Hundreds of protesters take to the streets of northwestern city Peshawar
Karachi, Pakistan:
Hundreds of supporters from Pakistan’s Islamist parties held a rally on Friday to protest against the country’s chief justice’s blasphemous remarks.
Several religious and political groups, led by the hardline Tehreek-e-Insaf Pakistan (TLP), issued a call for protest with the rallying cry “Death to the blasphemers,” Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa The remarks came amid a case against one of its members in Pakistan. The minority Ahmadi community is blasphemous.
A court earlier this week granted bail to a member of the Ahmadi community, ruling that he was not guilty of blasphemy charges. The man has been jailed for 13 months after being charged with blasphemy for distributing Islamic literature.
“We (will) monitor sermons and protests outside mosques and warn protesters to remain peaceful,” said Abrar Hussain, a police officer in the southern city of Karachi.
Police official Mubarak Khan said hundreds of protesters took to the streets of the northwestern city of Peshawar, chanting slogans against the chief justice.
The Supreme Court issued a statement on Thursday after Islamist parties and some political groups launched a campaign accusing the chief justice of deviating from the constitution’s definition of a Muslim, which excludes Ahmadis.
The court statement said “this impression is absolutely false” and condemned the “vicious campaign” against Issa.
Some supporters and aides of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan have also joined the movement against Issa, arguing that the chief justice’s ruling deprived Khan’s party of its symbol on the ballot paper, leading to their defeat on February 8. Votes were lost in the election.
Rauf Hassan, information secretary of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, did not respond to a request for comment.
Rights groups say Pakistan’s tough blasphemy laws are often abused to settle personal scores and simply accusing someone of such crimes can lead to mob justice.
Judges are hesitant to take such cases out of fear of retaliation, leading to defendants spending years in prison without cases being heard.
In Pakistan, blasphemy is punishable by death. The state has not executed anyone for this, but many defendants have been lynched by angry mobs.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
