An 11-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome is being held on blasphemy charges after being accused of burning pages of the Quran as she apparently gathered paper as fuel for cooking. The Christian girl, known only as Rimsha, was arrested on Thursday after she was reportedly seen in public holding burnt pages which had Islamic text and Koranic verses on them, a police official told AFP. A police officer involved in the case, in Pakistan's capital Islamabad, said the accused girl had told him she had no idea there were pages of the Quran inside the papers she had burnt. Qasim Niazi said the girl was illiterate and had not attended school, although there conflicting reports as to her mental state. He also told CNN 150 people had gathered in a part of town where the Christian population is based and threatened to burn down their houses. He said: "The mob wanted to burn the girl to give her a lesson." He added families in the area had fled in fear. Paul Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for National Harmony, told the BBC that it was "unlikely she purposefully desecrated the Koran". "From the reports I have seen, she was found carrying a waste bag which also had pages of the Koran," he said. "This infuriated some local people and a large crowd gathered to demand action against her. The police were initially reluctant to arrest her, but they came under a lot of pressure from a very large crowd, who were threatening to burn down Christian homes." A statement from President Asif Ali Zardari called for an urgent investigation into the incident and insisted vulnerable sections of society must be protected "from any misuse of blasphemy law", Pakistan's Dawn newspaper said. "Blasphemy by anyone cannot be condoned but no one will be allowed to misuse blasphemy law for settling personal scores," the president's spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said.
Easy to explain, it's really only the hard line fundamentalists who proscribe the extreme measures seen here. Any thinking person, of any religion, would understand the girl's plight and try to help her.
They wanted to burn her to "teach her a lesson". Aye, she certainly won't do it again when she's a pile of ashes. Whit a bunch of intolerant ignorant ****in arseholes. Is it any surprise at the amount of local conflicts across the middle east and Asia there's muslims involved. The ****s are aff their heids.
The Western media should keep their big fat noses out of the laws and traditions of Islamic states. It's their way of life and we should respect that.
A government minister's brother was shot dead for merely suggesting that the blasphemy laws were a wee bit strict. It's still the dark ages in parts of the middle east. Mind you, if we keep dropping bombs on them and destroying their infrastructure things aren't going to improve any time soon.
True. However, these ****s are at war with every **** who isn't them, and that won't improve until their tolerance of others improves.
Their tolerance will never improve, the only way forward for us is to convert to Islam and have a nice chap like fan as our mentor.
A lot of it comes down to ignorance though. Better infrastructure leads to better education and more equality which leads to increased tolerance. Unfortunately, it's often in America and the west's best interests to keep extremists in power. Until they're no longer useful of course.
If you ever suggest that Islam is to blame for anything like this, you'll be told that it's a 'cultural' problem rather than a religious one.
Religion as a whole is ****ed up, America is just as radically religious as the middle east these days, it might not be state sanctioned but you can bet your arse if you went through the bible-belt burning the old testament you'd be strung up a tree somewhere sharpish.
You're right, killing a young girl because she burned some pages from the Koran has absolutely nothing to do with religion. ps Do you think he's reading this? His anti-Muslim radar must be going radge.
PAKISTAN's president has ordered a probe into the arrest of a young Christian girl accused of desecrating pages of the Muslim holy book the Koran. Police say a girl aged around 11 was arrested last week in a Christian area of the capital Islamabad following street protests by Muslims. Reports say that police arrested her under pressure from an angry crowd of up to 1,000 who surrounded her family's house demanding punishment. Her parents have been taken into protective custody following threats and hundreds of other Christian families have been forced to flee the unrest in their neighbourhood. Conflicting reports suggest the girl - who may have a mental impairment - was accused by a Muslim of having a bag of ashes believed to be burnt pages of scripture. It comes after heightened tensions between religious groups in the area with Muslim landlords reported to have been forcing Christian churches to stop services. Officials said the girl could not properly answer police questions after she was held under Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law - which carries a potential death penalty. Critics say the law has been exploited to intimidate minority groups and settle property disputes. Two years ago a Christian couple were jailed for 25 years after they were accused of touching a Koran with unwashed hands. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...#ixzz247mVWzIP
