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| Asia Bibi |
Source/Credit: The News International
By The News | Editorial | December 05, 2010
From Peshawar to Bahawalpur came calls for death. Specifically, the death of Aasia Bibi who has been convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to hang. The calls were for her death in the event of her being pardoned or the death sentence commuted and came in Peshawar from Maulana Yousuf Qureshi, Khateeb of Masjid Mohabaat Khan.
He backed his call with an award of Rs500,000 to be given from the funds held by the Masjid. He went on to say...”We expect her to be hanged and if she is not hanged then we will ask the mujahideen or the Taliban to kill her.” His exhortations were echoed amid the stink of burning tyres at Farid Gate in Bahawalpur where the Jamaat-i-Islami, the JUI-F and the JUI-S held rallies against any possible presidential pardon to Aasia Bibi.
Whatever the outcome of the Aasia Bibi case, she and her family are marked as targets for the rest of their lives and she will never be able to live as a free woman, if pardoned, in Pakistan. Her case is the subject of appeal and therefore subjudice, making comment difficult, but it is not difficult to robustly condemn the calls for extrajudicial killings that are so beloved of certain individuals and groups.
A spokesman for the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government said that as the case was still in the courts its decision “would be acceptable to everyone.” His statement is one of almost unbelievable naïveté, because as is so patently obvious to anybody reading a newspaper or watching television that is not the case at all.
There is a sizeable portion of the population that might do the bidding of Yousuf Qureshi and feel entirely justified in their actions if they did. A voice of reason was supplied by Latif Afridi, a former president of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association who, commenting on the maulana’s remarks, said that “nobody in their right mind makes such statements” and that they were ... “a mad person’s words and contrary to basic human rights.”
Do we see any action under Article 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code which prohibits open threats to the life of another? We do not - but neither are we seeing much beyond anodyne words from civil society and the ‘usual suspects’ who speak on behalf of minorities. All states have a duty of care to their citizens. Just how much of either duty or care will be afforded to Aasia Bibi is an open question. And it shouldn’t be
-- Ahmadiyya Times Editor's Note: It is great to see a large news organization editorial page in Pakistan make the call to charge Mullah Yousuf Qureshi criminally for threatening someone's life.
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