Pakistan Feature: The Warnings Come True --- Another Minister Dies Because of the Blasphemy Law

Shahbaz BhattiPakistan’s blasphemy law took another life on Wednesday. The country’s only Christian cabinet minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, was gunned down 50 metres away from his home.

The government, in its silence, has failed to protect its ministers. In its refusal to amend the law, it is refusing to assume its responsibility to protect all of its people. So doing, it is going to take the back seat to a minority of violent Pakistanis who seek nothing but to destroy the country’s religious harmony and its fragile democracy.

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Pakistan Feature: The Warnings in the Assassination of the Punjab Governor

The Pakistani Government's continued lack of strong action against this tide is only going to strengthen the fundamentalists who are threatening to derail any semblance of progress made towards democracy in recent years. Democracy does not mean anything if the rule of the majority translates into the oppression of a minority.

Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and all other non-Muslims in Pakistan will remain unsafe as long as people like Taseer are killed because the government does not want to address religious fundamentalism amongst its ranks and those of the military. The section of Pakistan’s population calling itself "liberal" will have to conform to fundamentalist ideas, live in fear or leave the country. This would effectively end Pakistan’s pursuit of a democratic state.

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Pakistan Breaking: Governor of Punjab Province Assassinated (Al Jazeera)

Al Jazeera English reports:

The governor of Pakistan's most politically important province of Punjab has been killed after shootings in a popular market in the capital Islamabad.

Police said Salman Taseer, a high-profile member of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was killed by a member of his security detail.

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