Let’s not waste the blasphemy law, please!

Ejaz Haider in Pakistan's Express Tribune:

Now this NCSW [National Commission on the Status of Women], I am told, has strongly condemned the death sentence an additional sessions judge, in his infinite wisdom, has passed on Aasia Bibi. Worse, it is now talking about gross irregularities in the judicial process and questioning how an illiterate Christian woman could have cited Islamic textual and exegetical references to blaspheme against the Prophet (pbuh).

As if the prickly Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) was not bad enough. I ask you! How can technicalities be invoked to prevent the faithful from doing the right thing? Would we now have to subject the operation of our piety to such commissions?

But let me present a simpler argument. It’s a case of logistics. The best catch, I agree, is always an Ahmadi, preferable to a Christian, a Hindu or a Shia or even a shrine-worshipping Muslim. But it’s not every day that one can find an Ahmadi. Some we have allowed to escape to infidel lands. The remnants are breeding slower than the rate at which we can find and kill them. (There’s an argument here, in fact, that we should spare Ahmadis for a while so they can breed enough for our sport.) They are not always readily available, even though we have the ever-vigilant Khatm-e-Nabuwwat sniffing for them everywhere. So, what does one do on a bad, no-Ahmadi day? Right! One should get hold of whoever is available. And if it’s a Christian woman, so be it.

A sort of lagniappe, a Christian woman, but something is better than nothing. Also, my sense is that while killing a Christian is not going to get prime real estate in Paradise, even the shanty side of Paradise is likely to be pretty good.

More here.