Sunday, June 21, 2009

"I'll slay you over a cup of tea..."

On May 9th, a Christian man traveling around Pakistan decided to stop for a cup of tea in a village in Punjab. Ultimately, he met his death.

The owner of the roadside stall had posted a sign declaring that only Muslims were allowed to drink of that tea, and when the owner of the stall noticed the victims cross necklace, he grabbed him and called for his employees to bring anything to beat him with.

The owner and 14 of his employees beat Ishtiaq with stones, iron rods and clubs, and stabbed him multiple times with kitchen knives as Ishtiaq pleaded for mercy.

The other bus passengers and other passers-by finally intervened and took Ishtiaq to the Rural Health Center in the village. The doctor who took Ishtiaq’s case told ICC that Ishtiaq had died due to excessive internal and external bleeding, a fractured skull, and brain injuries.
To read more, click here.

It's the sad reality that dogmatic beliefs (whether religious, political, etc.) can lead to acts of violence. All this because people cannot be left to question their beliefs. To question whether what they have faith in is true. If it's good. If it can potentially harm others.

To have faith in unsubstantiated beliefs isn't a good thing. To express acts of violence because of that faith is even worse.

These men are killers, let none of them claim the moral authority.

5 comments:

  1. Whilst this kind of story still shocks me, the sad thing is that with the frequency of such things being reported these days, it no longer suprises me. Do you think this kind of thing occur's more, or is just attracting more media attention?

    TRF

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  2. I believe that the rate at which this type of thing is happening is overall the same. Maybe media coverage is the same as well (although, now that it is easier to spread this type of news, it reaches a farther audience). We're beginning to pay more attention to injustice like this, and perhaps are willing to do something about it.

    Although, I am no expert...

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  3. Hmmm...yeah, I never know what to think about stories like this. It's tragic to be sure, but I always feel like we're missing something when we just look at it and say "Pfff! Dogma!". To be sure, they probably killed this man because he was a Christian, but do you really think it's as simple as sitting down, reading the Koran and deciding you're going to kill Christians from then on? To be sure, the belief that a member of another faith is your mortal enemy because of something in your religious indoctrination is tragic, but there have to be other ethnic or civil tensions going on that helped spark this. Not making excuses by any stretch...just thinking out loud.

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  4. Valid observation, Sparrowhawk.

    Although it may be true that religion did not help the situation, it may just be as you say.

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