Pakistan: 11-year-old Disabled Christian Girl Arrested for Blasphemy, 300 Families Flee

She has Down’s syndrome:

For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the country’s ‘black law’ has been used against a minor, a disabled 11-year-old Christian girl. Arrested on blasphemy charges, Rimsha Masih, who suffers from Down’s syndrome, could get life in prison. Only police intervention saved her from a lynch mob of Muslim extremists. Her case has shocked Islamabad’s Christian community, driving hundreds of Christian families from their homes in the girl’s neighbourhood fearing possible retaliation. National Harmony Minister Paul Bhatti, a Catholic, has called on Muslim religious leaders to snuff out any source of violence.

The 11-year-old girl, Rimsha Masih, is at the centre of a terrible affair. After being charged with desecrating the Qur’an, she was remanded for 14 days to a juvenile prison in Rawalpindi. The offence comes under Article 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code and carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Witnesses claim that Rimsha, daughter of Misrak Masih, burnt ten pages of the Noorani Qaida, an Islamic booklet used to learn basic Arabic and the Qur’an. She is also said to have put the booklet inside a plastic bag and threw into the garbage.

Supposedly, the event occurred on 17 April in Umara Jaffar, a slum in Islamabad’s Sector G-12, where the girl lives with her family. Police filed a First Information Report after a Muslim man, Syed Muhammad Ummad, made a formal complaint.

Four months after the incident, police took Rimsha Masih into custody under pressure from Muslim extremists. Threatening to take justice in their own hands, a mob of hundreds enraged people attacked the girl’s family, trying to lynch her and her mother. Police eventually took the girl away for her own safety, in prison.

Fearing more violence, some 300 families living in the Christian slum fled their homes seeking safety elsewhere. Local sources told AsiaNews that in the area, tensions are running high and that Muslim fundamentalists are threatening to set fire to Christian homes.

National Harmony Minister Paul Bhatti, who is also special advisor to the prime minister on minority affairs, has appealed to Muslim leaders, especially clerics, asking them to help keep the lid on matters to avoid anti-Christian attacks. His brother Shabbaz, Pakistan’s first Catholic minister, was murdered by extremists on 2 March 2011 because of this opposition to the ‘black law.’

Last month, a mentally disabled Muslim man was burnt alive in Bahawalpur, southern Pakistan, after he was accused of blasphemy anda mob set him on fire for “desecrating the Qur’an.”

On the internet, the girl’s arrest has caused a wave of protests. Many wonder: “Is this the real Islam?”…

 

Pakistan: Two Christian Men Beaten With Iron Rods For Refusing To Convert To Islam…

Why the world essentially ignores the plight of Christians living in Islamic lands I will never know.

(CDN) — Two Christian men were seriously injured by young Muslim men this month in Karachi when they refused to convert to Islam, a family member told Compass.

He said the Pashtuns severely beat the two Christians, fracturing Ishfaq Munawar’s jaw and breaking five teeth, and seriously injuring Masih. He added that the two Christians fell unconscious, and the young Muslim men left assuming they had killed them.

Liaqat Munawar, a resident of Essa Nagri in Karachi, told Compass by telephone that his brother, Ishfaq Munawar, and another young Christian man, Naeem Masih, were returning home after an early morning prayer service at their church in Sohrab Goth on Aug. 14, Pakistan’s Independence Day, when ethnic Pashtun youths near Sea View harassed and later attacked them.

The Muslims asked them why they were in Sea View, and they replied that they had made a brief stopover to participate in Independence Day celebrations at the beach, he said.

“Ishfaq and Naeem were riding a motorcycle when six Pashtun youths signaled them to stop,” Liaqat Munawar said. “They asked the two boys to identify themselves. Ishfaq told them that they were Christians returning from their church after a special prayer service.”

“The Pashtun youths then started questioning them about their faith and later tried to force them to recite the Kalma [Islamic conversion creed] and become Muslims, telling them that this was the only way they could live peacefully in the city,” Liaqat Munawar said. “They also offered monetary incentives and ‘protection’ to Ishfaq and Naeem, but the two refused to renounce Christianity.”

After cajoling the two Christians for some time, the Pashtuns sat in a white car parked nearby and eventually drove away. Ishfaq Munawar and Masih got back onto their motorcycle and were about to start it, Liaqat Munawar said, when suddenly the young Muslims reversed their car and rammed it into the Christians.

“The Muslims got out of the car armed with iron rods and attacked Ishfaq and Naeem, shouting that they should either recite the Kalma or be prepared to die,” Liaqat Munawar said.

Keep reading…

The above was here.

Pakistani Muslims: Ban the Bible

Why? Because it offends Muslims:

(CNSNews.com) – A group of radical clerics in Pakistan wants the country’s Supreme Court to declare certain passages in the Bible blasphemous – because they depict as flawed certain biblical characters whom Muslims regard as Islamic prophets.

If the court fails to do so, they said, then lawyers will submit an application for the Bible to be formally banned in Pakistan.

