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Tag: pakistan blasphemy law

  • US Senator requires launch of Hindu instructor jailed in Pakistan for blasphemy

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: US Senator Marco Antonio Rubio has requested for the discharge of a Hindu instructor Notan Lal who was falsely accused of blasphemy and imprisoned for 25 years in Pakistan’s Sindh. 

    “Notal Lal was arrested for committing blasphemy based on false testimony and sentenced to 25 years in a Pakistan prison. We ask for his release. Pakistan is a country of particular concern for religious freedom violations,” Senator Rubio mentioned in a tweet.

    Notan Lal has been languishing in a jail in Sukkur in Sindh since 2019. His sentence was introduced final month, wherein he was requested to pay Rs 50,000 as effective and serve a 25-year time period in jail.

    Despite discovering no proof in opposition to Lal, he continues to be in jail. According to some media stories in Pakistan, his scholar (Mohammad Ihtisham) took to social media and confessed that he had cooked up the fees levelled in opposition to his instructor and even sought forgiveness.

    This arrest additionally led to communal violence, desecration of temples, and burning of retailers owned by Hindus. The violence unfold to cities like Mirpur, Mathelo, and Adilpur.

    According to a assume tank primarily based in Pakistan, the Centre for Research and Security Studies, Pakistan has reported a complete of 1,415 instances of blasphemy within the nation since partition in 1947. Out of this round 18 ladies and 71 males had been extra-judicially killed over blasphemy.

    The think-tank additionally says that the precise instances could be a lot increased as not all instances are reported. More than 70 per cent of such instances had been reported from Punjab. Meanwhile, final month the European Parliament had known as for a decision to overview the Generalised Schemes of Preference Plus (GSP+) standing granted to Pakistan as a result of an alarming stage of enhance in using blasphemy accusations throughout the nation. Besides, they’d taken notice of rising variety of on-line and offline assaults on journalists and civil society organisations.

    Pakistan is apprehensive about this because it might imply momentary withdrawal of their standing and advantages that include it. EU’s GSP removes import duties from merchandise coming into the EU market from susceptible growing international locations. This helps growing international locations to alleviate poverty and create jobs primarily based on worldwide values and ideas, together with labour and human rights.

    During the sixth spherical of the EU-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue (held in Brussels in December), the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of European Commission Josep Borrell expressed concern over the human rights scenario in Pakistan.

    The EU had maintained that Pakistan had did not make significant advances iN defending human rights, notably in relation to the controversial blasphemy legal guidelines.
     

  • Pakistan lifts ban on radical Islamist get together

    Pakistan ended its prohibition of the unconventional Islamist Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) on Sunday, one 12 months after violent protests led to a authorities crackdown towards the get together.
    The lifting of the ban adopted an settlement reached between the get together and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s authorities that TLP would name off its proposed march to the capital, Islamabad.
    The authorities defended its determination by saying it was within the “larger national interest” as a method to forestall future violence from the extremist group.
    Why was Tehreek-e-Labbaik banned within the first place?
    The preliminary ban adopted violent protests led by the TLP in response to the republication of caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad within the satirical French journal Charlie Hebdo.
    French President Emmanuel Macron’s protection of the photographs triggered widespread anger all through the Muslim world.
    The TLP referred to as for the expulsion of the French envoy, which Islamabad agreed to however finally didn’t perform.
    The chief of the hard-line conservative get together, Saad Rizvi, was arrested and charged beneath the anti-terrorism act within the wake of the protests.
    The TLP gained prominence in Pakistan’s 2018 election when it vowed to defend the nation’s blasphemy legislation, which requires the demise penalty for anybody who insults Islam.
    What is the present state of relations between Pakistan and the TLP?
    The authorities’s settlement to raise the ban — and to launch Rizvi — got here because the TLP piled up the strain.
    Thousands of supporters clashed with police in late October as they started their “Long March” from Lahore to Islamabad, practically 300 kilometers (186 miles) away.
    The violence left no less than two law enforcement officials and two demonstrators useless.
    In line with the settlement, the TLP is meant to formally name off its march. But many supporters deliberate to keep up a sit-in till the federal government follows via on its promise to launch Rizvi. Last week, Pakistani authorities launched over 1,000 detained members of the get together.
    Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed mentioned {that a} proposal to expel France’s envoy could be mentioned in parliament. However, he has additionally acknowledged that Pakistan can’t afford to wreck its relations with the EU by finishing up such an act, information company EFE reported.