Pakistan | 29 April 2016

Pakistan: Radical groups on the rise

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While the deadly attack on Christians in the Gulshan-i-Iqbal park in Lahore on Easter Sunday 2016 was reported widely in international media (e.g. by the BBC), a series of protests by radical Muslims did not get the attention it deserved. Thomas Muller, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, explains: "On the very same day that the attack took place, thousands of radical Muslims blocked large parts of Rawalpindi and Islamabad in order to demand (among other things) actions against religious minority groups, as reported by AFP on 28 March 2016. The protestors were supporters of Mumtaz Qadri, the murderer of Salman Taseer, the Muslim governor of Punjab, who was assassinated in 2011 for his public stand against Pakistan"s blasphemy laws. Qadri was hanged on 29 February 2016 and the protestors were now demanding the immediate execution of all imprisoned blasphemy offenders - especially Catholic Christian Asia Bibi - and measures to turn Qadri"s prison cell into a mosque. After four days of action in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the protesters dispersed. While the government claimed that it had not given in to their demands, NGOs have a different view on this, as FIDES reported on 2 April. In any case, observers wonder why the authorities did not stop the radical groups from entering the so-called "˜red zone", the maximum security area where government offices are situated."

 

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