The campaign, announced by the clerics at a Lahore mosque and reported Tuesday in the Karachi daily The News and the Urdu-language Roznama Islam, is the latest attempt by radicals to use the country’s blasphemy laws to shield Islam from perceived insults.

Citing Florida pastor Terry Jones’ Qur’an-burning act, the leader of the initiative, Abdul Rauf Farooqi, said the campaigners would like to pay back such “blasphemers” by doing the same to the Bible, but would not follow in their footsteps.

Instead, he and the other clerics in the campaign want Pakistan’s top court to rule that certain passages in the Bible are blasphemous, since they undermine prophets’ sanctity by portraying them as flawed or immoral.

Farooqi, who is leader of the Islamist organization JUI-S (Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Sami-ul-Haq group), said the “insertions” in the Bible were offensive to Muslims, who hold all prophets in high esteem…

There is more here.

That religion of supposed peace, at its best.

Pakistan: Christian Girls Kidnapped, Forced to Marry, Convert to Islam

Islam. Appalling.

Two Christian girls–Rebecca Masih and Saima Masih–were forced to marry and convert to Islam after they were kidnapped by a wealthy businessman on May 24. The kidnapping took place in the northeastern Pakistani province of Punjab.

“Kidnapping Christian girls, conversion and forced marriages have become common practice in Punjab,” said Haroon Barkat Masih, director of the Masihi Foundation, a Pakistani organization that offers legal aid to persecuted Christians. “Kidnapping Christian girls, conversion and forced marriages have become common practice in Punjab. The police have been bought; instead of serving the Punjab government they are servants of extremist groups. Punjab is becoming heaven for these groups: Muslim leaders openly call for violence in their sermons, without shame.”

“We have repeatedly appealed to the Punjab government, without receiving an answer. The government supports these groups.”

Muslims Attack a Christian Village

Living as a Christian in an Islamic state is nothing short of horrendous:

The attack took place this morning in Khokarki, near the city of Gujranwala. Hundreds of Christians forced to flee their homes. Attack sparked by quarrel with Christian, his son and some Muslims, over false accusation of blasphemy. The two Christians held at the local police station.

Hundreds of Muslims attacked the Christian village of Khokarki this morning a few miles from the city of Gujranwala (Punjab), forcing its inhabitants to flee. According to AsiaNews sources, anonymous for security reasons, the attack took place following a dispute between Christian Mushtag gill and some local Muslims, who had accused the man and his son of blasphemy.

Mushtaq, 60, and his son, are accused of having desecrated the Koran. The police arrested them yesterday, after complaints of some Muslims who claim to have found torn pages of the Qu’ran in a bag hidden near the home of two Christians…

… The news sparked panic among the Christian community, while the family of the two accused were forced to abandon their homes and seek refuge with friends…

… Gujranwala and surrounding areas are among the most active centres of Islamic extremists. In the past, there have been several incidents in the city of attacks against churches, occupation of Christian property and murders tied to false accusations of blasphemy…

Osama Bin Laden Still Alive?

That’s according to latest intel:

Islamabad – After a prolonged lull, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has launched a series of covert operations in the rugged Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan following strong tip-offs that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been criss-crossing the area in the past few weeks for high-profile meetings in militant redoubts.

The US has been on Bin Laden’s trail ever since he fled Afghanistan when the US invaded the country in 2001 to oust the Taliban, but the 54-year-old with a US$50 million reward on his head has always remained several steps in front.

Asia Times Online has learned that decision-makers have put a lot of weight on the information on Bin Laden’s movements as it has come from multiple intelligence agencies, in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. For at least two years, little credible news has emerged of Bin Laden’s movements and motives. Now, intelligence officials believe they have top-grade accounts as they come from the inner circles of militant camps.

Officials are said to be “stunned” by the visibility of Bin Laden’s movements, and their frequency, in a matter of a few weeks in the outlawed terrain of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the most unprecedented reports about him since he evaded the US in the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan in 2001…

Turning a Blind Eye to the Blood-thirsty Clerics

Pakistan is being swamped by a rising tide of religious hatred, while its political leaders remain silent…

Read on here.

Very true.

Children Playing Suicide Bombing Game

This is stomach-churning.

A shocking video has emerged from Pakistan depicting children role-playing a Taliban suicide bombing.

The 84-second clip shows Pashtun children recreating a terrorist attack, with one boy dressed in black – the ‘bomber’ – being embraced and wished well by his friends before setting off on his deadly mission.

In the single-take video, the ‘bomber’ then approaches another boy, dressed in white, who appears to be mimicking a member of the security forces and tries to stop him.

But the young Jihadi then ‘detonates’ – with other boys throwing sand into the air to simulate the explosion – and others rush in to examine the children who are playing dead.

Ahsan Masood, a Pashtun from Waziristan in Pakistan, posted the video on Facebook because he ‘thought it was funny’. [!]

Salma Jafar of Save the Children UK in Pakistan, told The Guardian: ‘It’s horrifying and alarming.

‘These children have become fascinated by bombers rather than condemning them.

‘If they glamorise violence now, they can become part of it later in life.’

Very, very evil!