"Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was the only senior Pakistani government official to attend." The others didn't want to be seen in any context that might suggest they oppose the blasphemy law. "Slain Cabinet Minister Is Buried in Pakistan," by Jane Perlez and Waqar Gillani for the New York Times, March 4 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Shahbaz Bhatti, the Christian cabinet minister who was assassinated this week, was honored Friday at a Roman Catholic service here attended by thousands and then buried in his impoverished village, a bastion for over 100 years for the rights of minorities.Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was the only senior Pakistani government official to attend. There was a phalanx of foreign diplomats, including the American ambassador, Cameron P. Munter, who sat in a pew near Mr. Bhatti’s coffin.
Mr. Bhatti had served as the minister for minorities and dedicated his life to religious tolerance in this increasingly radicalized Muslim country. His killing on Wednesday underlined the anxieties among Western governments that extremists were using targeted killings as a way to move Pakistan toward an Islamic state and were doing so with impunity.
Mr. Bhatti’s assassination followed the killing in January of an even more prominent politician, Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab. The men campaigned for the reform of draconian blasphemy laws that are often used to persecute minorities, particularly Christians. Mr. Taseer was killed by his government bodyguard, who was widely hailed in Pakistani society after he confessed.
Diplomats at Mr. Bhatti’s funeral at Our Lady of Fatima Church said they feared that the minister was killed on information provided by his government security detail. A branch of the Pakistani Taliban based in Punjab, where militants control many of the schools and mosques, claimed responsibility for the killing....
Another diplomat said that the government, which so far has proved unwilling or unable to take a strong stand against the killings, would try to offer compensation to Mr. Bhatti’s family and then close the case.
The ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, which was founded on secular principles but is now under pressure from religious conservatives, announced recently that it opposed efforts to amend the blasphemy law.
But the dismay of Mr. Bhatti’s family and the angry atmosphere at the funeral, in Khush Pur in Punjab, indicated that Pakistan’s Christians — about five million out of a total population of 180 million — were unlikely to let the matter rest.
“We feel that Pakistan is our country, but it seems there is no government in the country, ever, which gave us shade and protected us and fully respected our rights,” said the Rev. Andrew Nisari, one of the Catholic clergymen at the burial. “Will we be living in this hostile, harassed and fearful environment forever?”...
what a bunch of cowards, the evil they have allowed in with islam is all consuming of their very souls!
“Will we be living in this hostile, harassed and fearful environment forever?”...
Simple answer: Yes. Until all the infidels are converted or killed.
I'm afraid the answer to Rev. Nisari's question is "yes". Muslim's will always be Muslims first which is why Mr. Bhatti is dead. We in the west need to take a stand before it's too late or we'll be fighting blasphemy legislation here in the US, and in some ways we already are.
This whole horrible episode illustrates how difficult it is, and probably impossible, for these Muslim dominated countries to have a true secular government. The militant Muslims will always threaten and intimidate officials to the delight of the power hungry clerics.
IMO the Pakistanis don't deserve all the blood & treasure we have given to help bring them out of Muhammad's 7th century Islamic tyranny.
The others didn't want to be seen in any context that might suggest they oppose the blasphemy law.
Sensible folk!
Yet another example how the vast majority of the ummah are either cowering to or approving of the actions of the 'tiny' minority of violent jihadists.
Non-Muslims in Pakistan (this includes Hindus and Sikhs as well as Christians) are living in a "hostile, harassed and fearful environment".
That is *exactly* the kind of environment Islam - the sharia of Islam - intends for them.
Mr Hugh Fitzgerald, who posted here for many years, summed up dhimmitude as "a condition of permanent degradation, humiliation, and physical insecurity".
For example, in the essay featured here:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2006/09/fitzgerald-question-authority.html
"Islam has a long record of using violence, the violence of Jihad, the military conquest of vast territories in which large numbers of culturally much more advanced, wealthier, settled populations -- of Jews and Christians, of Zoroastrians and, later, Hindus and Buddhists -- were subject to at least forced dhimmitude, **a condition of permanent degradation, humiliation, and physical insecurity** {my emphasis - dda} that naturally would lead some of those enduring this status, in order to escape it, to convert to Islam.
"Is that not "compulsion in religion"?"
Fitzgerald's terminology 'Degradation, humiliation, and physical insecurity' matches up pretty neatly with that of Rev Andrew Nisari "hostile, harassed and fearful". The Pakistani Christians (like the other non-Muslims in Pakistan) live in fear, constantly subject to harassment (of all kinds, from petty bullying all the way up to daylight robbery, kidnapping and rape of minor daughters, and open murder) and hostility from the surrounding Muslims.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was the only senior Pakistani government official to attend.
.........................
I remember thinking yesterday, while reading the story where Gilani had the poor murdered man's own sister barred from the funeral for "security reasons", that I was rather surprised to see Pakistani officials there at all.
More:
...Rev. Andrew Nisari, one of the Catholic clergymen at the burial. “Will we be living in this hostile, harassed and fearful environment forever?”
.........................
Well, yes—unless, like the poor late government minister Shahbaz Bhatti, you simply stop living...
Meanwhile in a parallel universe...
Pakistan National Radio: "Dutch officials shun funeral of Muslim cabinet minister murdered for opposing blasphemy law"
"The Dutch blasphemy law prescribes the death penalty for anyone who offends God, his Son, his (the Son's) mother, or the biblical prophets. The Muslim minister for minorities who opposed the law was murdered by a Christian extremist expressing his opposition to the opposition. Diplomats at the minister’s funeral said they feared that the minister was killed on information provided by his government security detail.
"This murder followed the January assassination of a Christian governor who campaigned for the reform of draconian blasphemy laws that are often used to persecute minorities, particularly Muslims. The governor was killed by his government bodyguard, who was widely hailed in Dutch society after he confessed."
Pakistani citizen 1: "If we'd let any more millions of these crazed Christians into our peaceful free country then with their far higher birth rate they will become a majority in a few generations and all of us Muslims will have to live like the persecuted terrorized Muslim minority in the Netherlands."
Pakistani citizen 2: "These radical Christians are just a tiny minority of extremists!"
Pakistani citizen 1: "Come on, it's an entire country..."
Pakistani citizen 2: "You're a racist and a Christianophobe."