Death to the Blasphemer

While Pakistan’s clubby English-speaking liberal elites are in shock at the murder of Taseer—one of their own, so to speak—in much of the country the mood is celebratory. Qadri’s supporters have showered the murderer with rose petals and garlanded him for what they see as a courageous act.

Gov. Taseer's confessed killers was offered roses
at the court house by Islamist lawyers

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: The Enterprise Institute
By Sadanand Dhume | January 6, 2011

You know a country is in trouble when committing a murder can make you a national hero. Exhibit A: Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the 26-year-old Pakistani policeman who on Tuesday shot Salmaan Taseer, governor of Punjab province. Taseer’s crime: standing up for Asia Bibi, an illiterate Christian woman on death row for blasphemy, a charge often used in Pakistan to harass and intimidate the country’s tiny population of Christians, Hindus, and Ahmadiyya Muslims.

While Pakistan’s clubby English-speaking liberal elites are in shock at the murder of Taseer—one of their own, so to speak—in much of the country the mood is celebratory. Qadri’s supporters have showered the murderer with rose petals and garlanded him for what they see as a courageous act. Within hours of the murder, Facebook was awash with pages celebrating it. Mainstream religious organizations are exultant. And Qadri himself is anything but contrite. “We are ready to sacrifice our life for the prestige of the Prophet Muhammad,” he declared after appearing in court in Islamabad.

As I argue in the Wall Street Journal, Taseer’s murder shows the depth and reach of radical Islam in nuclear-armed Pakistan. Bluntly put, relatively secular-minded Pakistanis are an endangered species. Qadri murdered the man he was assigned to protect. What does the future hold for a country where even the game warden can’t be trusted not to turn poacher?



Read original post here: Death to the Blasphemer