Religious and secular groups worldwide have protested over the detention in August of Rimsha Masih, accused by Muslim neighbours of burning Islamic religious texts.
Police official Munir Hussain Jafri said a cleric was arrested after witnesses from Masih's village on the edge of the capital Islamabad complained about his alleged actions.
"Witnesses complained that he had torn pages from a Quran and placed them in her bag which had burned papers," Jafri told Reuters.
The cleric, Khalid Jadoon, appeared briefly in court on Sunday before he was sent to jail for a 14-day judicial remand.
A bail hearing will be held on Monday for Masih, whose case has re-focused a spotlight on Pakistan's anti-blasphemy law.
Under the law, anyone who speaks ill of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad commits a crime and faces the death penalty.
Activists and human rights groups say vague terminology has led to its misuse, and that the law dangerously discriminates against the Muslim country's tiny minority groups.
Critics of Pakistan's leaders say they are too worried about an extremist backlash to speak out against the law in a nation where religious conservatism is increasingly prevalent.
Convictions are common, although the death sentence has never been carried out. Most convictions are thrown out on appeal, but mobs have killed many people accused of blasphemy.
There have been conflicting reports about Masih's age and her mental state. Some media have said she is 11 and suffers from Down's Syndrome.
A hospital said in a report she was about 14 but had the mental capacities of someone younger, and was uneducated.
Masih's arrest triggered an exodus of several hundred Christians from her poor village after mosques reported over their loudspeakers what the girl was alleged to have done.
The girl is still being held in a high security prison, while her parents are kept in protective custody.
Source: Naija Gossip Level
No comments:
Post a Comment