Index on Censorship points out another person has been sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy, renewing the debate over the country's laws. Twenty-nine-year old Abdul Sattar was sentenced to death on 21 June. Blasphemy violates no one's rights. To cave in to intimidation and not publish anything religuous freaks feel is offensive is to surrender the crucial principle of free speech. http://venitism.blogspot.com
This clash is about respecting man's right to express his views, however unpopular, in the face of religious attempts to subordinate that right to mystical dogmas. Instead of appeasing the mobs who call for executing anyone offending their faith, the West must support those who share its political ideal of free speech.
Religions, scams, and hoaxes succeed because they exploit powerful psychological processes. These processes are the very ones that have enabled humans to survive and create art and technology, but also trasform Homo Sapiens into Homo Suckers!
Khalid Khattak notes the blasphemy issue gained international and national media attention last November when Asia Bibi became the first woman in Pakistan sentenced to death for blasphemy. The verdict attracted condemnation from human rights campaigners and from Pakistan's Christian minority. http://venitism.blogspot.com
Then, earlier this year, Governor of Pakistan's province Punjab Salmaan Taseer and Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti were assassinated, in separate incidents. They both supported Asia Bibi and made efforts to secure her release.
Khattak points out these are not isolated incidents: over the years, many people have been killed and received threats over charges of blasphemy and for siding with those charged with blasphemy in Pakistan. There is a level of threat attached even when opposing false blasphemy charges.
Blasphemy is publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion. It's scary to think that a progressive state would drag out antiquated laws to suppress freedom of speech. Sometimes you have to shake your head and wonder how in this day an age a law that supports prosecuting detractors of a two millennia old fairy tale is allowed to be on the books.
Blasphemy is a serious crime in Pakistan and the maximum punishment is death or life imprisonment. Section 295 of the Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860) is related to blasphemy. However it is sub-section C of Section 295, introduced in 1986, which is one of the hottest points of debate both inside and outside Pakistan — until 1986 maximum punishment for the crime was limited to imprisonment for ten years. http://venitism.blogspot.com
The Section 295-C stipulates: "Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine."
Blasphemy laws are silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentivises religious outrage, and because Islamic States are already using the wording of blasphemy laws to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level. Blasphemy laws are unjust, because they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous. http://venitism.blogspot.com
Not a single person sentenced to death for blasphemy by Pakistani courts has ever been executed, but over the years the number of those killed while on blasphemy charges has risen. Who can forget the killing of two Christian brothers who were accused of committing blasphemy? They were killed outside a Pakistani court in July 2010.
According to one report, 801 of the 1,031 people imprisoned under blasphemy laws in Pakistan are Muslim. The report also claims that a number of blasphemy cases are registered to implicate innocent people "out of personal vendetta."
Secular society is rejected by religulous freaks. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their religulous feelings. But this is incompatible with freedom of speech, where one must be ready to put up with insults, mockery, and ridicule. Journalists should treat religulous freaks the same way they treat atheists, cultists, spiritualists, spirituals, politicians, philosophers, scientists, artists, and businessmen, integrating them into the Graecoroman tradition of criticism and satire, because they are part of society, not strangers. Blasphemy is including, rather than excluding, religulous freaks.
Index, Global Tax Revolt, andhHuman rights groups call for repeal of blasphemy laws and protest against their abuse. But those supporting blasphemy laws ask why human rights campaigners do not raise the misuse of Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code under which many innocent people are also implicated — for murder.
Geert Wilders points out Koran is the Islamic Mein Kampf that incites Muslims to resort to violence. Koran calls for hatred, misogyny, polygyny, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. Koran calls for Muslims to kill infidels, to terrorize infidels, and to fulfil their duty to wage war, the violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every Muslim, Islam is to rule the world by the sword. Koran is clearly antisemitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.
Khattak notes serious efforts have been made to amend blasphemy laws: the PPP's Sherry Rehman, a member of the National Assembly, had submitted a bill in the assembly seeking elimination of death penalty from Section 295-C, for example.
But the parliamentarian has now withdrawn the bill, while Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has also made it clear that "the government would not support any move to amend the law".
The idea of a separation of Mosque and State is unheard of in Islam. Islam has a doctrine of warfare, Jihad, which is fought in order to establish Sharia Law, which is, by nature, totalitarian. Sharia Law calls for, among other freakish things, the dehumanization of women, the flogging/stoning/killing of adulterers, and the killing of homosexuals, apostates, and critics of Islam.
All of this is part of orthodox Islam, not some extremist form of it. If jihadists were actually perverting a great religion, Muslims would have been able to discredit them on Islamic grounds and they would have done so by now. The reason they can't is because jihadists are acting according to Koran: When you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads until you have made a great slaughter among them. Ch. 47:4
Following the assassination of Salmaan Taseer and Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistani government officials and elected representatives are now very cautious in their statements about blasphemy law, fearing mounting resentment from religious groups. http://venitism.blogspot.com
Wilders declares Islam is not a religion, but a satanic terrorist cacoculture. Sure, it has a grudge-collecting God, and an afterlife with 72 virgins for each martyr. But in its essence, Islam is a totalitarian ideology and sadomasochism. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means submission. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is the incivility of terrorist jihad and sharia.
The recent public demonstrations in support of the country's blasphemy laws expose how strong members of the public, especially of those associated with different religious parties of the country, are in favour of these laws.
Islam and Nazism share fundamental ideological tenets and premises. It is no coincidence that Islam is compatible with Nazism. Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem agreed wholeheartedly on that point. That agreement was not confined exclusively to their mutual hatred of Jews. The Grand Mufti envied Hitler for the whole of his ideology and for having brought it to fruition.
While it often feels as if campaign against abuse of blasphemy laws has almost vanished in Pakistan, it has not and a recent report demands authorities bridge legal procedural flaws or repeal the laws. http://venitism.blogspot.com
