All set to observe fifth death anniversary of Salmaan Taseer today

[Zibago]

All set to observe fifth death anniversary of Salmaan Taseer today
haider ali January 04, 2016

LAHORE: All is set to mark the fifth death anniversary of slain Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer on Monday (today). Civil society and non-governmental organisations will hold candlelit vigils and ceremonies in the city to pay tribute to the late governor for his sacrifices for the cause of the oppressed segments of the society. Institute for Peace and Secular Studies former chairperson Saeeda Diep said that they will hold a vigil at the Liberty Roundabout in late Taseer’s memory. She said the governor was assassinated for raising his voice against laws which are often misused to persecute religious minorities in Pakistan.

The city police has finalised a comprehensive security plan to provide protection for the candlelit vigil participants and to avoid any untoward incident on the fifth death anniversary of former Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer.

The death anniversary will be observed today (Monday) at the Liberty Roundabout where the civil society and non-governmental organisations will hold candlelit vigils and ceremonies to pay tribute to the courage of late Taseer.

It is pertinent to mention that last year, some unknown persons carrying arms attacked the event arranged by the civil society at Liberty Roundabout in connection to the fourth death anniversary of the late governor.

Gulberg Police Station House Officer (SHO) Muhammad Yousaf Butt told Daily Times that the police has finalised foolproof security arrangements for participants of the ceremony and have also deployed a heavy police contingent in this regard. He said that activities of the ceremony would be monitored with CCTV cameras. “The police officials would be patrolling in the area to ensure law and order, and peaceful culmination of event.”

Former Institute for Peace and Secular Studies (IPSS) chairperson Saeeda Diep said that her institute would hold candlelit vigil at the Liberty Roundabout in the memory of the martyred governor. “We will not let his sacrifice to be forgotten.”

She said that Salmaan Taseer was the 26th Governor of Punjab who was assassinated on January 4, 2011 for raising his voice against discriminatory laws that are used to persecute religious minorities in Pakistan.

The purpose of the event is to show solidarity with the victims of extremism/terrorism and also to pay tributes to those who lost their lives in the struggle to save humanity. “We salute Salmaan Taseer who lost his life while serving and saving the humanity,” she said.

Civil Society Network member Abdullah Malik said that Taseer’s death was a great loss to the country. He stood against an extremist thought when our country was facing the worst wave of terrorism, Malik added.

“An extremist thought killed a liberal thought and we are struggling to eliminate these brutal thoughts from the face of our society and we will continue our struggle without any fear,” he added. We also salute those who lost their lives to save the nation and are proud of our media who is reporting courageously, he said.
All set to observe fifth death anniversary of Salmaan Taseer today
@django @MaarKhoor @Akheilos @Syed.Ali.Haider @WAJsal

 

[Maarkhoor]

Nice human being messed up with the bigots. Killer is still alive we want justice hang the Qadiri.

 

[Zibago]

@Zarvan @Winchester @DESERT FIGHTER @DesertFox97

@Irfan Baloch @Windjammer @Musafir117 @PaklovesTurkiye @Ammara Chaudhry

@Mr.Meap @Leader @waz

 

[Maarkhoor]

We want justice for Shahbaz Taseer, Ali Haider Gilani.

 

[Zibago]

He stood up against tyranny and oppression he was a brave man

Like Habib Jalib said
mazhab k jo byopari hain,
wo sab se bari bemari hain,
wo jin k siwa sab kafir hain,
jo deen ka harf-e-akhir hain,
in jhute aur makkaron se
mazhab k thekedaron se
main baghi hoon main baghi hoon
jo chahe mujh pe zulm karo

 

[Moon]

@Zarvan @Winchester @DESERT FIGHTER @DesertFox97

@Irfan Baloch @Windjammer @Musafir117 @PaklovesTurkiye @Ammara Chaudhry

@Mr.Meap @Leader @waz

He stood up for those, who no one was willing to stand up for, he stood up against those, who no was willing to stand against.
His sacrifices for the State will be remembered, and his death will be avenged. These extremist bigots are running out of time. They will soon perish.

