Pakistan girl jailed, accused of blasphemy ISLAMABAD (AP) -- A Christian girl was sent to a Pakistani prison after being accused by her furious Muslim neighbors of burning pages of the Islamic holy book, the Quran, in violation of the country's strict blasphemy laws. A police official said Monday there was little evidence that pages of the book had been burned and that the case would likely be dropped. But hundreds of angry neighbors gathered outside the girl's home last week demanding action in a case raising new concerns about religious extremism in this conservative Muslim country. Some human rights officials and media reports said the girl was mentally handicapped. Police gave conflicting reports of her age as 11 and 16. Under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad or defiling the holy book, or Quran, can face life in prison or even execution. Critics say the laws are often misused to harass non-Muslims or target individuals. Police put the girl in jail for 14 days on Thursday after neighbors said they believed a Christian girl had burned pages of a Quran, gathering outside her house in a poor outlying district of Islamabad, said police officer Zabi Ullah. He suggested she was being held for her protection. "About 500 to 600 people had gathered outside her house in Islamabad and they were very emotional, angry and they might have harmed her if we had not quickly reacted," Ullah said. Almost everyone in the girl's neighborhood insisted she had burned the Quran's pages, even though police said they had found no evidence of it. One police official, Qasim Niazi, said when the girl was brought to the police station, she had a shopping bag that contained various religious and Arabic-language papers that had been partly burned, but there was no Quran. Some residents claimed they actually saw burnt pages of Quran - either at the local mosque or at the girl's house. Few people in Pakistan actually speak or read Arabic, so often assume that anything they see with Arabic script is believed to be from the Quran, sometimes the only Arabic-language book people have seen. But one police officer familiar with the girl's case said the matter would likely be dropped once the investigation is completed and the atmosphere is defused, saying there was "nothing much to the case." He did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the case. A spokesperson for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Farhatullah Babar, said the president has taken "serious note" of reports of the girl's arrest and has asked the Interior Ministry to look into the case. In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the case "deeply disturbing". "We urge the government of Pakistan to protect not just its religious minority citizens but also women and girls," she said. The Associated Press is withholding the girl's name; the AP does not generally identify juveniles under 18 who are accused of crimes. The case demonstrates the deep emotion that suspected blasphemy cases can evoke in a country where religion Many critics say the blasphemy laws are often abused. "It has been exploited by individuals to settle personal scores, to grab land, to violate the rights of non-Muslims, to basically harass them," said the head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Zora Yusuf. Those convicted of blasphemy can spend years in prison and often face mob justice by extremists when they finally do get out. In July, thousands of people dragged a man accused of desecrating the Quran from a police station in the central city of Bahawalpur, beat him to death and then set his body on fire. Attempts to revoke or alter the blasphemy laws have been met with violent opposition. Last year, two prominent political figures who spoke out against the laws were killed in attacks that basically ended any attempts at reform. The girl's jailing terrified her Christian neighbors, many of whom left their homes in fear after the incident. One resident said Muslims used to object to the noise when Christians sang songs during their services. After the girl was accused he said senior members of the Muslim community pressured landlords to evict Christian tenants. But Muslim residents insisted they treated their neighbors with respect, and said Christians needed to respect Islamic traditions and culture. "Their priest should tell them that they should respect the call for prayer. They should respect the mosque and the Quran," said Haji Pervez, one of several Muslims gathered at the local mosque less than 100 yards (meters) from the grey concrete house where the Christian girl lived. "This is what should have happened. We are standing in the house of God. This incident has happened and it is true. It was not good." "Even a 3-year-old, 4-year-old child knows: "This is Muslim. This is Christian. This is our religion," said shopkeeper Mohammed Ilyas.
Isn't it sad that the girl now might be facing the death penalty. Girl, 11, Could Face Death in Pakistan for 'Blasphemy' While in New York at Staten Island they accused people of bringing home the bacon.
How can they kill a 11 year old girl? What kind of F'ed up planet are we living on? No rights, No freedom of speech just religion and murder. But I'm glad to know some people from Pakistan who ain't nothing like this and those people are the only hope for it's country. Maybe this planet is really divided by Humans and Untermensch(it means something like subhumans). Don't take me wrong, for me everybody is the same but right now I'm not sure about it anymore. Here's another atrocity that was committed early this month(Syria this time), a young boy hanged by U.S. sponsored terrorist organizations: http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/20...ia-hang-child-public-executing-family-162851/ Now I'm not sure if the info is true or not like anything on this world so I take it as it is.
every where, every country, every days, some murders and crimes continuing against small children and womens, some crimes comes in news so we all know but most of all news did not comes in news ....we cant able stop anything ....
No, not everywhere does the government support or condone the murder of small children. That seems to be a Muslim thing only.
Just last month in Afghanistan some guy emptied emptied a whole magazine into some poor girl, While a big crowd cheered. Her crime .. adultery .. For men adultery is not a crime. In Mali (North Africa) at the moment a well armed rebel army is now killing people and enforcing strict sharia law,, one woman was beaten to death for going out to buy food for her family without her man present. If your someone that really hates women it seems the Koran is the way to go,, Where do I sign up...
