Girls School attacked for blasphemous homework

[John ''True Grit'' Wayne]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20167390http://<br /> http://www.dailymail....-homework.html

More than 200 furious protestors ransacked a leading girls' school in Lahore this week after claims that a teacher insulted the Prophet Muhammad.
The angry mob descended on Farooqi Girls' High School, set fire to furniture and burnt out the head teacher’s car on Wednesday. And, on the wall of the building, the mob graffitied: 'School management are blasphemers.'
The Islamic hardliners became incensed after a teacher at the prestigious private school allegedly made a mistake while copying Islamic text from an exercise book and then distributed the text to her students.

The protestors reportedly were mainly teenagers and travelled in from outside Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan.
An inquiry has now been set up to investigate the destruction of the school, parts of which were left in ruins after the attack.
Police used batons to control the protestors as firefighters worked to put out blazes on Wednesday.
The teacher was in hiding today but the school’s 77-year-old principal has been arrested and remains in police custody.
Meanwhile, the school’s management have today denied all responsibility for the ‘dirty act’ and called for the teacher, Arfa Iftikhar, to be punished.

Ms Iftikhar allegedly set homework - for her students to do during Eid holidays from 26 to 29 October - which supposedly made derogatory references to the Prophet Mohammad.
Today, the school took out front page adverts in two leading newspapers denying that it had any knowledge of the alleged insults to the Prophet.
The adverts claimed that Ms Iftikhar had distributed the work just 10 minutes before the school closed for the Eid al-Adha holiday.
Translated from Urdu, the advertisement read: ‘Our school management and the owners have no link whatsoever with this dirty act.’
‘We appeal to the government and the police to take legal action against this teacher and investigate her real motive.’
According to the AFP, a search has been launched for Ms Iftikhar and Asim Farooqi, the school’s headmaster, has been remanded in custody for 14 days on charges of blasphemy.
Pakistan’s laws on blasphemy are extremely strict and charges can carry the death penalty.

Violent: Police resorted to baton charge to disperse the violent protesters
Mr Farooqi's lawyer, Jawad Ashraf, told the AFP that he planned to appeal for bail for his client on Saturday.
Sameer Asim Farooqi, Mr Farooqi's son who also works at the school and is now in hiding, described the way the protests unfolded as 'strange'.
He said: 'It seems that an organised gang attacked our school. The attackers were mostly teenagers and they had batons in their hands, but some of them were also armed (with firearms).’
He added that Ms Iftikhar had been fired on Tuesday after parents called up and pointed out her mistake.
She was fired despite telling the principal that she had made a mistake when copying out the passage.
There have also been suggestions that the attacks were part of a conspiracy against the school, which is one of the most respected and successful within the Lahore area.
Authorities have said that if the inquiry reveals that the school administration was not to blame, action will be taken against those who vandalised the school.
Amnesty International’s South Asia Director Polly Truscott told MailOnline: 'Reports about the ransacking of Farooqi Girls' High School by a mob deeply troubling, but sadly, unsurprising. There have been many such incidents in recent years.
'We're glad to hear that an inquiry is already underway but such inquiries tend to fizzle out. It's critical that the police and judiciary ensure that the attackers are swiftly brought to justice, and those whose lives are still at risk are fully protected.
'In the recent past individual members of the public have killed people they for suspected blasphemy, and often where no formal charge has been brought by the authorities.'

A simple mistake in printing and a girls school gets burned down.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Pakistan police probe Lahore school attack

The school has been badly damaged by the mob, who seized furniture and burnt it in the courtyard

Climate of fear over Pakistan blasphemy laws
An inquiry comprising clerics and local politicians has been formed in Pakistan to investigate the destruction by a mob of a leading school in Lahore.

Hundreds of protesters on Wednesday ransacked the school and set fire to its furniture over claims that a teacher insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

The teacher is now hiding but the school's principal has been arrested.

Farooqi Girls' High School is considered one of the better educational institutes in Lahore.

But officials say that it upset hardliners - who came from outside the Lahore area - when the teacher made a mistake while copying Islamic text from an exercise book in a rush.

Sacked
The text was distributed among pupils as part of their homework to be done during Eid holidays from 26 to 29 October, lawyer Jawad Ashraf told the BBC.


