Pakistan: School expels 13-year-old girl for blasphemy, mother forced to leave town

The government says it has no intention of reforming Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy law, introduced in 1986, despite the assassinations of a leading politician in January and a Christian cabinet minister in March.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: Daily Dawn | Pakistan
By AFP | September 26, 2011

ISLAMABAD: A school expelled a 13-year-old Christian girl for alleged blasphemy and her mother was transferred from her job as a nurse near Abbottabad, officials said Monday.

Faryal Tauseef, an eighth grade student at Sir Syed High School in the northwestern town of Havelian, was asked with her class to define “naat”, a style of poem written in praise of the Prophet Mohammad.

The town is just south of Abbottabad, the city where US special forces killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a covert raid on May 2.


“In her explanation Faryal wrote a word which was blasphemous,” school administrator Junaid Sarfraz told AFP.

“The girl confessed, saying that she did it by mistake and the school administration, after consulting local clerics, decided to rusticate (expel) her.”

According to her teacher, the girl made the mistake “intentionally” and the matter was referred to clerics because she had aroused similar suspicions of blasphemy in the past, Sarfraz added.

Faryal’s mother, a staff nurse, had also been transferred out of town, he said.

“The girl has been expelled for using derogatory words and her mother has been moved to another place,” district commissioner Syed Imtiaz Hussain Shah told AFP.

Police said no case had been registered and that the matter was considered over following a pardon from clerics.

The government says it has no intention of reforming Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy law, introduced in 1986, despite the assassinations of a leading politician in January and a Christian cabinet minister in March.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) member Salman Taseer was killed by his bodyguard and minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti was assassinated en route to a cabinet meeting for their opposition to the law.

Taseer had supported a Christian mother of five sentenced to death in November 2010 for alleged blasphemy in Punjab province.


Read original post here: School expels 13-year-old girl for blasphemy, mother forced to leave town