Mustafa Qadri

In Pakistan, violence is crudely justified as defence of Islam. The government must defend human rights and the rule of law Mustafa Qadri, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 March 2011 20:00 GMT Despite repeated climbdowns by the Pakistan government to appease extremists over the blasphemy laws, the minorities minister’s assassination proves there is no room for compromise. It [...]

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The blasphemy laws that led to the murder of Salmaan Taseer are as serious a threat as the Taliban Mustafa Qadri, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 February 2011 18:43 GMT The murder of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer by his own guardhas prompted an ever growing witch-hunt, driven by religious groups but controlled by no one. The threat of this [...]

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Blasphemy is the one thing that Pakistani Islamists agree on. The murder of a secular liberal politician has prompted a worrying union of Islamists and the Taliban, reports Mustafa Qadri from Karachi Pakistan’s blasphemy laws make it a crime to defile the Quran or to defame Prophet Mohammad, punishable by life imprisonment and death respectively. [...]

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The brutal murder of a senior politician in Pakistan apparently for his opposition to a religious blasphemy law proves no one is safe from the intolerance sweeping the country. It also suggests that the battle against militant Islamists must be fought with ideas, not just guns. On the face of it the assassination of Salman [...]

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Calls for Asia Bibi to be executed under draconian blasphemy laws show religious leaders have no answer to Pakistan’s crises Mustafa Qadri guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 December 2010 15.00 GMT While the country reels from flood devastation, an increasing gap between rich and poor, and a ceaseless energy recession, Pakistan’s religious lobby has lined up to [...]

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Last month’s attack on a Pakistani Christian community by a mob of Sunni Muslims is a worrying development in a country that purports to fight extremism, writes Mustafa Qadri

“Make mincemeat of the Christians” blared the mosque loudspeakers.

This was not the Taliban speaking, nor was it in the frontier of Pakistan along the Afghan border. The setting was the Christian Colony of Gojra in rural Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and powerful province.

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Communal stability is at risk as the rollout of Zia ul-Haq’s Islamisation continues unabated

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 August 2009 10:00 BST

In decades past, the town mullahs decried the use of megaphones during the call to prayer. Now they have embraced the technology in Pakistan. In every city the loud blare of the muezzin echoes throughout the streets, although they rarely call out in unison. For centuries Muslims have bickered over prayer times, and much else.

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The matter came before the Supreme Court, The petitioners, Jews and Arabs, argued that this measure contradicts our Basic Laws (our substitute for a nonexistent constitution) which guarantee the equality of all citizens. The answer of the Ministry of Justice lawyers let the cat out of the bag. It asserts, for the first time, in [...]

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Interesting that the Wall Street Journal has no qualms with Israeli soldiers who describe Palestinians as mosquitoes: Arieh Spitzen, the former head of the Israeli military’s Department of Palestinian Affairs, says that even if Israel had tried to stop the Islamists sooner, he doubts it could have done much to curb political Islam, a movement [...]

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If you are an Israeli citizen living in the West bank towns of Samaria and Judea and you beat up a Palestinian, even kill him or her, there’s a 90 percent chance you will get away with it.

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The one thing Entine is correct about is that the general reluctance to talk about “black” athletic success has bolstered the idea that there is a truth about racial differences that is being suppressed by political correctness. This has done untold damage to blacks in areas in which the stereotype says they are inferior – [...]

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The vilification of Islam, particularly in the West, has developed into something of a pseudo-intellectual industry.

My first piece for Online Opinion has just been posted here.

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“She told me, ‘I don’t want anyone to know you’re Arab. I don’t want anyone to know I rented the flat out to Arabs.’ I told her, ‘I’m not going to hide my identity.’ She said, ‘No, no you don’t have to hide.’ I said, ‘Okay, I want to put my name on the door.’ She said, ‘No, no, not that.’”

NewMatilda.com has commissioned weekly pieces while I’m in Israel and Palestine over the next two months. Click this link to read my first entry.

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