Pakistan's Christian minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti assassinated in Islamabad
 Shahbaz Bhatti, shown here in 2007, was gunned down in Islamabad on Wednesday. His killing is the second this year of a liberal senior official who had spoken out against Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws. (Anjum Naveed - AP) |
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Discussion PolicyWednesday, March 2, 2011; 3:10 AM
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - Pakistan's federal minorities minister, a Christian, was gunned down in this capital city Wednesday in the second killing this year of a liberal, senior government official who had spoken out against the nation's stringent blasphemy laws.
Shahbaz Bhatti was killed when gunmen fired on his vehicle as he rode to work, after which the attackers fled the scene, according to Pakistani news reports. Fliers left near the scene of the ambush indicated that the Pakistani Taliban had claimed responsibility for the slaying, but that could not be immediately confirmed.
Bhatti was a vocal advocate for changes to Pakistan's blasphemy law, which makes criticism of Islam's prophet Muhammad a capital crime. His profile rose in recent months, after he condemned the November death sentencing of a Christian woman. That case drew international attention and roiled the Pakistani public, and Bhatti's position earned him death threats from the rising ranks of Islamist hardliners.
In an interview last month, Bhatti said those threats had increased since the January killing of Salman Taseer, the former governor of Punjab province. Taseer, like Bhatti, also argued that the blasphemy law needed amending to prevent its use as a tool to persecute minorities. But when Taseer's killer - one of his police guards - was lionized as a hero even by mainstream Muslims, the few Pakistanis who shared Taseer's opinion stopped voicing it out of fear.
Bhatti was not among them. He continued to press for changes to the blasphemy law, and said in mid-February that he would do so even though he knew it could get him killed. His work, he said, gave "hope" to Pakistan's religious minorities, who make up about three percent of the population.
(source: washington post)
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Bhatti was a vocal advocate for changes to Pakistan's blasphemy law, which makes criticism of Islam's prophet Muhammad a capital crime. His profile rose in recent months, after he condemned the November death sentencing of a Christian woman. That case drew international attention and roiled the Pakistani public, and Bhatti's position earned him death threats from the rising ranks of Islamist hardliners.
In an interview last month, Bhatti said those threats had increased since the January killing of Salman Taseer, the former governor of Punjab province. Taseer, like Bhatti, also argued that the blasphemy law needed amending to prevent its use as a tool to persecute minorities. But when Taseer's killer - one of his police guards - was lionized as a hero even by mainstream Muslims, the few Pakistanis who shared Taseer's opinion stopped voicing it out of fear.
Bhatti was not among them. He continued to press for changes to the blasphemy law, and said in mid-February that he would do so even though he knew it could get him killed. His work, he said, gave "hope" to Pakistan's religious minorities, who make up about three percent of the population.
(source: washington post)
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