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Pakistan girl jailed, accused of blasphemy

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truetrini:
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A Christian girl was sent to a Pakistani prison after being accused by her furious Muslim neighbors of burning pages of the Islamic holy book, the Quran, in violation of the country's strict blasphemy laws.

A police official said Monday there was little evidence that pages of the book had been burned and that the case would likely be dropped. But hundreds of angry neighbors gathered outside the girl's home last week demanding action in a case raising new concerns about religious extremism in this conservative Muslim country.

Some human rights officials and media reports said the girl was mentally handicapped. Police gave conflicting reports of her age as 11 and 16.

Under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad or defiling the holy book, or Quran, can face life in prison or even execution. Critics say the laws are often misused to harass non-Muslims or target individuals.

Police put the girl in jail for 14 days on Thursday after neighbors said they believed a Christian girl had burned pages of a Quran, gathering outside her house in a poor outlying district of Islamabad, said police officer Zabi Ullah. He suggested she was being held for her protection.

"About 500 to 600 people had gathered outside her house in Islamabad and they were very emotional, angry and they might have harmed her if we had not quickly reacted," Ullah said.

Almost everyone in the girl's neighborhood insisted she had burned the Quran's pages, even though police said they had found no evidence of it. One police official, Qasim Niazi, said when the girl was brought to the police station, she had a shopping bag that contained various religious and Arabic-language papers that had been partly burned, but there was no Quran.

Some residents claimed they actually saw burnt pages of Quran — either at the local mosque or at the girl's house. Few people in Pakistan actually speak or read Arabic, so often assume that anything they see with Arabic script is believed to be from the Quran, sometimes the only Arabic-language book people have seen.

But one police officer familiar with the girl's case said the matter would likely be dropped once the investigation is completed and the atmosphere is defused, saying there was "nothing much to the case." He did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the case.

A spokesperson for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Farhatullah Babar, said the president has taken "serious note" of reports of the girl's arrest and has asked the Interior Ministry to look into the case.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the case "deeply disturbing".

"We urge the government of Pakistan to protect not just its religious minority citizens but also women and girls," she said.

The Associated Press is withholding the girl's name; the AP does not generally identify juveniles under 18 who are accused of crimes.

The case demonstrates the deep emotion that suspected blasphemy cases can evoke in a country where religion Many critics say the blasphemy laws are often abused.

"It has been exploited by individuals to settle personal scores, to grab land, to violate the rights of non-Muslims, to basically harass them," said the head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Zora Yusuf.

Those convicted of blasphemy can spend years in prison and often face mob justice by extremists when they finally do get out. In July, thousands of people dragged a man accused of desecrating the Quran from a police station in the central city of Bahawalpur, beat him to death and then set his body on fire.

Attempts to revoke or alter the blasphemy laws have been met with violent opposition. Last year, two prominent political figures who spoke out against the laws were killed in attacks that basically ended any attempts at reform.

The girl's jailing terrified her Christian neighbors, many of whom left their homes in fear after the incident. One resident said Muslims used to object to the noise when Christians sang songs during their services. After the girl was accused he said senior members of the Muslim community pressured landlords to evict Christian tenants.

But Muslim residents insisted they treated their neighbors with respect, and said Christians needed to respect Islamic traditions and culture.

"Their priest should tell them that they should respect the call for prayer. They should respect the mosque and the Quran," said Haji Pervez, one of several Muslims gathered at the local mosque less than 100 yards (meters) from the grey concrete house where the Christian girl lived.

"This is what should have happened. We are standing in the house of God. This incident has happened and it is true. It was not good."

"Even a 3-year-old, 4-year-old child knows: "This is Muslim. This is Christian. This is our religion," said shopkeeper Mohammed Ilyas.

truetrini:
dumb c**ts.   I jes burn 7 Koran to start a bar b que.  I barb que 2 whole pigs

Look de evidence:

pecan:
religious extremism in any denomination is never good.

just cool:

--- Quote from: pecan on August 20, 2012, 07:02:31 PM ---religious extremism in any denomination is never good.

--- End quote ---
Doh mind he nah pecan, he does cherry pick his subject of interest to trample on, but right here in america ppl doing woss than these madmen in the muslim world, but he would never get on that as fast as he would jump on religious misconduct especially in the islamic world.

i guarantee you anything that if ah foreigner go down to mobile alabama an openly malign the church and went as far as too burn a copy of the bible he would catch a serious beat down or get thrown in jail for public nuisance.

or if ah fella went down to ground zero and start preaching about how much those greedy wall street pigs deserved losing their lives on 911, see if they don't catch ah serious beat down, or woss yet, let ah arab go down to anyone of them redneck towns in the south and publicly burn an american flag while cussing the good ole U.S. of A and see if what would be th outcome of that?

my point iz, every people, nationality, culture, religion, ethnicity,  have their soft spots, things that is really fackin taboo that should not be done or mention in their presence, but the fella here refuse to except that reality bc he's ah serious polemic as far as religion goes and especially where islam is concerned, so of course he will ignore that reality and jump into his subjective ramblings, trust me, his polemical views of the religious world would lead to his demise.

truetrini:
what shit you talking again?   Burning the Bible is well within anyone's constitutional right.  People does burn teh Flag here all the time.  Please don't try to compare that primitive hating religion to freedoms we enjoy here in the USA.  Puhleeze!

Not one f**king word of condemnation for those ignorant c**ts in Pakistan who take it upon themseves to threaten that child for something she did not do.

Illiterate ka-ka holes who cannot read a word of Arabic, yet threaten the villagers who are Christian becasue Islam is a religion of peace?   

Polemic?  I see you learn a SAT word...good for you, now if yuh grab yuh soulders firmly and pull until you hear a loud pop, you would have freed your head from the confines of your ample asshole.

Stop lying becasue I would attack bigotry and ignorance if it be American or Islamic.

I guess the BBC, AL Jazeera, CBC, NBC, ABC all Polemic for publishing the story that I copy and post here??? Right bamsee?

Just ignore my "polemical" rantings from now...simple, but yuh cyar resist as I am enchanting to you, yuh want this red man...Islam does forbid yuh man love..take it somehwere else...maybe yuh could do like Mohammad and marry a child of 9 years old....?

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