Blasphemy

An eight-year-old Hindu boy is currently in custody in the southern Punjab. He is the youngest person in Pakistan to be charged with blasphemy. The boy, accused of urinating in a local madrassa, was released last week on bail — in retaliation, a Muslim mob vandalised a local Hindu temple. Meanwhile, on Thursday, a day after the temple attack, a transgender person was arrested on blasphemy charges in Abbottabad, around 100 miles north of the capital Islamabad, for allegedly burning the Quran. These are but the latest in an unrelenting spree of blasphemy cases, a victimless crime that carries the death penalty in Pakistan. Indeed, this punishment is reserved solely

Imran Khan appears to want to impose Islamic blasphemy laws across the world. ‘I want the Muslim countries to devise a joint line of action over the blasphemy issue with a warning of trade boycott of countries where such incidents will happen,’ Khan said in an address on Monday. Last week, talking up his plan to launch a global movement, and his love for Islam’s prophet, Khan warned, ‘There will come a time when people in the West as well will be scared of blaspheming against our prophet (peace be upon him)’. The Pakistani premier’s rejuvenated bid to outlaw blasphemy against Islam came after he succumbed to the demands of