 

[Tipu7]

The greatest issue with Pakistani nation mentality is that any one from high Elite who dies while protecting a "Noble Cause" (no matter how much sinister his original goal is) become a hero. People forget all his mistakes, evils and negative achievements and rank him as some "Divine personality or some super high intellectual who loved peace and justice with equality.

Bhutto is still alive, BZ is also alive, when Zardari will die he will become Immortal too.

Even if Altaf Toad or Molvi Diesel are killed by some one they might become equivalent of Qaid e Azam if not surpass him at least.....

Both Religious extremists and secular fascists make such "heros" to downgrade the opposite side and find justification for this own goal and agenda, while common people keep bouncing between two sides like a ping pong ball........

Some one make Bait ullah Masood as hero, someone make Salman Taseer as hero......

May Lord save us from both of such types..........

 

[Parul]

Rest in peace, Sir!

 

[Zibago]

The greatest issue with Pakistani nation mentality is that any one from high Elite who dies while protecting a "Noble Cause" (no matter how much sinister his original goal is) become a hero. People forget all his mistakes, evils and negative achievements and rank him as some "Divine personality or some super high intellectual who loved peace and justice with equality.

Bhutto is still alive, BZ is also alive, when Zardari will die he will become Immortal too.

Even if Altaf Toad or Molvi Diesel are killed by some one they might become equivalent of Qaid e Azam if not surpass him at least.....

Both Religious extremists and secular fascists make such "heros" to downgrade the opposite side and find justification for this own goal and agenda, while common people keep bouncing between two sides like a ping pong ball........

Some one make Bait ullah Masood as hero, someone make Salman Taseer as hero......

May Lord save us from both of such types..........

I am sorry did he kill anyone or harm anyone?

All i remember is he called a law that is used to target minorities a black law

 

[Genghis khan1]

Dang, 5 years already...!!

I am sorry did he kill anyone or harm anyone?

All i remember is he called a law that is used to target minorities a black law

If I am not wrong, stats shows minorities rarely get targeted or even ever got punished using Blaspheme law. Majority of the victims are Muslims themselves. I am not a scholar to say if the law is right or wrong and same goes for Salman Taseer. He did made a mistaken throwing out such a huge statement as a governor without having credentials to back him up.

 

[Zibago]

Dang, 5 years already...!!


If I am not wrong, stats shows minorities rarely get targeted or even ever got punished using Blaspheme law. Majority of the victims are Muslims themselves. I am not a scholar to say if the law is right or wrong and same goes for Salman Taseer. He did made a mistaken throwing out such a huge statement as a governor without having credentials to back him up.

Rimasha Masih,shangla,gojra,francis,radhay kishan kitnay cases batayein?

 

[niaz]

Salman Taseer was Sunni, he did not utter any words that blaspheme our holy Prophet ( PBUH). Nor was he tried in any court of law and condemned. All Governor Taseer was guilty of was to question the motives behind the accusation of blasphemy against a poor Pakistani Christian whom he believed to be innocent.

However bigotry is so deeply seeped into the society that the cold blooded murderer Mumtaz Qadri is considered a ‘hero’ and a learned High Court Justice (rtd) volunteered as to defend him! One can judge how good our legal system is where even the judiciary defends extra judicial murder? Condition of Pakistan society reminds me of a quatrain by the great Omar Khayyam translated as:


Alike for those who for To-day prepare,

And those that after some To-morrow stare,

A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries

"Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There."




Here is an excellent article written by two very prominent lawyers.


How Muslims should react to jihadi terror

January 04, 2016


Aitzaz Ahsan and Nadeem Ahmed

The range of how Muslims respond to jihadi terror thriving in our midst is both curious and varied. One reaction is just an expression of disgust and dismay and nothing more. Another is recourse to apologia of ‘this-is-not-Islam’ kind, even as the killers themselves claim to be motivated by a dogmatic Islam.

