B.K. Bangash/Associated Press
By DECLAN WALSH and SALMAN MASOODPublished: August 20, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The arrest and imprisonment of a
Christian girl accused of violating Pakistan’s blasphemy laws stoked a public
furor on Monday, renewing international scrutiny of growing intolerance toward
minorities in the country.
The police jailed the girl, Rimsha Masih, and her mother on
Friday after hundreds of Muslim protesters surrounded the police station here
where they were being held, demanding that Ms. Masih face charges under
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. A local cleric had said Ms. Masih had burned pages
of the Noorani Qaida, a religious textbook used to teach the Koran to children.
By Monday night, as Pakistani Muslims celebrated the feast
of Id al-Fitr, Ms. Masih and her mother were being held in Adiala jail, a grim
facility in nearby Rawalpindi, awaiting their fate. Meanwhile, a number of the
girl’s Christian neighbors had fled their homes, fearing for their lives, human
rights workers said.
Senior government and police officials agreed with Christian
leaders that the accusations against Ms. Masih were baseless and predicted that
the case would ultimately be dropped.
Still, the case has already grabbed global headlines and
inspired a hail of Twitter posts, even though several details are in dispute.
Christian, and some Muslim, neighbors said Ms. Masih was 11
years old and had Down syndrome. Senior police officers dismissed those claims;
one described her as 16 and “100 percent mentally fit.”
Whatever the truth, experts said Ms. Masih’s plight
highlighted a wider problem. “This case exemplifies the absurdity and tragedy
of the blasphemy law, which is an instrument of abuse against the most
vulnerable in society,” said Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch.
While non-Muslims have long been vulnerable to persecution
in Pakistan, the state’s ability to protect them is diminishing. Last week,
gunmen executed 25 Shiites after taking them off a bus near Mansehra, in
northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. On Saturday, Hindu leaders in Sindh
called on the government to protect their community from forced conversions by
Muslim extremists.
But it is the emotionally charged blasphemy issue that has
most polarized society. Ever since the governor of Punjab Province, Salmaan
Taseer, was gunned down by his own bodyguard in January 2011 for his support of
blasphemy reforms, the space for public debate has narrowed in Pakistan.
Violent mobs led by clerics have framed the argument, as
appears to have happened in Ms. Masih’s case.
Neighbors said the girl’s family were sweepers — work shunned
by Muslims but common among poor Christians — and lived in a slum area in
Islamabad.
Malik Amjad, landlord of the family’s rented house, said the
controversy started early last week after his nephew saw Ms. Masih holding a
burned copy of the Noorani Qaida. The nephew informed a local cleric, Khalid
Jadoon, Mr. Amjad said.
Desecration of Muslim holy texts is illegal in Pakistan and
punishable by death. But Mr. Amjad said the incident bothered few local
residents initially and caught fire only at the instigation of the cleric and
two conservative shopkeepers.
“He tried to shame people by saying, ‘What good are your
prayers if the Koran is being burnt?’ ” Mr. Amjad said.
Mr. Amjad said he handed the girl over to the police for her
own protection and criticized the cleric’s role. “He exaggerated the incident
and provoked people,” he said.
It was not clear how, or even if, Ms. Masih had come across
the burned religious book. One neighbor, Malik Shahid, said it might have
simply become accidentally swept up in a trash pile she was collecting.
The Pakistani police often are forced to register blasphemy
cases against their wishes, human rights campaigners say, either to save the
accused blasphemer or their own officers from attack.
In July, a large crowd, prompted by inflammatory statements
from local mosques, swarmed a police
station in Bahawalpur district in southern Punjab, searching for a
blasphemy suspect who was being interrogated by police. The mob seized the man,
beat him to death and burned his body outside the station.
A similar mob attack occurred
in June in Karachi, Pakistan’s most populous city, although in that case the
police beat back the protesters.
The turmoil comes just days after Pakistanis marked the
country’s 65th independence anniversary amid muted ceremonies and considerable
soul-searching across the political spectrum.
“Desecrating graves, arresting 11 year old with Down
syndrome, targeting of Shias — the list goes on. This is not what r religion is
about,” Shireen Mazari, a staunch nationalist commentator, said on Twitter.
The adviser to the prime minister on national harmony, Dr.
Paul Bhatti, said he hoped to defuse Ms. Masih’s situation through talks with
moderate Muslim leaders. Dr. Bhatti is the brother of Shahbaz Bhatti, a
minister for minorities who was gunned down outside his Islamabad home in early
2011, weeks after Mr. Taseer’s death.
Even if Ms. Masih avoids blasphemy charges, her family is
unlikely to ever return home. Although nobody has been executed under
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, even suspected blasphemers are in danger for the
rest of their lives.
Several have been killed by vigilantes; others have been
forced to flee Pakistan.
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