The sad report in the International Herald Tribune reads as follows …

Federal Minister for Minority affairs Shahbaz Bhatti was killed in the I-8/3 area of Islamabad on Wednesday morning by three unidentified gunmen. According to reports, the Tehrik-i-Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the minister. Screen captures of the pamphlet can be viewed here. The minister had left his house moments ago when his car was intercepted by a white Suzuki Mehran. Assailants, dressed in shalwar kurtas, first took the minister’s driver out the car and then shot 25 bullets at Bhatti. …The highest target Earlier, Bhatti had voiced his fears that he believed he would be “the highest target” following the assassination of Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer for speaking out against the blasphemy law. Bhatti had said fatwas, or religious decrees, had been issued calling for him to be beheaded, by extremist clerics in the country who were allowed to publicly spread messages of violence with impunity. …

You can read the full report here.

Blasphemy laws prevent the true cause of the murder of this decent honourable human from being condemned openly by honest critics in the region. The belief system that prevails nurtures and cherishes intolerance to such a degree that murder and violence are fast becoming the norm. It now threatens the very fabric of civilized society in Pakistan, it is fast becoming a non-country. This is a country where senior lawyers offered their services for free to the boastful jihadist murderer who had just slain Punjab’s governor Salman Taseer in broad daylight, not so long ago, and so now this pattern of belief driven murder continues.

When religious superstition is permitted to take precedence, it decrees what you should think and how you should behave. This conflicts with basic human rights of freedom of thought and freedom or speech. This is not about specific shades of belief violating human rights, but rather that belief itself entirely lacks the concept of their existence.

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