The Council of Islamic Ideology in Pakistan held a meeting on May 29, headed by Maulana Sherani, and warned that if the blasphemy laws are amended, the country's minorities will be unsafe, but how much worse could the situation get?
Minorities have been suffering since these laws were introduced by General Zia Ul Haq in 1986. Why is the council only now expressing concern about this? As if it had not noticed all the bloodshed and cries of the religious minorities for help over the last three decades. They need to wake up and take a good look at what is happening across Pakistan on a virtually daily basis. Bloodshed in the name of religion is happening all the time. Attacks on churches and the torching of Christian villages happen so often that the question believers ask themselves is not if it will happen again, but when. And, yes, the stories they must surely have heard of innocent people being burned alive are also true. If the council really has not been aware of all these human rights abuses then that is worrisome indeed.
Perhaps the council has been so busy working to make Pakistan a pure Islamic state, something that has been the agenda for a few religious political organisations since Pakistan came into being. The founder of Pakistan clearly condemned any idea of a theocratic state. What will happen to the guarantee given to the religious minorities by Quaid E Azam that citizens will be equal and religion will have nothing to do with the state? What will happen to his famous speech of Aug. 11, 1947 to the constituent assembly and all those media interviews where he reiterated assurances to the minorities? Will they just be thrown away and forgotten in history? And what of the hadiths, like the killing of one person being equal to the killing of all mankind? Read more
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