A third reaction is one of complete and cynical denial and the conjuring of conspiracy theories (‘all Jews were on leave on 9/11’ and ‘Osama had died in Tora Bora long before the Abbottabad raid’). What seems oddly absent is any sense of outrage, even serious reflection.

The rest of us Muslims remain smug and ignorant of the gravity of the threat that religious extremists pose to Muslims all over the world. What is more, every new incident of terror somehow reinforces our self-deceit that all is well as long as it is far away.

We remain smug also because we expect the American voter to reject the belligerent hyperbole of Donald Trump. But the very fact that one leading contender for the Oval Office believes that a ban on Muslims will get him more votes should be a reality check for us. From fringe blogs, the idea has all of a sudden become the subject of mainstream debate. As a prelude, the US Senate has already suggested unprecedented restrictions on US visas. This is a dangerously high water mark of the West’s desperation in not finding any policy tool to protect its people from Muslim ‘sleeper cells’ within their societies.

A few more incidents of mass murders like those in Paris and California and Trump and his crazy idea may no longer look all that crazy. And American blanket exclusion of Muslims may be followed by other Western states.

As walls of suspicion come up around the Muslim world, there is a scary prospect of it becoming a vast hermetically sealed ‘Gaza Strip’ stretching from Morocco to Bangladesh. In an increasingly interdependent world this could be most debilitating.

But sadly most Muslims remain ignorant of, or indifferent to, the armies of discord storming our own battlements. There is no general sense of outrage at the growth and presence among us of such killer gangs as Al-Qaeda, Taliban and Daesh who seek to rid the world of ‘infidels’ and to take us back to the times of slave girls and beheadings. This is all the more perplexing as the vast majority of those innocent civilians killed in the name of jihad are not ‘infidels’ but Muslims. And when we Muslims ourselves fail to understand why we tolerate (even promote) the spread of such a criminal ideology, how can the West develop a correct understanding of the problem?

The fact is that for the last several decades, most Muslim societies have either looked away or even promoted the spread of this cancer. When Al-Qaeda leaders are arrested from the homes of members of mainstream religious parties, or a ruling political party strikes political alliances with known jihadi outfits, or when Daesh-produced oil finds markets in Muslim countries, the world is forced to ponder. Our mobs burn to death petty thieves and alleged blasphemers, even as terrorists openly dwell in our capital cities. And when questioned, we rationalise our behavior.

The preferred argument is: ‘it is a natural consequence of the mal-intent of the West,’ and that ‘it asked for it’. But how can a flawed foreign policy of a non-Muslim America morally entitle these soldiers of Islam to murder 50,000 Pakistanis, and a greater number of Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Lebanese, Turks, Kurds, Iranians, Shias, Sunnis, all Muslims?

So while we rightly lament American hypocrisy in originally training, arming, facilitating and financing jihadi groups, including Osama bin Laden, we must accept our own responsibility, if not on the basis of principle then at least because of our self-interest.

How long will we continue condemning mass murders by Muslim groups in the name of Islam and remind the West that not all Muslims are bad even as we lengthen the lines of visa seekers outside its embassies? And how long do we expect the West to keep buying this because this line of thinking is not working for it as a viable policy tool to protect its people. Ordinary, educated and law-abiding Muslims are now known, all of a sudden, to turn into zombies who go on killing sprees. What is this virus?

Unless we share with the West a workable method to identify Muslim sleeper cells and to differentiate between murderers and harmless Muslims, we should expect it to keep using increasingly blunt tools to protect its people. And we should have no doubt now that one of the blunt tools being considered in the West is an outright ban on entry of all Muslims. It is still not too late for us to ourselves close down all social and intellectual space for the ideology of hate in the name of Islam.

