Oh my blasphemy!

[Let's talk about the weather! ....and...blasphemy?! OMG?!]

Lets talk about those fickle days which are so annoying because they just can't seem to decide what to do with themselves. It makes you want to yell 'Please just rain!' or 'Please just shine!' but it won't. These days dance between weather patterns so you just want to cry with frustration because you don't know whether to wear a jumper or not (and your hair is going to end up frizzy when you leave your umbrella at home!) They can't decide what they -want-.
Just like some 'modern' nations. Are they with us in modernity or not? Its impossible to say when you hear a story like this, a story which made me feel like shedding tears – in frustration and simply out of pure sadness – and it is the case of the Pakistani boy facing the death penalty for blasphemy (Blasphemy!? I'm sorry I thought we were in the 21st century...my mistake!)
But, really, this is no matter that you can smile at even if your lips twitch up in disbelief and amusement when you hear the charge (Blasphemy!?) but when you hear the possible consequences of it everything changes. This boy who is barely out of childhood as far as our own standards are concerned has made a -mistake- and now he may never be allowed to grow to adulthood. At 17 in our country a child can make a mistake, sometimes consequences are worse than others but they are still judged as children. In Pakistan this boy is being judged as a criminal right from the start, not a child. And he might die for his mistakes.

Pakistan is a signatory to The Convention on the Rights of the Child which is a treaty which sets a standard for the treatment of children. It is an international treaty that -guarantees- everyone under age 18 the right to freedom of expression, thought, conscience, and religion and Pakistan is a part of it! Then why are they so blatantly ignoring it their promises to the international community? It has also been noted by international organisations that Pakistan use this blasphemy law against minority religions, and international organisations are fighting to have the law changed.
As I mentioned in my blog entry Tragic, tragic, tragic... I am opposed to the death sentence generally, but this story in particular is horrifying. Another thing that is horrifying is the realisation that the world’s ‘Greatest Democracy’ and the ‘Leader of the Free World’ and the ‘Shining City on the Hill’ shares such a medieval practice of -killing- a criminal as Pakistan, which is clearly in violation of international treaties and basically in violation of decency of behaviour!
As someone who wants to teach children...no, as a -human being- this is the most horrifying thing: that a child can even be sentenced to death at all and for something that seems so senseless.
He scribbled a few frustrated words on his exam paper when he couldn't answer a question! The allegedly blasphemous remarks (against the Prophet Muhammad) which were pencilled in in the way any schoolboy in the world might write a swear-word word or doodle an obscene picture to fill the time while his mind struggled with the difficulty that any school student on earth can identify with! Maybe those words weren't considered and they were dangerous considering his country's intolerance to this kind of thing but they weren't published in a newspaper (which should be okay anyway, freedom of speech!) or yelled out in the street. They were scribbled on an exam paper which he wasn't really doing so well in.
Instead of encouraging this boy to grow up into a deeper thinker who won't make the mistake again his very own country is cutting him down before he can ever grow. And he's not the first child to suffer because of the 'blasphemy law'. The senior children's rights researcher, at Human Rights Watch Bede Sheppard said 'Pakistan has set the standard for intolerance when it comes to misusing blasphemy laws, but sending a schoolboy to jail for something he scribbled on an exam paper is truly appalling.' (For more click  As the here.)
Human Rights Watch official said in New York the other day their misuse of their blasphemy law is appalling, but not only that. Pakistan misuses and ignore international standards and laws as well as the rights of children. A US consular official is still being kept in in extended detention in Pakistan for the shooting deaths of two people despite information that it was for self defense. The US demand his rights to diplomatic immunity but they are being ignored. Pakistan is in the spotlight of negative international attention of late, maybe the calls for change will get through.

Ultimately this is a tale where we can hope the world's freer nations can gather up the courage to help. Human Rights Watch is already on the case and hopefully world opinion will come through loud and clear! Free the child, he knows not what he does. And even if he now knows what his mistake was, the intolerance shown here is frightening. Lets hope the future is a better place for all people, whether they make a mistake or not.

Daily -smile-! A quick post to cheer on Australia! As I mentioned in my blog entry looking into the eye of the storm we couldn’t know what would happen in Australia until it happened, and it seems that their mandatory evacuation and preparations were a success because this ferocious category five cyclone passed without taking a single life!