The other tragedy in Pakistan
NEWS from Pakistan has been dominated in recent weeks by both the devastating flooding and the diplomatic row after David Cameron referred to the Pakistani authorities’ “looking both ways” on terror. These sad developments have pushed another disturbing event into the background. On 19 July, two Christian brothers, Pastor Rashid Emmanuel, aged 32, and his brother Sajid, 24, both of them leaders in United Ministries Pakistan, were shot dead in the precinct of Faisalabad courthouse in the Punjab. Both had been arrested on blasphemy charges two weeks earlier, but the charges were about to be dropped in the absence of any evidence. The scandal of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan has deep roots. In 1978, the tough General Zia-ul-Haq came to power, after a coup deposing the elected President, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. General Zia ruled for ten years, and oversaw a process of Islamisation of the legal system and society in Pakistan. This included the Hudood Ordinance, in 1979, which prescribed the w...