Yes just imagine the atheist slaughtering theist left and right killing them by the millions for no other reason then the fact that they're not atheists . Your demented dream was enacted in the USSR and the Eastern Block . In 50 years they tried but couldn't exterminate religion . Despite executing millions , persecuting dozen of millions , declaring brutal laws and brainwashing generations . So despite scenes like this you haven't manged to exterminate us and you never will : Go multiply yourself demented tyrant .
No it wasn't. People were killed for their political stance...not because they were theists. If you showed open dissent to the political ideology of 'the leaders', you were likely to get yourself killed ....regardless of whether you were theist or atheist.
Ah , thank you for explaining my history . So all those demolished churches where having a political stance , i knew that bricks and mortar can't be trusted . Also all those monks that spent their entire life in prayer where ninjas in disguise , i should have figured it out by their black clothing . And all those priests that hold sermons asking God to bless the leader of our nations where probably fascists . I mean why else would the publicly pray for the our government every Sunday ? You can put up a barrage of stickman arguments , they just don't hold in the face of reality . It's not about power when you call religion poison , when you try to rewrite history to make Christianity look bad , when you forbid religion from all aspects of life public or private . It's sure as hell not about power when you do that 40 years after you've gained absolute power over a nation . It's about religion , however the crusading atheists would rather commit suicide then admit the truth . Simply because admitting the truth would suddenly transform the atheist cult from their pristine "scientific" utopia into a blood soaked abomination . It's funny how Christians can admit their mistakes and punish the offenders while atheists sit in the same boat with Islamists and chant "We're innocent , we had nothing to do with it , we're all about peace" .
I meant that another way. Let me rephrase: Imagine a world where no sort of religion ever existed. Also: I never said anything about enforce "no religion" nor does the picture. Pretty harsh of you to jump the gun and brandish me a "demented tyrant" but whatever. You show a valid point that such an reinforcement would lead to terrible suffering of innocent people, just because they believe.
Now that sounds much better Neither did the communists until they had enough power . Well you have to thank your fellow crusading atheist for that . Despite trying not to get in a siege mode almost every Christians went that way thanks to the flurry of insults and stickman arguments . Despite having quite a few atheists friends that are cool heads when we debate religion I still find it amazing when an atheist shows some logic and civility . It literally feels like a war on one side you have Islamists that would love to kill you if you don't convert to sharia , on the other side you have atheists that trow an infinity of insults , tell you the world would be better without you and try to twist science to fit their views, and on top of that you have our own nutjobs that believe the world is ending or that the Bible is a rule book and should be taken ad literam . To be a cool rational Christians is becoming harder and harder . After years of debates i don't think anymore than an atheist who makes a statement about atheism has any reasonable intentions (i.e. combating religious extremism) . The cool atheist almost never declare loud and proud that they're atheists , to me it seems that they just don't care . Thank you for your understanding .
Rifta, aged 11, who reportedly suffers from Down Syndrome, was arrested last Thursday from a town near Islamabad after being accused of burning pages from a religious instruction book inscribed with verses from the Holy Quran. YOU CALL THAT A RELIGION AND BEING CIVILIZED ??????? Well I don`t. It is the action of a Barbaric mentally retarded nation with the backward thinking of 1,000 years ago, an evolutionary rejected mutation of the human race. Religion is dependent on the ancient writings of scholars or Prophets from up to 2,000 years ago. Those were completely different and primitive times, a world away from modern educational progression. Nobody can intelligently believe such ancient writings in the context of modern society and educational standards. It is just as insane to insist that 1 + 1 = 5. I am afraid that any nation or community of people who try to reconcile ancient and highly dubious writings with the world of 2012 is quite frankly - mentally incapacitated. Well, it just goes to show that even in our 21st Century, their are still nations and vast populations that whilst they try hard to be accepted as civilized and part of the modern world, they simply cannot comprehend the utter nonsense of practices adopted 2,000 years ago relative to educational progress and scientific advances. Pakistan ? It rather seems as if they are a nation of primitive savages from their Barbaric behavior towards very young, innocent and disabled children. Admittedly it is slightly better than making human sacrifices in times of drought, but the progress is not exactly breathtaking. The poor girl found it far more important to provide fuel to light her stove rather than have a useless book. To face public abuse, arrest and imprisonment or even the death penalty for THAT !!! Ya gotta be kidding - it must be a joke.
I'm not American, but why are the Americans funding Pakistan with over 1 Billion US dolloars a year?, is it for security co-operation only?, Do you think the yanks felt a little bit stupid when they found Bin Laden living in a Pakistan town house next to a miliary installation?
Americans have to fund Pakistan with over 1 Billion US Dollars a year, plus one or two huge cargo ships packed full of free food ( Mostly wheat and corn ) per year. Otherwise most of Pakistan would starve to death because living by sharia law does not allow for the building of a modern society where people might have jobs and women might have a future, instead of being married off to some old man as soon as they turn 14. Just look at their neighbour to the south,, India does not have draconian religious laws,, and is on the fast track to becoming a global and economic supper power.