Islamabad, January 31: Despite repeated assurances including by Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani that the blasphemy laws would not be changed, the ‘religious’ right wing parties took out yet another rally in Lahore on Sunday protesting against reforming the provisions.
The rally was one in a series of such protest actions that the ‘religious’ right wing parties have been organising across the country over the past couple of months after the blasphemy law issue was prised open with the award of death sentence to a Christian woman, Asia Bibi.
As has been the case since the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer on January 4 for describing the blasphemy laws as a “black law”, participants in the rally raised slogans in praise of his assassin Malik Mumtaz Qadri. Meanwhile, Citizens for Democracy — an umbrella grouping of civil rights activists and organisations advocating reforms in the blasphemy laws to prevent its misuse — organised a ‘chehlum’ in memory of Taseer in Islamabad at the very site where he was gunned down. Within civil society, the parking lot at Kohsar Market where he was assassinated is now referred to as Shaheed Salman Taseer Square.
Often accused of being ignorant of Islam and its tenets by the ‘religious’ right wing parties, the civil society organised the ‘chehlum’ — an Islamic tradition to mourn the dead — to show that they are practising Muslims and criticism of the blasphemy laws does not necessarily mean they are anti-Islam.
—Agencies