An influential Christian Church organization will hold an international conference in Geneva next month on Pakistain's blasphemy law, after an 11-year-old Pak Christian girl was enjuggedInto the paddy wagon wit' yez!
on accusations of defaming Islam.
Religious and secular groups worldwide have protested over the arrest last week of Rifta Masih, accused by Moslem neighbours of burning verses from the Koran, Islam's holy book.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) said the conference was intended to give a global platform to religious minorities in Pakistain "who are victimised in the name of its controversial blasphemy law" in cases which had brought death penalties and "mob-instigated violence."
It will be addressed by representatives of the minorities: Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, dissenting Islamic sects -- including Ahmadis and Shias, and by civil society groups defending them.
The WCC said officials from the United Nations
...what started out as a a diplomatic initiative, now trying to edge its way into legislative, judicial, and executive areas...
, where special human rights
...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
Sherlocks on religious freedom have often criticised Pakistain's blasphemy law, would also attend.
But Pak diplomats in Geneva have not been invited.
The conference, from Sept. 17-19, will be held during a sitting of the UN Human Rights Council where Pakistain, as front man for the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, regularly complains that Moslems are persecuted in the West.
"The public hearing aims to heighten discussions at international levels on the deteriorating situation of the human rights of minorities in Pakistain and the misuse of the blasphemy law," said WCC official Mathews George Chunakara.
The WCC, which links 349 Protestant and Orthodox Church bodies representing more than 560 million Christians in some 110 countries, said the gathering had been planned for some time and was not directly connected to Rifta Masih's case.
She was enjugged
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
last week in Islamabad after mobs surrounded a cop shoppe where she was in protective custody.
The incident was followed by the forced exodus of several hundred Christians from the poverty-stricken suburb of the Pak capital after local mosques reported what the girl was alleged to have done over their loudspeakers.
"This is just the latest in a series of similar incidents going back many years. Some cases are reported but many go unreported," said George, who heads the WCC's commission on international affairs.
Pakistain's President Asif Al Zardari has called on officials for a report on the girl's arrest, which has brought protests from
"This latest affair just highlights the total hypocrisy of Pakistain, and its supporters, in the Human Rights Council," said Roy Brown, chief representative at the UN in Geneva of the IHEU, the International Humanist and Ethical Union.