{"id":5276,"date":"2011-01-23T21:07:36","date_gmt":"2011-01-23T21:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=5276"},"modified":"2011-01-23T21:08:27","modified_gmt":"2011-01-23T21:08:27","slug":"sherry-rehman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/sherry-rehman\/","title":{"rendered":"Sherry Rehman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Pakistan1.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Pakistan1-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" title=\"Pakistan\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-5279\" \/><\/a>Via the <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2011\/jan\/23\/sherry-rehman-pakistan-blasphemy\">Guardian<\/a><\/em>, another story that only should only increase fears for the future of Pakistan:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>All Sherry Rehman wants is to go out \u2013 for a coffee, a stroll, lunch, anything. But that&#8217;s not possible. Death threats flood her email inbox and mobile phone; armed police are squatted at the gate of her Karachi mansion; government ministers advise her to flee.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I get two types of advice about leaving,&#8221; says the steely politician. &#8220;One from concerned friends, the other from those who want me out so I&#8217;ll stop making trouble. But I&#8217;m going nowhere.&#8221; She pauses, then adds quietly: &#8220;At least for now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been almost three weeks since Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was gunned down outside an Islamabad cafe. As the country plunged into crisis, Rehman became a prisoner in her own home. Having championed the same issue that caused Taseer&#8217;s death \u2013 reform of Pakistan&#8217;s draconian blasphemy laws \u2013 she is, by popular consensus, next on the extremists&#8217; list.<\/p>\n<p>Giant rallies against blasphemy reform have swelled the streets of Karachi, where clerics use her name. There are allegations that a cleric in a local mosque, barely five minutes&#8217; drive away, has branded her an &#8220;infidel&#8221; deserving of death. In the Punjabi city of Multan last week opponents tried to file blasphemy charges against her \u2013 raising the absurd possibility of Rehman, a national politician, facing a possible death sentence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Absurd? Not in Pakistan, a country where madness is clearly in the ascendant. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via the Guardian, another story that only should only increase fears for the future of Pakistan: All Sherry Rehman wants is to go out \u2013 for a coffee, a stroll, lunch, anything. But that&#8217;s not possible. Death threats flood her &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/sherry-rehman\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[51,363,50,621,698,701],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5276"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5281,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5276\/revisions\/5281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}