Pakistan university students tackle intolerance problem

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A growing number of blasphemy attacks on campus has prompted a new program to promote religious understanding

Times of Ahmad | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: UCA News
By Kamran Chaudhry | October 25, 2017

When Muhammad Usman Farooq arrived to study at the top University in Lahore, there was animated discussion about an infamous blasphemy case against one of the lecturers.

In early 2013, former Fulbright scholar Junaid Hafeez's employment as an English lecturer at Bahauddin Zakariya University had been terminated.

Students belonging to Jamaat-e-Islaami, the largest religious-political party in the country, had protested on campus against allegedly blasphemous remarks Hafeez made during lectures and on Facebook.

Hafeez was arrested and charged in March 2013 with blasphemy, but struggled to find a lawyer to defend him. In the end Rashid Rehman, a regional coordinator for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, took up Hafeez's case but he was murdered in his office by unidentified gunmen. During an earlier hearing, Rehman was openly threatened by prosecution lawyers in court.

Farooq, 21, said since then NGOs had been organizing programs at the university aimed at promoting religious and cultural tolerance.

He was among 40 university students who attended a workshop organized by the Youth Development Foundation (YDF) on Oct. 7-8 in Lahore.

The workshop, which followed-up on earlier events, asked participants to come up with ways of countering campus and classroom religious intolerance.


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