Pakistan arrests cleric whose followers shut down cities over blasphemy

By Mubasher Bukhari

 

FILE PHOTO: Khadim Hussain Rizvi, leader of Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan Islamist political party gestures during an interview with Reuters in Lahore, Pakistan July 14, 2018. REUTERS/Mohsin Raza/File Photo

 

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities on Friday night arrested an ultra-right religious party leader whose followers have shut down major cities demanding stricter application of stringent laws on blasphemy against Islam.

 

Prominent cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi's supporters clashed with police in the eastern city of Lahore soon after he was taken away, with at least five people wounded, police said.

 

Rizvi earlier this month led nationwide protests over the Supreme Court's acquittal and release of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who had spent eight years on death row on a blasphemy conviction.

 

He had urged his supporters earlier in the day to take to the streets if he was arrested, and late on Friday night his son said he had been taken away in a raid on his religious school, or madrassa, in Lahore.

 

"Police raided our madrassa and arrested our revered leader," Saad Rizvi told Reuters by telephone.

 

Rizvi leads the Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) party, which earlier this month blocked roads in Pakistan’s biggest cities for three days and threatened the Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi - urging their cooks and servants to kill them.

 

The TLP ended the initial protests following negotiations with the government and an agreement to open a review of the court’s decision on Bibi.

 

Bibi and her family are in hiding after her release, and the ultra-Islamist TLP said any sign of allowing her to leave the country would result in new protests.

 

Her lawyer has fled Pakistan, fearing he would be killed.

 

Blasphemy against Islam's Prophet Mohammad is punishable with a mandatory death sentence in Pakistan, and the very mention of blasphemy is enough to inflame violent reactions.

 

Bibi was convicted in 2010 for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbours objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. She always denied having committed blasphemy.

 

In 2011, a bodyguard assassinated Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer after he began supporting Bibi and pushing for her acquittal. The TLP was founded out of a movement that supported the assassin, Mumtaz Qadri.

 

Friday night's detention of Rizvi appeared to set up a new confrontation, with the cleric urging supporters to "jam the whole country" if he was arrested.

 

"The whole nation should come out in the field to protect the honour of the Prophet," he said in a video message released by the TLP. "There is no other option left now.”

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-11-24

Ah, the religion of peace and tolerance at it again. Nutjobs!

39 minutes ago, car720 said:

 

Let the Chinese have them.

 

The Chinese and Russians won’t take none of their sh##

Well, at least the Pakistan govt is protecting the Christian woman.  This would never happen in Saudi sodding Arabia.

 

Perhaps the essential fairness (sense of justice) that motivated British colonialism in the colonialist days has seeped through to the modern Pak elite (many of whom were educated in England, of course).

Is it my imagination, or does this guy look as crazy as a s**thouse rat ?

     Islam is total B/S. fed by so called scholars who want to translate the koran for their own evil means. Pakistanis are so illiterate and brain dead that they believe anything what those evil scumbags tell them.

     If Islam is so good, why are the evil scumbags in the UK responsible for grooming young girls for sex, only in prison, and not stoned to death as deserved. 

 

   There are good and bad Muslims, but sadly too many are simply evil.

 

     Forget blasphemy, anyone who incites murder is more deserving of the death penalty than any Blasphemer. But there again its not blasphemy to critical of one's own god, after all, religion's been responsible for more deaths than cancer.

4 hours ago, rooster59 said:

...threatened the Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi - urging their cooks and servants to kill them.

I think in any civilized country that incitement to murder would be a criminal offence.

 

Time for Pakistan to decide whether it is civilized or not...

6 minutes ago, grumpy 4680 said:

     Forget blasphemy, anyone who incites murder is more deserving of the death penalty than any Blasphemer. But there again its not blasphemy to critical of one's own god, after all, religion's been responsible for more deaths than cancer.

As I understand it there is only one god...

 

As for those women who accused Bibi of blasphemy I would like to take a lorry load of salt and shove it down their well. 

7 minutes ago, Basil B said:

As I understand it there is only one god...

 

 

 I never understood this, If there was a god (a big if) why only one?

2 hours ago, car720 said:

Let the Chinese have them.

you think so think again

 

https://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/gunfire-near-chinese-consulate-in-karachi/news-story/ed4ac081cc2bb15ae47d0a294d9dc69e

   Its not a question of how many god's there may be, but simply what we'er raised to believe or continue to believe. But whether your a believer or not the question now is whether this prophet Mohammed is worthy of such adoration after all the events of deaths and murders in his name

5 minutes ago, grumpy 4680 said:

   Its not a question of how many god's there may be, but simply what we'er raised to believe or continue to believe. But whether your a believer or not the question now is whether this prophet Mohammed is worthy of such adoration after all the events of deaths and murders in his name

You are correct.  Same with most of the other gods out there... the Christian on also.

 

If these gods are so mighty and powerful, and can do anything with super powers, how come people take in on themselves to judge and punish people for crimes against that god?  Surely the god would simply strike the bad people down with lightening or something similar... no need for us inferior humans to do it.

 

 

     Jak.

          I think your losing the plot, its not what the gods do, but what the followers are led to do. I'm no religious scholar but, it would appear after all the events of recent years, that Islam tends to feature the worst ever causes of death, way above any other in the whole of recorded history.

They preach a God with unlimited powers, but... needs an non-traceable thread to some beardmen to bring His wishes to the people, who have then to excecute His will… No power of His own ?  THIS is real blasphimy.

Insert other media.url

6 hours ago, grumpy 4680 said:

Islam is total B/S. fed by so called scholars who want to translate the koran for their own evil means. Pakistanis are so illiterate and brain dead that they believe anything what those evil scumbags tell them.

It must be mentioned that the fact that a society with archaic features -and a large share of population being poor, illiterate and insecure- plays a role, whatever the religion. The Indian religious nationalists did the same to Muslims, and the Buddhists did much worse to the Muslim Rohingyas. Not to mention the Christians at the time their society was archaic.

Edited November 24, 20187 yr by candide

5 hours ago, grumpy 4680 said:

     Jak.

          I think your losing the plot, its not what the gods do, but what the followers are led to do. I'm no religious scholar but, it would appear after all the events of recent years, that Islam tends to feature the worst ever causes of death, way above any other in the whole of recorded history.

It is about what the follows do, you are correct. However as sickening as the Islamist Jihadis have been particularly in recent years, all the "Abrahamic" monotheistic religions share broadly the same theme.

The full instructions for Genocide are in the book of numbers, the utterly twisted idea of "Original Sin" came from the Jewish religion also. Not to be outdone the Christian church adopted this sick idea, and later moved on to such delights as medieval tourture which not even ISIS has managed to outdo. Our oil money payments to the Saudis have been used to spread the unspeakably foul Wahhabi/Salafi doctrine round the world, which is the theological framework underpinning IS, The Taliban, the Al Qaeda Sunni terrorists in Syria (Our favourites), and Muslim terrorism in places as far away from the ME as Indonesia, the Philippines, and southern Thailand.

Should we feel any sort of responsibility that we let this monster grow without doing anything to stop it and indeed not even spreading awareness about it. Of course not, we were making far too much money from the Oil and Arms trade.

I think it is reasonable to hope that Imran Khan, was biding his time till he knew he had enough of the army on his side. Now hopefully he will simply kill Khadim Rizvi, and destroy Rizvi's party. That's the way politics gets done in failed states like Pakistan. After that he should tackle the "Intelligence" service, as vile a can of worms as you will find working "for" any government.