POLICE reinforcements were mobilised yesterday in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad a day after two Christians charged with blasphemy were shot dead outside court.
Clashes broke out in the city, home to a large Christian community, after the brothers were gunned down.
Pakistani police battle to restore order
Pastor Rashid Emmanuel, 32, and Sajid, 24, were accused of writing a pamphlet critical of the Prophet Muhammad; a rights activist said they were framed.
Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law carries the death penalty.
A police officer who was escorting the brothers from a district court on Monday was critically wounded when the unidentified gunmen opened fire and then escaped.
At least ten people were reportedly injured as stone-throwing and rioting broke out in a Christian neighbourhood of the city afterwards.
Police reinforcements from nearby districts have been called in to restore order.
The brothers, from the Waris Pura area of Faisalabad, were arrested earlier this month.
The complainant in the case, a local trader, Khurram Shehzad, alleged that one of his employees was handed a pamphlet by someone at Faisalabad’s general bus stand.
He said the paper contained disrespectful remarks about the Prophet Mohammed.
Police told the BBC the pamphlet had apparently been signed by the two brothers, whose addresses and mobile phone numbers were also given.
But Atif Jameel, spokesman for the Pakistan Minorities Democratic Foundation, told the BBC:
No-one in his right mind would issue a derogatory pamphlet against the Prophet and put his name and address on it. This appears to be a conspiracy against peace and religious harmony in Faisalabad.
Earlier this month, several hundred demonstrators marched to the Waris Pura slum, which is home to nearly 100,000 Christians, and demanded the death penalty for the two accused.
Although no-one has ever been executed under Pakistan’s blasphemy law, about ten accused have been murdered before the completion of their trial, according to a BBC Urdu correspondent in Lahore.
Dozens more are living in exile to avoid punishment under the legislation.
Human rights activists want the law repealed as they say it is often exploited by Islamist extremists or those harbouring personal grudges.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
July 21st, 2010 at 10:07 am
Do you ever get tired of reading this sort of thing? It happens with such regularity I’ve become desensitised:
http://home.comcast.net/~phate.....tional.jpg
July 21st, 2010 at 10:17 am
He said the paper contained disrespectful remarks about the Prophet Mohammed.
And just how, precisely, is one to know in advance what is going to “offend” these morons?
July 21st, 2010 at 10:28 am
Desensitisation, indeed. Not believing in the main-stream religion seems to be suicidal in some parts of the world, as we read too often on this site of people being killed for the insignificant reason of not agreeing with the majority’s delusions. Makes you wonder why we still bother sending aid to these people, who claim to be virtuous, unlike us Western degenerates, and are willing to kill someone at the drop of a hat.
July 21st, 2010 at 10:49 am
Perhaps a new Facebook page is needed.
“Draw Mohammed on Your Scrotum”
That would set off a few nukes in Pakistan. I find it hard to imagine how religiots see human life as so cheap.
July 21st, 2010 at 12:18 pm
What sort of a god do people honour that requires that any negative comment of the deity should result in the death penalty …Islam …indeed the religion of peace……
I am unconcerned to say “Go Fuck Yourself Allah”…..The reason for my lack of care is because I may have well said the same to a brick wall….as there is no Allah……Yet people continue to die in the name of a “thought” that someone had 1400 years ago…..Ditto Christianity and all the rest.
Why must people die for a thought ?
I am so grateful to be counted among the missing as regards to religion…..but I fear we are few and far between….this site provides a little respite from religious carnage.
July 21st, 2010 at 12:32 pm
“Oh, ye of little faith…”
Indeed the strength of their faith is so feeble they have to assassinate people who, it is only alleged, wrote something they consider derogatory.
Or they’re just nutters.
July 21st, 2010 at 1:10 pm
I was just looking that pic of the Pakistani policemen doing their best to cope. I’m sure they knew the dangers before joining up so that makes them very brave indeed. They always seem to be playing piggy in the middle when these things kick off. No pun intended.
July 21st, 2010 at 1:28 pm
I don’t think it’s blasphemy towards allah that causes the problem, it always appears to be blasphemy against mohamed (mysoginist, homophobe, peadophile, warmonger) which is rather strange when you think about it. After all, the prohibition on drawing him is supposed to be to stop him becoming an object of worship yet the actions of these idiots is setting him up as just that.
July 21st, 2010 at 1:48 pm
I agree, Broadsword. Obviously those who volunteer to join the police force in these countries are sane, sensible, and reasonable people who must know that they are putting themselves in a very dangerous position by just attempting to uphold the rule of law. They are absolute heroes in my opinion!
