Those laws are routinely used to victimize Pakistani Christians, and that is just fine with these religious parties. One would have thought that the members of these religious parties would have known from their studies of the Qur’an and Sunnah that Islam respects the People of the Book and teaches peace and tolerance, and that there is no death penalty for blasphemy — after all, isn’t that what Islamic spokesmen in the West always tell us? Yet somehow these people, despite their dedication to following Islam, have yet again misunderstood it.
“Pakistan parties protest possible blasphemy law changes,” by Nasir Habib for CNN, December 23:
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — Pakistan’s religious parties are planning protests this week against any attempts to change the nation’s blasphemy laws, a party spokesman said Thursday.
Moulana Amjad Khan, spokesman for the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal ur Rehman (JUI-F) party, said the JUI-F and other religious parties are going to hold the rallies on December 24.
JUI-F recently left the collation government led by President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party….
In November, a Pakistani court found the 45-year-old Bibi guilty of defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed during a 2009 argument with Muslim fellow field workers. The offense is punishable by death or life imprisonment, according to Pakistan’s penal code.
“The Prophet Mohammed.” CNN, like other mainstream media news outlets, has decided we are all Muslims now.
But an investigation by a Pakistani government ministry found the charges stemmed from “religious and personal enmity” and recommended Bibi’s release. Zardari has said he would pardon Bibi, but a court has ruled that the president can’t act until the sentence is confirmed by a higher court — a process her lawyer says could take two to three years.
A Pakistani cleric is offering a nearly $6,000 bounty for anyone killing Bibi.
Moulana Yousaf Qureshi made his announcement in early December, condemning any effort by Zardari to pardon or release her….