Pakistan: Imam fueled persecution of Christians?

The scandal of a disabled Christian girl in Pakistan, threatening the worst of death, because it is said to have blasphemed Allah takes a spectacular turn: Police have arrested an imam at the weekend. He allegedly falsified evidence against the girl before he surrendered to the authorities. The case caused a sensation worldwide. The police arrested the girl named Rimsha two weeks ago in a village near Islamabad, because it is said to have burned sites with Koran. A medical examination revealed last week that Rimsha is mentally disabled, she reportedly suffers from Down syndrome. About their age, there is no lack of documents clarity: The family says Rimsha was eleven years old, the report you wrote, however, "about 14 years". Hafiz Mohammad Zubair, a prayer caller in the mosque of Imam has, reports the news website "Dawn.com" According now testified that he had seen a man from the neighborhood of the girl had brought plastic bags of burnt paper to Imam Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti . Which have examined the content, then even two pages torn out of a Koran and placed in the bags.Zubair stated that he had tried to prevent the Imam it.This had replied that the Koran sides would strengthen the accusations against the girl and cause that they, together with their Christian family must leave the district. The bags have passed the clerics of the police.

Call for Christian persecution

Then called the Imam of the citizens of the district to help tackle the girl. The police intervened and took it into custody after a mob gathered outside his house and demanded to burn them alive. Many Christians fled from the village, the child's family is for their own protection in police custody. A court in Islamabad on Sunday imposed on remand Chishti. Even the Imam threatens prosecution because of the blasphemy laws. According to reports he had earlier sentiments against Christians, often said to have complained that the Muslim residents "interfered" with their church had. As with previous cases in which it came to the blasphemy laws, the case has become a political issue.An attorney for the man who had filed against the girl ad, threats of violence, "She is guilty. If the state sets the courts suspended, God will find a person who "does the job, he told a reporter. On Sunday, he said the authorities had pressured witnesses to testify against the Imam. Rimshas detention was extended by two weeks on Friday, the investigation continues. In the past three decades has been Pakistan, which was intended in establishing a secular state, more Islamist. Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah wanted Pakistan after the partition of India as a home for South Asia's Muslims, but not as a religious state.On 11 August 1947, three days before the state was founded, Jinnah makes this clear in a speech to the Constituent Assembly: "They are free to go to Pakistan in their temples, their mosques or any other places of worship. You may belong to any religious caste or faith, this has nothing to do with the role of government. "

 The road to Islamization

Religious violence was virtually unknown until the 1970s, Elder remember how alcohol is sold openly. The nightlife of cities like Karachi and Lahore was legendary. 1971 Pakistan was plunged into a crisis of meaning, after East Pakistan had split off in the wake of a war with India and became Bangladesh. It lamented religious groups, Pakistan threatens to fail, because it was moving away from Islam. Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto banned alcohol for Muslims in 1977, it soon General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq staged a coup from office. He was a religious zealot, declared martial law, ordered the Islamization, and thousands of madrassas were established Sharia courts introduced parallel to the normal judicial system. From 1980, the blasphemy law was tightened, now threatens to worst, death. The Islamization accelerated after the invasion of the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent war in the 1980s, as Pakistan-based field of "holy warriors" was. Today, Saudi Arabia wins in influence, so Wahhabism, a very conservative form of Sunni Islam, seeping into Pakistan.