Anti Religious Pressures

The recent referral to the prosecution authorities in England of anti semitic concerns affecting a Labour member of parliament, sadly reflects what appears to be a growing trend of intolerance towards people of different faiths.

There is a report in today's Telegraph for example, of atrocious actions against Coptic Christians in Egypt. The Telegraph states:

Hundreds of Egyptian Coptic Christians gathered Saturday for a funeral service south of Cairo to bid farewell to six of seven people killed the previous day when militants ambushed three buses carrying pilgrims on their way to a remote desert monastery.

The service at Prince Tadros church in the city of Minya was held amid tight security and presided over by Minya's top cleric, Anba Makarios. He and members of the congregation prayed and chanted over a row of six white coffins.

Relatives of the victims cried and held each other for support.

All but one of those killed were members of the same family, according to a list of the victims' names released by the church, which said a boy and a girl, ages 15 and 12 respectively, were among the dead. A total of 19 were wounded in the attack, according to the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Then only a few days ago in Pakistan it was reported (BBC) as regards the Pakistan Supreme Court  which released a young Christian woman after years of imprisonment on a Blasphemy charge that:

The three-judge bench which acquitted Bibi comprised the sitting chief justice, Justice Saqib Nisar, and his designated successor, Justice Asif Khosa.

Justice Nisar is due to retire in January, and there was speculation he could have delayed the announcement of the verdict till after his retirement.

Instead, he has gone ahead and taken the deliberate risk of becoming a target of the vigilante groups.

The first 11 pages of the main 34-page judgment, penned by Chief Justice Nisar, read like a tutorial: what constitutes blasphemy; why it ought to be punished with death; why Pakistan incorporated laws to punish blasphemy; and how Pakistan inspired the 2009 United Nations resolution that declared defamation of religion as a violation of human rights.

It quotes copiously from the Quran and the Prophet's tradition to establish sanctity. But it then goes on to discuss "another aspect of the matter", which is that "sometimes, to fulfil nefarious designs, the law is misused by individuals levelling false allegations of blasphemy". It says 62 people have been killed for blasphemy since 1990 "even before their trial could be conducted in accordance with the law", and mentions the lynching of Mashal Khan at Mardan University as the latest example.

The order also underlines the Prophet's attitude towards other religions.

In a separate 21-page note penned by Justice Khosa, he quotes from what is known as St Katherine's Covenant to establish how the Prophet guaranteed protection to Christians in the Islamic state.

Yet  now there is anger in Pakistan which again according to the BBC includes the following:

The lawyer representing a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy after eight years on death row has fled Pakistan in fear for his life.

Saif Mulook told news agency AFP he had to leave so he could continue to represent Asia Bibi, whose conviction was overturned by judges on Wednesday.

Officials have since agreed to bar Ms Bibi from leaving Pakistan in order to end violent protests over the ruling.

Campaigners blasted the deal as akin to signing her "death warrant".

Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 of insulting the Prophet Muhammad during a row with neighbours, and many are calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty following her acquittal.

Mr Mulook told the BBC earlier this week she would need to move to a Western country for her own safety. A number of attempts have previously been made on her life.

Add to the above, the many injustices in the Middle and Far East  often arising from the hatred by a  large group of people, of the religious beliefs of a small group of people, one can wonder why Western Countries like the UK, which pay huge amounts of foreign "aid" do not make education education education, quoting Tony Blair, the basic requirement of such aid once basic needs such as  famine relief are covered.

One can only hope in any event, that the anti semitic expressions within the Labour Party do not escalate to violence.