The good news is, Rimsha has been granted bail. The bad news is, it’s about $10,500 or £6,200. The worse news is, would anyone keep her safe if she did make bail?
The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says Rimsha is the first person accused of blasphemy to have been granted bail by a trial court.
Blasphemy is not a bailable offence but her lawyers pleaded that she was a juvenile.
Blasphemy is not a bailable offence. Blasphemy is not a bailable offence. Would you believe it? It shouldn’t even be a crime, yet it’s such a crime that it’s not even bailable.
Honestly, you would think that Allah really existed and lived in an actual palace made of emeralds and appeared on the balcony to the whole world every day. You would think ah really existed and did wonderful things for people all the time, and that “blasphemy” did real harm to this real and beneficent Allah, and that everyone knew that, and that Rimsha had actually committed it, and there was actually reason to think so.
But none of that is the case, and “blasphemy” is not a real crime and doesn’t harm anyone and Rimsha was just throwing out some garbage anyway.
Rimsha’s safety upon her release is likely to be a key concern for campaigners. Her father has previously said that he fears for his daughter’s life and for the safety of his family.
Her parents were taken into protective custody at an undisclosed location following threats, and many other Christian families fled the neighbourhood after her arrest.
If her bail payment is met, Rimsha is likely to be reunited with her parents, correspondents say.
There have been cases in Pakistan where people accused of blasphemy have been killed by vigilante mobs.
But the imam in Rimsha’s neighborhood wanted the Christians out, so he planted evidence, and if Rimsha ends up killed by a mob – oh well.
This case has only served to intensify concerns over the misuse of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
Rights activists have long urged Pakistan to reform the laws, under which a person can be jailed for life for desecrating the Koran.
In March 2011 Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minority affairs, was killed after calling for the repeal of the blasphemy law.
His death came just two months after the murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who also spoke out about the issue.
Despite no Allah, no emerald palace, no wonderful things, no reason to think so.
Why do journos keep going on about the “misuse of blasphemy laws?” There is no proper use for them under any circumstances. Their very existence is a misuse of law!
Even setting aside the obscenity that is “blasphemy,” this is such a fractal clusterfuck.
So, they now realize that it was a trumped up charge to begin with, but, as authoritarians, they don’t dare admit their mistake and release her.
So they make this useless gesture.
And this is a child we’re talking about. A mentally challenged child.
‘Misuse’ – yes, what a silly and craven expression: such laws are bound to be misused – and that, really, is their raison d’etre, for their principal function is to instill fear.
Sometimes I wonder why anyone who’s not a fanatic Muslim lives in these places. They’d be safer in fucking Israel! (And yes, the irony is thick there.) And recognizing that many can’t afford (money, life, etc) to get out, why aren’t there people trying to help them escape?
You are treated like utter and complete shit in these countries if you’re not a fanatic Muslim. Blasphemy laws? Well they can fuck right off.
Goddammit all this does is make me even more cynical than I already am. Fucking fuck humanity. Fuck it.
And once the Christians are driven out, the Muslims will be happy, until they notice those other Muslims over there who aren’t quite as fanatical. They must go too. And once those less fanatical Muslims are gone, well, maybe not all the fanatics are equally righteous? Better purge even the taint of heresy or infidelity. Until one day all you have is the purest of the pure fanatics, drenched in blood, atop a mountain of bodies, glowing with happiness at the thought of the eternal reward he’s going to get from his loving Allah.
“Blasphemy is not a bailable offence…”
Where did the ‘Christianity is just as bad’ brigade slink off to?
Given how many conservative Christian groups (including those from Concerned Women for America) spoke out in support of the Russian authorities jailing of Pussy Riot, I’m not sure you should go down that road, Rebekah.
Why do non-existent omnipotent beings seem to have such thin skins? If you insult me, that could potentially be damaging, eg. if it includes some measure of threat, or if it is so incessant and pervasive that it creates a hostile atmosphere (gosh, can’t imagine that ever happening, can we?). But that’s predicated on the fact that I am a finite, vulnerable being who depends in various ways on a supportive environment. But even so, we are routinely taught as children to ignore taunts as not worth bothering about (and that’s good enough advice, up to a point).
An infinite, invulnerable, supremely self-sufficient god should just brush off the worst blasphemy with less concern or trouble than I wave away an annoying gnat (and a truly loving god might then make gentle inquiry into the reason for the hostility…OK, let’s not open that can of worms). Instead, he (acting through his appointed human intermediaries) enacts the most horrendous punishments on the blasphemer.
Which tells you that it’s not so much about protecting God’s eternally fragile honour, as it is the purely temporal power of his earthly enforcers.