Muslim cleric issues reward for anyone who kills Christian woman for insulting Islam

From The Telegraph U.K.

Pakistani cleric puts bounty on Christian woman’s head

A hardline, pro-Taliban Pakistani Muslim cleric on Friday offered a reward for anyone who kills a Christian woman sentenced to death by a court on charges of insulting Islam.

Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan 'for blasphemy'
Asia Bibi has been sentenced to death ‘for blasphemy’ 
4:03PM GMT 03 Dec 2010

The sentence against Asia Bibi has renewed debate about Pakistan’s blasphemy law which critics say is used to persecute religious minorities, fan religious extremism and settle personal scores. Non-Muslim minorities account for roughly 4 per cent of Pakistan’s 170 million population.

Maulana Yousef Qureshi, the imam of a major mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, offered a £3,700 reward and warned the government against any move to abolish or change the blasphemy law.

“We will strongly resist any attempt to repeal laws which provide protection to the sanctity of Holy Prophet Mohammad,” Qureshi told a rally of hardline Islamists.”Any one who kills Asia will be given 500,000 rupees in reward from Masjid Mohabat Khan,” he said referring to his mosque.

While Qureshi is not believed to have a wide following, comments by clerics can provoke a violent response and complicate government efforts to combat religious extremism and militancy.

Qureshi, a cleric who has been leading congregation at the 17th century Mohabat Khan mosque for decades, later told Reuters he was determined to see her killed.

“We expect her to be hanged and if she is not hanged then we will ask mujahideen and Taliban to kill her.”

Ms Bibi, a 45-year-old mother of four, is the first woman to be sentenced to death under the blasphemy law.

Blasphemy convictions are common in mainly Muslim Pakistan. Although the death sentence has never been carried out as most convictions are thrown out on appeal, angry mobs and fanatics have killed many people accused of blasphemy in the past.

In 2006, Qureshi and his followers announced rewards amounting to over $1 million for anyone who killed Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that had enraged Muslims worldwide.

After her conviction, Ms Bibi appealed to President Asif Ali Zardari to pardon her, saying she had been wrongly accused by neighbours due to a personal dispute.

Last week, a government minister said an initial inquiry into the case showed she had not committed blasphemy. The Lahore High Court last month prevented Mr Zardari from granting a pardon and ruled that the High Court should be allowed to decide her appeal.

“No president, no parliament and no government has any right to interfere in the commandants of Islam. Islamic punishment will be implemented at all costs,” said Qureshi.

9 Replies to “Muslim cleric issues reward for anyone who kills Christian woman for insulting Islam”

  1. So the Imam can just go ahead and put a hit on somebody, in public, cash on the barrel-head, and nothing happens to him? Well, there it is folks. I thought murder-for-hire was pretty much illegal everywhere but, apparently, not in Pakistan. And there’s nothing the bloody Prime Minister can do? I think, in Pakistan, the Office of the Prime Minister is somewhere just beneath Official Rat Catcher. I guess that’s as good an indicator of a “failed state” as just about anything, isn’t it.

  2. Chris

    A country is what the people make of it. Somalis it is what it is because of the character and culture of Somalis in general. It is the same.

    So our ignorant politicians have imported millions of Muslims from the generally dysfunctional Muslim world, and then are surprised at the results in the UK and Europe – honour killings, vandalising of churches, beating up vicars in London, terrorism, honour killings, rape and grooming of Infidel women, and so on.

    There must be some retribution for these politicians who have committed a crime against the nations of the West, commensurate with the crime,

  3. Both of you are right, and the MSM is going to ignore this and the implication of what is coming to the US because we are letting in millions of Moslems.

  4. What has to be remembered is that everywhere Islam takes over they work hard to destroy the original culture and install the Arabic culture of the 7th Century. I don’t know of anyone who ever thought that was a civilized culture.

  5. International Criminal Court (ICC)

    Article 7 (1) (h)
    Crime against humanity of persecution
    Elements
    1. The perpetrator severely deprived, contrary to international law,21 one or more
    persons of fundamental rights.
    2. The perpetrator targeted such person or persons by reason of the identity of a
    group or collectivity or targeted the group or collectivity as such.
    3. Such targeting was based on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious,
    gender as defined in article 7, paragraph 3, of the Statute, or other grounds that
    are universally recognized as impermissible under international law.

    This uneducated, illiterate cleric has broken the ICC law. Why does not a country or state in the world file charges against him and his followers? He has broken the law, then he should be punished.

    Is a citizen, like me, able to file charges against him in the ICC. If there is any lawyer reading this, please respond.

  6. George that is a good question, off the top of my head the answer is probably, I seem to remember several people (individuals) that tried to get several American politicians and Generals arrested early in the war. They didn’t succeed but according to what I remember it was because the US would refuse to allow the prosecution. In fact there is a US law that requires the US Government to do everything including going to war to free any US citizen brought before the ICC.

  7. Yes, DP111, it eventually has to come down to the individual worthiness of the citizens, doesn’t it? We’ve been taught all our lives not to notice this sort of thing, needing to blame differences in international living situations on anything but the natures of the people who live there, but you can’t get away from it. Imagine if all the Somalians moved off to New York after leaving Somalia to, oh, I dunno, how about the Japanese. Why, in no time at all that place (no, not New York) would be humming like a top, wouldn’t it? It’d be a major tourist destination, they’d have the most advanced desalinization facilities in the world, there’d be solar power, there’d be pretty girls and TV shows… People’d be calling it a sparkling miracle in the sun. But no… It has to be a miserable failed state, a place from which people are desperate to escape. I’m not trying to be a bigot or a meanie. It’s just true. Meanwhile, Somalian New York would be an apocalyptic wasteland with rotting bodies hanging from lamp posts and shit. You know it’s true. We mustn’t allow our governments to force us to accept large numbers of immigrants from countries such as this, even though it gets them such an abundance of votes.

  8. I was under the impression that Asia Bibi had been offered asylum in Italy with a job waiting for her, as that is now one of the requirements to enter Italy.

    So why is Pakistan holding her unless it is to give Pakistanis the opportunity to excercise their Islamic right to tear her to shreds.

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