Another is the issue of Muslim refugees. Muslim countries must share the burden with Europe by providing resources or shelter. Using the platform of the OIC they must decide among themselves on how to share and accommodate them. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran may not be destinations preferred by these refugees, but these countries have the resources to provide for them. Even cash-strapped Pakistan has housed three million displaced persons for the last three decades. The taking in of refugees by Islamic countries will ease the social fear that is being stoked by increasingly popular anti-Muslim, anti-immigration European right-wing parties

The Shia-Sunni rift has, through Islam’s history, wantonly shed too much blood. This breach motivates or lies at the bottom of most of the violence today in the name of Islam. It is time now to repair the breach. There is no other option. Today, only the leaderships of Iran and Saudi Arabia can take any decisive steps in this behalf. With so much history behind their discord, this is difficult but not impossible. Dogma must give way to enlightened self-interest. Fighting Daesh is more important than fighting Bashar al-Assad. Assads have been there for half a century now.

Today’s leadership of these two countries will either make a tryst with history or be devoured by it, taking the whole Muslim world down with them. Moderate leaders of Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan should immediately take to uninterruptable and untiring shuttle diplomacy to persuade Saudi and Iranian leaderships to come together in the face of the existential challenge facing them and all Muslims. The road to ending the humiliation of Muslims, and peace and prosperity passes through Tehran and Riyadh, not Paris and Washington.

If these two countries join hands to face internal threats like Daesh, there is no reason why peace cannot be restored in the world, including that of Islam.

And only after putting their own house in order will Muslim leaders be able to ask the West to address occupations of Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya, and to ensure that Muslims living in its countries do not face discrimination, persecution or continuous monitoring and surveillance.

For too long, Muslims, both as individuals and as governments, have ignored or even conspired with the rising cancer of hate ideologies around us. Now, at least in our own interest, each one of us must finally open our eyes to reality, come off the fence and start closing down all space for the hate ideologies thriving in our midst and to take practical steps to permanently decommission these thugs committing crimes in the name of Islam.

Aitzaz Ahsan is the Senate leader of the opposition and Nadeem Ahmed is a Karachi-based lawyer

How Muslims should react to jihadi terror | Opinion | thenews.com.pk

 

[Genghis khan1]

Rimasha Masih,shangla,gojra,francis,radhay kishan kitnay cases batayein?

Are you throwing-out random name, cuz most of these names yield no search results. Nonetheless, I want to know did any of them ever got punished under blasphemy law?
"In 11 out of 12 cases that involved a decision on the merits of the case, the accused were acquitted because the judgment pointed out weaknesses and inconsistencies in prosecution’s case. In eight of the 11 acquittals, the court noted mala fide intention in the implication of the accused."

Thousands of Pakistanis everyday suffers from bogus judicial and police system but these NGOs and puppet politicians only care about one blasphemy law which don't even effect the fraction of 200 million Pakistanis.

Visit Muslim Civil Liberties Union (MCLU) or Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) and read about long list of bogus cases against Muslims in US. No judicial or police system is perfect.

 

[Zibago]

Are you throwing-out random name, cuz most of these names yield no search results. Nonetheless, I want to know did any of them ever got punished under blasphemy law?
"In 11 out of 12 cases that involved a decision on the merits of the case, the accused were acquitted because the judgment pointed out weaknesses and inconsistencies in prosecution’s case. In eight of the 11 acquittals, the court noted mala fide intention in the implication of the accused."

Thousands of Pakistanis everyday suffers from bogus judicial and police system but these NGOs and puppet politicians only care about one blasphemy law which don't even effect the fraction of 200 million Pakistanis.

Visit Muslim Civil Liberties Union (MCLU) or Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) and read about long list of bogus cases against Muslims in US. No judicial or police system is perfect.

Rimsha Masih the girl from Islamabad who had flee to canada,gojra,francis,shangla the colonies that were burned down,radhay kishan where a couple was burnt alive google them

What happens in USA not my concern

 

[EnggineerShahjehan]

Irony of today is u speak for minorities hindu's christians shia's ahmedi's u r labeled National Hero/Progressive/Rightist, but if u talk about majority's right u Mullah/Jahadi/Albakistani. Unless this issue is not addressed there will be no peace. If minorities have so do majority has.