Officials say that the mob was mostly made up of people from outside the Lahore area
Mr Ashraf is representing school principal Asim Farooqi, 77, who is now in police custody.

Mr Farooqi's son Sameer - who has been in hiding since the attack - told the BBC that the school was set upon after working hours on Tuesday by "a crowd of people who set furniture ablaze in the courtyard".

Mr Ashraf said that the teacher at the centre of the row, Arfa Iftikhar, "perhaps inadvertently skipped a page of the book and ended her handwritten text with some lines from the next chapter, which is about street beggars".

He said that Mr Farooqi fired Ms Iftikhar on Tuesday, the first working day after the Eid holidays, after the school management received calls from parents pointing out the error.

Correspondents say it is not clear who distributed copies of the error, but as is often the case in Pakistan, the issue was seized upon by Islamic hardline groups.

The authorities have now said that if it turns out the school administration was not at fault, action will be taken against those who took matters into their own hands and destroyed the school.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20167390 Probably the Taliban not wanting a girls school open

[The Last Varangian]

Daily Fail.

[John ''True Grit'' Wayne]

And the BBC old boy http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20167390

[YukonTrooper]

And the BBC old boy http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20167390

So the Daily Fail and the British Pedophilia Broadcasting Corporation?

[TheDarkKnight]

How does it being the Daily Mail have any bearing on this...at all?

[priam11]

It is the Daily Mail...but then again, it is Paskistan afterall.

Sometimes I think the wrong country got invaded.

[John ''True Grit'' Wayne]

I think the whole blasphemy thing has gone too far it is not too long ago a 12 year old downs syndrome girl was attacked and some holy man claimed she burned the Koran.I feel elements are at work trying to make people afraid to do anything.People must be afraid of religious pious people telling them what to think and do.It hurts my Atheist mind

[Primo]

I feel elements are at work trying to make people afraid to do anything.

It's a conspiracy! Oh, how lucky we are to have you and your "feelings", otherwise we wouldn't have seen the "terrible truth".

People must be afraid of religious pious people telling them what to think and do.It hurts my Atheist mind

Big blah blah blah. It hurts my rational mind to see how so many people have so many stupid prejudices.

All of those cases were unjust and morally wrong, but perfectly reasonable. Western culture treats Arabians like dirt, and this is what comes out of it. Cause & Effect. Just look how touchy our american nationalists in this very forum get when an so-called "hater" comes along. Now imagine a whole culture doing exactly the same to another, especially if said western culture behaves way more offensive than the "american haters".

I don't think muslims would have a big problem with any of those occurences, if they wouldn't feel (and rightly so, no doubt about it) that they are mostly intentional and that muslims are just disliked per se, without having done anything. This rage then manifests in all of those "evil happenings". Absolutely reasonable, as I said.

[Col. Tartleton]

It's a conspiracy! Oh, how lucky we are to have you and your "feelings", otherwise we wouldn't have seen the "terrible truth".


Big blah blah blah. It hurts my rational mind to see how so many people have so many stupid prejudices.

All of those cases were unjust and morally wrong, but perfectly reasonable. Western culture treats Arabians like dirt, and this is what comes out of it. Cause & Effect. Just look how touchy our american nationalists in this very forum get when an so-called "hater" comes along. Now imagine a whole culture doing exactly the same to another, especially if said western culture behaves way more offensive than the "american haters".

I don't think muslims would have a big problem with any of those occurences, if they wouldn't feel (and rightly so, no doubt about it) that they are mostly intentional and that muslims are just disliked per se, without having done anything. This rage then manifests in all of those "evil happenings". Absolutely reasonable, as I said.

That's absurd.

You sound like a terrorist.

[DarthLazy]

It's a conspiracy! Oh, how lucky we are to have you and your "feelings", otherwise we wouldn't have seen the "terrible truth".


Big blah blah blah. It hurts my rational mind to see how so many people have so many stupid prejudices.

All of those cases were unjust and morally wrong, but perfectly reasonable. Western culture treats Arabians like dirt, and this is what comes out of it. Cause & Effect. Just look how touchy our american nationalists in this very forum get when an so-called "hater" comes along. Now imagine a whole culture doing exactly the same to another, especially if said western culture behaves way more offensive than the "american haters".

