Post by caseagainstfaith on Oct 1, 2011 15:18:40 GMT -5
ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani school expelled a 13-year-old Christian girl for alleged blasphemy and her mother was transferred from her job as a nurse near the town where Osama bin Laden was killed, officials said Monday.
The conservative Muslim country has been increasingly criticised in the West for tough anti-blasphemy laws that make defaming Islam punishable by death and over the persecution of the tiny non-Muslim minority.
Faryal Tauseef, an eighth grade student at Sir Syed High School in the northwest garrison town of Havelian, was asked with her class to define "naat", a style of poem written in praise of the Prophet Mohammed.
The town is just south of Abbottabad, the garrison city where US special forces killed the Al-Qaeda leader in a covert raid on May 2, which exposed the Pakistan military to accusations of incompetence or complicity.
"In her explanation Faryal wrote a word which was blasphemous," school administrator Junaid Sarfraz told AFP.
"The girl confessed, saying that she did it by mistake and the school administration, after consulting local clerics, decided to rusticate (expel) her."
According to her teacher, the girl made the mistake "intentionally" and the matter was referred to clerics because she had aroused similar suspicions of blasphemy in the past, Sarfraz added.
Faryal's mother, a staff nurse, had also been transferred out of town, he said.
"The girl has been expelled for using derogatory words and her mother has been moved to another place," district commissioner Syed Imtiaz Hussain Shah told AFP.
Police said no case had been registered and that the matter was considered over following a pardon from Muslim clerics.
The conservative Muslim country has been increasingly criticised in the West for tough anti-blasphemy laws that make defaming Islam punishable by death and over the persecution of the tiny non-Muslim minority.
Faryal Tauseef, an eighth grade student at Sir Syed High School in the northwest garrison town of Havelian, was asked with her class to define "naat", a style of poem written in praise of the Prophet Mohammed.
The town is just south of Abbottabad, the garrison city where US special forces killed the Al-Qaeda leader in a covert raid on May 2, which exposed the Pakistan military to accusations of incompetence or complicity.
"In her explanation Faryal wrote a word which was blasphemous," school administrator Junaid Sarfraz told AFP.
"The girl confessed, saying that she did it by mistake and the school administration, after consulting local clerics, decided to rusticate (expel) her."
According to her teacher, the girl made the mistake "intentionally" and the matter was referred to clerics because she had aroused similar suspicions of blasphemy in the past, Sarfraz added.
Faryal's mother, a staff nurse, had also been transferred out of town, he said.
"The girl has been expelled for using derogatory words and her mother has been moved to another place," district commissioner Syed Imtiaz Hussain Shah told AFP.
Police said no case had been registered and that the matter was considered over following a pardon from Muslim clerics.
source - www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ipNAXwJg7CVnwHVk3h15cgtKBUDQ?docId=CNG.6f3256cd60ce64884378c52c9f745503.b61
Talk about going overboard on punishment much?
