Religious Tolerance
Pakistan, at it again, creating panic, suspicion and misery. Pakistan enjoys nothing so much as denigrating, slandering, threatening and causing violence to erupt in India. Pakistan's deep-seated enmity toward India is irreconcilable with neighbourliness. Pakistan, a strictly Islamist state with strict prohibitions against blasphemy and the death penalty guaranteed for any Muslim who abandons Islam for another religion.As opposed to India which guarantees equality under the law for a variety of religions.
That guarantee does not extend to being able to avoid religious clashes between Hindus and Muslims, Christians and Hindus, or any other religious sects, all of whom find the presence of the other offensive beyond endurance. After Indonesia and Pakistan, India harbours within its diverse population, the third greatest number of Muslims in any country in the world. Clashes between Muslims and Hindus often occur, and government forces must step in to pacify mobs.
The latest occurrence of panic and fear erupted within the remote northeast of India when the Muslim population received rumours that attacks against them were imminent as a result of ethnic violence. Causing thousands of fearful Indian Muslims to flee revenge attacks. Indian investigators had discovered Pakistani-based websites using images of people killed through natural disasters, claiming them to be dead Muslims, slaughtered in violent attacks.
Official India is prepared to discuss the matter with their counterparts in Pakistan. Both countries are familiar with the practise of fomenting domestic strife among their tribal and religious minorities. In India, recent violent clashes in Assam state between ethnic Bodo and Muslim settlers killed over 50 people and ended up displacing 400,000 others; people fleeing the southern city of Bangalore for safety.
Other cities in southern and western India experienced similar fearful migrations. Those anxiously leaving their homes for safety elsewhere claimed to have received text messages that threatened retaliation by Muslims. And in Pakistan there are home-grown issues of deadly hatred by Pakistani majority Muslims directed toward Christians whom they claim blaspheme against Islam, and contemptuously destroy Korans.
A Christian man said to have been intellectually developmentally delayed was accused of burning pages of a Koran. He was being held in protective custody, but a mob managed to extract him from a police station and burned him to death to avenge the dishonouring of Islam. The Punjabi governor who spoke out against the blasphemy laws targeting Christians himself became a victim of Muslin outrage when he was assassinated last year.
Christians argue they are often falsely accused of blasphemy
The situation has caused many Christian families to flee the neighbourhood. Many Christians, accused of blasphemy, have been slaughtered by violent mobs in the past. Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minority affairs, after calling for the repeal of the country's blasphemy law, was also killed, last year.
Labels: Human Rights, India, Pakistan, Religion, Security
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 21, 2012
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