July 21st, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Har Davids. One of my favourite quotations is: “After all, it is to put a very high value on your surmises to roast a man alive for them.” – Michel de Montaigne 1533 – 1592. He was, as you would expect in the age he lived,a Roman Catholic. However, in his Essays he consistently argues for the cultivation of judgements which are tentative, circumspect and moderate. Qualities which the current leaders of his church would do well to cultivate.
July 21st, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Chris – Personally, I consider someone who has multiple personalities or rolls his feces into little balls as a “nutter.” These people seem to have only one personality: rabid.
Broadsword and Barriejohn – I do think that most of the police in these countries are heroes who attempt to uphold the law in very dangerous situations. Unfortunately, many are just as rabid and delusional as the people doing the killings (consider the moral police in Saudi Arabia) and join to get a power trip and the nice bribes.
July 21st, 2010 at 7:56 pm
As Broadsword says in the first post, this kind of thing seems to happen so regularly that we are almost bored with it, we have to make a conscious effort to keep it real by reminding ourselves that there were two needless deaths involved, real people with grieving friends and relatives.
I wonder, have these things always been common in backward, religion infested countries or are they coming to a peak just now? Is it that the Islamists are more and more resorting to rage and violence because the modern world is increasingly shining a light onto their laughable beliefs and exposing them for the poisonous crap that they are?
July 21st, 2010 at 8:35 pm
as i understand it these crispos were set up. The pamphlets were hand written and do not match their hand writting. Seems to me someone dont like em. Read this on a counter jihad site, cant remember which 1 as i read over a half dozen per day. Best guess is; tundra tabliods, vlad tepes blog, the iconoclast, gates of vienna, atlas shrugged or some other one. Been reading them for a long time. Fuck the mohoundians&
July 21st, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Poverty and fear, and those in power using religion as a tool of subjugation. Those are the root problems in Pakistan.
July 21st, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Everyday I read this about BS religions killing other BS religions and gays and atheists, and everyday I give thanks to Jefferson-Adams-Washington-Franklin-etc for doing a great job!!!
And then get fearful as I look at the BS arse-holes in this government!
Specifically the republicans.
They can see what is going on in the other parts and still want that for us…crazy!
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:50 am
“This appears to be a conspiracy against peace and religious harmony in Faisalabad.”
What? By Muslims? Surely not!!
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:55 am
Barriejohn
It’s nice of you to think highly of the pakistani police force, but I don’t think they’re quite as ‘heroic’as you think. They’re muslims too, and do very little to help those attacked by fellow muslims. They all stand by one another as we know and they’re pretty much all alike when it comes right down to it.
July 22nd, 2010 at 5:48 am
If everyone gave up their religions we wouldn’t have people fighting over whose imaginary friend is the best.
July 22nd, 2010 at 7:51 am
I’ve watched many documentaries about the undeveloped world, so I am well aware of the corruption which pervades much of their public life (not that Europe is squeaky clean there, BTW!), but it does appear that the regular police are the only thing that stands between many people and total chaos. The “thought police” are a separate entity entirely.
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:52 am
I literally cannot imagine being so fired up by any “idea” that I would kill for it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I could do the deed in defence of self, loved ones, etc., wouldn’t hesitate – I hope. But for an idea! And so silly an idea as the reputation of my big friend/slavemaster in the sky! I cannot get that headset on. The rational part of my brain wouldn’t let my emotions go that way. I confess: I’m different (apparently, and with certificates that appear to prove it, let alone the evidence of my actions, in, for instance, never having killed another motorist with different ideas about the Highway Code).
On that basis, I guess it could become reasonable to consider seriously that dangerous old question of comparative intelligence. Isn’t it a fair question to ask how the hell (no pun intended) anyone with a mind that functions above a certain level – power of speech, ratiocination, not barking at the moon – can get into a murderous state. Even given the power of mass-hysteria, you still have to reckon that the mass is composed of individuals apparently separated from the “lower orders” (not necessarily my phrase) by an IQ that goes left of the single Units column.
The question then is why this can happen with depressing regularity amongst a bunch of people defined by – here we go – geography / culture / religion. What’s going on? If we can’t talk of comparative intelligence, we have to resort to the negative of that scale, I suppose: consider degrees of stupidity (usefully defined above) as evidenced by actions and attitudes amongst statistically-significant cohorts delineated by observable common factors. And those factors are… (er, Discuss)