#JusticeForMashal: Speaking out against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws | Follow the Hashtag
Intimidation and self-censorship
The situation in Bangladesh is quite similar to Pakistan. A series of ghastly attacks on bloggers in the past few years has showcased the deteriorating state of freedom of expression in the Muslim-majority country. People are now feeling more threatened to express their views online.
Local media have reported scores of attacks in the past few years that have killed at least 35 people and injured over 130.
While radical groups claimed responsibility for those killings, the Bangladeshi government has so far denied any presence of international terror outfits on its soil.
Appeasement of right-wing
Pakistan has witnessed an unprecedented surge in Islamic extremism and religious fanaticism in the past decade. Islamist groups, including the Taliban, have repeatedly targeted religious minorities in the country to impose their strict Shariah, or Islamic law, on people.
Baseer Naveed, a human rights activist, says that Ahmadis continue to be persecuted and attacked in Pakistan with the full backing of the state. The government wants to appease Muslim fundamentalists and right-wing parties. We see that the Pakistani state continues with its policy of hatred towards religious minorities, which embolden fundamentalists, Naveed told DW.
Safdar also suggested the government should rename the Islamabad-based Quaid-i-Azam University s Dr. Abdus Salam Physics Department.
KMC, zoo administration told to shift bear cub to new habitat
Karachi
December 24, 2020
The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday ordered the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and the administration of the Karachi Zoological Gardens to start the required procedure to shift a cub of the Syrian brown bear species to its new habitat at the zoo.
The direction came on a petition filed by Mashal Khan and others seeking orders for the zoo’s administration to keep the cub named Ranoo in its natural habitat. They said Ranoo requires special attention for its survival at the zoo.
They claimed the bear has been forcibly separated from its parents, which amounts to cruelty because the animal is still too young to survive without its parents, and that too in the severely hot Karachi weather that is very different from the cub’s natural habitat.