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Pakistani TV guest alleges attack on Christians a western conspiracy

By: Joseph Keenan
CP South and Southeast Asia Correspondent
Friday, 21 August 2009, 8:56 (EST)
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Even as the condemnation of the shameful and outrageous attack on Pakistani Christians in Gojra is pouring in from around the world, a well-known Islamic televangelist has called it as a “Western conspiracy to scrap the Blasphemy Laws”.

The Dawn newspaper columnist Nadeem F. Paracha who wrote ‘It’s a Shame’ on 16 August did not mention the name of the Islamic Televangelist, but lamented that such an important figure will have that kind of opinion when Pakistan is trying to recover from the damage.

Nadeem wrote: “Hardly a week had passed after the shameful attacks on the lives and livelihood of the besieged Christian community of Gojra, that a well-known Islamic televangelist appeared on his show on a local TV channel and freely exhibited the audacity to explain this attack by vicious Islamic sectarian organisations as a conspiracy by the West to make Pakistanis question the contentious Blasphemy Laws.”

“First of all, as usual, before spouting this claptrap, such TV hosts have absolutely no substantive proofs ever to back their demagogic finger-pointing rituals,” he wrote.

“But utmost is the fact that the tongue-wagging gentleman had himself been embroiled last year in a stunning controversy where he was directly accused by his former party, the MQM, and some bold journalists, for initiating and encouraging attacks against Punjab’s Ahmadiyya community through his show.”

“It was a disgrace watching the same gentleman gleaming and rubbing his hands last year as one of his ‘scholar’ guests lashed out at the Ahmadiyya community, creating a tragic commotion against the community in Lahore,” wrote the columnist.

The Columnist also blamed the TV channel that hosted the Islamic Televanglist, “The truth is, such men, who are these days a dime a dozen on the mainstream electronic media for entirely cynical economic reasons on the part of the channels who hire them in their mad race for ratings, have been of no service at all to the religion and the country that they claim they are there to save from supposed ‘anti-Islam/Pakistan forces.”

“The fact that the channel actually decided to give its host the space and freedom to comment the way he did on the Gojra incident when the scars of the event were still fresh and bleeding, shows just how obsessive we become to at once promote and propagate half-truths just to defend and obscure the hollowness of that pretence of tolerance and equality we all love to portray,” he lamented.

”A shame indeed,” he concluded.

The Islamic Televangelist was referring to an incident in Gojra city on Aug. 1, when a mob of more than 2,000 Muslim extremists attacked Christians on “false charge” of desecrating Quran, the Holy Book of Muslims. The Muslim mob burned more than 50 the homes of Christians using a hard-to-extinguish chemical. According to officials eight persons were burnt to death including children and women. The Compass Direct however reportedly said 14 people were killed.

Christians, who make up only 5 percent of the Pakistan population have often blamed that the Blasphemy Laws have been used many a times in the past to settle personal scores. And Christians have intensified their demand to repeal the blasphemy laws in the country especially after the recent incidents in Gojra and also the village Korian where more than 100 Christian homes were also reportedly burnt.

Prime Minister Gilani promised Christians on 6 August that the government would review blasphemy laws that balk religious harmony in that country.
“A committee comprising constitutional experts, the minister for minorities, the religious affairs minister and other representatives will discuss the laws detrimental to religious harmony to sort out how they could be improved,” Gilani told a gathering in Gojra, according to the Associated Press.

According to Pakistan Penal code Section 295-C: “Use of derogatory remarks, etc; in respect of the Holy Prophet. 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 Mohammed shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”


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