of Holy Quran?