Thursday, December 04, 2014

The awful state of Pakistan

Blasphemy in Pakistan: Bad-mouthing | The Economist

This is so horrifying it's almost blackly funny:
The police are also prey to the radicalising forces that are eating away
at Pakistan. In November a man arrested for alleged blasphemy was
killed by an axe-wielding policeman. 
And there is more:
The country’s clerics are united in defending the existing laws. The
most vociferous opponents of reform are not the Saudi-style extremists
empowered during the Zia era, but Barelvis, a school of Islam that some
once looked to as a moderate bulwark against extremism.
Unsurprisingly, many conclude they can cry blasphemy with impunity.
In poor villages and urban slums countless vendettas can be settled in a
blasphemy allegation. Almost two years after mobs burned down 100
Christian homes in Lahore the only person behind bars is the man whose
alleged blasphemy triggered the riots.

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