Sherry Rehman may be next on terror hitlist in Pakistan !

By PHP Staff
Thursday, March 03, 2011

 (Photo : MNA Sherry Rehman from Peoples Party or PPP at Islamabad, Pakistan)

Islamabad, Mar 3: Liberal Pakistan parliamentarian Sherry Rehman, who had proposed a bill to reform the nation's draconian blasphemy laws, may be next on the Pakistan extremists' hitlist.

Of the three brave Pakistani politicians who stood up for Aasia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman who was sentenced to death last November for allegedly committing blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad, just one is still alive- Rehman.

Following the assassinations of former Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer on January 4 and Minorities Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti yesterday, worries are growing that Rehman could be next.

"Make no mistake: she is in grave danger, like nobody else," The Guardian quoted one of Rehman's friends, as saying.

Rehman is currently in New Delhi attending a conference.

She spent most of January holed up inside her Karachi home, surrounded by police and advised by senior government ministers to leave Pakistan lest she be assassinated.

"I get two types of advice about leaving. One from concerned friends, the other from those who want me out so I''ll stop making trouble. But I''m going nowhere," Rehman was quoted, as saying in January.

In Pakistan, she flies to Islamabad discreetly- once on a friend''s private jet- but dares not appear in parliament, the report said.

Rehman's movements have become secret, highlighting how a vibrant voice has been silenced by intolerant forces, which some warn could entirely suffocate the country''s fragile democracy.

"We are the knife''s edge. A clerical tsunami is headed towards us," liberal academic Pervez Hoodbhoy warned at a literature festival in Karachi last month.

MP Sherry Rehman drops effort to repeal blasphemy laws in Pakistan

Source BBC News
Monday, February 07, 2011

Islamabad : A Pakistani politician has dropped her attempt to amend the country's controversial blasphemy laws, accusing her party of appeasing extremists. 

Pakistan People's Party MP Sherry Rehman made her decision after the government ruled out changing the law.

Correspondents say Ms Rehman is one of only a few politicians prepared to speak out on the blasphemy law.
They say there has been a climate of fear since the murder of Punjab governor Salman Taseer who opposed it.

Mr Taseer was killed in January by one of his bodyguards, who later admitted murdering the governor because he had spoken out against the blasphemy law.

Hundreds of people are in prison on charges under the law. Critics say it has been used to persecute minority faiths and is sometimes exploited by people pursuing grudges against others.

It has been under scrutiny since a Christian, Asia Bibi, was sentenced to death in November. Ms Bibi denies insulting the Prophet Muhammad in her Punjab village in June 2009.

'Blow-back'
 
Ms Rehman told the BBC in January that she received death threats every half hour, but would defy them.
However, in a statement received by the BBC on Thursday, she said she would not be proceeding with her proposed bill following remarks by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani earlier in the week.

"Since the PM announced that there cannot even be discussion on procedural amendments, and the committee announced by the party to amend the laws has been disbanded, then as a PPP representative I had no option but to abide by the party's decision in parliament.

She added: "Appeasement of extremism is a policy that will have its blow-back."

Mr Gilani had said that no amendment in the law could be considered. He also disbanded a committee set up to determine how to amend the laws. 

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Karachi says politicians in Pakistan are increasingly reluctant to amend the law - many are afraid of being targeted in the way Mr Taseer was.

He says Ms Rehman's courageous stance against what is seen by some experts as a flawed law has few public supporters.

Ms Rehman stressed that she had not agreed to "withdraw" her private member's bill.
"There was never any question of withdrawing the bill as the Speaker had never admitted it on the agenda," she said.

Ms Rehman added that if the Speaker had allowed her bill "perhaps some of our colleagues would have understood that it was not suggesting total repeal of the law, but protecting our great Prophet's name against injustices done via procedures introduced by [former President] Zia ul-Haq.

"It was a question of protecting our citizens from injustice done in the name of a religion that values peace and tolerance more than anything else," she said.

Her statement came as Human Rights Watch urged the government to release a boy of 17 who is under arrest in Pakistan, accused of blaspheming against the Prophet Muhammad in a high school exam.

Sherry Rehman submits bill for amending blasphemy laws in Pakistan

By Gopinath Kumar (Executive Editor)
Tuesday, November 30, 2010

(Former information minister and Pakistan People’s Party MNA Sherry Rehman had submitted a private member’s bill as she believed that blasphemy laws as set out in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) found their roots in colonial laws. – AFP Photo)

ISLAMABAD: Amid announcements by the religious forces in the country to resist any move to change the blasphemy laws, former information minister and Pakistan People’s Party MNA Sherry Rehman has submitted a bill to the National Assembly Secretariat seeking an end to the death penalty under the existing blasphemy laws. 

Talking to Dawn here on Monday, Ms Rehman said that she had submitted a private member’s bill as she believed that blasphemy laws as set out in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) found their roots in colonial laws and had in their present form become a source of victimisation and persecution of the minorities in the country.
The amendments to the Blasphemy Act, she said, were intended to ensure that all citizens of Pakistan had an equal right to constitutional protection and that miscarriages of justice in the name of blasphemy were avoided at all costs.

“The bill amends both the PPC and the Code of Criminal Procedure, the two main sources of criminal law. The aim is to amend the codes to ensure protection of Pakistan’s minorities and vulnerable citizens, who routinely face judgments and verdicts in the lower courts where mob pressure is often mobilised to obtain a conviction,” she said.

According to Ms Rehman, the definition of the term “blasphemy” is currently vague, yet it carries a mandatory death sentence. Also, she said, there were serious problems with the mechanisms to implement the law. She said her proposed bill would rationalise the punishments prescribed for offences relating to religion provided under Sections 295 and 298 of the PPC.