MORE FROM HUFFPOST
MORE FROM HUFFPOST
salman taseer
Pakistan over the years has become so bizarre that now even criticism against a man-made law has assumed the status of blasphemy.
On the morning of January 5, 2011, as the body of slain Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was placed in the grounds of the palatial Governor's House in the heart of Lahore, there was much confusion over who would offer his funeral prayers.
Since the 1980s, patronized by the security establishment, the religious right has gained political ground in Pakistan. The goal is to grab political power and impose a harsh version of Islam on a country founded in the name of the religion.
A tall minaret can be seen from afar. In the labyrinth streets of the city of Kasur in Pakistan, this tall minaret of the mosque becomes our guide
WHAT'S HAPPENING
WHAT'S HAPPENING
A stand against religious vigilantism is not the same as a stand against religious extremism.
The blasphemy laws carry a death sentence for insulting Islam.
Freedom of speech might be integral to the hard-won flowering of modern freedoms valued in the West, but its fragile bloom has faded and could die without proper tending by courageous politicians and media working in a global partnership to oppose Islamism and the Zeitgeist of political correctness.
In this world turned upside down, my book was used to make the case for why my father's killer should go free.
