‘Salmaan Taseer’s purported crime was to utter derogatory remarks against the _________ .’
Provide the answer purely on the basis of statements issued by those condoning his killing.
Salmaan Taseer was not killed because he blasphemed. Our dear bearded friend who has been chanting the great slogans of Islam upon his first appearance in the Rawalpindi katcheri has been mislead. The image Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri offers is powerful. His self-belief is relentless. Little does the poor man know he did not kill the Punjab Governor in lieu of an existing punishment in the Pakistan Penal Code.
Salmaan Taseer’s crime has only just been created. The turning of the calendar to 2011 has produced a new religious consensus. According to that consensus, uttering derogatory remarks against the Blasphemy Laws makes one ‘wajib ul qatl’ (liable to murder) and ‘murtid’ (outside the fold of Islam).
The consensus around this new crime is such that leading Salmaan Taseer’s funeral prayer was refused by three khateebs: the Badshahi mosques, the Data Darbar’s and the Governor House’s. Each cited his own excuse – but what is clear is that, at minimum, for political expediency, the khateebs had accepted the truth of Salmaan Taseer’s crime. They had shown through their action that they accepted that Taseer was outside the fold of Islam.
In the television debate that has followed, rarely has a cleric not begun without subtly saying, “What befell upon the Governor was his own doing.” To the question of what the Governor actually said, “He called the Blasphemy Laws ‘black.’”
Going purely by what they say, or, what the murderer says, Salmaan Taseer never uttered anything blasphemous.
In modern day Pakistan a new crime has been created: blaspheming against the blasphemy laws. It is to this new crime which Taseer gave up his life.
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