This is what makes for pandemic discrimination against and harassment of Christians in Pakistan. From Arab News, with thanks to Twostellas:
ISLAMABAD, The government of Pakistan has restored the column of religion in passport, said Federal Minister of Defense Rao Sikanader Iqbal here yesterday.The column identifying the bearer's religious affiliation will be restored to the Pakistani passport, in a bid to avoid a clash with Islamic parties threatening a countrywide strike over the issue....
The move came ahead of a strike called by six-party Islamic alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal to protest the government's policies including the deletion of religion column from the machine readable passports, which were launched late last year.
The Islamists have said the deletion of the column was a deliberate attempt by President Pervez Musharraf to damage the Islamic identity of the 150-million strong overwhelmingly Muslim nation....
And you should see what they think about Santa Claus!
Geoff
Why not do somoething similar on all national identity cards and passports? No need to list particular religions (we know what that can lead to, as the listing of "natsionalnost'" on Soviet documents did) but only to offer the division of humans into the two categories that matter to Muslims (and hence must, alas, therefore matter, in the same way, to Infidels): Muslim, and Infidel. Then Muslims everywhere should be happy, for they will more easily recognize their own, and be able to police them, and keep them in line. They can then punish those who stray -- the Muslim girls who go on a picnic with unrelated males, the boys and girls or adults who wish someone a Merry Christmas or who recognize Easter, or who, still worse, actually seem to "make friends" with Christians and Jews (where will it all end? making friends with Hindus and atheists too?), which is a Bad Thing (see Qur'an, see Hadith, see Sira).
And from there, it is just a short hop to the requirement that non-Muslims wear an identifying armband as the Taliban required the Hindus to in Afghanistan. But I'm sure Naseem will tell us it is only for the protection of Christians in Pakistan.
This is worrying news for Pakistan's small and already beleagured Christian minority.
In Saudi 'religion: Islam' is automatically stamped on every baby's birth certificate unless the parents fight for it not to be, such as American diplomatic staff and foreign doctors.
The Muslims' argument is that everyone is born a Muslim, hence when people convert to Islam they call it 'reverting'.
If this is applied to passports in Pakistan today, it could well be to birth certificates tomorrow, with lots of cases of Christians being threatened against protesting for religion: Christian to be printed therein.
When I was in the Army, the forms for what you wanted on your 'dog tags' had a space for "Religion". I wrote "Agnostic".
It came back as printed on the metal tag as: "None".
I protested. I wanted "Agnostic" on there. It IS a specific and historical declaration of a type of religious belief - in my case, of what I saw as the inability of the fragile human intellect to decide on such absolute issues at our present level of awareness, 'spiritual' development, human consciousness and conceptual power. (I was reading Jung, Heraclitus, Colin Wilson, William James, John C. Lilly and Alan W. Watts, at the time, to the chagrin of the drill sergeants.)
The commanding officer told me there was NO metal press "slug" for the word, so I couldn't have anything but a defined faith ("Christian"; "Jewish", "Sikh"... and I don't even remember if they even had a "Muslim" stamping impress at that time, twenty years ago... although they probably did)
-or "None".
At least they got my blood type right.
Which was a little more important.
I was never stationed in a Muslim country, luckily.
They might have thought I was a "nun".
A bit of sarcasm on my part perhaps but the silver lining in this cloud is that it should make it easier when deciding who to let into western (or non-Islamic) countries.
Big Sleep my dog tags and service records said RNE (Religion not established) that was the only alternative "way back then".
humour lost
For Bush and others, Pakistan is an ally, but he doesn´t do anything with the blasphemous law or this news, is very sad. We don´t want dhirmitude.