Behold, The Religion of Peace
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Outcry over death sentence for 'blasphemy' mother who offered farmhands water
November 12, 2010 - 8:09AM
Asia Bibi ... appealing against the death sentence.
A Pakistani court has sentenced to death a Christian mother of five for blasphemy, the first such conviction of a woman and sparking protests from rights groups.
Asia Bibi, 45, was sentenced on Monday by a local court in Nankana district in Pakistan's central province Punjab, about 75km west of the country's cultural capital of Lahore.
Pakistan has yet to execute anyone for blasphemy, but the case spotlights the Muslim country's controversial laws on the subject which rights activists say encourages Islamist extremism in a nation wracked by Taliban attacks.
Ms Bibi's case dates back to June 2009 when she was asked to fetch water while out working in the fields.
But a group of Muslim women labourers objected, saying that as a non-Muslim, she should not touch the water bowl.
A few days later the women went to a local cleric and alleged that Ms Bibi made made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed.
The cleric went to local police, who opened an investigation.
She was arrested in Ittanwalai village and prosecuted under Section 295 C of the Pakistan Penal Code, which carries the death penalty.
Sentencing her to hang, Judge Naveed Iqbal "totally ruled out" any chance that Ms Bibi was falsely implicated and said there were "no mitigating circumstances", according to a copy of the verdict.
Ms Bibi's husband Ashiq Masih, 51, said that he would appeal her death sentence, which needs to be upheld by the Lahore high court, the highest court in Punjab, before it can be carried out.
"The case is baseless and we will file an appeal," he said.
The couple have two sons and three daughters.
Rights activists and minority pressure groups said it was the first time that a woman had been sentenced to hang in Pakistan for blasphemy, although a Muslim couple were jailed for life last year.
Human rights activists want the controversial legislation repealed, saying it is exploited for personal enmity and encourages Islamist extremism.
"The blasphemy law is absolutely obscene and it needs to be repealed in totality," Human Rights Watch spokesman Ali Dayan Hasan said.
"It is primarily used against vulnerable groups that face social and political discrimination. Heading that category are religious minorities and heterodox Muslim sects," he said.
About three per cent of Pakistan's population of 167 million is estimated to be non-Muslim.
Last July, two Christian brothers accused of writing a blasphemous pamphlet critical of the Prophet Mohammed were shot dead outside a court in Punjab.
Pastor Rashid Emmanuel, 32, and his brother Sajjad, were killed as they left a court hearing in Faisalabad city, where hundreds of Muslim protesters had demanded they be sentenced to death.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
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Well, I have never liked the whole “religion of peace” thing.
Pretty much it is a bit of crap that came up so that W could claim that the war on terror (don't get me started on that one) is not a war on Islam.
Well, I suppose that the war on terror could have implications for the IRA and the Basque separatists. However, it simply does not have those implications.
If the west is at war, then we are at war with the islamist people who are out there doing the shit that we are at war with. Islamist people who are not doing that shit are people we pretty much don't need to worry about.
In 1945, were we at war with the people who were rolling bandages in German hospitals? Probably not. I be that felt real good to the people rolling bandages in Dresden on the three days that we destroyed that city.
Facts are facts. We are at war with a culture. There will be losses that fall into categories that are less the convenient. Such is the nature of war.
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was that muslims are bloody mental but maybe these halfwits are like any primary school kid who tells the teacher on some one to get them into trouble.
Thing is, in this case the person they've told on is at risk of her life.
How could they do this? How could the retribution for handing a fucking muslim a glass of water be death?
Morons.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Someone international should ask these particular Muslims publically why do they worship sadism, bloodlust and barbarianism. Prophet's words are no excuse, he might have been very well a perv himself. Bloody books can be just ignored, like Christians mostly do it, they ignore Leviticus and Deuteronomium, so they don't have to lynch people on streets for wearing a cloth of two materials.
I wonder how would they react, if they would be publically depicted without the virtuous religious excuses, as sadistic, tantrum-throwing personally insecure adults. No talk of religion, of cultures or traditions, I mean just focusing on the most basic standards of common sense and decency of not killing your neighbours unless they try to kill you first. I mean it as focused specially on these fundamentalistic communities and individuals, not all Muslims. Perhaps comparison to cavemen or monkeys might help, but I don't want to insult cavemen or monkeys. Hell, they don't even stick with the good old "eye for eye" anymore.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
What is sickening about this crap, it is not just about one or two 'extremists', the typical attempt to deflect the criticism from the religion, this is about a bunch of ordinary people, altho obviously in a totally f**ked-up culture. The 'justifications' are explicit teachings of the religion, AFAICS.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Exactly. I have not had a whole lot of patience with the people that try to paint these acts as isolated instances when it seems painfully obivous to me that this is the norm of that culture rather than the exception.
I have been unfortunate enough to have debates with Christians that often tell me, why do Atheists just seem to have a problem with Christianity ? Why don't you go after Islam or one of the others ? I always have to ask them, which Atheists have you been talking to ? I see Islam and any of the other major religions of the world to be just as irrational and insane as I do Christianity. Christianity has not been singled out by me to be the only religion that I personally do not approve of. I am pretty much an equal opportunity non-believer when it comes to relgion.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno