Pakistan disabled girl arrested for blasphemy

[Med911]

Re: Pakistan disabled girl arrested for blasphemy

@kakaballi

A tree stand on its roots. You can cut the leaves and branches and repeal the law, but they would grow again in another form. I agree with you that this law is cited as an example outside Pakistan to demonstrate the intolerance of our society, but the roots of intolerance and lawlessness lie elsewhere.

I agree that repealing the law would demonstrate ‘intention’ of the authorities that they would not tolerate dictations from the extremist right, but the establishment and political elite simply do not have that intention nor the intention to improve general law and order.
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I would risk joining any rally or demonstration against this blasphemy law, provided I am assured that someone murdering me in there will be promptly sent to hell by our courts as well. **

So lets start from both ends and meet at the center… If that is possible. Lets cut the leaves and branches, but then lets also go at the roots. But once again, the only ones with the tools necessary to perform such a feat is the govt. So the govt must be forced to reform itself, and implement policy from the ground up.

Whether the authorities have the intention or not is a separate issue. Here we should assume they do for the sake of argument. Most solutions I think must come from the top. If we need to reform education, then that wil have to come from the top. If we want to regulate the madrases or promote tolerance through media, that too will have to come through policy from the top. If we want to control extremist organization and prevent their spread, that will also have to be from the top as no one has the resources or the muscle to do it from below. And if the courts need to be reformed, then that too comes from the top.

Either way, you will need to repeal this law to create an atmosphere in which tolerance can be promoted. It wil have to be done eventually, because no one will ever respect the credibility of the govt if the practice institutionalized discrimination and codify policies which promote irrational behavior like the blasphemy law. And this would only be a first step on a long process that includes other suggestions such as reforms at the bottom.