Blasphemy

Pakistan arrests ‘Muslim Reformer’ for Blasphemy

A Pakistani man who claimed to be a Muslim Reformer has been arrested by the country’s security forces for Blasphemy. According to family members, Nasir Sultani was arrested from Islamabad Airport on March 21st. Days earlier, on March 17th the BBC reported that Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of Islamabad High Court had added Sultani’s name onto the ECL (exit control list) and instructed the FIA (Federal Investigation Agency) to prepare a detailed report on him. 51-year-old Sultani claimed to be …

Islam, Blasphemy & the Nigerian State

The subject of blasphemy, as it concerns Islamic personages or symbols, has become more visible in recent times especially in countries or regions that pride themselves as adhering to the Islamic faith, no thanks to the attendant jungle justice that have been meted out to alleged ‘blasphemers’. Nigeria has a blotted history of violence arising from allegations of blasphemy. Blasphemy is regarded as the utterance of words or actions considered unworthy or impious in respect of beings or things that …

Hope for Thailand’s Pakistani Refugees

Bangkok’s little-known population of Pakistani asylum seekers uses community action to respond to the challenges facing refugees without a camp. In an unremarkable concrete apartment block on the outskirts of Bangkok, over 100 families from Pakistan wait.

Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper speaks at Ahmadiyya Muslim Convention

On Friday Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at, Canada’s largest national Islamic convention, the convention is being held in the Greater Toronto Area, at the International Centre in Mississauga, Ontario. Prime Minister Harper praised the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community for accepting Canadian ways, but he also spoke of terror threats.

Destroying Pakistan: The curse of the blasphemy law

Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which turns 30 this year, has become only more deadly with age. Since blasphemy was made a capital crime under the nation’s secular penal code, the effect has been to suppress moderate influences, pushing “Pakistani society further out on the slippery slope of extremism,” said Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, senior advocate at the Supreme Court of Pakistan, in Washington last week. With its large population and sensitive location, Pakistan is a place where any societal shift in the direction of …

Pakistan’s Ahmadis Faced with Death or Exile

Two years ago, gunmen shot dead Farooq Kahloun’s newly married son Saad Farooq, 26, in an attack that severely injured Kahloun, his younger son Ummad, and Saad’s father-in-law, Choudhry Nusrat. Saad died on the spot. In Pakistan after travelling from his home in New York for the wedding, Nusrat died in hospital later. Four bullets remain in Kahloun’s chest and arm. A bullet lodged behind the right eye of Ummad, a student in the UK, was surgically removed months later.