Pakistan – IPS: “Repeal of Blasphemy Laws Still a Pipe Dream”
— IPS reports:
— “In 2000, then President Pervez Musharraf promised to repeal the laws. ‘He retracted when the ‘mullahs’ (religious teachers) threatened protests,’ recalled Zohra Yusuf, vice chairperson of the Sindh chapter of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).”
— “Rights activist Tahira Abdullah said mobs using the law to inflict harm on others are acting ‘like private vigilante groups,’ she said.”
— “No less than governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer has called for a repeal of the blasphemy laws. But his bold call on Sep. 16 for the controversial laws’ repeal was met with a warning from the president of the conservative Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who said that his party would resist any attempt to annul the blasphemy laws.”
— “Continued state inaction on the much-maligned blasphemy laws has only reinforced perceptions that ‘the present government has no intention of repealing the laws,’ said Yusuf.”
— “I.A. Rehman, noted rights activist and secretary general of the HRCP, told IPS ‘(neither) the present government (nor any) government in Pakistan is likely to have the courage to repeal the blasphemy laws”. He added that “the state has committed the folly of making obscurantist fanatics stronger than itself.” Calling for a repeal of the law “is the only rational way out’ although ‘this demand is unlikely to be met.'”
— SAP-PK: government hostage to the extremists will not abolish the blasphemy law
— Asia News reports that “Irfan Mufti, director of South Asian Partnership-Pakistan (SAP-PK), who tells AsiaNews that the country lacks the ‘political will’ to reject the ‘controversial law'”
— April 16, 2008 – Rehman and Gilani at Pakistan National Assembly mtg where it passes resolution calling for U.N. to impose death penalty internationally for blasphemy
—- Pakistan Daily Times: “Karim’s resolution condemned the reprinting of the controversial cartoons in Danish newspapers and demanded that the UN make a law suggesting capital punishment for blasphemy”
