Then an Islamic cleric heard a rumor: A Christian girl named Rimsha Masih may have set fire to pages of Quranic verse.
The girl's priest, Father Boota, says a Muslim neighbor claims to have witnessed it.
"He was the one who raised the alarm, and then there was a shopkeeper - he also started shouting, and he also started making calls, 'Get the Christians! Wage a jihad against them!' " the priest says.
Sebha Farooq, another Christian, looked out her window in horror.
"These people really thrashed the girl," she says. "They tore her clothes and beat her up."
The priest says he convinced her family's landlord to call police for Rimsha's safety.
"First it was a group of 500 people, which swelled to 1,000," the priest says. "They were trying to get custody of the girl from police, but police refused. They were wanting to stone her to death."
Rimsha is now in jail, awaiting trial. Neighbors say she's 11 years old and mentally disabled, possibly with Down syndrome. Police say she's 16, an adult by law. But they won't let anyone see her, to sort out the conflicting claims.
A Possible Death Sentence
In Pakistan, defaming Islam or its holy book is punishable by death. The case has drawn international attention and has also raised larger issues, such as the influence that Muslim extremists have on the law in Pakistan and intolerance toward religious minorities.
Farzana Bari is a human rights expert who waited outside the jail for hours, hoping to seee Rimsha, but was turned away.
"If she's a mentally challenged child, then there shouldn't be any question of [having] registered a case against her," Bari says.
Amnesty International is also calling on Pakistan to ensure the girl's safety. Polly Truscott, the group's South Asia director, wants the government to reform its blasphemy laws.
"They're too broadly formulated, and as a result, this enables mobs spurred on by local preachers and others to continue abusing the system to settle personal disputes," Truscott says.
Most blasphemy cases in Pakistan are eventually tossed out - ruled as grudges or the result of property disputes. But this law is on the books, and anyone who criticizes that could be in danger.
There are plenty of precedents.
Just last year, the governor of Punjab province, Salmaan Taseer, was gunned down by his own bodyguard for suggesting reforms to the blasphemy law.
So police have reason to tread carefully, says Cyril Almeida, a Pakistani journalist at Dawn newspaper.
"It's really about fear, quite honestly. There's a lot of pressure going to be on the police. You may be, and I may be, seeing it from the side of human rights organizations, that they're just trying to get access and ascertain the facts," he says. "Then there's a mob, willing to gather out there if somehow they perceive that this girl is now being given a chance to wriggle out of the punishment that's due her."
Last month, police failed to stop a mob from beating to death a blasphemy suspect outside a station in southern Punjab.
Police are currently protecting Rimsha. But under Pakistani law, and depending on her true age, she could face the death penalty if convicted of blasphemy.
Source: NPR, August 24, 2012
Pakistani girl accused of blasphemy traumatised
A Pakistani Christian girl detained on accusations of defaming Islam was too frightened to speak in a prison where she is being held in solitary confinement for her safety, an activist who said he visited her said yesterday.
Religious and secular groups worldwide have protested over the arrest last week of Rimsha Masih, accused by Muslim neighbours of burning Islamic religious texts.
The case has put another spotlight on Pakistan's anti-blasphemy law, which rights groups say dangerously discriminates against the conservative Muslim country's tiny minority groups.
Christian activist Xavier William said he visited Masih at a police station where she was first held, and then this week in prison.
"She was frightened and traumatised," William told Reuters.
"She was assaulted and in very bad shape. She had bruises on her face and on her hands," he added, referring to an attack by a mob in her village on the edge of Islamabad after she was accused of blasphemy.
Under the blasphemy law, anyone who speaks ill of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad commits a crime and faces the death penalty, but activists say vague terminology has led to its misuse.
Convictions are common, although the death sentence has never been carried out. Most convictions are thrown out on appeal, but mobs have killed many people accused of blasphemy.
There have been conflicting reports on Masih's age and her mental state. Some media have said she is 11 and suffers from Down's Syndrome. Masih's lawyer, Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, said her family had informed him she was mentally ill.
One police official said she was 16 and mentally sound. William said he could not confirm she had a mental illness. Masih's family told William she was 14, he said.
Christians flee girl's village
Masih's arrest triggered an exodus of several hundred Christians from her poor village after mosques reported over their loudspeakers what the girl was alleged to have done. Emotions were running high.
A neighbour named Tasleem said her daughter saw Masih throwing away trash that included the burned religious material.
"If Christians burn our Koran, we will burn them," she told Reuters.
Other Muslims were more conciliatory.
"We protected the rest of the Christians," said Masih's landlord, Malik Amjad Mohammad. "People here support them."
Christians, who make up 4 % of Pakistan's population of 180 million, have been especially concerned about the blasphemy law, saying it offers them no protection.
Convictions hinge on witness testimony and are often linked to vendettas, they complain.
In 2009, 40 houses and a church were set ablaze by a mob of 1,000 Muslims in the town of Gojra, in Punjab province. At least 7 Christians were burned to death. The attacks were triggered by reports of the desecration of the Koran.
2 Christian brothers accused of writing a blasphemous letter against the Prophet Mohammad were gunned down outside a court in the eastern city of Faisalabad in July of 2010.
President Asif Ali Zardari has told officials to produce a report on the girl's arrest, which has brought protests from Amnesty International, British-based Christian group Barnabas Fund, and others.
Masih is due to appear in court in the next 10 days. She could be formally charged with blasphemy. She is being held in solitary confinement for her safety, said William.
"She would not make eye contact. She did not say anything. She did not answer back," he said.
Source: Free Malaysia Today, August 24, 2012
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