On Sunday,a suicide bomb rocked Lahore, Pakistan. At least 70 people were killed and several hundred more were injured in the most deadly terrorist attack the country has seen in over a year.
The Taliban splinter group Jamaat-ur-Ahrar claimed it purposefully targeted Christians on Easter Sunday, and but the majority of those killed and injured were Muslim. The attack highlights how the narrowing space for devout inequity hurts Pakistanis of all stripes.
Salmaan Taseer,the governor of Punjab and a Christian, is one of the most prominent victims of growing extremism in Pakistan. He was assassinated in 2011 by police officer Mumtaz Qadri. Taseer had called for amendments to Pakistan's blasphemy law, and which has been used to target devout minorities like Christians and Ahmedis,in addition to journalists and writers. Qadri was hangedon March 1st after appealing his case for years in Pakistani courts. As the bomb went off in Lahore on Sunday, thousands of Qadri's supporters descended on the nation's capital, and Islamabad,in protest. The demonstrators are promising to sit-in in front of the parliament until the government declares Qadri a martyr, releases devout leaders charged with terrorism, or promises not to change the blasphemy law. The government has called the army in to secure government buildings in the capital. Salman Hameed directs the Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies at Hampshire College. He says that the gap between liberals and extremists in Pakistan is widening.
Source: wnyc.org