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02 Mar 2011 11:09

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World: Pakistan’s poisonous, difficult anti-blasphemy environment

  • This kind of attack was expected after the government’s response to governor Taseer’s assassination. Because of the government’s very weak response … it has encouraged the hardliners in society.
  • Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies Amir Rana • Explaining how the response to the assassination of Salman Taseer, who fought a blasphemy law unpopular with Christians in the country, may have led to today’s assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti. Before his death, Taseer fought in favor of a pardon for a Christian mother of four who had been sentenced to death for reportedly saying blasphemous things about Prophet Muhammad. After Taseer’s death, Pakistani officials have stayed away from changing the law. Some feel that the effect of this has encouraged some to take more hardline approach to minority groups. Sigh. source

02 Mar 2011 09:55

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World: Christian Pakistani official Shahbaz Bhatti assassinated

  • Shahbaz Bhatti was targeted because he was Christian. Pakistan’s minister of minorities was ambushed in his car, shot multiple times and killed. He was one of Pakistan’s only Christian political figures and its only Christian political minister. As Bhatti was Catholic, the Vatican has already condemned his murder. “To the prayer for the victim, the condemnations for this dishonorable act of violence, to our closeness to Christian Pakistanis so beset by hatred,” a Vatican spokesperson said about the incident. source