[Rehman’s offense, in the extremists’ view, is proposing reform of laws that make blasphemy a capital crime and that are often used to persecute religious minorities or personal enemies. Pakistan
By Karin Brulliard
Rehman’s offense, in the extremists’ view, is proposing reform of laws that make blasphemy a capital crime and that are often used to persecute religious minorities or personal enemies. Pakistan
With the deaths of her ruling-party peers, Rehman, 50, is the country’s only vocal advocate for amending the blasphemy laws — a cause she now backs mostly from home, and more quietly. Armed guards and police stand watch outside. Inside, the former journalist receives friends and colleagues, fending off pleas that she flee the country.
“I don’t want to leave,” she said in a recent interview. “I want to be able to stay here as long as possible, and if it means I’m not going to go to the shops or go to the Sunday bazaar, okay.”
At large rallies, clerics have named Rehman an apostate. In Multan Punjab province, a local politician filed a blasphemy complaint against her after she said on television, citing the Koran, that radical mullahs were wrong to defend the blasphemy laws. She and her attorneys spent weeks on the case before police decided not to bring charges.
But if extremists have sent Rehman a message to keep quiet, her secular Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has appeared to do the same. After a court sentenced a Christian woman to death on blasphemy charges in November, President Asif Ali Zardari formed a committee to review the laws and indicated he might pardon the woman. Rehman, a longtime sponsor of bills to strengthen the rights of women and minorities, authored legislation to amend the blasphemy statutes.
But as an outcry from religious groups swelled, the ruling party backed down. Its fragile coalition government was teetering, and PPP members said privately that it was not the time to stoke religious passions. In February, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said Rehman had withdrawn her bill.
That was news to her.
“These are wars you have to fight all the time,” Rehman said, shaking her head. Yet, although she does not disavow her position on the blasphemy laws, she is now cautious when discussing the topic and declines to criticize the PPP.
Most like-minded Pakistanis are doing the same. Human rights activists and English-language media condemned Bhatti’s death, but they sounded more weary than they did after Taseer’s killing. The prominent lawyers who spearheaded Pakistan
Civic activists say it is the secular coalition government’s duty to galvanize demonstrators to counter the 40,000 Islamists who rallied here in January against changes to the blasphemy laws. Rehman disagrees, saying any government in the volatile country would be unwise to foment even peaceful street protests.
Islamist groups have long exploited fundamentalism to gain power in Pakistan
“Other than appeasement, what’s the plan?” she said.
Rehman is no stranger to threats. When former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s convoy was bombed in Karachi on her return from exile in 2007, Rehman was in the car, and her back still bears burn scars. When Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack weeks later, Rehman escorted her body to the hospital.
“Being scared no longer works,” Rehman said. “The physical attack happens, and you keep working the next day.”
Rehman, a former editor of a leading Pakistani newsmagazine, the Herald, joined the National Assembly in 2002. She became information minister in 2008 but resigned a year later to protest the government’s curbs on TV stations that had criticized it.
But Rehman has remained in Parliament, and she says it is there that the battle for ideas can be fought. While pushing for bills against domestic violence and sexual harassment in the workplace, she said, she has seen politicians from religious parties compromise. She said the main task now should be righting the faltering economy, which fuels extremism.
“Tolerance is the big issue,” Rehman said. “But the government will have to deal with how people are facing the next day and getting the next meal.”
Rehman said she sees hope amid the frenzy. Clerics call with words of support. The Pakistani media, which fanned public outrage against Taseer before his assassination, have largely left her alone.
And after allegedly calling Rehman a “non-Muslim” in January, an imam who preaches near her house retracted his words after a journalist filed a complaint that could have led to incitement charges. That shows “the removal of impunity does work,” Rehman said.
Still, the imam was not punished, and clerics in other parts of the country continue to say Rehman deserves death.
“This is a sobering moment,” she said. “It may get worse before it gets better. But it has to.”
brulliardk@washpost.com
@ The Washington Post
JAPAN
Damage at nuclear plants made leaking radiation the primary threat facing a country just beginning to grasp the scale of devastation from the earthquake and tsunami. For a narrated animation of what happened, click here.
How dangerous is the radiation?
The highest reported level of radiation released from the Daiichi plant was 1,000 millisieverts per hour on March 27. The spreading contamination represents a critical safety concern for workers at the plant. On March 24, three workers were hospitalized for radiation burns to their legs and feet.
Effects of radiation
A blast of radiation often causes immediate, obvious symptoms, but damage from low levels of exposure -- generally 100 mSv or less -- may not appear for decades, if ever. Japanese officials have set a dose limit of 250 mSv for nuclear workers during emergencies.
- HIGH EXPOSURE
- LOW EXPOSURE
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