I don't think muslims would have a big problem with any of those occurences, if they wouldn't feel (and rightly so, no doubt about it) that they are mostly intentional and that muslims are just disliked per se, without having done anything. This rage then manifests in all of those "evil happenings". Absolutely reasonable, as I said.

None of this has anything to do with what happened .

[Jom]

It's a conspiracy! Oh, how lucky we are to have you and your "feelings", otherwise we wouldn't have seen the "terrible truth".


Big blah blah blah. It hurts my rational mind to see how so many people have so many stupid prejudices.

All of those cases were unjust and morally wrong, but perfectly reasonable. Western culture treats Arabians like dirt, and this is what comes out of it. Cause & Effect. Just look how touchy our american nationalists in this very forum get when an so-called "hater" comes along. Now imagine a whole culture doing exactly the same to another, especially if said western culture behaves way more offensive than the "american haters".

I don't think muslims would have a big problem with any of those occurences, if they wouldn't feel (and rightly so, no doubt about it) that they are mostly intentional and that muslims are just disliked per se, without having done anything. This rage then manifests in all of those "evil happenings". Absolutely reasonable, as I said.

Pakistanis aren't Arabs.

[priam11]

All of those cases were unjust and morally wrong, but perfectly reasonable.

LOL wut?

[The Dude]

http://dawn.com/2012/11/01/pakistani...lked-to-a-boy/

http://www.smh.com.au/world/life-for...804-23m8m.html

Just to clarify, both articles cover different cases of parents killing their daughters. Add to this the down's syndrome girl and the framed quran burning, aswell as the OP's article and we can pretty much conclude that Pakistan is the world's worst country to be female in.

EDIT: I see that a moderator removed my comment as to savagery. Now I understand that it might have offended the sensibilities of some, but it's factually true. If the choking of your own daughter or dousing her in battery acid or burning down a school for girls does not qualify to be classified as savagery, let me know. If these things also do not appear to keep happening in Pakistan and are not continually committed by Pakistanis, also let me know. I'd be more than happy to be factually proven wrong rather than be edited because people feel like I'm not being nice.

[I WUB PUGS]

Just to clarify, both articles cover different cases of parents killing their daughters. Add to this the down's syndrome girl and the framed quran burning, aswell as the OP's article and we can pretty much conclude that Pakistan is the world's worst country to be female in.

I dunno, 8 years of GOP control of the legislative and executive along with the SC could put us on par.

I love how everyone bashes the Daily Mail even when they're just showing the same stories as everyone else. News outlets skew primarily in comment pieces. Now if this article was titled "Pakistani Scum do it again" then we may have something there.

[The Gurkhan]

http://dawn.com/2012/11/01/pakistani...lked-to-a-boy/

http://www.smh.com.au/world/life-for...804-23m8m.html

Just to clarify, both articles cover different cases of parents killing their daughters. Add to this the down's syndrome girl and the framed quran burning, aswell as the OP's article and we can pretty much conclude that Pakistan is the world's worst country to be female in.

Well this is from last year. I wonder how far they have dropped since then? They weren't the worst a year ago.

http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/womens-rights/dangerpoll/

But oh boy do India come off badly hey? One step bellow their cousins over the border. Wonder if they have seen improvement in 1 year?

[The Dude]

Well this is from last year. I wonder how far they have dropped since then? They weren't the worst a year ago.

http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/womens-rights/dangerpoll/

But oh boy do India come off badly hey? One step bellow their cousins over the border. Wonder if they have seen improvement in 1 year?

You know what freaks me out? Then what I wrote my post I immediately started pondering if perhaps other countries didn't qualify better, and the other four listed there were literally the first that sprung to mind.

[John ''True Grit'' Wayne]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ran-heart.html Kills 7yr old son who struggled to learn the Koran fast enough.This Koran and devotion to it has gone too far.The teacher in the school made a mistake and now she faces the death penalty.A simple printing error and gangs show up who do not know the facts and burn the place down.

[Bobz]

It was about time for the next Pakistan is a backwards wasteland story, and I'm not disappointed. Well, I am, but it's like a sad sense of resignation.

[BM309K58SMERCH]

People like that make us look terrible.

[NotYetRegistered]

It's like Pakistan is the country of flag-burning and riots.