Anti-terrorism court springs into action

Pakistan helped the Taliban to gain power in Afghanistan in the previous century. After 9/11, this support allegedly stopped. Still, Osama bin Laden found a safe haven in the country. Today, a new generation of Muslims is being poisoned in the 35,000 madrassas across the land. Pakistan has a serious terrorism problem.

How is the Pakistani legal system dealing with this issue?

An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has put three online bloggers in the custody of a federal agency for a week so it can investigate blasphemy charges against them and determine whether they should be formally tried and punished.

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, or FIA, arrested the three men earlier this week as part of an ongoing crackdown on suspects involved in posting blasphemous material on social media.

Of course.

The crackdown has alarmed rights groups, particularly after five bloggers critical of Pakistan’s powerful military and its spy agency vanished in January. They were later returned to their families. They have since accused Pakistani security institutions of being behind their kidnapping.

Shortly after they went missing, radical clerics and hardliners through television interviews and talk shows accused the bloggers of committing blasphemy through online activities.

The five men have fled Pakistan because even allegations of blasphemy can provoke Islamists to kill those suspected of it.

What an elegant way to stay in power; simply accuse your opponents of blasphemy.

(Originally posted at Isaac Schrödinger.)