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Christians warn Sharief against pro-Islamic bill

A powerful Christian organisation of Pakistan has warned that if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief pushes through his proposed Islamic law, it could turn all religious minorities and women into prime targets of radical Muslims.

"Such elements are already indulging in terrorist activities like spraying bullets in mosques, misusing the blasphemy and other discriminatory laws, burning churches and destroying temples,'' warned Shahbaz Bhatti, president of the Christian Liberation Front in Lahore.

Bhatti claimed that if the Senate (the upper house) passes the law, it would severely hamper the fundamental rights of all citizens and expose the minorities to persecution by extremists.

"If anyone from amongst the minorities is killed from now on, the prime minister will solely be responsible,'' Bhatti said in reference to Sharief's repeated public speeches condemning the opponents of the bill, which was passed by the National Assembly (the lower house) last month.

He also urged Sharief to withdraw the proposed legislation from the Senate in the "best interests of our homeland". He said he and several of his colleagues have been receiving death threats for opposing the new law.

The bill declares the Koran and Sunnah as the supreme law of the country, besides empowering the federal government to define what is right and what is ''un-Islamic.''

It will also overrule all other laws considered inconsistent with Islam.

Currently under debate in the Senate before approval by a two-third majority, Sharief's views on it have already sparked a country-wide political debate.

Opposition senators, led by Iqbal Haider of former premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples' Party, have also protested against what they call "instigation by religious clerics at the behest of Premier Sharief against the critics of the law".

Several prominent clerics -- including Maulana Samiul Haq of the pro-Taliban Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islam -- had recently decreed that opponents of the law -- known as the 15th amendment and Shariat bill -- should be hanged, and Sharief should buy the votes necessary for its passage.

For a two-thirds majority, the government is short of some 15 votes in a house of 87 members.

UNI

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